Success Story From Peru

Peru Dog Training

Picture From www.AventuraCanina.com/

I love the success stories that come in. I especially enjoyed this recent one as it came in from a different corner of the world, Peru. Most of the dog training DVDs we sell go out to the United States, Canada, UK, and Australia. It was a pleasure, recently, to see our DVDs head down to South America.

Allow me to share a bit of the story of Alvaro.

Just a couple weeks ago I got an email from him saying-

“Señor Brown,
Se que hablas un poco de español, asi que espero no tengas ningún problema con este mail.

La Oli, mi enamorada y yo queríamos agradecerte por la ayuda que nos brindaste con tus videos. Adquirimos Curing Dog Aggression y hemos estado trabajando por 2 meses con Oli y hemos hecho grandes progresos. Todavía falta pulir algunas cosas, pero la mejora es increíble… nunca pense que podría llevarla a la playa rodeada de gente y que se quedara tranquila en su sitio (foto adjunta).

Creo que el mayor problema de la perra es que todo le da miedo y antes de racionalizar lo que esta pasando se lanza… sobre todo con gente y perros. Su dosis de adrenalina es mas importante que cualquier cosa. Con tu método de obediencia hemos logrado que procese su miedo de una forma mas pasiva y ha empezado a darse cuenta que sus miedos son infundados. Es una batalla constante (la adrenalina es una gran adversaria) pero con cada error que Oli comete es una oportunidad para corregirla y mejorar.

En tus videos no hablas mucho sobre perros adrenalizados, pero escuche el programa de radio que hiciste con otro entrenador y fue de mucha ayuda. Si tuvieras mas tips sobre el tema sería grandioso.

Muchas gracias y saludos,
Alvaro”

Translated this means:

Mr. Brown,

I know you speak some Spanish so I hope you won’t have a problem with this email.

Oli, my beloved dog, and I want to thank you for your help you gave us with your videos. We bought Curing Dog Aggression we’ve been working with Oli for 2 months and we’ve had huge progress. We still need to polish some things but the improvement is incredible. I never thought I could take her to the beach and have her surrounded by people and that she’s stay calmly in her spot (photo attached).

I think the biggest problem is that everything makes her afraid and before rationalizing what’s going on she lunges…mostly with people and dogs. Her adrenaline dosis is more important than anything else. With your method of obedience we’ve achieved that she processes her fear in a passive form and she’s begun to realize that her fears are unfounded. It is a constant battle (the adrenaline is a big adversary) but every error that Oli commits is an opportunity to correct and improve.

En your videos you don’t speak much about adrenalized dogs but I listened to your podcast that you did with the other trainer and it was very helpful. If you had more tips that would be wonderful.

Thank you very much,

Alvaro

Previously aggressive towards dogs, now playing with them.

My response was to make a quick video over at my Spanish language dog training site. The gist of my advice was that he needed to focus on control exercises. Training exercises like training a dog to walk on a loose leash and training a dog to come when called serve a huge function in getting a dog to pay attention to you rather than the pay attention to the dogs and people who the dog is normally aggressive towards.

I was thrilled that just a short time later Alvaro sent me some pictures of a recent outing that he went on with about 40 other dogs and their owners.

Where just a few months prior his dog was acting aggressively to people and dogs now he was able to go on a big excursion with plenty of distractions.

He sent me some pictures through Facebook with the following note:

Ty Brown, 2 meses después de empezar el programa logramos una calatita con increíble confianza en si misma, enfocada en “trabajar” y feliz de estar rodeada de gente y perros!! Un exito!!

Which means;

Ty Brown, 2 months after starting the program we achieved a little pup with incredible confidence in herself, focused on ‘working’ and happy to be surrounded by people and dogs!! Success!!

The cynic in you is probably saying; you’re only sharing this in order to toot your own horn, sell more of your DVDs, etc.

To that I would say…

YOU’RE RIGHT!

Okay, only partially right. Yes, I absolutely share these stories so that other people see them and want to buy my products. I’ve got a family to feed and am not ashamed of being a businessman.

But in all seriousness I love seeing success stories like this. I know there are many people, perhaps you reading this, who have that aggressive dog or destructive dog or problematic dog and think there may be no hope. You may be wondering if there is anything you can do.

To those people I want to tell them, yes, you can see huge progress in your dog if you just take the time to learn HOW to train your dog and then you stick with the program.

Along that note, I decided yesterday to start a page where I’ll be sharing more and more of these success stories. Check it out here. I’d love to include you on there. Please let us know how we can be a part of your dog’s success story.

By the way, Alvaro, what kind of dog is that? I’ve never seen such a large, hairless dog!

