Zorya & I started Older Pup classes at Barb’s favorite place in Orlando. The first week you go to class dogless, which in my opinion is a waste of time and money. My purpose for attending this class is exposure to being inside a crowded building with multiple rings set up, tons of dogs, crazy handlers and noise!
First class night you are given the training manual. Apparently, it is up to you to figure out the lessons and then show up the next week and demonstrate what you’ve learned. A little odd, but that is not the point of this post! You are also STRONGLY encouraged to use a Head Halter on your dog. Almost all will comply to this request. Almost all…
Second class night and first with Zorya, we show up to class wearing our normal buckle collar. Three trainers gave me “that look” of distaste. One of the trainers comes up to me and says, “Where is your head halter?” “I’m not using one.” “WHY NOT? You MUST use a head halter!” “No, I must not.” “Why won’t you use one?” “Because my puppy is teething and I have no intention of putting anything on her muzzle. I don’t use head halters for training so I’m not using one here.” “WELL! You would have better control of her IF you used a head halter.” “I’m not worried about that.” This was within the first 5 minutes of being there. Next….
Time for loose lead walking. According to the manual, you walk backwards and your pup walks toward you as you are feeding it. There you go! Loose lead walking! Now it’s time to demo what we practiced at home. I get this very distasteful sounding, “Can YOU do THAT?” “I don’t see why not.” Zorya is in front of me, I proceed to walk backwards while dispensing treats. I have the lead held fairly short in my right hand, food in the left and Zorya is headed toward me. The instructor is damn near on top of us so Zorya became distracted by her as the woman is saying to me, “NO, YOU ARE DOING IT WRONG!” As she is saying this she is grabbing my lead. I said, “Please don’t touch my lead.” She didn’t like that. She said that I needed to hold the dog by the collar when I was doing this exercise and once again she grabbed my lead and this time grabbed at Zorya’s collar. “Please get your hands off my dog.”
This is an eight-week course. I’ve been to two classes. Are any of you taking bets that I am thrown out before our eight weeks are up? I have taught more classes than I can count but I have NEVER just grabbed someone’s lead or dog without asking permission.
On an up note, Zorya was great in class. She was more distracted than normal from viewing all the sights but nothing that she couldn’t cope with and she was still able to do her exercises, even without the almighty head halter. What pleased me the most was that she was EXCELLENT with all of the different breeds of dogs and people. Never once woofed or put her hackles up. Her big bro Kai is also in this class and even those two were good together.
My Money is on You!!! You go girl, way to protect your dog!
Personally, I wouldn’t put much faith in any “trainer” or curriculum that forces head halters on 100% of their canine students. I believe they can serve a purpose for some types of dogs, but most definitely not all. That seems to be indicative of a “know it all”, narrow mindset, which is usually detrimental to the proper development of your dog. Not to mention the relationship we all strive to build with our canine buddies. Good luck surviving the rest of the course!
Just think about this class as “proofing around distractions.”
This is my main purpose for attending. It is the perfect atmosphere for Zorya to get accustomed to all the activities that go on at an indoor trial.
It’s really too bad that some dog trainers have the attitude that there is only one method for teaching – it works no better for dogs than it does for children. Ekko did need a head halter for a while, Kirsch never did. Don’t compromise what you know is best for Zorya.
I can’t wait to hear about next week…..keep us posted!!
I am impressed you held your tongue. Maybe we should have a pool on how many more weeks before you teach the teacher?
I will try not to get thrown out of class because it really is good for Zorya. However, since this isn’t my first dog training adventure, I have no intention of letting anyone bully me into the “Must Have” gadget.
I am dealing with people who do not like GSDs. These are Border Collies, Goldens and Aussie people. Zorya and Kai were immediately assigned to the back corner—meanwhile it was an Aussie who was growling at other dogs.
What’s that expression from a few months ago? Oh yeah—it’s OK. “Honey Badger don’t give a shit.” 🙂
I assume you will need to bring a dirty spoon for heeling practice if i remember correctly from Syd’s classes LOL-maybe Berb can give you some pointers so you are ready.
Lisa, if I showed up with a wooden spatula, we would probably soar to the top of the class! I bet they’d even overlook the missing head halter.
That is not cool for the instructor to grab your lead or grab at the dog without asking your permission.
I agree! And she knew I was dead serious when I told her to get her hands off my dog.
I try to be a nice person. I try. However, I might have decked her had I been in your shoes, Carole.
Oh Carole, this is too funny!
We had a similar experience in Puppy K. From the first week the instructor (who we know) was trying to get everyone to use gentle leaders. We refused but she would bring up the subject every week. During “puppy play time” Aiden played like a German Shepherd. He was very rough and was constantly putting his mouth on the other puppies. This caused great concern with the other puppy owners so we kept him out of the play group. One week the instuctor insisted that if we used the gentle leader he could play with the other puppies. We allowed her to put one on him. He started making an awful grinding noise with his teeth which really bothered me. She said Aiden was fine and he would get used to it but I took it off and never used it again! Aiden is fine when we meet dogs in other situations but the chaos of so many puppies running around in a small area was just too much for Aiden.
It will be great blog entertainment—next week we are to bring two toys. Zorya is doing some major teething, so instead of using her ball, I’ll be pulling out the old squirrel. Wait until they get a load of THAT action! 🙂
I love this blog! I wish I could have seen you in action, Carole! While this is hilarious, it’s also so reassuring to see that so many others (many, like you, with far more experience) have had similar experiences with their dogs.
