If you are a dog lover and travel the virtual halls of Facebook it’s likely you’ve read the story, Pit Bull mauls four year old in Phoenix. The story is tragic. As the father of four young kids I ache for this young boy who will be forever traumatized and will go through excruciating pain. Since this story came out, though, I’ve been asked several times for my opinion. In thinking about the case and reading the information that is available online I came up with several thoughts. They don’t form a narrative, essay-type response. Rather, my thoughts are formed in bullet points, random thoughts strung together. I’m not a guy who uses foul language. So understand that my following language is about as rough as I get. In other words, I’ve got some strong opinions on what is going down:

• What the FRACK is wrong with you people? By ‘you people’ I’m referring to the thousands of people who have rallied in support of…the dog! I love dogs, I think that goes without saying. As of the last reading (this may have changed) the public had raised more money to save the dog from being put down than had raised for the boy who was sitting disfigured in a hospital bed. How is this possible? Now I know that you can advocate for saving the dog, Mickey, AND have full sympathy for the poor kid. These aren’t mutually exclusive sentiments. But the fact that the dog is raising more money than the kid is the public’s way of voting with their wallets and saying that saving the dog is more important than helping the kid. It’s shameful.
• Yes, you can train the FRACKING dog. So what? I’ve seen many people commenting online that ‘hey, we can train the dog and fix the problem! Don’t put him down!’ Let me get this clear. I am 100%, unequivocally in favor of putting the dog down. I don’t arrive at that conclusion lightly. I am typically the last guy jumping into the swimming pool of ‘kill the dog!’. In fact, at my company we’ve successfully trained hundreds of dogs who have bitten in the past.

But look at the facts here. The kid approached the dog. There may or may not have been a bone depending on the report. The dog attacked the kid with some insane intensity. Tell me…what amount of training will make you feel comfortable ever putting this dog near a child again? As a dog trainer I’m hugely confident (read: massive ego) in my ability to fix aggression cases. As a father, however, there is no way this dog is ever coming near something I love no matter how much training. I’m not mad at the dog. I don’t wish to kill the dog in revenge. I simply recognize that there is no amount of training on this green earth that would ever make me feel comfortable with this dog.

• Pit bull apologists. What the FRACK, guys? Let me be clear. I’m a fan of Pit Bulls. I like them. I think they’re fun. I defend them when given the chance. But here’s the problem. Those of you who are Pit Bull apologists are often doing more harm than good. You’ll say things like:

“It’s not the breed, it’s the owner!” What about all the great Pit Bull owners who have Pit Bulls with aggression problems? You know there are a lot of them, right? We get plenty of dog owners who come to us with Pit Bulls that have aggression problems. You want to know the common denominator with every single one of them? They’re all good dog owners. If not, they wouldn’t be coming to a trainer and paying through the nose to fix an aggression problem. Could they have done things better? Sure. Everyone can. But these are not bad dog owners.

“Pit Bulls only do this when they’re trained to be aggressive/neglected/abused/beaten/etc.” Bull crap. I’ve worked with dozens of Pit Bulls who have aggression issues. None of these dogs have been trained to be aggressive or have been beaten and most haven’t been abused. (Side note, I’ve also worked with dozens of Labradors, German Shepherds, Dalmatians, and Chihuahuas who were aggressive who also weren’t beaten or abused.)

Every time you apologists pretend that the Pit Bull isn’t an insanely powerful breed, with a propensity for strong drives, with an intensity that other breeds don’t always have…and you pretend that all of them are sweethearts until some jerk of an owner comes along and turns them bad…YOU. AREN’T. HELPING. PIT. BULLS!

