My gorgeous boy
Little Bear and I have clocked up our fair share of trainers and behaviourists over the past five years. The first trainer turned out to be a major part of the problem with her ‘yank it round the neck till it behaves approach’ and subscription to the ridiculous dominance theory. From there I sought help only from qualified APDT registered trainers but even then had mixed results.
One just told me to keep him away from all other dogs and refused to explain any of the theory to me on the grounds that I wasn’t a professional and wouldn’t understand. The next one was good, if a little superior but so busy I had to wait literally months between appointments, which was little use to me.
Lack of people skills
There were others in-between and classes too but a thing I’ve noticed about a lot of professional trainers is their complete lack of people skills. Yes, we, the novice dog owning population can be ignorant idiots and I do appreciate that when you love dogs enough to devote your career to them, it must be hugely frustrating to see them so mis-managed by people who just don’t understand them.
Click
After five years of looking, I’ve finally found two trainers who get it. Specialising in aggression issues, they use kind, effective methods and focus on helping dogs learn appropriate behaviours through socialisation with teaching dogs who have impeccable canine communication skills.
Little Bear has been going to the fortnightly Shy Guys group for a few months now and he’s making real progress. Their kind effective approach extends to both ends of the lead and the results seem to speak for themselves. The groups are really popular and I think that’s down to the fact that the trainers obviously understand that in order to help the dog, they first have to help the human.
Find out more at http://www.dogcommunication.co.uk/
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