Molly the Maltese Mix

Molly is a nine month old Maltese mix. Her retired owners have hired me to help her learn to come when she is called. Molly has had several close encounters with traffic because she ran outdoors and wouldn't come to her owners when called. Her owner's were obviously terrified and realized something needed to be done.

After her initial assessment, I quickly realized that the first step for Molly's rehabilitation is to actually teach her what the command to come means. It was apparent to me that she ignored her name from over usage and the command to come simply because she had no idea For now her owner's will be using a twenty foot lead and practicing forty repetitions each day. These sessions will be broken down into eight short sessions each day. Her owners will be giving her a very high value treat and excited praise after each individual repetition.

Molly is a bright little dog. During my first visit and after only ten minutes, she was already beginning to realize that coming when called immediately and sitting was rewarding and also great fun! Molly will be learning many levels of coming when called and in different environments. To properly train her she will need diverse distractions to ensure that when she is fully trained her safety will no longer be in jeopardy. This project will take several weeks of dedication from her owners, but they understand their errors and are very enthusiastic about fixing the problem that they accidentally helped create.  

Jasper continued

Some of you may remember Jasper the French Briard I am working with. He has has been doing well but lately had a few setbacks with his owner. He owner notified me quickly and we are now tweaking his behavior modification program. Some breeds of dogs that have very powerful herding instincts can be very challenging to redirect. Jasper needs a little more work channeling his instincts into ball play and other compatble behaviors. Jasper enjoys biting the leash and jumping on his owner when he gets bored or is idle for a period of time. This is quite problematic since Jasper only directs this behavior towards his owner making it difficult for me to observe or work on! LOL. I have several different ideas on how I can approach and correct this last but very weak area. Jasper is a very clever dog and a little too smart for his own good! LOL I look forward to going forward and grafting the great behavior he has with me and my family onto his owner.  

Great improvements with Jett and Grace!

Jett and Grace are doing remarkably well. They are now bonding very closely with humans. They have advanced so much that now they have two half hour play sessions a day together! Their excessive barking has been greatly reduced and they spend much more time making eye contact with their owners and following them from room to room in their home. There have been no housebreaking errors for a whole week and they are doing really well learning their basic obedience commands. They have graduated to the next level of coming when called and the down/stay command. Now we are using a long line and special treats and practicing in several different environments. Jett and Grace's owners are some of the most committed people I've worked with so far. Their diligence and attention to detail have advanced them very quickly. I look forward to me next session with all of them. Jett and Grace's case is a more difficult case and I am really enjoying the challenge. 

Matilda's Field Trip

Matilda took a field trip to Petco in Auburn Ma. (BTW the store manager was very rude to us) We could come into the store but her owners were told she wasn't allowed to train her in the store because they have their own trainers. What a joke! Petco the place where pets go? LOL. We walked around anyway. Which is exactly the same thing. The progress that she has made is remarkable. She has now learned that she can pass by people in close proximity. We have shaped Matilda's behavior so now when she hears her owner say "Nice Person" she wants to go to them and sit for her boiled piece of chicken. I am so happy for Matilda. Her imagined enemies are quickly all becoming her friends. She has allowed more people to pat her the past few weeks than in her entire life. You can watch by her body language that she is begining to trust our judgement and that we have everything under control. So far she has met several men and women and a six year old girl politely without any fear. My biggest challenge with Matilda going forward is to fade out my presence. This will take some time. Matilda up to this point has only been allowed to meet new people when I have been present and directly involved. Her previous rehearsed fear towards  people with her owners could potentially return if I don't gradually begin to faze myself out of the picture. Matilda really needs to bond with more people to "water down" the intensity in the relationship. This will make her even more open to being relaxed confident and friendly with everyone. 

Bailey continued

Bailey the Boxer puppy is doing extremely well. Her training is very advanced for a puppy her age and she really enjoys learning. Many boxers make excellent family dogs as long as they get enough aerobic exercise each day. Bailey has advanced to the next levels of training for sit/stay, come, down, and loose leash walking. Her owners and myself are very happy with her progress. Bailey has started the second stage of training. I will be meeting with her and her family every other week now with enough material to carry them over. I always ask the familys I work with to contact me by phone at least once each week for a quick review of the material they are working on. Private training has specific building block levels that make the difference between a good dog and a great dog! 

Freedom is ready for a prematch!!!

ACAP'S first Service Dog puppy is ready to be be paired up with a veteran with PTS. Myself and my partners have a unique and cost effect approach for matching Freedom and finishing his training to specifically aid his particular client. Please spread the word that we are accepting applications for Freedom's potential match. He is being trained and housed in Leicester Ma. If you, a friend or family member has PTS and would like to apply please contact myself at 508 769 2874 or Pat Dykas at 1 774 200 5292 Thanks Brian 

Baileys Socialization

Bailey one of my Private Training puppies attended my group class at Klems Tractor in Spencer Ma. To be certain that the puppies I work with privately receive enough socialization I encourage the family's to attend this class at no extra charge. Bailey definately needed this exposure. She was quite tense when she first arrived and was fearful of several of the other puppies. With a slow acclimation process she was playing with the other puppies normally after just six minutes. It is obvious to myself and her family that much more dog socialization will be required for her. She is lucky to have a family that is so devoted to her. With a combination of private training instruction and puppy kindergarten combined, she will have the very best benefits available to become the very well trained and socialized puppy her family wants and needs.

Interestingly I have noticed over the years that the dogs that have had Private Training Instruction maintained a much higher level of training. My belief is that the owners absorbed much more knowledge of dog behavior and that "weak areas" where discovered, addressed and corrected more quickly and efficiently.