Your heads are in the sand. Yes, I’m fully aware of the statistics that other breeds bite with more frequency. I’m not saying that a Pit Bull is any more likely than a Labrador to bite someone. But I am saying that a Pit Bull is infinitely more likely than a Labrador to maul a kid and put him in the hospital… or kill a dog (which this dog Mickey has also done)…or cause some real damage to another pet. Does that make all Pit Bulls bad? Or most of them? Or even a decent percentage? Not by a long shot! But stop pretending that you are doing your favorite breed a favor by pretending that they aren’t capable of mayhem. They are. They’re capable of it when they’re treated poorly. They’re capable of it when they’re treated well. So is any dog. So stop thinking that all other breeds have their warts and the Pit Bull is a saint unless provoked. Recognize that your breed is a powerful animal, often with powerful drives, who has often been poorly bred and comes to the table with a weak nervous system.

• What the FRACK is wrong with these dog owners? I do not understand the mentality of someone who buys a dog and puts it on a chain in a yard where someone has access to that dog. This should never happen. Ever. Not ever. Not with a Pit Bull. Not with a Samoyed. Not with a Saluki or a mixed breed or a jungle cat.

If you put any dog on a chain it becomes infinitely more likely of attacking. I won’t get into the deep psychology of what I’m referring to but there is something I’ll call ‘barrier aggression’ that makes a dog more likely of attacking. Even very sweet dogs can do something really stupid when they are tied out.

So I haven’t seen the set up at this person’s house. I’m not sure how it looks, where the yard is, where the dog was tied up, etc. But I will tell you this. If you EVER have reason to tie your dog out (and if you do, consider why you have a dog in the first place) you had better tie that dog out where you are 100% guaranteed that no one can ever come up to your dog. Period. Are we clear on that?

• What the FRACK is wrong with all of these online commentators? I recognize that I am awfully hypocritical at this moment. I’m harping on online commentators while being an online commentator. The difference is, though, that I’m right. I always am, after all. (Side note, my wife always gives me a hard time saying ‘you always think you’re right in any argument!’ My response is ‘of course! Who walks around thinking they are wrong?’)

Let me be a bit more specific by calling out a few comments I see on a Facebook page for saving Mickey. The page has over 40,000 likes, by the way. Maybe we should see if every one of them could go give that poor kid a $5 note. Here are some comments:

“I can’t believe his family just gave up on him without a fight! Dogs are loyal and would never betray their owners! Shame on you Mickeys family shame on you!”

What the FRACK does loyalty have to do with this? The dog did kill a dog and nearly killed a kid.

“I am thinking positive!! We will Save Mickey, he has done nothing wrong & he deserves to have true unconditional love for the rest of his life!! xo”

Nope. He doesn’t deserve trust for the rest of his life. He has killed things and almost killed others. If there was ever a dog not deserving of trust it’s this one. Seriously, what kind of mindset creates such an ignorant, idiotic statement?

If you head over to this Facebook page (no, I won’t link to it here) you’ll see thousands of comments. Most of them follow the vein of ‘the kid never should have been in the yard, it’s not the dog’s fault!’

The sad thing is I agree.

The kid never should have gone into the yard. And in a sense it’s not the dog’s fault that he was put in that position, not supervised, not trained, not socialized, or whatever.

But fault or not the results are the same. He ate this poor kid. And no matter the fault why is there such an outcry to save this animal who has proven to be dangerous on more than one occasion? Why isn’t more of this energy going to help this poor child? I’m an advocate for dogs but I’m also smart enough to realize that I don’t advocate for dogs by pretending that some dogs aren’t insanely dangerous.

This is an awful situation for everyone; dog, dog owner, child, children’s family, and anyone who cares about this situation. But willful ignorance is not the answer to tragedy.

Dog Training- Many Dogs are Sick

There is a principle of dog training that I often talk of with our clients.

That concept is of illness vs. symptoms.

When I’m sharing this concept I’ll often tell someone to picture that they’ve got pneumonia. They’ve got a fever, their nose is running, they’re coughing, and they’ve got pain in their chest and their head.

Now imagine that the doctor sees this person and says, “Alrighty, let’s get you some aspirin. That will fix you right up!”

