Retired Air Force Police Dog Handler
(33 years service)
Now specialising in fixing problem K9's.
A blast from my past.. a fellow Police Dog Handler sent me this course photo of a Police Dog Handler Basic Course that I was a junior instructor on. (Cpl)
All of the 13 trainees in this photo went on to have rewarding careers, and a few of them are still serving today. One moved on to a commission and is now a Wing Commander.
Several handlers in this photo are followers of this page.
That's me in the second row, second from the left.
So true.... and please don't forget, YOU may be one of your wife's mistakes. ;)
Yep, I could use a few more questions if you have some.... send to me via private message please.
🐾 POEM OF A DOG
I'm the one who's always waiting for you.
Your car has a special sound that I have imprinted on my senses, I can recognize it in a thousand.
Your steps have a magic bell.
Your voice is music to my ears.
If I see your joy, it makes me happy!.
Your scent is the best.
Your presence moves my senses.
Your waking up wakes me up
I contemplate you sleeping and for me you are my God, I am happy watching your sleep.
Your look is a ray of light.
Your hands upon me, hold the lightness of peace and the sublime display of infinite love.
When you leave, I feel a huge void in my heart.
I keep waiting for you again and again.
I am the one who will wait for you all your life today, tomorrow and forever:
I am your dog. 💞💞💞
Always listen to the experts!
Q&A with ‘The Paw Man’ (2,160) – The First Wrong Step, Followed By More Mis-steps.
Carol Danvers
Hi what would you suggest, I have two male intact 11 month old pups (brothers), they have started to fight to the point of one drawing blood. I have separated them, but am unsure where to go from here, and if I can stop them from doing this. Any suggestions would be great. Thank you.
Paw Man
So, it would be safe to assume that you knew nothing about litter-mate syndrome (LS). ☹ If not, then please Google it.
How much time do these dogs ever spend apart (before the problems started)?
Carol
They are brothers from the same litter, and have lived together in the same yard for about 6 months closely, even sleeping together.
Paw Man
So, hopefully if you have Googled LS and now understand that and can now see that getting litter-mates greatly increases the odds of conflict between the dogs.
Two litter-mate entire males going through puberty at the same time…. what could possibly go wrong? ☹ Hormones are very powerful things and having two males going thru puberty at the same time also increases the odds of conflict.
How much formal training have these dogs received?
Carol
They have not received formal training; however they do sit before feeding, come when called and when we walk they stay close by.
Paw Man
Dogs are not born domesticated. We domesticate dogs through a process called ‘training’. The better job you do of training them, the more suitable they are for our domestic environments. But if the training that you give the dog is minimal then they will have minimal suitability for our domestic environment.
How do you currently discipline your dogs when they do something seriously wrong?
Carol
They don’t usually do anything bad and the times they have chewed my lounge or annoyed me, I’ve separated them.
Paw Man
So let me get this right….. to punish your dogs for annoying you or damaging your furniture, you separate them from each other? I am having difficulty seeing how any dog could see that as being in any way a punishment.
OK, here we go… without realising the possible problems, you got two same s*x litter-mates, didn’t de-s*x them and gave them only minimal informal training….. and on top of that, when they do something wrong, you do something that no dog on the planet would ever perceive as a punishment… so effectively they have never been punished, which means that you have never enforced rules, boundaries or limitations upon your dogs.
You very urgently need a good 4 hours of teaching about what a dog is, how to train it, how to instill rules, boundaries and limitations, and most importantly, how to extinguish unwanted or unsafe behaviors the correct way. I’m sorry but I cannot convey that 4 hours of essential knowledge to you in the answer to this question… it takes me 4 hours to do it verbally and I type a LOT slower than I talk.
You need to seek out the services of a Balanced Dog Trainer and get them to teach you the things mentioned in the previous paragraph.
How I see my page...
Q&A with ‘The Paw Man’ (2,159) – A Companion Dog For A Companion Dog
Susan
I have a Question 🙋♀️ My Dominant Shepherd X passed of old age about a year ago 😓 My remaining pup (almost 4 years old, Australian Cattle Dog mix) is very submissive. I am thinking of adopting another dog (same or similar age, not currently selected) to be a playmate to my only dog remaining 🤔 but I am unsure as to what I should look for - another submissive dog? Or 🤷♀️? I am older, not as active as I used to be, and unfortunately very boring for any dog to live with 😏 BUT I’d very much like my Shyster to have a friend.. Kindly give me a direction? 🤔
PS - You helped me with my Krazy Mae several years ago 🥰 and thanks to you 😉 She (my dominant/ShepX) lived to enjoy 14 years of Perfection 😌 and Happiness. My current question is 🙄 now dealing with her sidekick 😏
Paw Man
The safest way to go it to get another submissive dog, or if you get a dog of unknown temperament, and it turns out to be only a little dominant, then it shouldn’t be too problematic. Remembering that no two dogs in the same pack can ever be the same rank without destabilising the pack.
As long as you avoid a new dog with dog-to-dog aggression problems. I would also recommend exposing both dogs to ‘Adaptil’ a couple of days before they meet if that is possible, if not, then on the day will suffice.
My friend was bragging that her neighbour's dog can retrieve a ball from over a kilometre away.
Seems a little far-fetched to me! ;)
Love it!
https://www.facebook.com/share/v/pzTrQzpPQQvfKK9c/?mibextid=BIEBOE
Ruby says that I look like the yellow Power Ranger with my new yellow helmet and communication headset with inbuilt dashcam. So, time to rev up my mistress and take the new gear out for a test ride. :)
Supporting evidence and scientific studies are mounting... and the Posi-Nazis don't like it!
