We can address this problem a variety of ways, through deterrents or redirecting them to more appropriate behaviours. When teaching the dog not to dig, they must be supervised. If you want your dog outside and not supervised, you will need to have a kennel or run that has a concrete/asphalt floor, or some type of material that they cannot dig and cause damage to.

In most cases, the dog digs because he is bored. Try to ensure your dog has a variety of toys to play with and ensure he is getting adequate physical and mental exercise. Remember that backyard playtime is not appropriate exercise – dogs need to be walked! If your dog has been digging, avoid any type of physical punishment (such as hitting with a rolled up newspaper, hard yanking on the collar or verbal attacks) as these can often cause additional problems.

If your dog has a favorite digging spot, such as your flower beds, you can make the area less fun for the dog. You can try burying chicken wire just below the surface, spray water at the dog when they dig (ensuring they don’t know it’s you spraying the water) or burying their own feces in the holes as some dogs do not like digging and finding that!

One of the best options for a chronic digger is to provide a spot where your dog is allowed to dig. Create an area with soft soil, sand, or a mix of it. Make sure this area is defined and marked to separate it from the rest of the yard. Bury either your dog’s toys or some food, just lightly covered to start. You can then begin burying things deeper to keep your dog interested and to continue to dig there. Praise your dog while they are digging in their correct spot and always redirect them to it if they start to dig elsewhere. You need to ensure you are always supervising your dog until they understand where they can and cannot dig. With practice and consistency, soon your spring flowers will be blooming beautifully and your dog will have a great sandbox all his own to enjoy!

1. When your dog jumps up, you should turn away and ignore them – SAY NOTHING. Deny your dog your attention until it keeps all 4 paws on the floor. Most dogs are rewarded by us for jumping up because we still give them attention – even if it is negative.
2. Wait for your dog to be standing on all 4 paws, and praise immediately while the dog is not jumping.
3. If your dog gets too excited and jumps again, just turn away again, and wait for them to stop.
4. If your dog decides to continue to jump at your back, leave the room. You only need to be out of the room for 30 seconds at a maximum, and there needs to be a door between you and your dog.
5. Return to your dog.
6. Continue repeating this exercise until your dog no longer jumps. You can set this exercise up by coming home (entering through the front door) often.
7. Another option for this exercise is to enforce sit when you come home. Ask your dog to sit and reward with calm verbal praise and touch when they do. This way your dog is working for you and earning your attention.
8. Practice this often! Have family and friends help you when they come inside your home.

For a dog that is still too excited during the above steps, another option is to enter your house and completely ignore the dog (no eye contact or anything). Initially this may take quite awhile, but as soon as your dog settles and lies down, you can then say hello. We are teaching the dog that they will only get attention when they are calm. Begin with people living in your home, then familiar, then new people coming to the house.

You could also have your dog away from the door (ex: in their kennel, behind a gate) during all of the initial excitement. Teach them to go to this place for big rewards when the doorbell rings. Only take them out when once they are calm and settled. This moves them away from the excitement, and teaches them that they need to be calm in order to be able to greet people. You could also bring them out on leash to greet the guests to further influence their behaviour.

We often make our hello’s and goodbye’s very exciting, so ensure everyone who greets your dog does so in an appropriate and calm manner. Remember this training takes patience but will be a worthwhile process once you have a well-mannered canine greeting your guests!

When I watch a person hang their dog in the air from a collar to get them to sit or give them a leash correction for stepping ahead of them, I have a hard time understanding why someone would choose this approach. I think about if this person would find it acceptable to take such a harsh approach against a child, a family member, a co-worker or even another pet, such as a cat. Why do we find it acceptable to do this to dogs and what are we teaching them about the world?

I understand that dog trainers are the ones that teach people how to interact with their dogs. A good trainer will be certified, take continuing education seriously and have a solid understanding of canine communication. We are responsible for teaching dog owners and to educate them about their dog. But, it is not just our responsibility as every interaction matters. Dog walkers, groomers, vets, rescue groups, pet retail workers and anyone involved with dogs need to also take on this responsibility. How we interact with dogs will determine their success integrating and coexisting in the human world.