What would your thoughts be?

I’m no doctor but a simple google search tells me that pneumonia is caused by bacteria, virus, and even fungi. If you’ve got a serious case of pneumonia and the doctor sends you home with a bottle of aspirin you may get some temporary relief from a headache or body pain but the underlying illness isn’t touched at all by this regimen.

How does this compare to your dog?

This exact same concept applies to your dog and your dog training efforts.

When you’ve got a dog with aggression problems the aggressive behaviors are simply the symptoms. The underlying cause is typically a need for leadership that is more clear, a need for better understanding of structure and obedience, and a willingness to work within a system.

When you’re dealing with some serious dog destruction the fact that your dog chewed up your slippers or your couch is the symptom. The illness hiding beneath the surface is often a lack of supervision, not enough mental or physical stimulation, or other issues.

When you’ve got a ‘dog who doesn’t listen’ what you’ve really got is an underlying disease of you, the dog owner, not knowing how to clearly communicate what you want from your dog.

So what is the best way to treat a disease? Is it wrong to treat the symptom? I personally don’t think so. In the case of pneumonia perhaps you take the aspirin for short term relief AND you take antibiotics to kill the underlying illness. Herein lies the problem for most dog owners.

The problem for the average dog owner

The problem is that the average dog owner typically wants to treat the symptom. The questions we get often include:

‘How do I get my dog to stop acting aggressive to other dogs/guests/people/etc.?’

They aren’t asking- ‘How can I help my dog not feel the need to be aggressive?’

People will ask:

‘How do I punish my dog for chewing or digging?’

The question they fail to ask is- ‘What needs of my dogs are going unfulfilled so that he’s being destructive?’

I always encourage our clients to start asking different questions. The questions need to be asked from a foundation sense; what part of my dog’s foundation is incorrect such that he or she is displaying this behavior?

Instead we’ve trained ourselves as people to look for the quick fix.

‘Tell me what to do to stop the dog from doing this now!’ is the common mindset we get when people email us through our website.

Most people want to hear that super-special word, or look, or thing you can do with your hand so that the dog stops being aggressive RIGHT NOW!

Or they want to know the secret formula of gross sauce they can put on their shoes to stop the dog from chewing TODAY!

The irony is that if you work on treating the root causes of your dog’s ‘training illnesses’ you’ll often overcome your problems much faster than if you tried to treat the symptom. In nearly every case we come across treating the root causes entail:

• Solid obedience training. No, I’m not referring to ‘sit for a cookie’. I’m talking about a level of training where your dog is obedient in the face of distractions. Without treats.
• Good exercise. Being a member of the animal kingdom and not getting exercise can be a recipe for disaster.
• Proper supervision. Dog owners are too quick to want to give their dogs freedom before their dogs have earned that freedom.
• Common sense. Not everyone has to be dog savvy. But do try to think of potential outcomes and prepare for them with every scenario with your dog.

Treat the root cause of the illness and the symptom and your training efforts will be rewarded.

Your Dog’s Mindset

When I first got started training dogs in the mid-90′s I was a young guy. At that time I really had a black and white view of dogs and behavior. Generally my thought was ‘this behavior is bad, let’s correct it’ and ‘that behavior is good, let’s reward it’. It’s worth noting that this isn’t an incorrect style of thought seeing as a basic rule of behavior is ‘that which is rewarded is more likely to reoccur and that which is corrected is less likely to occur.’

Now, the reason I thought the above was THE RULE TO DOG TRAINING was because that mindset is what worked for me. In other words, with my own dogs and dogs that I was training, I could simply correct bad behavior and reward good behavior and I was able to train some really amazing dogs.

Fast forward a couple decades and I’ve worked with thousands of dog owners. I’ve realized it’s not as simple as correct the bad and praise the good.

I’ve realized it’s all about creating a ‘baseline’ for you and your dog.

Dog Training Baseline?

