So my dog trainer made a "home visit"......

K

keeperscottage

Well-Known Member
Joined
13 June 2007
Messages
1,357
Location
Hertfordshire
Visit site
Anyone who read my recent "Springador" post (yes, I'm getting a Springador pup shortly - pics will be posted!) will know that my old gun dog trainer, Stan, died recently and his post has been filled by a former pupil of his, Julie. Julie is REALLY good and I asked her if she would (in exchange for riding one of our nags - bit of bartering going on here!) visit me at home and try to sort out Molly. Now Molly was our first dog........a Springer, now 5, and she's the dominant bitch who completely rules our other four dogs (and me!). She's very protective of me, doesn't like children or bicycles and barks at the slightest noise, and literally would bark for hours if we didn't intervene. Several other issues also needed sorting. It was decided that Julie would come to our house and observe Molly, watch how Molly and I interacted, and then pass comment. So, Julie turned up, we gossiped, had scones and clotted cream, coffee.......had a lovely time, in fact! Normally, Molly would be "in your face", demanding food, etc but, no, she was well behaved, Daughter said "She barks like mad when Mum drives up to the house!", so off I went, drove around, came back, parked, walked to the front door......normally, she'd be in overdrive - barking and creating mayhem......but this time, no barking.....I walked into the house and there she was, lying on the sitting room floor, oblivious of me. These are just a couple of examples....basically, whilst Julie was in the house, she was beautifully behaved - WHY? Did she recognise Juilie as force to be reckoned with? I was so embarrassed - I'd gone on about my unruly ddog and yet, for two hours, she was PERFECT! Do you think dogs know when someone "authorative" is around?

She's back to her normal, horrible self now (but I love her!)!
 
Absoloutely they do indeed behave very differently, I have been to many a home where the owner wanted me to see how the dog behaved, or did not behave and the dog did nothing untoward, one girl I felt really sorry for burst into tears, she initially phoned me because she had a cocker that was biting her, lunging for her throat:eek: and literally running riot in the home, and when I got there and for the whole visit, that dogs never steps a foot out of line, I really wanted to see the behaviour for myself, she later taped it and sure enough she was doing as she described.

I also transported a dog today, he is renounf for barking and spinning the whole car journey, he let out a little whing and I turned round and ordered him to "lie down" and for the whole 1 hour journey I never heard a peep, I even phoned the girl who wished me good luck in listening to him going his end to let her listen to the silence in my car.

I believe they will act different out of their own environment too, and maybe just to a strange visitor not neccesarily a firm one, but I do indeed think they can depict the firm from the not so firm, I would def come in the firm cateogary:D I can also groom some apparent aggressive dogs that I still have never seen a shread of aggression from and some have tried it on but soon settle when I handle them.
 
I should have taken Julie (dog trainer) for a drive in my car with the offending Springer in the back (she usually barks and spins for the entire journey!).........but doubtless she would have been perfectly behaved! So........how do I "sort" this entirely lovable but dominant little dog? I REALLY try to be hard, but she just sticks two fingers up to me....other dogs are perfectly behaved with me, incidently.
 
I was going to ask the same, she sounds a lot like my bitch, who is not at all what I would call 'dominant' - I used to think my male, her brother was dominant, but he's not - just easily confused :p it's a word that is used a lot, but by and large doesn't need to be :)
 
Herman was used in a demonstration on 'how to recall your dog off other dogs' at a country show a while back.

Typically as soon as I called him back, he shot straight back to me and sat to heel, waiting for his treat. He did that 5 times.

Do you think he'd do it in the park?

(He is a hell of a lot better now though!)
 
I had the opposite happen to me the other day. We were at a local flower show and some dog trainers were there - their own dogs were fabulously trained and gorgeous dogs. When we walked past and looked at some pics one of them came over and chatted to us. She asked how I trained Yellow Dog and what his behaviour was like as she'd never worked with a lab before. I said he was a good boy, has typical lab selective hearing but for a family dog he's fine. All day I'd been walking him on short but loose lead and he'd been walking to heel depite loads of dogs/kids/people in fancy dress and he'd been brilliant. She took him for a walk in he lunged at the first dog (play, not aggressive), lunged at the morris dancers (agressive, not playful - he hates them :o ) and then towed her back to me :o :o I was mortified!! She handed him back and he just sat down at my feet and behaved brilliantly (apart from a growl at the morris dancers but he didn't move towards them or anything) for the rest of the time we were there.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top