For example, if I have my dog that is scared of people and I am working them through that, one scary interaction with a person could really set back their progress. Let’s say I take them to the vet and a worker there does not understand how to approach the dog correctly. Instead, they muzzle the dog and handle it roughly just to get through the exam. This is scary for my dog and my dog will now have reason to be even more fearful of people, and especially people at the vet clinic. Or, I have a social dog who likes to wrestle and play. We go to the off-leash park and they run up to another dog and paw at them. The other owner incorrectly views this as dominance and slams my dog on its side to submit it. The risk is then that my dog becomes fearful around other dogs/people. Or, I rescue a dog from a reserve and bring it into the city. The city is terrifying and full of new, potentially dangerous things that the dog has never been exposed to before. The dog becomes reactive, as it is scared of everything, and it is physically corrected for showing signs of fear. These are just a few examples of many, but all of these situations are detrimental to the dog’s overall well-being and behaviour. Step back and think about each interaction a dog has and what it may be learning.

So, for now, I want us to start thinking about it differently. It is not just about dog training. Every time our dogs interact with people, other dogs, animals and are exposed to new situations they are learning about the world and just responding to that. So all of us need to be responsible for this. Show them patience and understanding, but above all, let’s demonstrate some compassion.

We had recently lost our dog Nicki, who had been a family member for 14 years.  I was heart-broken and not having a dog in our lives was making me miserable and apparently, according to family around me, very cranky.  It was time to get another dog.  During a blizzard I convinced everyone (somehow) we should drive to Petsmart in Beacon Hill to look at the puppies.  As it turned out Oops-A-Daisy had not gotten there due to the storm.  For some reason I decided we should drive to the Petsmart on MacLeod Trail.

We walked in and there must have been about 10 puppies there.   They were all sitting at the front of the cage wagging their tails and jumping – enjoying all the attention they were getting.  Then I spotted one little puppy at the back of the cage – all alone – the saddest little puppy I had ever seen.    And I know without a doubt that Abby had ‘found us and a home’.

Abby was one of ARF’s -31 degree litter and was an insecure, and fearful little puppy.  We brought her home and I was determined to help her in any way that we could and I started phoning around for information on classes, playtimes, advice from any place I could get it. . .Fortunately for Abby I called dogma and spoke to Megan.  We talked about confidence building, fearfulness, the ways that puppies learn, training options , and playclasses.  She was so knowledgeable, and understanding I knew that’s where we needed to go.  She recommended we start with Puppy Playtime.

Our first playtime – yikes – I recall having to carry Abby in and out because she wouldn’t even walk in the door and for the first few minutes I’m sure she wanted to dig a hole in the wall to hide. That didn’t last long though – I guess both of us felt the atmosphere was so warm and welcoming – that she blossomed.  Everyone was so friendly and kind.   As I met other dog owners I soon realized that most of them are ‘dogma regulars’ and as far as I was concerned, that was for good reason.   We then and there became regulars at Puppy Playtime and registered for some classes.   As we moved through the levels (Puppy Class, Puppy Spirit and a Fear and Reactivity class – which gave us useful tools for understanding) Abby’s confidence and mine increased in  heaps and bounds.  The classes were all so positive, and Megan, Drae and the rest of the staff reiterated time and time again to always set these puppies up for success.  That to me was the bottom line.  I couldn’t even venture a guess as to how many questions I asked the staff – everyone was always so patient and would offer suggestions – ‘try this’ or you could ‘try this’.   Abby and I could tell immediately that these were all people who genuinely love dogs – and really what more do you need to know !!  We became so confident we even got involved in an Elvis’ Hound Dog routine (this was a huge thing for Abby – crowds, strange people) which was a great bonding experience for us and we had a blast.  She learned how to weave in that routine – and she proudly displays it every chance she gets!  (sometimes when you aren’t even expecting it !). . ..

