Kathy Santo - Kathy Santos Dog Sense: Everything You Need to Know about Raising, Training, and Understanding the Dog in Your Life

8.

All of the information in this book is offered under the assumption that your dog is physically healthy and pain free. If you have any doubts, you should see your veterinarian for a complete physical, including blood work to rule out illnesses that might be affecting your dogs behavior.

My dog doesnt listen!; My dog chews my shoes; My dog jumps on people; My dog thinks hes walking me!

These are just a few of the complaints Ive heard countless times in twenty years of training dogs. People from all walks of life, with dogs of all temperaments, shapes, ages, and breeds, come to mesometimes in tearsasking for help. I take the leash an owner hands me and look at the dog at the end of it. Usually the dog is jumping, sniffing, or just looking aroundlost in a world of his own. He has heard human voices of all kinds, male or female, soft or loud, stern or cajoling. But no matter what kind he has been hearing, the dog has learned to tune them out. He may love or fear his humans, but in most cases he simply ignores them. Here is where I come in.

My stock-in-trade is a knack for connecting with dogs quickly. It seems Ive always been able to spend an hour with a dog-and-human pair and figure out what makes their relationship tick. If its broken, I can fix it.

Over the years I have noticed that my mainly intuitive approach has been, with each dog, both the same and different in interesting ways. Sometimes two dogs with practically the same behavior problem would require very different training strategies. But sometimes basically the same strategy would work for two dogs with very different problems. Among entirely untrained dogs (usually but not always puppies), another interesting pattern appeared: People I had taught to train a first dog would bring me their second and say that they had tried to follow what I had shown them before but this time it hadnt workedeven though the new dog was of the same breed as the previous one. Like the owners, I was at first ready to blame the problem on their lack of the professional touch. Flattering (to me), maybe, and good for business, but actually untrue, I finally realized.

It took me some time really to understand just what goes on when I work with a dog and an owner. Initially, the process seems too chaotic for words: Dozens of ideas go through my head, though I might speak of only a handful, even if just to myself. In this rapid-fire diagnostic procedure, lots of scenarios and approaches play out mentally, but in practice I always manage to home in on the right one in just a few attempts.

How do I do it?

Partly by assessing the clients first: I listen, find out whats going on in their lives, study their body languageall with an eye for seeing how they relate to their dog. Badly trained dogs often belong to people with habits that have the unintended effect of promoting bad behavior. Speaking in high-pitched babble is one of the most common (and annoying) ways humans unwittingly inspire their dogs to misbehave. But even those with more dulcet voices are frequently led by faulty instinct to make fateful mistakes (for instance, hollering NOOOO! when the dog is actually doing precisely what you asked but not what you wanted). Discovering your own misconceptions about how dogs think and recognizing the faux pas in how you handle your four-footed friend can go a long way toward improving his behavior.

But even more important than understanding the client is understanding the dog. If I have a professional secret, it is my awareness that dogs are people, too. I dont mean this in a cute way. What most humans dont realize when their dog-training efforts fail is that dogs differ dramatically in nature from one individual to another. Consequently, any form of instruction not grounded in a sense of the dogs individuality has a very low probability of success. Conversely, a method customized to meet the dogs specific needs, motivations, and confidence level can be amazingly efficient. In fact, following a training strategy geared to the individual can be so rewarding (for both of you) that your dog can continue to learn and to improve his behavior indefinitely. This insight, more than any dog whisperers gift, has been the secret to my success.

Even a laser-guided system of dog training does take time. A truly well-trained dog requires weeks of active instruction, with clearly communicated and consistently reinforced guidance. Fortunately, even the busiest people realize that an untrained dog can cost them much more than fifteen minutes a day: There is a potentially huge toll in damaged property, lost sleep, and painful effort expended forcing the dog to do what a trained one would do without fuss. And so most are prepared to put in some time to teach the dog acceptable mannersthey just dont know how to go about it effectively. Poorly trained dogs are rarely the result of their owners lack of will; much more likely, the matter is one of misguided effort.

The problem comes when the common one-size-fits-all prescriptions for training dont work, or work only partially. Training becomes a chore, and a frustrating one. For this reason, in the majority of cases, active instruction in the dogs life is confined to a training period during which he learns whatever he will learn. Thereafter, typically for the rest of his days, his behavioral traitsgood, bad, and uglyif not completely intolerable are simply accepted as a given, and you learn to work around them. Im often amazed that a nation with so many ambitions for their houses, their bodies, and their childrens sports should have such unnecessarily low expectations of their dogs.

My philosophy holds that any dog can be taught good behavior. And learning can and should continue throughout his life. But such an ambition wouldnt even be conceivable unless the training were not only effective but enjoyable.

You can teach an old dog new tricks. In fact, you canand shouldteach a dog of virtually any age. Why? Most urgently for his own safety: A dog who isnt trained is a danger to himself in most settings where people live. But beyond life-and-death matters, there is also quality of life: The more a dog learns, the easier learning becomes, the better his adjustment and conformity to your life, and the stronger your mutual understanding and emotional bond. Whats not to love?

Ive found that most other training approachessome of them extremely effective with some dogsproduce two possible outcomes: success and failure. Unfortunately, the two occur with roughly the same frequency. A trick either does the trick or it doesnt. With my approach, failure is simply not an option; its a prompt to the next possibility. The untrained or problem dog is a puzzle for which there is almost always a solution. Its not an ailment for which the cure may or may not work.