You see, I realized after some time that I could simply correct bad behavior and praise good behavior because, without realizing it, I had already created a solid baseline for my dogs. By baseline I mean a state of being where my dog’s minds were generally calm, where they were generally rational, thinking beings.

In that state of mind the dog is highly receptive to new learning. He’s much less likely to ‘act out’ or ‘disobey’.

But I was creating this baseline without realizing it. In fact, most good dog trainers and a lot of good dog owners do this as well. It’s nothing they’re necessarily thinking about doing. It’s something that just happens.

For example, at our Salt Lake City dog training company we get some really challenging cases of dogs with major aggression problems, heavy anxiety issues, etc. With very few exceptions we can take that dog and by the next day he or she will have made a complete turn around.

And often this is with very little training, period. It’s simply a case of us creating an atmosphere, or baseline, where the dog’s mind can finally calm down and be receptive to new learning.

Now, let’s say we take that same dog, turn him around in one day, then give him back to the owner. He will almost IMMEDIATELY go back to his negative behaviors.

It was realizations such as this that helped me understand that it is far more than simply correcting the bad and praising the good that gets us to a trained dog.

What does the baseline look like?

Look at the image here. It was created by a famous artist, don’t make fun of it’s rudimentary appearance.

This is an image of what I’d call a dog’s mindset spectrum. On one end of the spectrum you’ve got complete control/obedience/structure. We don’t want your dog living in that extreme of the spectrum. That’s a dog who is a robot. Is always under command. Doesn’t have any fun.

We also don’t want your dog on the other extreme. On the other extreme is where fear, anxiety, aggression, destruction, and other bad behaviors live.

Now let’s picture we divide that spectrum in half. Most dogs I meet for the first time are living in the left half of that spectrum. In other words, the baseline their owners have created is one where the dog’s mind isn’t right. He’s prone to anxiety and stress.

If you take a dog living at that baseline and add a simple stressor the dog is so quick to jump to the complete extreme and become aggressive, fearful, highly anxious, etc.

Picture this in your mind. Picture the dog who is on a walk and simply SEES another dog and flips out. That dog is living in the left half of the spectrum and one small thing is too much to handle.

Or picture the dog who SEEMS normal in every day life but suddenly gets aggressive or anxious or fearful with a guest in the house. That dog is living on the left half without the owner realizing it and all it took was one stressor and the dog is having a fit.

I want to reiterate this point. Many times dog owners don’t even realize this. More often than not our clients will talk about how their dogs are normally so good, normally so well behaved, normally such good pups….it’s just that when such and such occurs the dogs act poorly.

They think that all we need to do is train the dog during those moments when the dog acts poorly. They don’t realize there is a baseline created where the dogs live all the time, and that is what needs to change.

In reality, we need to change the entire baseline. We need to change the dog’s mindset when things AREN’T going wrong, and there are no stressors, such that when the stressor presents itself the dog is already living in the upper half of that spectrum.

Look at the image again. When the dog is living in the upper half, ideally the upper 1/4, it is literally such a huge mental jump for that dog to turn aggressive or anxious or fearful. It becomes next to impossible to get that dog out of sorts because his mind is already right.

I always tell dog owners to think about someone they’ve known in their past. You know, it’s the guy or girl who always seems to be in altercations. It may be a fist fight, an arguing match, or explosion of temper. However their anger/stress presents itself it seems as if it’s always right there at the surface ready to explode.

Now ask yourself, is that person just unlucky? Do they somehow get dealt a bad hand and bad things happen to them? Or is it that the person shows a pattern of bad decisions dealing with impulse control, perhaps addictions, and a lack of desire to change? They could try to address the moments when they lose their temper, and they should. But they’ll get so much more mileage out of creating a life that has better discipline at ALL TIMES, not just the stressful ones.

Would you agree?

How do you create a dog training baseline?

