I was 14 years old when I got my first taste of what it was like to train a dog… I just so happened to be blessed with an easy pup who didn’t have an aggressive bone in his body and lived to make me happy. He was a quick “6 weeks in training = perfection” type of pup.
I mistakenly came to the conclusion that dog training wasn’t hard at all… I was going to train dogs for other people, show them that bad behavior had an easy fix.
In 2012 at the age of 15 I got my first paying client… my future was looking pretty bright…
Unfortunately there always seems to be a “but” to these things…
My parents let me get a second dog… Shiloh was 90+lbs of furry trouble, he quickly proved my “dog training is easy” theory wrong... within a week my parents were threatening to get rid of him.
I begged and pleaded for more time, I loved this dog... not to mention who would trust a dog trainer that has to get rid of their own dog because they can’t train it. They graciously granted me more time… That dog tested me. He ate everything he could get his paws on… porch posts, our young fruit trees, our black berry bushes, the mail, the hammock, the screens in the windows… the cushions, pillows, a rocking chair, and the list goes on… I tried everything I knew to break his nasty chewing habit...2 years passed, and nothing seemed to work, every day I got closer and closer to giving up on him.
Then one day someone called to hire me for a training gig… someone who had a dog that was far beyond my training skill level… chewing is annoying and expensive but not dangerous… this dog was dangerous. Trained by the U.S. military this dog had been released from the program due to health complications… Let’s just say not having job was too much for this working dog… she was trained to take down the enemy, and right about now that was anyone who dared step foot on her property, and here I was… a 16 year old kid dumb enough to Think I could actually fix the problem.
I agreed to train his dog, hung up and realized I knew nothing about working with aggression of any kind… so I jumped online and bought a book on how to address aggression issues…Fortunately for me I never had to train that dog… the day before I was supposed to start training she attacked her owner and he had to put her to sleep… I was devastated to hear this… but I realized I had almost made a monumental mistake in accepting that job. I decided I had better figure out what I was doing and fast… not to mention I hadn’t even figured out how to solve the problems with my own dog yet.
The book I had purchased on training a dog who had aggressive tendencies was mind blowing. I got a glimpse of something that was unheard of in my current limited training circles. I started to research, study, watch videos, look at pictures, talked with other successful trainers around the country…I wanted to learn everything I could about dog’s and how they communicate… their body language, micro-movements…. I came to the conclusion that I had been going about it all wrong…
Now it was time to test what I had learned in the real world… the results sent a thrill of hope through me...maybe my career wasn’t doomed after all…within two weeks I had accomplished in my dog what I had been trying to teach him for the last two years.
I completely rewrote my training program and began to implement these new principles in my training classes… I had to work with some really difficult cases but armed with my new training method I was ready to meet them head on and overcome them one at a time.
My clients became overjoyed and even shocked at such amazing results in their dogs… all of the sudden I was doing more than dog training… I was helping people bond with their dogs on a whole new level… I saw a difference… People had their expectations blown out of the water… hopeless situations became success stories, and I got to keep one of the best jobs on earth…
If you have hit a wall and you think there is no solution for your dog… maybe give them one more chance to prove you wrong…
Some people call me a dog whisperer, some people a dog trainer, some people a behavioral specialist… I’m not picky about my title but I know dogs… and I believe that there is hope for every dog out there… just like people they need to be understood.
It’s time to write your own training success story!
Are you in?