Abby is a sweet gentle little dog – gaining confidence all the time – we still have some issues that we need to deal with but intend on working through these in upcoming classes and to continue on with our successes.  As far as playtime is concerned she now has a ‘BFF”- Khali, and will even encourage shy dogs to ‘come out of the corner’..’sometimes trying to drag them out by the scruff of the neck’.. (Drae always laughs at that).. I guess we are now dogma Regulars ourselves.

Note from Megan: Watching Sharon and Abby grow together has been such a rewarding experience. To think of scared little Abby when I first met her, to the brave, happy girl you see now is unbelievable. Sharon is a testament to the outcome when you commit and put the time into training and working with your dog – and that this can be incredibly fun for both! All of us at dogma adore her and Abby and are always thrilled when they take part in another class or event. She has taken the time to understand Abby’s fears, how to work her through them and all while being so amazingly patient and compassionate. This success story means a great deal to our entire team and we are all so proud of them both! We love having them be an integral part of the ‘dogma regulars’! Keep up the good work and we look forward to continued playtimes and dancing in the future !!

• People LOVE to maul dogs! We want to snuggle, pet and gush over dogs, so it is extemely important that they view this as a positive and we teach dogs to enjoy this!
• Vets and groomers will love you if your dog has learned to stand patiently while they are examined or groomed!
• It also makes it a much less stressful experience on your dog when they are at the vet or groomers.
• Most dogs learn that greeting people is an exciting, over the top event and we unintentionally teach them exuberance and over-excitement when interacting with people.
• Through teaching a dog to calmly accept touch, you in turn teach them to greet people politely.
• You will be able to handle any part of your dog and brush them, brush their teeth or clip their nails and they will sit patiently through this. Grooming can actually be an enjoyable experience for both you and your dog!
• Being able to handle your dog allows you to be monitoring their health on a regular basis and to notice any abnormalities or injuries sooner!
• Handling and interacting with your dog becomes a quiet and incredible bonding time!

In classes at dogma, we will do a variety of handling exercises. The foundation of all of these is to begin to teach your dog to calmly accept touch. Instead of just holding them down and getting them through grooming, examinations or trying to administer medication, you will have a dog the learns to sit patiently and enjoy these exercises. We want our dogs to accept touch in an appropriate manner and not feel threatened by it. Start with the below exercises and you can then follow the same steps adding grooming tools, etc.

1. Stroke your dog (back of the hand and on his side to start) and give him a treat for being calm.
2. If he becomes aroused or apprears nervous, use a treat held still in front of his nose to be used as a distraction to start.
3. Start on his back (back of your hand, if needed), move down his tail and under the belly. Touch his legs and move down to his paws. When you do this, ensure you are giving your dog lots of breaks and stop to reward him.
4. Stay calm and give quiet verbal praise.
5. Touch the top of his head and ears, moving to touch around his mouth.
6. Do each body part multiple times ensuring he is calm and accepting the touch.
7. Then start picking up paws, looking in ears and opening their mouth while rewarding.
8. Add more pressure and prolong each touch while rewarding.
9. If at any time your dog becomes fussy or nervous, go back to where you last had success and slowly build up.

We always want to start where we have success. Start with the family, then familiar people, then new people. If your dog becomes anxious or has fear concerns with people, I recommend that you contact us at training@dogmatraining.com or get your dog into our Facing Fear/Building Confidence Drop In Classes. If you have a dog that LOVES people and becomes way too excited, take a look at our Finding Focus Workshop to help teach him to settle and how to interact appropriately with people.

Patience

It can be a frustrating and challenging time for us during training, especially with a new or young dog. There are many factors that contribute to this, primarily the miscommunication that occurs between us and our dogs. Dogs communicate mainly through body language and we do so verbally. It presents many challenges. As well, they are learning (and often so are we during this time!). We need to remember this and understand that they are on a learning curve. The behaviour is not going to change over night. Think of it as the same as learning a new sport. Let’s say you are learning to skate. At first you learn how to balance on skates and then progress from there. With our dogs we often forget this during the training. We expect that once they learn a skill they should be able to understand and apply it in all situations. We must be patient. There will be frustations, but we must remind ourselves about this and show patience while we teach them.

