Doggie "Boot Camp" recommendations?
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Anonymous
| Looking for a doggie "boot camp" for our 10 month old dog. I have heard about programs where you send your dog away for a month or something and they come back trained. Any thoughts or recommendations much appreciated. We are at our wits end. Thanks in advance. |
Anonymous
| Haha. If you lived in LA, maybe Cesar Milan would have taken you on. I think he quit the show though. As far as I know he's the only one. I wouldn't trust anyone other than Cesar to use Cesar's "bootcamp" methodology. In the wrong hands it can become abuse. |
Anonymous
| Agree with PP. And I think part of the training is training the dog owner not just the dog. |
Anonymous
| You don't get a trained dog unless you train it. Go to class with your dog---also, this next few months is the worst and then it gets better.... |
Anonymous
| It's abuse at Cesar's hand too. |
Anonymous
I agree - you cannot just outsource this. It is about your dog AND you. |
Anonymous
| OP here -- we are at the point where, if this dog isn't trained (and soon), we will have to give him away. He just does wayyyy too much barking, pulling, and & jumping on people. It has gotten out of hand. We need this behavior to change, and fast. So I will ask again....anyone know of anyone who will do this? We already do go to obedience classes with our dog, and are trying (mostly in vain) to train him ourselves. I just feel like we've gotten to the point where we need a professional to take over. |
Anonymous
| A couple of years ago, I looked into this. Someone affiliated with the Capital Dog Training Center (CDTC) in Silver Spring recommended Jerusha Gerwin <jerushag@mac.com>. I am not sure of all the details, but you may consider contacting her. |
Anonymous
Whatever, crazy. Dogs are not people. That is the cornerstone of Cesar's behavior modification. Stop thinking that your dog has "guilt or shame or holds a grudge or is selfish" or any of the nuanced human emotions that you think "afflict them". Cesar modifies humans to adapt to the dog's way of thinking. As it should be. |
Anonymous
|
Check out the Impulse Control class at Furget Me Not. http://www.furgetmenot.com/dogTrainingSpecialty.htm
How much exercise is your dog getting? Here are some places, but I know nothing about them: http://www.dogtrainerva.com/ http://www.k9trainers.com/virginia.htm |
Anonymous
|
1. Get a no pull harness.
2. Only acknowledge the dog when his feet are on the ground. 3. Don't leave him alone out in the yard. Seriously, all of these are easy. If you didn't think it was cute when it was a pup, it wouldn't be common behaviour now. |
Anonymous
|
OP, I am going to be direct and suggest that you should find the dog a new home now, while it is young and still has a chance, and not mess around with this idea. It will end up costing you a lot and you will not get the results you desire.
Dogs are sentient beings that respond to their environment. You cannot send them away to be "fixed." Even if you try this, your dog will revert to its old habits once it is back in your home because a dog's behavior correlates to its environment. I speak from experience; my family tried this with a dog we owned when I was a kid. It was a dream with its trainer, but went right back to its old behavior with us because it only respected the trainer, not us. Ultimately my we had to do the hard work ourselves, with the trainer's help, to solve the problem. Your dog is 10 months old. That is still a puppy. These types of behaviors are normal but it takes months and months of consistent training and behavioral modification on your part to break. What you do matters a lot. You can "train" your dog all day long, but if you don't give it enough exercise it will not behave. If you do a training "session" but then go on to reward bad behavior with attention, it will continue to behave badly. If you allow your kids to rough house with the dog and get it all worked up and then yell at it, it will not behave. If you are constantly losing your shit and yelling at your dog after the fact, it will not behave. If the dog pulls on the leash, you need to stop and make it sit, wait for it to be calm, and then proceed. Every. Single. Time. With our dog it took six months of stop and go walks, 3 times a day, every day rain or shine, before she finally got the hang of it. This is the reality check. This is what it will take for a young, energetic, excitable dog. Like many many dog owners, you clearly didn't understand what you were getting yourself into when you got a puppy and are now having buyer's remorse. If you aren't able to put in the time and effort to learn about dogs and give the dog the time and attention it needs, and you aren't prepared to live with its bad behaviors, then you are not meant to be a dog owner, simple as that. I write this not to be critical. Obviously you are in a bad situation and are looking to make it better. But there is no quick fix, so you need to commit or jump ship. |
Anonymous
| Old Town School for Dogs in Alexsndria has some pretty intensive training options which also include working with the owners to reinforce what they do with the dogs. It's not cheap, but gets good reviews. |
Anonymous
