Do it yourself dog training

Like a lot of the articles on this blog, this one was inspired by a phone call I received a couple of hours ago.

A couple of days ago I had a first session with a dog. It is a breed you rarely see. The dog is about 4 and is extremely fearful. In this case I believe that this dog was very fearful as a puppy. It happens.

On a one to ten difficulty scale this dog is about a 7. It will not be the hardest problem I have dealt with but it is up there. It will takes us a while but eventually we will fix the problem.

The first session went even better than I had hoped. I do not expect a dog to be perfect but I know you will go home with a better dog.

The Manners in Minutes system has you work with the dog at home. One of the things I need you to do is to get the dog out at least twice a week, for at least twenty minutes, somewhere where you can work on a twenty foot line.

My client took her dog out to work last night. And she ran into a neighbor with a new puppy.

Because getting a dog over being fearful is a process that takes a while, the client’s dog did react with fear to the person and the new dog.

The neighbor told my client that she had bought a book from one of the “famous” TV show trainers and was training her dog in the “right” system. And she promptly started to tell and show my client what she would be doing.

Then when the neighbor triggered a fear reaction in the client’s dog, the neighbor struck the dog with a stick.

This is just a minor setback. It will not undo what we did or stop the dog's progress. But it did traumatize the dog unnecessarily.



Not everyone has access to a good trainer. And not everyone, especially in this economic climate, can afford a trainer. So if you want to train a dog yourself, go ahead.

For the record, if you cannot come to me or to Pat Muller (the wonderful trainer who developed Manners in Minutes) then you can get Pat’s book or video from Quansa Kennels and train a dog in Manners in Minutes yourself. I have met some awesome dogs that people trained themselves.

And there are other books that are very good. But there are also methods that stink. This trainer the neighbor picked uses a “dominance” system. Sorry folks but in my opinion the trainer should call it bullying.

But no matter what book you pick do not think that one dog and one book gives you the right to interfere with anyone else’s training. You are entitled to express an opinion. But you are not entitled to use your method on my dog without my permission.

And by the way if you ever do that to someone else’s dog in my presence you can expect a couple of things.

You are going to lose your stick. I may be retired from law enforcement but I still have my speed from working with dogs.

And when the police show up, expect to be cited for animal cruelty.

Doug