Consistency

Dogs require consistency to best understand what is expected of them. We struggle with this as we rely on our verbal language. For example, we can say that you can do something this time because… For dogs we cannot do this. They do not understand that they can jump on us today because we are as happy to see them and are wearing our casual clothes, but they cannot do it another time when we are wearing our nice clothes or their paws are muddy. We have to be clear and teach them rules are always the same. This makes things much more clear for our dogs and less frustrating for us. Another example( and one we see frequently in class) is when an owner may ask a dog for a sit, the dog lies down and the owner thinks the dog is just so darn cute and is trying so hard, so deserves a reward. As a result, the dog hears sit, lies down and gets a treat. They then don’t understand when they may do it again and the owner gets upset with them. Consistency is critical and will ensure faster and better success in your training!

Timing

By having good timing, we are able to tell the dog exactly when they have performed a requested behaviour. In our training classes, we primarily use a ‘yes’ in the foundation classes, but this would be the same as using a clicker (both of these are referred to as reward markers). This marker is used to let the dog know they did something good and is another tool that ensures training progresses faster and effectively. It proves to be a key part of communication in training and your timing is important. For example, you ask your dog to sit and they do, then you go to get a food reward and in this time your dog scratches his ear and lies down. You give him the treat when he lies down, so in his mind, he has learned he gets the reward for lying down when he hears sit. However, if you use a marker such as ‘yes’, you can achieve better timing. In the above example, if you use your ‘yes’ as soon as the dog’s bum hits the floor, you provide the dog correct feedback at precisely the right time.

A reward marker is also a key part of removing food in your training. If you introduce it and associate it with good things early in your training, this allows you a way to still offer a reward once your dog understands a skill.  For example, a two year old dog has responding well to a sit cue for most of its life. At this time, the owner no longer offers a food reward to the dog for the sit, but still provides the reward marker to communicate to the dog they did something good!

How we behave and interact with our dog is critical to our training. There are many things to keep in mind, but by paying close attention to these skills, you will begin to see continued success!

At dogma, our approach to training is reward based. You may have heard this referred to as positive reinforcement training. The basic concept is that dogs learn primarily through association. So this means that if you reward them for a behaviour, they will perform this behaviour more.  Rewards can be anything and everything that your dog perceives as a positive. This includes food, toys, walks, getting to go through a door, your attention and affection, the opportunity to play with another dog or interact with a person, sniffing the ‘pee mail’ spot on a walk, and many more. We are in control of all of these resources, and if we use them as motivation for our dogs and make them work for all of them, training becomes an easy part of every day life.

We should have our dogs perform a skill to gain access to any reward. This can be something as simple as a sit, or something fun like shake a paw or roll over. It is a great way to practice obedience and teach overall manners and self control, while at the same time teaching our dogs that we are the queen or king of all good things. This also begins to teach them that attention on us is important to them.

Food in Training

People struggle with positive training for a variety of reasons and there is a lot of misinformation out there on it. In our classes and in high distraction areas, we primarily use food rewards. This is because in these environments, your dog may not be interested in your affection or just verbal praise. Praise and affection are just not as powerful when you are teaching a new skill. However, people become concerned with food as they are worried that their dogs will get fat or that they will only listen to them if they have food. The key is to use a healthy treat, and if you are concerned, then just cut back on their daily ration of food. However, we have yet to meet a dog that has been trained through treats properly and is overweight. I am sure that we have all heard someone say, “I tried treat training, but my dog will only work if I have food in my hand!” Well, our reply to this concern is that these people have a very talented dog who has mastered the skill of training humans. This dog has taught them that they only work if there is food involved. Pretty impressive. They are smart creatures!

Food rewards are a powerful tool, but we must first learn how to use them effectively. Treats should be small and soft. For a large dog, these only need to be the size of your pinky nail or smaller. They are meant to motivate and reward the dog, not fill them up. Dogs are great because they work for cheap and they work for crumbs! The reward needs to be what your dog finds motivating. At home, they may work really well for their kibble, but put them in a classroom and they may not care any more. This is because there is a lot going on. When first teaching a skill or working in a busy/new environment, have a high value reward that your dog wants. A good analogy for this would be for a die-hard sports fan (let’s say a Flames fan) is watching the last few minutes of a Stanley Cup play off game and the score is tied. You say this person’s name and they ignore you. You try to move them away from the tv for $10 and they ignore you. You try $1000 and they ignore you. But, let’s say you offer $5000 and they come. Now, for others they may come for $100 or some you may need to offer $10000! Thank goodness dogs are motivated by food and not money! For more on this, read our post on The dogma of Distraction Training.