When I’m presenting these ideas to dog owners in person it’s usually at this point that I’m getting a lot of nods and ‘that makes sense’. If this isn’t making sense write me a comment below with a question.

But, of course, this line of thinking leads to ‘okay, how do we fix our baseline?’

Bad news. I don’t have a definitive way. There are a lot of people who have a lot of ‘dog sense’ or are ‘dog savvy’ and they’re going to find that many things they do are naturally calming and naturally establish the structure their dogs crave.

That doesn’t mean that if you aren’t dog savvy that you can’t create this. It just means that you’ll have to be more conscious about how you’re raising your dog and the interactions you have. I don’t think there’s an exhaustive list I could create on how to create the right baseline for your dog but the following points can definitely help you.

Note: this isn’t to say that everyone must do all these things. It also doesn’t mean that if you aren’t doing these things that you aren’t creating the right baseline. Heck, I’m not doing all of these things with my own dogs. These aren’t hard and fast rules, simply guidelines and they are in no particular order:

• Be careful of the affection you give your dog. Many people are using their dog to fill an emotional void. I’m not saying that’s incorrect, anyone who knows me knows that I’m not the guy to go around giving emotional advice. But what I am saying is that many people use affection towards their dog to fill a void in their own life. They are constantly touching, talking to, treating, thinking about, worrying about, and searching for the affection of their dog. This is WAY too much responsibility to put on a dog and this will create an enormous amount of stress.
• Make your ‘comings and goings’ neutral. When you get too excited when you come home and too regretful when you leave this creates an association that your comings and goings are emotionally saturated. Don’t do this. That makes it far too exciting when you’re home and far too sorrowful when you’re gone. We want your dog on an even plane, not in constant emotional upheaval.
• Many dog owners are going to need to keep their dog off the furniture. This isn’t the case with everyone, but for dogs living with a lot of stress or on the wrong end of the spectrum this can be a necessity.
• Don’t let your dogs do crap. Stop letting them pull on a leash. Stop letting them bark at everything. Stop letting them rush through doors. Stop letting them be destructive. Just stop it! Inevitably I get the question with this of ‘well…well…how?’ Nope, sorry, you don’t get to ask that question. There are literally volumes of material at your disposal to help you with this. You don’t get to claim ignorance. My entire dog training website is full of articles and tips, we’ve created an entire line of dog training videos to help you, and you can even email us to see if we know of a dog trainer in your neighborhood not to mention the scads of information from many other great trainers out there. When you claim that you don’t know how to do something it’s simply because you haven’t taken initiative yet. Stop that. Get to work.
• DO teach your dogs to do good crap. Why doesn’t your dog hold a ‘down-stay- for a half hour? Why doesn’t he come when called? Why doesn’t he ‘listen’ or ‘obey’ or ‘mind’? Because you haven’t taught him to! Stop that. Get to work.
• Have a calming presence. Yes, you can play wild. Yes, you can run around and get goofy with your dog. But there is a season for everything. Don’t allow your dog to take the initiative and monopolize your time with play and requests for play. Instead you initiate it and dictate what play is okay. When you aren’t doing that, be calm with your dog.

I could go on and on with various other iterations of these ideas and concepts. I’m hoping, though, that you’ve got the picture now. I’m hoping that as you’ve read this you’ve thought of things that you can change with you and your dog’s relationship.

Now go and do them.

Hi all,

I know that most of you who will read this aren’t in our local area of Salt Lake City, Utah. I still wanted to share the news of our company, though, and tell you that we’ve opened up a new dog daycare and boarding facility in Sandy, Utah. I wanted to tell you for two reasons:

1- To remind you that we’re a real company. I know that sounds silly but this website is a part of our business. Our whole business model is to prove to you how effective our training techniques are so that you use us for dog training or invest in our dog training DVDs. I know I just broke a cardinal rule there and admitted that I *gasp* would like to sell you something, but there it is.

