I met with my customer who wants to train her dog for therapy to use in her own dental practice in the future. We did an impromptu trial at the mini mall down the road from her house. It did not go well the dog was too distracted to work at a level I felt was reliable. I instructed her to work with her dog in similar locations for the next week daily and hopefully she will be able to pass the CGC evaluation. If she works hard this week it can be accomplished.
I also met with my service dog today who has now been in the house for a total of three weeks. The dog is adjusting and well and exhibits a lot of behaviors that we were looking naturally. Now the trick is to get her to do it reliably. This dog should be a breeze to train due to her age and temperament.
Last appointment of the evening was with my Attack dog. This is one of the hardest biting dogs I have encountered. We have transitioned to a hidden sleeve and a plastic fist for hand protection. This dog often goes for the hand so I figured that hand protection was a good idea. During the first bite attempt the dog released the bite prior to being instructed to do so and began looking for something softer to bite. He almost got my non protected arm. I instructed the owner to take the dog outdoors in order to have more room to work and get the dog used to holding onto the new equipment. After several bites I realized I needed to wear a secondary gauntlet under the sleeve and took a break to put it on. Once this was accomplished we moved back inside and continued with the home invasion protection training.
Louis Robinson
Today was my first appointment working with the Malanois. The dogs’ new owner is former military and this was his main reason for hiring me. He told me he had to move some money around in order to pay the full amount required for the gold package but gave me an additional $500 down. He recently purchased over $10K in assault rifles because he is worried the new president elect will ban them. I doubt it but that’s not really the point of this journal. I went through my normal first session with him and both he and the dog picked up the concepts and training very well. I have no doubt that both the dog and owner will be fully trained within the 30 session timeline and that I will have a blast doing the training and probably make a new friend.
Louis Robinson
Today was my volunteer day at the pound. I donate 4 hours every Tuesday. I usually do adoptions but sometime I give advice and last week I did some temperament testing on a neo mastiff named monster. The director of the pound asked for my opinion on the dog because she wanted to know if I thought he was a liability. After spending some time with the dog I deemed him adoptable and he was adopted the next day. While I was there today I got a phone call from a gentleman asking for the Gold Package or 30 sessions geared towards protection. He did not own a dog yet but was interested in hiring me. I told him that since I was at the pound I would look for a suitable dog for the job. The first dog I saw was a 4 year old male Rott. I took this dog out to the play area to check his prey drive and was very disappointed to see that he was not interested in the ball or Frisbee. In a high stress environment such as the pound it is often hard to test for this drive but since my client requested a guard dog I was not comfortable with this dog due to the lack of prey drive.
After putting this dog up I took another look around and was shocked to find a 1 year old female Malanois. She was labeled as a shepherd mix but was clearly a Malanois. This is my favorite breed of dog and she was very well mannered. I took her out to check her prey drive and she passed with flying colors. I immediately call my new customer and told him to come right away because a dog of this caliber is not going to last long. He arrived and hour later and adopted the dog. We set up his first training day for tomorrow. Sara called me to tell me that I had received a $700 check in the mail from a customer for training that is to begin next week. I also found a home for a kitten before I left.
Louis Robinson
I had 2 sessions today. The first session was with a pair of older GSDs that have been through several other trainers. They are fairly well behaved but only seem to listen when they want to. I have taught the owners how to properly use a choke chain and they are still perfecting the timing and the technique. They wanted to see if I could handle the dogs while walking by a yard with a Pitt Bull that likes to hang over the wall and bark. When customers want to see a demonstration such as this I am always glad to oblige. I took one dog and walked by issuing a couple of good corrections before he began to ignore the distraction. They were astounded and then asked me to show them with the female who was often the agitator. I joyfully demonstrated with the female and had the same result to their amazement. They then challenged me to do it with both dogs since they often feed off of each other’s energy and get all wound up. Both dogs did beautifully and my technique prevailed once again. After we have the obedience nailed down they will move to protection.
My next appointment was with a couple who bought 2 baby chsez shepherds and want to eventually progress into protection. Before we can do that we need to cover all of the basics first. The dogs are about six months old and the male seems like he has a low titration level. The dogs’ titration level will probably increase with age but currently my evaluation is that he is what I often refer to as a sissy dog. This will be fun to mold such a young pup into a family protector but it will be very rewarding.
Louis Robinson
Today I worked with several dogs. My first appointment was working with a service dog. Her owner is bi polar. She needs her dog to help her with general day to day functions. The dog is approximately 5 weeks through the ten weeks of training she paid for. Her dog was already pretty advanced for what I normally see and was doing well. It is a 2 year old chocolate lab named Sweet Pea. Sweet pea met my dog Lucy for the first time and they got along well. Since her owner was not able to apply a physical correction that was meaningful to the dog I decided to introduce her to the concept of an electronic collar. Both the dog and the owner seemed to take to the idea fairly well.
My next appointment was a group class and I showed them how to heel properly. It seems like the entire class got sit concept that was introduced fairly well from last week and has progressed as scheduled. I also went over the 2nd week test with them and everyone had been applying the technique appropriately.
My last appointment of the evening was a therapy dog that is being trained to assist children during dental procedures to eliminate the necessity for pain killers. We had to cut the session short tonight because the owner got a cactus stuck in her thigh. Overall the training is still going as scheduled and I don’t have much more to elaborate on.
Louis Robinson