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Training Style [Training Videos]

There are a number of popular training styles in town and each has it’s own lingo to go along with it. Everyone is familiar with some of the terms like All Positive Reenforcement, Impulse Control, Clicker training or maybe Balanced method. Which is usually code for “I’m probably going to be tougher than you want to be.” Some trainers will tell you your dog should never sleep on your bed, never go out the door first or never eat “people” food. There are easy leaders, gentle leaders, gentle walkers, choke chains, shock collars and prong collars.

The most important thing is that you can communicate with your trainer and that they can teach you to communicate clearly with your dog.

One of the first questions I hear is “What kind of leash should I use?” It really doesn’t matter to me how you are physically attached to your dog. I am going to teach you how to stop relying on your leash and build a respectful relationship that doesn’t matter if you have a leash or not. If you use a prong collar, I will teach you how to throw it away. It is one of the only pieces of dog training equipment I don’t own or use. I manage my dogs from behind. They know where I am at all times. I will teach you how to get your dog to start keeping track of you instead of you always running around trying to keep track of your dog.

I am not an all positive reenforcement trainer. I will likely tell you this on our first phone call. I Don’t believe that it honors dogs for what they are, predators. When you look in your dog’s mouth you will see fangs. Dogs are designed to live under a certain amount of healthy stress. Watch the way they treat each other and you will learn a lot about how you can treat them. If you watch the video below <watch>, you will see an adult dog playing with two young puppies. All three are enjoying the game until the puppies get too rough. Then the adult dog snaps and growls harshly and the puppies cower away from the reprimand. Having learned a little proper respect, the three begin to play happily again, just like before. Clearly not positive reenforcement.

At this point, some of you are not happy with what you just read. Perfect. I would not be the trainer for you. On my first phone call with an inquiring dog owner, I will often describe several other trainers in town and offer contact info. All of whom I respect and none of them train like I do. My goal is to make sure you get the training help you need from a trainer you can relate to. I may not be that person and I clearly can not help everyone who calls me. If we do choose to work together, I guarantee you will see results, usually in the first 20 minutes.

Sometimes training tasks are as simple as teaching your dog how to get in and out of the car or as complex as playing pool. Literally. Go to the Dog Blog page and watch Pool Hall Honey. Lolly is amazing.

Call me if you need help.

Click the pic to watch Gilbert teaching these two puppies.

NOTE: Many of my thoughts, ideas and techniques are not originally my own or have been modified to work with my training style. I can not give proper credits here because they are accumulated over a lifetime of great trainers sharing ideas. To them all I owe a great debt and gratitude.