Lures and Bribes

In our training, we use this food as a lure. It can work like a magnet to hold your dog’s attention and put them into position or to lead them around. Once the desired skill is there, then you can use this lure as the reward. Quick and easy! The problem begins, when we use this lure for too long, and it turns into a bribe. To avoid this, as soon as your dog offers you the skill 5-10 times, the food reward must go out of sight and never come back. And they will test you on this! NEVER bring it back out if your dog is not performing the skill. Rather wait them out and when they offer it, bring the treat out and reward. If you do not do this, your dog is on the path of training you. When you first remove the lure, you should always reward. This shows them that even if it is out of sight, the reward is still coming. As your training progresses, we will help you on removing the food reward entirely. We will always verbally reward through our ‘yes’, but the food is no longer needed.

Correcting Inappropriate Behaviour

So what about when the dog is doing something inappropriate? This is where people misunderstand positive training. We do not just sit and wait for the dog to offer something good. We do work at correcting this behaviour and it is something that should be taken seriously by any dog owner. The concern is more about how we do this. Dog owners get caught up in a whole lot of  ’stop it, don’t do that, no, no, no’ with their dogs. While you may be effective in stopping a behaviour, you are not teaching your dog what to do instead. Dogs just do what works. It is our responsibility to interrupt bad behaviour and show the dog what to do instead. For example, your dog is chewing your shoe. You should say ‘no’, stop the dog from chewing the shoe and show them what to chew instead. At the same time, you should be rewarding (even just through verbal praise) and acknowledging them when they are chewing the right item.

A skilled trainer does not need to use physical punishment. They understand how dogs learn and communicate. A positive trainer is focusing on teaching the dog versus just trying to stop behaviour. This is why reward base training is so effective. The dog understands what is expected of them and loves doing it!

Ignoring Behaviour

We are so good at ignoring our dogs when they are behaving. This is an easy habit to get into as we do not want to interrupt our dogs when they are behaving. However, rewarding appropriate behaviours is a powerful tool! You can do this by making an active effort to watch for and reward good behaviour. Examples on how to do this would be, giving a reward when your dog is looking at you while on leash, coming to you while off leash, sitting when greeting people, waiting patiently for their food, etc. Pay attention and do not ignore good behaviour!

Rephrasing

A final note on dog training. Start rephrasing how you approach modifying behaviour and training your dog. For example, rather than asking ‘How do I stop my dog from jumping on people’, try saying ‘How can I get my dog to sit nicely when they are greeting poeple?’ When you do this, you are thinking about what to teach your dog to do rather than just stopping them. This avoids a great deal of frustration for both you and your dog and just makes the whole thing more enjoyable. Try a few of these simple techniques and learn that you can have fun in dog training!

In order to have a dog that is secure, happy, well trained and a great joy to the family, you will need to provide your dog with guidance. Building a proper relationship with your dog is essential to prevent conflict between you or other family members and your dog.  This is not about force, but rather about training and activities that enhance the bond between family members and your dog. Majority of the skills we are going to discuss below are about teaching your dogs self-control, which in turn improves their manners and makes them more enjoyable to live with. These are also ways to incorporate training into your everyday life and work with your dogs to teach them the rules and structure of the household.

