09/20/2023
Simone is a sassy 10-month-old poodle who just joined a wondeful family that I have had the pleasure of having as clients for two years. From what Simone's owners first shared with me, she came from a breeder who falsely claimed she was well-trained. It became clear that she had never been in a house before, much less house-broken. And though she got along well with the other two dogs in the home, she was not well socialized with people and wouldn't listen.
She was too destructive to be left alone. Furthermore, she wasn't kennel trained; she destroyed the first one her owners introduced. As a last resort, they locked her in a bathroom with a web cam to monitor her while they went to work, and called me to see if I could watch her and assist with training.
I arrived just 5 minutes after receiving a screenshot from the owner's we**am and a message pleading for me to hurry. In it, Simone had knocked pictures off the wall, clogged the sink, and turned the water on! When I opened the bathroom door, it looked like a wild scene from Home Alone! She'd chewed a hole in the water line to the toilet, causing it to spray water 6ft into the air. There was a half-inch of water everywhere on the floor with her waterlogged dog bed, puppy p*e pads, and the sink creating a waterfall onto the floor that had scattered broken glass from a picture frame. The mess was so extreme, it was comedic. Of course, I tidied everything up and got to work getting to know this wild pup.
They had previously consulted another trainer whose methods were inhumane, to put it politely. Although I wish I could name them, I'd rather avoid any potential legal complications. This trainer used physically abusive methods and even withheld food and water from Simone, justifying it as a way to stop her from having accidents in the house.
I met Simone a few days after her owners managed to retrieve her from the previous trainer. Their suspicions grew when the trainer failed to provide any of the promised communication and training updates, prompting them to request her return early. She came back having learned nothing but fear.
After my first session with Simone, I felt compelled to share with her owners my concerns about signs of abuse I was seeing in her, even though I knew none of her past at that point. That evening, their concerns deepened. As someone was changing and removed a belt, Simone reacted with evident terror, scrambling to escape while crying out. The trauma of being hit by a belt was clear.
So after the owners told me Simone's whole story, the fraudulent breeder and trainer, I knew that a lot of my work would be to socialize Simone to humans and gain her trust before she could conquer even basics. It took about three days for me to really breakthrough with Simone and have her look to me for guidance and trust me at all. After gaining her trust, the first priorities were crate training and only going to the bathroom outside.
In total, it took around 8 days of me working with her for 4-6 hours a day, and we achieved significant milestones: she now goes to the back door when she needs to potty, is comfortable in her crate night or day for up to 6 hours, can walk at heel on a loose leash, and readily obeys 'sit' and 'come' commands!
I'm deeply saddened and horrified at the potential abuse Simone likely endured at such a young age, but I'm also very grateful I had the opportunity to meet and work with her. She and her family are so much happier now that she's learned the basics, and I know that they will give her all the love she deserves!