Filed Under: Success Story Tagged With: ,

Case Study Update- Aggressive Dogs At The Pet Hotel

Last week I met with a new ‘client’ here in Costa Rica. (I say ‘client’ in quotations because I’m not really getting paid. We’re doing some trade work) You can read the first part of the case study here- How to fix an aggressive dog, case study.

Initially I told you that I was working with a few dogs there. Primarily, we were working with Cleo, a Pit Bull mix, who was aggressive towards other dogs. We were also working with Canela, a friendly little mixed breed who had obedience and manners issues.

It’s only been a week and a half but we’ve already seen some nice things, and also some new challenges, pop up. Here is where we are:

Canela- Canela is about nine months old and is a sweetheart. Here are the key points on her progress and notes on what needs to happen at this stage:

  • Leash walking. We worked on my ‘Crazy man method‘ and she’s doing great. She was a bad leash-puller but is now walking like a champ. Truthfully, this is normally the easiest thing to fix. So, while I’m thrilled with her progress I’m not patting myself on the back too hard.
  • Sitting, Lying Down, and Staying. She’s actually doing really well with this as well. Her owner will ask her to stay while she goes and grabs something or goes to get something and she does just great. We are using this method to teach her to stay.
  • Today we started working on teaching her to come when called. This is a big deal as they live on an acre and most of it isn’t fenced. The owner was doing the thing that most people do wrong. That is to say:
  1. She was calling the dog with no way of ‘backing it up’. Most people attempt to train their dogs verbally by telling them to come. Dogs don’t learn well verbally. If the dog didn’t come she had no way of seeing it through.
  2. She was angrily calling the dog. Many people get tired of their dogs not coming when called so they call them in an angry tone. If your dog didn’t want to come before, it sure as heck doesn’t want to come now.
  • So we’ve started working on what I call a ‘casual recall’ and what I call a ‘formal recall’. We’re using some simple methods for these exercises: Train your dog to come when called, Come when called
  • Overall, Canela is doing really well. I’m surprised the the owner has had enough time to work with her as it’s only been a bit over a week and her Pet Hotel is getting busier with Christmas closing in. I don’t think we’ll have any problems in getting her obedience to continue improving.

Cleo- Cleo is the Pit Bull mix. She is about four years old and is incredibly dominant. Here are the key points and notes for how she is doing and what she’ll need to work on to become trained.

  • This dog is incredibly dominant and doesn’t like to be told what to do. She tried biting me once during the first session and she even tried a little growl at her owner today. Mind you, these were situations where we were simply shifting her a bit and she didn’t like it. It wasn’t as if we were pushing her hard and retaliation, although not okay, would have been understandable. It’s obvious that this dog needs much more obedience work. Obedience is the key to getting the right relationship with a dog.
  • The owner has actually done a good job of integrating some of the initial obedience we’ve been working on. She took Cleo on an on-leash walk yesterday and other neighborhood dogs were walking off leash near her. This would have made Cleo go nuts before but because we’ve been working on control work the dog’s mind was more focused and she did fine. The owner also mentioned that she’s had Cleo on leash on the other side of the fence of barking dogs. I like to see this. I always say that it’s one thing to work on obedience. It’s another thing entirely to apply that obedience to everyday life. That’s what she has been doing and it’s been paying off.
  • Today we started working on step three of my aggression formula, which is how to correct aggression when it starts. I taught her what I call my distance method (outlined in our Dog Aggression DVDs) which is designed to help the dog focus AWAY from their aggressive trigger. It worked well. In one session we were able to get the dog to stop focusing on a neighbor dog and be just inches away from her. I was assured by the owner that this was a big deal, she would normally be trying to attack.
  • We’ve seen nice things but we’ve got a long way to go with this dog. She’ll need to be around dozens of other dogs and improve her obedience a great deal in order to get over this aggression problem. If you’re dealing with aggression note that you can see quick improvements with my methods but long term character change takes a bit of time.

Other notes:

  • As a side note, I’ve mentioned that she runs a Pet Hotel. At any given time there are 5-10 dogs at her house hanging out. She was having issues with barking dogs, jumping dogs, dogs getting out of control, etc. I recommended she keep a spray bottle with her to use on the dogs when they start getting out of control. She’s reported back that it has worked amazingly. One of the problem dogs that spends months at a time is now quiet and not jumping, not rushing the gate, etc.
Filed Under: Advanced Dog Training, Behavior Problems Tagged With: , ,

Dealing with Aggression in a Boxer

In this video I sit down with a client who is dealing with an aggressive boxer. I go into heavy detail about why I do my aggression formula, what the components are, and why it works so effectively.

 

 

Filed Under: Behavior Problems Tagged With: ,