Matilda is coming out of her shell

Matlida the one year old female German Shepherd has made huge advancements. She is now allowing strangers to touch her and has even approached some people on her own. I have more work to do with her owners as we need to begin expanding Matilda's world. She will eventually come to understand in her canine mind that her owners can protect her and that they have made everyone she meets her friend. Matilda has greatly improved by using a Gentle Leader and practicing basic obedience in the presense of strangers in familiar environments. It is now time to advance her rehabilitation to include practicing in new locations and allowing more people to approach. Matilda will be held accountable by her owners to follow her obedience training around new people. She will be rewarded by doing so by her owners and then immediatly by the new person present. When I watch Matilda around strangers, I can see she really wants to interact with other people. I believe that the style and mind set of the puppy trainer she originally went to was not an appropriate fit for the temperament Matilda. She needed to be able to bond and interact with many people as a puppy and that just wasn't allowed by that particular trainer. Now for the first time in Matilda's life she is meeting people without severe anxiety and fear and is becoming confident and curious of the world and the humans around her.

Bouncy Bailey

Bailey is a thirteen week old boxer puppy rescued from Puerto Rico. She is already an excellent well rounded and socialized puppy. Her owners are being proactive to get her off to a good start by starting training now before any issues have a chance to develop. Starting off before there are any problems really is the best way to ensure you end up with the dog you always wanted.

For this week Bailey will be work on more involved socialization and begin learning house manners, basic obedience (starting with the important command to come)  and to be well behaved around the family's two elderly cats. Each week we will progress her training and socialization so she is constantly successful.

My approach with Bailey is to teach her all the ways she can earn rewards before teaching her the things that we don't want her doing. She will be controlled with the usage of a crate whenever her owners cannot watch her, and redirected when she nips in play or jumps. This puppy has the luxury of belonging to a family member who is retired and can give her the exposure, exercised and training she deserves. I'm really looking forward to sharing my knowledge with this excited family.

Jett and Grace

Last week I started working with a family that have two 18 month old schnauzers Jett a male and Grace a female. They are not siblings but have grown up together and are very bonded to each other. The problem for their owners is that they really only take direction from each other. When they are overstimulated, stressed or excited they feed off of each other. This creates a severe situation of excessive barking, housebreaking errors and unruly behavior within the home and on walks. 

My short term plan to encourage a stronger bond with Grace and Jett's to their owners is to keep them on leads withinn the home. Each  person will keep only one of them by their side at a time. They will be fed, excersized, trained and receive praise separately. Their owners will take turns spending time with each of them individually and to reward all the behaviors that they enjoy in them as separate individuals.

This is a slow process but once Grace and Jett begin to look to humans for support and direction it will be much easier to teach them to respond when given commands. Their owners are so devoted to them and now realize that taking on two puppies at once created a difficult learning and bonding environment.

It was amazing to watch them, even in the hour I was there I could see that they were begining to look to people for resources. A definate step in the right direction!!!!

Matilda's Fears

Matilda is a one year old female German Shepherd. She is very fearful of most people besides her family and demonstrates this by attempting to be aggressive. Her owners worked with several trainers, but they all gave up on her.

Matilda did become nearly hysterical for the first few minutes on our first meeting but she calmed down very quickly. Her owners were taught by previous trainers that they should verbally and physically reprimand Matilda when she barked at people. In her mind strangers whom she was already afraid of caused her to be punished and corrected by the people she trusted. Poor Girl :(  With the usage of  her favorite liver treats, we brought her into a room with myself and her owners present. Matilda was kept on a leash, as we talked we let her bark. She was  repeatedly rewarded her with treats and a ball whenever she stopped barking at me for even a moment. Her owners also rewarded her whenever she displayed relaxed behavior in my presence as well. Within about twenty minutes Matilda was taking treats from me and began allowing me to pat and touch her. She was even soliciting attention fom me!

I realise that Matilda has been rehearsing this behavior for any months.  Matilda's owners have seen the positive results by completely changing their approach.  From now on whenever she is in the presence of strangers great things will be happening! Our next goal will be to work on her making more eye contact with her owners more frequently. That way she can look to her owners for direction when she needs support. Her owners will also be keeping her on lead and by their side until her stimulation level goes down.  She is going to be just fine. 

Thatcher's Big day

Today Thatcher visited a dog park. There were many dogs there of all different, shapes sizes and personalities. Thatcher met several dogs and handled his interactions with them very well. He also met my personal dog Elsa and was very appropriate with her even though she was  a little more assertive for him than he would have liked. Certain dogs that are very forward and active still make him fearful, but you can see that each day he is improving. His owners were quite happy with how he conducted himself, but he really has not reached the point yet that any of us are comfortable letting him loose in the fenced dog park to play. In his rehabilitation process it is very important that each time he has direct interactions with other dogs that it ends in a positive way. Slow and steady are the correct approach for him as an individual. To help one of his owners project the appropriate mind set to Thatcher, we have decided that every time she and Thatcher see or pass by another dog that she will say to Thatcher "Theres a nice dog."  Then she rewards Thatcher with food. Working with people can be the biggest part of rehabititating a dog, and in order for Thatcher to recover from his anxiety we need to convince his owner as much as Thatcher that other dogs are fine. Dogs can easily sense when their owners are unsure which can as trainers say "Go right down the leash". Thatcher is progressing much faster than I anticipated and I am hoping by summer he can be running around on the beach again!