Those are strange assumptions to make about me. I used to love Cesar until every dog trainer I talked to shuddered at his name. Positive reinforcement methods are the gold standard these days. Cesar's like a cut-rate plastic surgeon with no medical training or license operating out of a strip mall in Vegas or something. |
Anonymous
New poster here. As someone who has had great success with Caesar's methods and who has also worked with dog trainers (good and bad), I am wondering what specifically about his methods you object to. I view what Caesar does as fundamentally different to what trainers do. He is not focused on sit, stay, down, that kind of thing, but more on how to "be" with a dog, if you will. I know some of his methods are controversial, but on the fundamentals he seems very sound and also I thing most dog trainers will agree with them. For example: 1. Exercise. He is a huge proponent that dogs must get adequate exercise or they will not behave. Do you disagree with this? In my experience, my dogs' behavior is 100% related to the amount of exercise they get. 2. Having a "calm assertive" energy. This has been huge for me. Recognizing that I am in control and can interact with my dog in a calm way is key. You notice Caesar never yells, gets excited, etc. Instead he is patient, calm and in charge, and advocates for dog owners to have a similar demeanor. He is very adamant that you cannot be "assertive" without also being "calm." Do you disagree with this? 3. Setting rules, boundaries and limitations. This is another cornerstone of his methods. Setting aside the methods by which you enforce rules, boundaries and limitations, do you disagree with this as a concept? Have you ever met a dog trainer who does? 4. Positive reinforcement. I have never seen Caesar spray water at a dog, hit a dog with force, or otherwise do anything that looked to me to be injurious to a dog. I see that there are three possible exceptions. First, I have seen him use a shock collar in rare circumstances, and he also does his "bite" touch on dogs, and finally he makes his trademark "tsssh" (NO) sound. I will get to these two topics in a moment, but will say that he DOES use positive reinforcement methods. For example, his "no touch no talk no eye contact" rule is positive reinforcement. In other words, your dog only gets attention (a reward in itself) when it is not jumping all over you and being crazy. Do you think ignoring an excited dog's bad behavior is wrong? I also view his rule about not letting a dog pull you out the door on a walk as positive reinforcement. That is, the dog gets the reward (walk) when it is calm and ready to follow your lead. Same thing with waiting calmly to be fed. This works beautifully with my dogs. I ask them to sit and wait while I pour their food in the bowl, and wait for my signal to eat. This is a positive reinforcement. Dog behaves calmly, dog gets fed. Do you specifically disagree with any of these methods and if so, why? 5. Controlling space. I don't see how this harms the dog and it works very well. Trainers have not helped me cure my dogs of barking out the window at passing dogs. What has worked is me getting between the dogs and the window and "claiming" the space. The dogs settle down, and I don't have to say a word or touch them. Once they do, I praise them and all is well. Do you disagree with this method and why? Onto the areas for which he is criticized. I'll start with the least controversial to the most: 1. "Tsssh" sound. I think it is fine to tell a dog "no." Positive reinforcement does not mean you can never tell a dog no. I've had trainers who don't like Casear say, "of course you can say "NU-UH" in a stern tone to your dog when you see them about to do something naughty." I don't see how you can train a dog without saying no. For example, when one of my dog's starts nosing around the cat food dish, all it takes is one stern "HEY" from me to make him slink away. You can't, for example, clicker train my dog NOT to eat the cat's food. Maybe there is a way but I can't think of it, and the "HEY" works really well and doesn't seem to harm my dog. Wondering what you think of this? 2. The "bite" touch. I'll grant that if done incorrectly this could be bad, but then you are not following Caesar's method properly. But Caesar always points out that this is not hurting the dog but is rather a way to gain its attention. I guess you either believe him on this point or you don't, and maybe that's where the controversy lies. To me it never looks like he is hurting a dog. I have noticed that dogs do not respond to sounds the way they respond to touch. And he is correct that the dogs at the dog park DO use physical touch to "correct" each other. Finally, he uses this technique in instances where pure positive reinforcement doesn't seem to be effective, like when a dog is very ratcheted up and aggressive. 3. The shock collar. He seems to reserve this for extreme cases where the owner could not otherwise communicate with a dog and the dog was in danger otherwise (like a farmer with a tractor chasing dog) or for violent aggressive dogs that were on the verge of being put down. Are you ok with using this kind of method in these situations, particularly where positive reinforcement has failed? I'd genuinely like to hear your views. As I said, I've used C's methods with great success and have never felt like I was mean to or harming my dogs. I also feel like there is a huge overlap between what he says and what trainers say so I wonder why the animosity. |