Wolfman K9 Obedience - References

Don’t take his word for it, see what Mike’s clients are saying about him.

2 February 2010 - Featured Dog - Lucy

Lucy, a german shepherd/collie mix, came into our lives after a long search from a variety of sources: rescue organizations, the Humane Society, and Toronto Animal Services city pound. We eventually found her at the city pound, a little the worse for wear, and brought her home. We tended to her veterinary needs (she had intestinal worms, fleas, giardia) and set about welcoming her into our home and lives.

When we took her from the pound, we had a vague idea of her age but no idea whether she had been properly socialized with other dogs, so we set about trying to expose her to dogs to establish socialization as early as possible. She was always a high-strung dog who greeted everyone she met frantically with kisses and jumping up. When greeting dogs, she seemed nervous and unsure of the encounters often by jumping up on them or raising a paw to put on top, much of which was greeted unfavorably by the dog on the receiving behaviour. On walks, she pulled constantly.

We proceeded to sign Lucy up for basic obedience training, first with a personal trainer who had no idea what to do with her exuberance (for instance, in order to curb aggressive tendencies she suggested we spray lemon juice in her face!), and then for beginner and intermediate classes at a large-box pet store. Results were minimal, and based solely on the administration of treats so that any of the real problem behaviours that we encountered (especially with other dogs) were not addressed.

We thought that a solution to her socialization, self-control, and focus issues might be further training—this time with an agility trainer in a class with 5 other dogs. While this training proved to be interesting and fun for her, her obvious lack of control off leash made this a nerve-racking hour of training every Tuesday night, which culminated eventually in her attempting to chase down the trainer’s demonstration dog. A side bonus of this training (for her) was that she learned to jump up on our dining table and eat every piece of food in sight.

We were becoming very discouraged with our training options for Lucy and were beginning to believe there was no one out there who could help us to train her properly. So we did not pursue any more training for months.

At this point her behaviour with other dogs became more mixed—less friendly playing and wrestling, and more snarling and ferocious barking. And then she had an encounter with a dog that was visiting our next-door neighbour where she bit it in the ear and drew blood. This was not the first time she had bitten a dog in the ear, but it was the worst. We knew we had to do something to curb the escalation of this behaviour.

We called a personal trainer who appeared to have great credentials, but her rates were exorbitant and she believed she could help us in two or three hours, which we knew was quite unrealistic. We also went to observe another prospective trainer at work with a class, but decided that baby talk and treats were not going to make a dent in the work we had to do with Lucy.

Then a recommendation came from a family member, who had golfed with a veterinarian who recommended Mike. He claimed that there was no dog and no problem that Mike could not address. So we decided to investigate this option.

Living in the city of Toronto and traveling to Georgetown for training was a daunting consideration for us, but when we visited the first time and saw the methods (i.e. it takes more that 3 hours to train a dog, and dog treats just don’t cut it), atmosphere (owners are out taking responsibility for their dogs, all dogs train in close proximity to one another for maximum distraction) and results (Jazz, Lex, et al), we knew we could not afford to let this opportunity slip by.

The reality of the time and travel commitment has been a challenge for us, but over the past 8 months Lucy has changed from the dog that first showed up at Mike’s barking and jumping wildly out of control (we must have forgotten her treats that day!) to a dog who heeds orders and aims to please. She actually looks at us and pays attention to verbal commands, anticipating what the order will be. The other half of this equation is us, the trainers…we have learned so much about how to handle her, motivate her, control our negative emotions about her “bad” behaviour, and, most importantly, not become discouraged. The additional benefit of making the effort to train at Mike’s is that Lucy has to focus on her commands while surrounded by other dogs (no easy task), and we are able to hear and observe the training directed at others (good for reinforcement).

This is not to say that Lucy doesn’t have outstanding issues that need work. She still has tense encounters with select dogs in the neighbourhood, but our collective training has helped to reduce the conflict when this happens: We know how to prevent escalation and she knows we’re going to follow through with our commands. We have come to accept that this behaviour may never go away, but at least we have more control over the situation now. Walking on a lead is much more of a pleasure than it used to be, even though she still tends to “creep” out in front during our walks. But we now have the training techniques to handle this behaviour too.

The best proof of the success we have experienced so far comes from the comments of family and friends, many of whom were happy to avoid any and all contact with her before our training. This past holiday season at family gatherings, the general comments were “what’s happened to Lucy?”, “when did she learn to be so good?” and “she’s a different dog”. Thank you Mike…we never thought we’d EVER hear those words.

Our training is not over, and we are looking forward to challenging Lucy and ourselves further with off-leash training and perhaps more agility training—when she’s ready for it.

Nancy and Matthew