• Nothing for Free. Make your dog work for everything they perceive as a positive (attention, treats, food, toys, etc.). This could just be something as simple as a sit. The dog learns to listen to you, be patient and be attentive. They also understand that you are what allows them access to all of the resources and fun stuff!
• You should not free feed your dog. They should be fed two meals a day. This is not only a great training opportunity, but it also allows us an easy, consistent why to montor our dog’s health.
• Have your dog sit or down and wait for their food for up to 30 seconds. Their food should be on the floor. They must wait until you release them. This is a great exercise to practice patience and self control.
• Focus on attention work. Reward offered attention and frequently practice name attention. Attention is the foundation of everything that you will do with your dog and is an excellent relationship building skill.
• Ask your dog to sit at doorways. They should wait until you release them. This is an exercise about patience and manners. Do we really think that if our dog goes out the door ahead of us they are thinking that they rule us for the day?
• Have certain toys that are only in your possession. By doing this, you will create high value items that you can use to further motivate and reward your dog.
• Do not allow your dog to jump on you. If they do, turn your back and wait for all four paws to be on the ground.
• Have your dog’s bed in the bedroom. This allows you the whole night for you to spend with your dog bonding. This communicates to your dog that they are part of the family.
• Rough play such as wrestling and play fighting encourages dogs to be physical with us. Play games like fetch, find it, and tug-of-war instead. By teaching them the rules for these games, you are building excellent impulse control in your dog.
• Work on teaching your dog to calmly accept handling and spend time each day interacting with them physically. This could be just some petting or it could be through grooming.

There are many things that we may do that will discourage relationship building with our dogs. Below are some of the key items and ones that we should actively work towards avoiding when interacting with our dogs.

• Yelling. The only thing that yelling tells our dog is that we have lost control
• Physical Corrections. By physically correcting (punishing) our dog we may be putting them in a position where they feel that they have to defend themselves. We don’t want our dogs to be scared of us, or think negatively of us. We want them to trust us and see us as only positive!
• Using your dog’s recall cue negatively. Don’t call your dog to you and then do something negative like clipping their nails. Then, quite simply, your dog won’t want to come to you.

We will discuss further activities for relationship building and enhancing the bond with your dog in Part 2.

Have you ever found yourself saying this or can you relate to this statement? Every dog owner has felt frustration with their dog at one time or another due to their dog’s short attention span. A common mistake that dog owners make while training their dogs is not properly proofing for distractions. We expect that once our dog knows a skill, they should be able to understand how to do the skill in any environment and/or situation. A common example would be when a dog does well at recall from the backyard to inside the house. Then the owner takes this right to the off-leash park and tries to call the dog to come out of play with another dog. The dog cannot handle this level of difficulty and will most often fail at this task. 

This is where distraction training becomes a critical part of a training program for our dogs. To gain reliability and have success out in the real world, we need to introduce distractions and condition our dog on how to respond in a variety of situations and environments. We should start indoors in a quiet environment and then slowly begin to add in distractions. We often encourage people to compare the distraction training process to learning a new sport. For example, let’s say someone has just learned to jump off a diving board for the first time. If we compare this to what we do to our dogs, we would then immediately expect them to begin performing intricate dives off the highest board.

We need to have a good understanding of distraction training to make faster progress at reliably teaching our dogs new skills. As well, after a few sessions of working on something over our dogs head, both we and the dogs will get discouraged. So distraction training helps to make the whole process more enjoyable for both us and our dogs. By taking the time to properly plan and asking your dog to perform in circumstances that are gradually more and more difficult, you will be leading them to extremely reliable performances in the future.

Below is a sample list of the levels of distractions (varies with each dog):

Low:

• At home with no one around.
• In the backyard at a quiet time (no one in sight, no dogs barking, no squirrels, etc).
• In the classroom, with no other dogs in the room.

Moderate:

• In the house with other family members around.
• In the front yard with people walking by.
• On the sidewalk while walking towards a dog that is a fair distance away.
• Could also be out on a walk with a familiar dog in view.

Difficult:

• In the backyard with a squirrel in view.
• In the front yard with people your dog loves walking by.
• In the house with family members trying to distract your dog with food.
• Decreasing the distance out on a walk with another dog in view.
• In a busy parking lot.
• In the classroom with other dogs.

Intense:

• At a park with lots of people around.
• At the vet clinic.
• In the house with family members playing with your dog’s favourite toy.
• Further decreasing the distance on a walk with another dog in view.
• During play with a dog.

