Empowering Dogs and Owners for Lasting Change

Obedience is the sport of etiquette while behavior is learning how to communicate what is and what isn’t appropriate throughout the day. Obedience is 30 min training sessions at a time, such as sit, stay, down and heel. Behavior is communicating with your dog throughout the entirety of the 24 hour day. To really raise a dog properly you need to learn how to teach them their manners such as sit, down, stay and heel but you also need to learn how to communicate with them and learn how to say “No” in their language. Making a dog sit after it lunges doesn’t teach it what it did was inappropriate. Learning their language is when you can really communicate the rules and teach them how to interact with their environment.

All issues are addressed. It all goes together. You will learn how to Correct Correctly as well as the difference between correction and redirection. You will learn the language of the foreign exchange student in your home as well as their culture. Once you aren’t stuck in the world of miscommunication, you will finally be able to communicate the rules of your home. If you don’t know the language of the foreign exchange student in your home its not a timing issue of when they will learn the rules… its once you finally learn their language you will be able to communicate rules very quickly and not be lost in translation. We aren’t teaching math equations here… this is a language gap. So what is addressed? Aggression, separation anxiety, barking, digging, resource guarding, canine aggression, fear, jumping on people, leash pulling, chewing, fear aggression, potty training, nipping, attention-seeking, howling, hyperactivity, mouthing, begging, destructive behavior, biting and most important of all, preventative training for puppies so you never run into any of these issues!

I do use an e-collar. I also use a variety of treats such as food and praise. But back to the e-collar. If I was being controlled by another species.. let’s say Planet of the Apes occurred. We are not the dominant species anymore. If you laid out all the dog training tools being used now… e-collar, choke chain, prong collar, comfortable harness and a plethora of treats, what would I want used on me? I would choose a combination of the e-collar and treats. Why? Because at the end of the day I would want some form of freedom and not always stuck to a 6 foot leash regardless of how comfy the harness is. The electronic collar is a tool. You can build a house with a hammer or you can break a house with a hammer. It’s how you use the tool. Used properly, and I do mean properly, the e-collar is an amazing tool that can give your dog off leash freedom. Conditioning of the collar has to occur so the dog understands where the stimulation is coming from, how to stop it and how to avoid it. Once taught, the tool becomes a force-free way of accessing your dog’s brain. It becomes a tap on the shoulder. I could tap you lightly in a library and we could start a conversation but if we were at a rock concert I would have to tap you harder.. that doesn’t mean I am mad or upset with you.. there was just more distraction. We live in a digital age and this is a great digital crutch to use while you learn how to layer and pair your own touches to be able to wean off of the electronic collar eventually.

There are a few things that differentiate between them and myself. One… I have been working with dogs for over 24 years and have owned my own business for 18 years. There are not many in the Greater Sacramento Area that have that type of experience.

Two… I have been doing expert witness work for the last 8 years on dog bite and dog behavior cases. My C.V. has been accepted by the judicial system to be able to be an expert witness in the court of law.

Three… I have traveled all over the world and learned about different cultures in real time. I have learned that even in our own species we have cultural differences and what is rude in one country is not necessarily rude in another. This applies big time to Canine Culture. How we perceive the way they communicate seems to be incredibly rude, but for them; it’s not.

Four… and most importantly of all. I am a father to human children. I have raised my own children and learned what it is to raise our own species before teaching others about raising another species. At the root of raising anything is communication. It’s not obedience but rather being able to communicate the rules in the language they understand. Our industry is a weird little microcosm of the show “Tiger King” on Netflix. Not many in this industry actually have human children themselves, yet they are trying to teach you how to raise another species without even raising their own species first. Without understanding why we use discipline as human parents, it’s hard to apply that to our 4 legged children.

Yes and No. It really depends on how the dog is worked with when at the board and train facility. But most importantly, it is how the dog is transferred back to the people and environment where the dog was originally exhibiting said behavior. With most board and train facilities, you have to drop the dog off to them, the dog is never taken off of the premises and never worked with in real life environments with real life distractions. Everything is done in a controlled way with the humans and dogs they are surrounded by. They become familiar with the environment, so it looks as if they aren’t aggressive or fearful anymore or that they have learned to listen. Most facilities have you pick up the dog after a period of time at the facility and then they give you an hour of transfer training, again at the controlled environment before sending you on your way. The moment you get home, everything goes back to the way it was before the training. That is because it was not transferred properly to you, the human.

Board and trains are like sending your child to weight loss camp. They will look good for a bit when they get home but the weight comes back on quickly if the parents didn’t learn how to reinforce and maintain what has been achieved at camp. If the Twinkies and video games come back instead of the new routine of riding your bike and eating veggies, then the weight comes back on quickly. It’s not a press of a button and your dog is fixed. A good board and train facility will teach you, the human, how to reintroduce yourself to your dog so your dog perceives you in a new way. In turn, the dog will start behaving in a new way as well. It’s all fine and dandy if the dog responds to the trainer, but you are paying for the dog to respond to you, the owner. A successful facility is not only good with dogs, but good with people as well.

A board and train will work if the dog is worked in real life scenarios as well as if the dog is transferred back to the humans and the environment where the behaviors were previously being exhibited. If the human learns how to reintroduce themselves to their dog properly so that the dog perceives them in a new way, then the dog will act in a new way as well. Perception modification to achieve behavior modification.

Most likely no. Everyone needs to learn how to re-introduce themselves to their dogs, but how it’s done doesn’t necessarily need to go through the Board and Train route. I recommend board and trains for clients that just want to send their dog off and get a trained dog back. Think of it as bringing your car to the shop and the mechanic fixes the engine. At the end of each Board and Train there are 3-4 days in a row of transfer training done in your environment where the said behaviors were previously exhibited; this is you learning how to care for and maintain the engine that was just fixed. If you don’t learn this part then you will “break the engine” again and it will be for nothing.

My other two programs address all behaviors without sending your dog away with a 95% success rate. The Intensive Training Weekend Program and my Virtual Guide Program will address everything from obedience to human aggression, dog aggression, anxieties and fears, as well as puppy training too.

My 94 year old grandma just learned how to use the iPad… Yes. An old dog can learn new tricks. They do have more previous associations built up, but they can learn new tricks. One of my favorite cases was getting a 14 year old dog off-leash reliable so he could run on the beach and really enjoy the last few years of his life. That was the only reason that owner came to me and it still makes me smile.