And it’s important for me that those who come here know that we’re a real company. A real location. We actually train dogs. Lots of them. And we have success with helping our client’s dogs to become the best dogs possible. This is important because most dog training websites out there aren’t run by dog trainers. They’re run by marketing companies overseas who have simply realized that today’s dog owner is going to spend money on their dog, including in training. So they buy up the rights to simple dog training books, repackage them, and sell them as an ebook that will cure all your dog training ills.

These companies aren’t going to be able to help you when you come across a problem, they have no customer service department, they don’t answer a phone, and they don’t refund money if you aren’t happy like we do.

2- I wanted to share some of the simple things we do to help foster the best group mentality possible with your dog. Even if you never buy anything from us I’d really like you to come to this website for the free content, comment, get good use, and tell your friends. In other words, yes, we are a business. But we’re also thrilled that dog owners around the world can use our stuff to help improve their lives and their dog’s lives.

On this page I wanted to share some videos that show what we can do to help dogs get along with other dogs. If you’ve ever struggled with this problem with your dog I hope you’ll get some value here. Watch the videos below and check back as I’ll likely be adding more.

If you are one of our readers in the Utah area I invite you to check out our Salt Lake City dog daycare and dog boarding pages. Enjoy!

Here’s a video with a dog that has some serious reactivity issues. In half a day we had her playing with other dogs.

Here’s a video of a dog who has had issues at other daycares-

How to Train a Seizure Alert Dog

Seizure alert training is a somewhat new and oft times controversial style of training. Essentially what it entails is training a dog to recognize certain markers that indicate an oncoming seizure and teaching the dog to respond in various ways to those markers. The industry is split between master craftspeople who are improving the lives of those with seizures and hucksters looking to make an easy buck.

Lori Shanks is a dog trainer with a great track record of training and placing seizure alert dogs with families in her state of Georgia. In addition to seizure alert she also trains service dogs for people with autism, diabetes, and more.

Listen in below as I pick her brain to find out the truths with this kind of training.

Press Play Below to Hear the Seizure Alert and Response Interview

What You’ll Learn About Seizure Alert Dogs:

• If there is a breed that works best for seizure alert?
• What qualities and temperaments are a must have for this type of service dog?
• Basic imprinting and beginning stages of training
• What would disqualify a dog from being a seizure alert canine
• The type of obedience training necessary for this kind of service dog
• Scams to watch out for
• The training process to teach a dog how to recognize, alert, and respond to an upcoming seizure
• Much, much, more.

Enjoy!

The following question comes in from a reader of our site:

We just got a Cane Corso who has been very abused. She is 7 months old and great with females and children. She still barks when we come in the door but for the most part she is very welcoming. However with men she is frantic and barks growls runs away, pees. After what seems to take a couple hours she will allow them to touch her but barely. She stays at my side as much as she can and whines when I leave her. My dad is trying to show her he isn’t bad but she just growls and barks and pees when he tries to give her treats pet her or talk to her. What would you recommend?

We are desperate to help this girl and want her to be a great dog for us and I know she can work. I just don’t know the proper way to train her and what to do. She will sit, lay, roll over, is house trained and is fine with women and my son. Just as soon as a man comes over she is so scared and I need help. I have no clue how to fix this and reaching out to any trainer who can help me or give me ideas.

My response:

Thanks for the question. Unfortunately, this is an issue I see all too often. In fact, in many cases, this didn’t even result from an abuse story. The dog is simply afraid of men and that’s that. Dogs who are fearful of men aren’t always that way because of abuse.