Experiment with these lists and develop one that provides a scale for your dog. Get out and practice! If your dog does not respond to you right away, remember that it is most likely that they are not being disobedient but rather they are just too distracted and the skill level is too high. Try to determine how to make the situation less difficult for them and remember that it is your job to set your dog up for success!

“We took our dog to a training class when he was about six months old. He was a crazy puppy and alot to handle. We got him at almost 7 weeks old, which they said would cause us some trouble because he was not with his mom long enough. Anyways the first class was over and we were getting ready to leave I was taking off his collar and he was chewing on my hands, the trainer came over and said this was very bad and tried to correct him, he started to go a little crazy then the trainer came over with gloves on and started to push his lips into his teeth while holding him to the ground. Now our dog was really freaking out this went on for an hour before he fully “submitted” by this time he was completely shaking which they said was a good thing. We were told he was never to put his teeth on us and everytime he did we were to put his lips into his teeth. We only had to do that a couple times he never did after that. However now he is terrified of stangers. He will not let anyone pet him he just pees everywhere. His fearfulness is getting worse as well as his nipping with other people. I hope you can help as we love our dog very very much and it breaks my heart.”

We receive countless emails and phone calls from dog owners with similar stories. They are all extremely upsetting for us, but this one really bothered me. I like trying to find ways to take my anger and turn into something positive. However, this one just made me feel at a loss at first. This is happening all over and especially in our city. This is not an inexperienced or new trainer. These people are well known and there are many in the city who take this approach. We have always kept these situations internal and are just happy that the owners eventually found their way to us. This is just no longer acceptable. While it is great to have a good reputation for helping dogs like this one, it is becoming increasingly frustrating at the growing number of dogs I am seeing that are coming to us with severe behaviour problems that can be directly related to the previous training they have received.

I have been dealing with this frustration for years. Wanting to stay professional, I have taken numerous steps to try to protect our dogs from this treatment. I opened dogma. I educate and certify myself and team. I started the apprenticeship program to get more educated trainers out in the city. I require the graduates of the program sign a code of ethics to ensure they are only using modern, science based training methods. I start free puppy classes to try to get people off on the right start and avoid heavy punishment at a critical age. I continue to expand our education programs to better educate the public on dog behaviour and communication so that they can better understand how their dogs are responding to this type of training. And yet, I still receive emails like this constantly.

So, in thinking about this, I realize that most of us positive trainers are a fairly well-mannered group and I have always appreciated that. But, I sit and reflect on the trainers that do not take a reward based approach and how quick they are to publicize some inaccurate and harsh criticisms against our training. Why are we so quiet? Do you as the public feel like you have the right to know about this? Do you want to know about this?

Then I think about how some dog owners are so quick to go to this training and are so quick to defend. We are often made to be the bad guys. We are jealous. We are using gimmicks. And I just can’t help but sit back and wonder why we even are in this place to begin with? Do people honestly think this is ok? Is it because we just trust people who call themselves the experts? I don’t want to get into a big argument, but do want some dialogue. I strongly believe that it will be the dog owning public that really force the change that needs to happen in the industry.

I have always tried to be proactive. I want us to lead by example. I am not sure if I am just being impatient with the change that is taking place, or maybe I am just tired. But, we need to stop this from happening. This is not about business and competition. There are an amazing numbers of qualified and wonderful trainers in this city. We are all working towards the same goal and want to see each other be successful. This is not just about differing opinions. This is hurting our dogs – these dogs don’t just need training; they are emotionally damaged. I don’t want to see these trainers just end what they are doing. I want to see them change. I know that ultimately they care about dogs, otherwise they would not be working with them. They have maybe not been given the same opportunity to get started within the industry learning from the right people. We all need to grow. We all love dogs. We get them as companions and they do so much for us.

I would appreciate some feedback. How do you feel about this? What do you think needs to change? I will continue to write on more of the specifics on this topic.

I will end with one of my favourite quotes.

“He is your friend, your partner, your defender, your dog. You are his life, his love, his leader. He will be yours, faithful and true, to the last beat of his heart. You owe it to him to be worthy of such devotion.”
– Author Unknown