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-2615/14/18/2632?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR0RjaUhFDozQIhZGhlzOcN3BXWfs5dnlQrPCKkl9Hi9ISu7PELP-3AsmiQ_aem_PdKNwpoyiHenjYANAE1eSQ
Controversy surrounds the efficacy and welfare implications of different forms of dog training with several studies asserting that electronic shock collars have negative welfare impacts while not being more effective than non-aversive methods. However, these studies did not specify the schedule and....
Dog owners know...
https://www.facebook.com/share/v/PmUZPv4ki3s3BZDb/?mibextid=xfxF2i
Wouldn't be ironic if Balanced dog trainers used the same strategies when talking about Positive-only trainers tools that they use to criticise our training tools. ;)
Some great words from Jeff...
https://www.facebook.com/share/r/AUmnvAsALqEHBLWW/?mibextid=BIEBOE
Great to see Army catching up to Air Force in bite dog capability, ;)
What a surprising thing to capture on camera!
I was just having a chat with a page follower recently, and they asked me why I don't follow a heap of other dog training, or community/club dog pages. My answer was that I find them all too frustrating and the people on the page would generally not appreciate my truthful evaluation of the cause of their dogs problem. :)
The screen grab attached is a prime example of the typical content of one such page... I read through that post and all I find is mistake after mistake, after mistake by the posts author.
Let me just post my initial thoughts upon first pass of the post;
1. A mother with kids bought a puppy from a friend who told her that the dog had bitten her kids.
2. The dog also has a history of Resource Guarding Behavior (RGB) with food.
3. She allows her daughter to play with this dog that has a bitten a child before and showed RGB, UNSUPERVISED!!!
4. There is no mention of any formal training, let alone any disciplinary action toward the dog for these actions.
5. She is letting her kid play with this dog unsupervised and she's only had it for 6 days!
6. She asks if we can 'get him out of this' or do we have to re-home him? Well, she bought a dog that the previous owner re-homed because it had bitten their children, so why not just on-sell it to someone else so that the dog can bite their kids too. ;)
7. Her last sentence, "I do not want to get rid of him, but we don't want him to constantly bite our girls either." Like it's OK for the dog to bite her kids a few times, but not constantly.
Other than posting her question to a dog page online, there is no attempt to take responsibility for the dogs actions, no mention of formal training, obedience training or even puppy training? Have people forgotten that the domestication of a canine is a process called "Training" and that if you don't formally train a dog, then it is not a domesticated animal and therefore, it is not safe!
For goodness sake woman, you bought a dog with a bite history on children, and brought it into your home, with your children, and let it play with them unsupervised, and one of your children got bitten.... well surprise, surprise..... who could have seen that coming. Or should I say, 'Who wouldn't see that coming?'
Q&A with ‘The Paw Man’ (2,158) – Using Less Efficient Training Methods
Shiela
Hi Grant, I have a training question. My GSD is a quick learner, but we have hit a snag. Whilst she loves to learn new stuff….seek back obstacles, tricks etc. She is really bad at heeling. When doing assistance work it is acceptable for her to walk in a loose heel. Her favourite position is ahead of my body. When trying to tighten her up to a competition heel, she switches off and lags or surges forward.
If I use food in my hand she has a great heel, without the treat we are back to the problem. We have used tight left-hand patterns to improve her position and changes in pace, but I wonder if my slow pace is part of the problem.
So here is my question do I start from scratch, continue using food and hope she eventually gets it, or train at home using a prong collar. I am in a club which does not allow me to correct her 🙄 but I want to trial her.
Paw Man
I would go back and start the heel from scratch, using the standard Koehler Method heel that you were taught to use with your Police Dog. Use that method to create the top level heel position and then continue on with your normal civilian dog training methods. Many dog training disciplines try to restrict you to only using their approved methods to achieve your goals with a dog.
If we restrict ourselves to only one methodology when training a dog, then we have nowhere else to go when that particular method does not work well with that dog… for example, a positive-only trainer starts training a dog using food treats, but the dog is not food motivated. Does that mean that the dog cannot be trained? No, it just means that the initial method applied to the dog is not the optimum method for that particular dog. The trainer could persist with that dog using the food and it may turn out acceptable, but if the method being used on the dog is not the one that suits that dog the best, then you are going to achieve a less-than-ideal training outcome.
You say “I am in a club which does not allow me to correct her 🙄 but I want to trial her.” I interpret that to mean that you are not allowed to correct her at their club. If you are going to let the dog training club be in total control of the methods that you use to train your dog, then asking me, a balanced dog trainer, for a solution, doesn’t make sense. If they have control over techniques and methods that you can use, then you need to ask THEM for the solution. If they cannot provide you with a training solution that works, then that brings their skill set into question… and would make me question why you are following a training club that has a lesser skill set than you have, based on your previous experience as a Police Dog Handler.
Love it!
https://www.facebook.com/share/gYGcMJ5u7tyrtAW9/?mibextid=xfxF2i
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So true!
There goes the neighbourhood.... I was just looking for something exciting to watch on TV when I heard some loud bang and heard people shouting. Ava started barking and a quick check of my security cameras showed that there was a disturbance 4 houses up the street. Within minutes 8 police cars turned up as well as the police helicopter. It's been going 'off' for over 30 minutes, with a steady stream of cuffed offenders being carted off in paddy wagons. It must have been something serious as the detectives have just pulled up. And I used to think that I lived in a quiet neighbourhood!