Dutch responded to the Gentle Leader just like Aiden did. On day one of Level I Obedience, the instructor brought out a box full of halters: we had to choose either the Gentle Leader or Easy Walk Harness. She decided the Gentle Leader was best for a GSD, and struggled to put it on Dutch. He ground his teeth and tried to pull it off. My husband was so upset – he couldn’t stand to see Dutch tortured so, and also thought it looked too much like a muzzle, making our sweet angel look like a dangerous dog. I asked her to watch how we work with the prong collar, and when she saw how easily he responded with the leash relaxed most of the time, she agreed to allow us to use it. However, any time we had any problems, she would say, “he would do much better with the head harness!”
There were several hyper dog-reactive dogs in that class. This was not puppy K. A couple of them were rescues. It was very challenging to keep Dutch focused on me when they were trying to fight among themselves, barking and lunging. While he never started the action, a few times he barked back aggressively, with hackles raised. This was nothing like at-home training. It was a tough class for me, but we needed to learn how to keep Dutch well-controlled in these kinds of situations. I must say that the instructor patiently gave everyone great training advice. She had three assistants, and we all received hands-on help with everything. I very much appreciated the fact that she compromised on the halter, and allowed us to use the prong collar.
At the end of the 8 weeks, the instructor told us that dog-reactivity problems in this class were the worst in all the years she had held this class. Even when all the dogs were settled, there was a golden retriever who barked almost incessantly, irritating everyone and making it hard to hear her.
I plan to take Dutch to Level II Obedience, but I’ve asked her to be sure that the class we enroll in has a better mix of dogs. She agreed completely, and will let me know when she has a suitable upcoming class.
Beverly the class situation you are describing would be hard for even an adult dog to handle, and certainly overwhelming for a puppy.
There is a place for head halters and they can make a big difference for some dogs, especially reactive or nervous dogs.
However, head halters, should not be just slapped on, the dog should slowly be conditioned to them. You start be holding the head halter up and feeding them treats through it then you slowly progress to having it part way on, treats, take off, repeat. etc.
Dutch seems to be selectively reactive. It seems that there are some dogs that really bring out a big reaction, while he can walk by others with almost no interest. I can’t really predict when or why that happens. We were walking downtown last week, and a man walking two medium poodles struggled to control them as they barked and lunged at Dutch as we passed each other. Dutch, miraculously, remained focused on me, as we walked by. Later, we passed a couple with a relatively quiet dog, and he pulled toward them. Is the head halter likely to help with that? I would have to try it alone with Dutch, because Scott is so adamantly opposed to them. But, I am the one training him, walking him, etc. He is so very good 99% of the time, but if he decides to really pull me I’m in trouble! He is already 80 pounds and very strong. You know that his father could probably tug a truck!!!
oh boy, I have so many stories like this! Just a few weeks ago, I took Batty to a small group class with our trainer, just us, two other GSDs, and a few of the dogs that the trainer was boarding to use as bait — I mean, um, distractions. He did GREAT. The other GSDs were reactive at times, but Batman had no problems throughout the 90 minute session. I was SO proud of him.
A few hours later, we went on a walk at home. I had him in a sit, about 6′ off the path. A dobie walks by and Batman goes berserk. I had to wrestle him like a bear in order to get him to stop lunging and growling. When it was finally over, I took a deep breath, looked at him, and thought, “Jerk!”
The trainer showed me how to use dominant dog dollar, which is a slip choke collar. I use the prong collar as his main walking around collar, but if he starts to growl or raise his hackles or show signs of aggression, I pull up slowly and firmly on the dominant dog collar. I’m basically cutting off his air supply until he calms down. Timing is everything. If I catch him at the very beginning, the correction lasts 2-3 seconds, and the other dog owner doesn’t even notice. If I don’t catch him until he’s already in a frenzy, it takes longer and is a much more traumatic process for me — it kills me to have to rely on force to stop him, but it’s my responsibility to keep him from harming other dogs, even when the other dog “started it.”
Luckily, Batman gets the message pretty quickly, and responds quickly to the pressure of the collar. He knows he can’t go after those other dogs because I will be all over him, so he often chooses to ignore them. But we are still working on it.
One thing I’ve noticed is, he tends to aggress more around our neighborhood and in our building’s common areas. I think it’s a territorial thing, and plan to work with our trainer to break that habit.
Carole…I give you two more weeks before you’re kicked out. I’ll bet you a bottle of wine 😉
Carole, you are the best! What is up with people handling your dog without permission?! Would you go up to someone else’s kid in daycare and physically discipline them? I don’t think so. It’s just bad manners.
I’m sure the head halters work for some dogs, but they’re not a magical cure-all for every dog. People need to mind their own damn business!
There is not one type of collar that is the magic cure-all. Use what works best for your dog. One of the students had been using the Easy Walk Harness on her little dog and she was told NO. Why not? Little Pebbles the Pug was a pulling machine for her young handler so I ordered an Easy Walk Harness—whatever works.
Julie brought up an excellent point about using the head halters. They can’t just be slapped on. The dog must be introduced to it gradually. Otherwise, you get that pawing and pitching a fit thing. And actually, I have used a head halter on Tina the Terror.
Oh my goodness Carole, what a welcome post! That was hilarious! Not sure how I missed it before, but glad I was browsing older posts. You are sending me to bed with a grin on my face!
It will be interesting to see what tonight brings as we are currently going through the “I don’t hear you” stage. 🙂
The sisters must be in sync. Ziva is at the “did I ever hear that word before stage”-granted it is for more difficult commands, like sit, stay and down. She looks at me like I have suddenly started speaking in a foreign language when I tell her to do something.