Unneutered males

And of course my big question is WHY??
People usually give three reasons for not neutering.
One. It costs too much.
Two. It will change their personality or its mean - or my husband won't let me.
Three. I want to breed.

To me, none of those are good excuses.


There are spay/neuter programs. You can get it done cheaply if you make an effort. My opinion also is, if you can't afford a dog, don't get a dog. Shots, food, grooming, equipment, training and spay/neuter are all costs of owning a dog. I don't have as many dogs as I would like because I can't afford it. Part of being an adult - postponing gratification till you can afford it.


Husbands can be funny about neutering. Doesn't bother them at all to get a female spayed - but you go messing with the important things! Well, now, you've done quit preaching and gone to meddling, as they say.
I'm good with dogs - human males, not so much. And personally, I've not noticed neutering changing personalities at all - the occasional mellowing - but. It does ease frustration. It stops a lot of hormones from coursing into their.....brains..... And honestly, I think its meaner not to - think of it - all that need rushing to parts that can not be used! How mean is that?? (remember being a teenager?? whoa baby!)


Breeding. Don't breed. Just don't do it. Do you have any idea how many tons of dogs are put to sleep in your home town because they have no homes?? The world does not need your dog's offspring. Especially not needed is puppies from your dog with biting and aggression issues.
If you are not a professional breeder - don't breed. No. Stop. Quit even thinking about it.


Tonight is my Aggressive dog class. Lots of testosterone floating around in there. So far I've not talked any of them into neutering. But I've got weeks yet to discuss it. And I shall - oh, yes, I shall.

Intermediate class

A few months ago, I started to Follow a Class. We went eight weeks with a crazy fun puppy class.
Thursday night I'm starting what looks to be a VERY exciting Intermediate class I'm going to follow along with here.
So far signed up are two goldens (both named Riley oddly enough),

a bloodhound, a sheltie, a gorgeous buff cocker, and a couple more.
Intermediate class focuses on the three D's of dog training - distance, duration, and distraction. We add all those in to the basic commands of sit, stay, come, leave, drop, take.
Heel work is a very fun focus. Sit stay while another dog heels around is a challenge in intermediate class. I also like to teach 'finish' - where you call your dog to come and they end up sitting at your left side in heel position. People think you are brilliant if your dog does that.
One thing I add into my intermediate class is tricks. I teach a trick a week. Just because its fun and I can.

The other thing I do is more intensive focus on the needs of the class. "I don't want my dog to charge out the front door" or "He's Got to stop jumping on the furniture" and we play with all the techniques I know to change these disliked behaviors.

I'm going to have a blast playing with this class and my new camera!
Follow along with me!
Enjoy!

(nah, it has nothing to do with anything. I just liked the picture!)

Follow a class

Week six classes include teaching tricks - shake hands, ring the bell. We practice the loose leash walking/sit for greeting out on the floor. We work on leave it, take it, and one thing people always find very interesting is I show off equipment.
Now my methods of loose leash walking will work. Really. On almost any dog. I teach several different ways, several different methods of reminding your dog you aren't the sled to their sled dog envy. Pull Pull Pull!

So, while the people I work for really like ONLY buckle collars, harnesses and products by Premier - I show the other stuff too. I figure, we sell it, its a tool, if they are going to be used, I'd rather they be used properly.
We get out all the fun toys - the Gentle Leaders, the Easy Walk Harnesses, the Halti's, the comfort wrap harness, the choke chain
(by any other name...) and the pinch collar. We try on all of these on as many different dogs as the owners will allow.
Sometimes I get entire classes who see the pinch collar and stand up, wave their arms wildly and say "ME ME ME! Try it on MINE!!" Other classes will look at it and give a collective shudder.
Even the people with the teeny tiny dogs whose feet I know never hit ground unless its in class, all watch with great fascination.

I remind them that none of them 'teach' the dog anything, they are only tools to use until the dog understands. A hammer does not teach, its a tool. A tire iron blender doesn't teach, it too is a tool. Useful. Helpful. But not teachers.

Class Happenings

Tonight is week five of our puppy class. I'm having such a good time with this class - I've been teaching here for almost three years now and when I look back over my paperwork I usually remember most of the dogs. Sometimes I pull out a class roster and I just smile all over. Some classes have a chemistry that 'gells'. I will tell these classes about week six, 'I'm not letting you graduate!' just because I enjoy them so much. There are other classes of course, that I go 'whew!' when they are done, but honestly, not many. Most are fun, most are very enjoyable, but all end at eight weeks.
Some people go on to train more, others come see me in the store, email me, keep in touch and others I never see or hear from again. Very sad. I've been giving people my email address along with my business card, and I'm thinking I'm almost ready to start giving out my blog address. Gulp! Scary thought! But - hopefully I will have some good information on here at some point for people. Or, at least entertain.

Last week in class we did the start of 'find it' by doing the hide the treat in your hand thing.

We also did a combination of come with leave which I always enjoy a LOT
-toys and treats! Leave the food! Leave the kitty! Leave the other dogs!! Come Come! Funny funny!

We worked on stay and we did push ups. I love puppy pushups - and so do the puppies. I never have been able to figure out why they like them - because if you had ever done them, you would realize, they are No fun at ALL!!