Here are a couple key points I would consider:

• Tethering. Tethering is the act of putting a leash on the dog and keeping it there. You want to keep the leash on the dog in the house, outside of the house, etc. Where that comes to play with men is that I would have the dog on a leash and have your dad, or another man, simply be the one who controls the leash. No, don’t pay her any attention. Simply hold the leash and go. She’ll resist, she’ll fight. But have the man on the end of the leash simply ignore her and go about his day. What you are describing with his inability to give her treats is all-too-common. A dog in your dog’s state of mind isn’t going to give up intense fear simply because someone has a cookie. I’ve done the tethering method dozens of times over the years and I’ll tell you that for the first day it can be a bit ugly. The dog doesn’t want anything to do with me. But after a day or two the dog, needing to adapt, suddenly realizes that the guy isn’t half bad. Don’t try to coddle her out of her fear with treats and soft cooing. Simply have her be a constant companion of your dad and let her learn to work through that.
• Work on obedience. Obedience is a calming and clarifying exercise. You mention that she’ll sit and lay down. Does she do them reliably? Does she stay doing them? Does she do those behaviors under distraction? If not, you’ve got some work cut out for you. Anxiety and fear aren’t solved through basic and introductory experience with obedience. You’ll need more advanced levels of obedience for that.

Best of luck and happy training.

In today’s dog training climate there is a growing trend amongst dog trainers to only use treats and clickers and avoid any type of correction.

The problem is that such methods tend to be far less effective and lead to more dogs in shelters and more dogs being put down due to a lack of success in training.

The best way to effect change with dogs is with a stabilized approach to dog training. In other words, an effective dog training program should include tons of positive motivation stabilized with humane and proper correction.

In this video I show a simple way for you to think about correction as it relates to dog aggression.

If you’re interested in learning more about our Skype training click here

Interested in other ways you can work with Ty? Click here

Check out our dog training DVDs

 

One of the things I’ve learned throughout my years of training dogs is that dogs are quite often the product of their environments.

NO. I’m not going to sit here and say that aggressive dogs or bad dogs always come from bad dog owners. They sometimes do.

But more often than not, dogs with some serious behavior problems come from good dog owners who simply don’t know how to keep their dog on the proper end of the spectrum.

If you can maintain the proper state of mind with your dog then you can find that it becomes quite easy to rid yourself of unwanted behavior problems.

After watching the video above, ask yourself where your dog fits on the spectrum.

The truth is that it’s very difficult for many dogs and many dog owners to stay in the proper half.

We’re here to help.

If you live in Utah or would like to send your dog to Utah for our award winning training then click here to get a spot on my calendar. We can talk about your dog and programs that can help put your dog in the right spot.

If that isn’t an option, check out the different dog training DVDs we offer.

Enter Your Email Below for Free Access to the Entire Case Study

 

How to Solve Dog Aggression

Over the years our business has evolved a great deal. While we work with plenty of puppies and dogs who need obedience and manners help we’ve become known around the country for solving some of the worst aggression cases.

Our proprietary system taps into the dog’s natural styles and patterns of learning to help them overcome the fear and anxiety that leads them to act aggressively in the first place.

A short time ago we started working with a new case.

This is a dog that has attacked other dogs and is one of the more intensely aggressive dogs we’ve seen in a while. We decided to turn this case into a case study to show everyone just what it is we do to help these dogs.

I wasn’t planning on releasing any video until we had the entire process filmed. But sure enough, within the first five minutes of training we already had some great results. I wanted to show it off, press play below.

Our Aggression Formula

Our aggression formula is the process we use with dogs to overcome any type of aggression. The three steps are:

1. Achieve high levels of obedience. I always tell dog owners that we aren’t going to solve aggression with basic obedience. Only advanced obedience carries the power to help a dog overcome their aggression issues.
2. Apply that obedience. Once your dog learns higher levels of obedience you need to apply that obedience to your dog’s ‘aggressive triggers’. Your dog can’t lunge, chase after, or attack if he or she has great obedience that allows you to have your dog stay, come, and heel no matter the circumstances.
3. Correct the aggression. You must correct the aggression in a way that makes complete sense to your dog.

Stay tuned to the site. When the training is complete we’ll be posting the full case study.

In the mean time, check out our Curing Dog Aggression DVD program.