Puppy class

Week three of puppy class, and all are going strong! I'm extremely pleased with this class - everyone has goals, everyone is motivated, everyone is having fun!
The Chihuahua's mommy told me that she had to change her goal - she thought her little one was dog aggressive, and I duly noted that on my sheet. Well, turns out, she discovered, we are only dog aggressive on the leash. If off leash, then, we seem to be just fine. I have to wonder if he's feeling the tension from the other side of the leash. Did you know current and emotion travel down quite easily and quickly via that conduit?
Tis true.
We worked on down in class last night. Too funny! I had two of 8 puppies who already knew how to down. I picked a boxer pup to demo with thinking 'easy!' Sometimes I get overconfident in my abilities - in that class, I should have picked the doxie baby. Boxer baby did his imitation of Stubborn Boy very very well! I only got him to down twice and I'm pretty sure his folks didn't at all. Down can be tricky to learn in class.
Sometimes our puppies just Won't with our positive techniques for a bit. I tell people I like them to figure it out for themselves, and that way I know they know. (In another post I'll share a few other techniques for down if the 'sit, then lure' doesn't work for you.)

We did some loose leash walk techniques. We worked on leave it, and did a come game. Worked on some problem solving - my mouthy mini bull terrier was Much better last night, tho I'm seeing some signs of dog aggression we must keep an eye on. Housebreaking seemed to be better, overall, with the techniques I shared.

My funny from last night - Stubborn Boxer's Daddy said 'we were talking last night and we want to know if its okay to record you?"
I asked, 'think you are going to forget how to do something or??"
He said, "No, we want you to say 'sit' and 'come' and 'walk' because he does it for your voice and he won't for us at all!"
Laughing - don't think its the sound of my particular voice that does it.......

Goals!

My puppy class set goals last night. I love goal setting. Its always good to have a plan. How do you know where you are going if you don't have a map?? Now we have a map.
One of the challenges of dog training, puppy training, is everyone knows what they don't want. "I don't want him to jump on me when I come home." "I don't want her to charge out the door when I open it." I always say "what do you want her to do instead of charging out the door?"
It is very hard for puppies to understand "DO NOTHING!!" If you give them a replacement behavior to do, the re training goes much faster. Puppies usually do what works. They jump on people, and people either pet and praise "aren't you cute!" or they go "Stop it, get down, quit!" while shoving away. Either way puppy gets attention, and negative attention is still attention.

Our goals for this class are pretty normal ones - this will be a good class to follow along with and see how we are solving most of these behaviors.
We have two very shy puppies. They need socialization and they also need to be able to focus when nervous. Given other behaviors to do. I messed up last night and didn't notice one of the puppy moms comforting her baby during class when puppy hid under the chair. I will remedy that Immediatly in the next class. Cooing to puppy 'its okay, its all right, don't be scared' translates to puppy 'good baby, that's just how I want you to act'. Which is NOT what people think they are saying.

So - some of the goals for this class. Come when called. Ouch - that puppy mouthing isn't so cute anymore and is starting to hurt! Stay please. Pay attention to me despite all the much more interesting things in the world. Lets walk Nicely on the leash. Make him stop peeing in my house!!!!!

One lady asked 'can you make him like riding in the car?' I said yeah, but not in this class.
But! Will see what I can do for her.
This is going to be a GREAT class.

Class goals

One thing I always ask each of my classes is 'what do you want??" And I tell them to think about this. It can be very personal. My dog is allowed on my furniture, in bed with me to cuddle at night and it does not bother me at all when he runs around and around the house like a wild thing.
For some reason this does seem to bother many people. Not sure why - but I've had to reassure many people that what their puppy is doing is Just a release of energy and is Not the sign of extreme mental illness.
One thing that does bother me and that my dog is not allowed to do, is to go out the front door without an invitaion. We wait at the door. We do not charge the door, and when people come in, we sit to greet them. Well, most of the time!

So when we go back to class, one thing I'll be asking for is goals. How do you want your dog to be acting, behaving, doing, not doing at the end of this eight week class??
Most people have about the same goals - I want him/her to come when called, walk nicely on the leash, Please make him stop peeing in my house! I don't want puppy nipping or children herding. Only a few barks when the door bell rings, and stop when I ask.
How hard can those BE???
I will share this particuliar classes goals when they make them - and we will find out how hard much hard work we have ahead of us!

First night

Oh did we have fun last night - my new class is going to be a good one. While technically a puppy class, I do have two older dogs. A papillion and a chihuahua both with major socialization issues. We will work on those.



The other dogs include two golden retriever puppies, a very handsome boxer baby, a perfect little sheltie, a most adorable long hair black dauschund and miniature bull terrier. 8 dogs. Not bad.



In their first class I talk quite a little bit.I always say sorry for that - but it gives the people some time to calm down - they are always nervous and it lets the puppies calm down too.
I try to find out some of their issues - we are all having housebreaking issues, it seems so I'll be touching on that a lot.
We allowed the puppies to socialize some, and did a few basic things. Watch me - sit, one come game, some problem solving.
I'll be chatting more about my goals for this class and their goals more in my next post.

New class!

I'm starting a new puppy class tonight. I love puppy class. Its my favorite. Well, sort of. What is cuter than a pile of new puppies?

I say the biggest difference between puppy class and beginner class is that in puppy class people come in cradling their new baby cooing 'isn't he the cutest thing ever in the history of things??"


and they come, dragged, into beginner class, teeth gritted complaining "make him STOP!!!!".

But then, beginner class is where you see the biggest change "finally! he quit! He stopped! He won't! he doesn't ANYMORE! YAY!!!" Beginner class parents are often more motivated than puppy class. "She doesn't have to if she doesn't want to! She can get by on her charm and good looks!" Yeah, that works for a while.

Of course, I like private lessons, too. You, me and whatever it is you want to do. A man with a gorgeous german shepherd came in once "make him stop eating my toilet paper!" That was it. His only issue.......and shutting the bathroom door did not seem an option for a reason I could never figure out. A lady came in with a lab puppy and three adorable young girls "they can't walk him down the street". By the time class was over, they could.

BUT! Puppy class tonight! I'll be following this class in my blog - no names, just breeds and what happens. Watch and learn along with us!