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You are about to let somebody influence how your dog is handled. You are entitled to know exactly what that involves before you decide — including the parts that are debated.
We use rewards to teach and build behaviour, and we use fair, clearly-communicated consequences to hold it under pressure. We are not going to describe that in softer language than it deserves. If a trainer will not tell you plainly what they do, that is worth noticing.
A dog cannot be held to a standard it was never taught. Every protocol starts with the behaviour being taught somewhere easy, then generalised deliberately to harder places. Most "disobedience" we are called about is a behaviour that was never actually generalised.
The first thing we usually change is not the dog. It is leash tension, position, timing, and what the person does in the ten seconds before the thing happens. That is the part video teaches well, and it is the part most owners were never shown.
Where a tool is used we name it, show it fitted correctly, and explain the conditioning that has to happen first. A tool introduced without that conditioning is where most harm in this industry comes from.
Not every dog needs every tool, and plenty need none of them beyond a leash. What follows is what may be used and under what conditions.
The default for most of the teaching work. A long line is how off-leash reliability gets built safely, long before anything comes off.
Used for leash pressure and communication on some dogs, fitted high and correctly, after the dog has been conditioned to what the pressure means. Not used as a correction device on an unconditioned dog.
Used at working levels the dog perceives but that are not painful, conditioned as a communication channel rather than an interruption, and introduced only after the behaviour is already understood on a long line. This is the tool people are most worried about, which is exactly why we show the conditioning process rather than just the finished result.
A safety and welfare tool, conditioned properly so the dog is comfortable in it. A muzzled dog is a dog that gets to keep going out.
If you have decided you do not want a particular tool used with your dog, say so. It is your dog. Most of what we teach does not depend on any of them, and we would rather work within your line than have you quietly walk away.
Buck's Dog Training is a training business before it is a publisher. Owners bring us dogs and pay us to keep them for weeks at a time — including dogs they are close to giving up on. Our trainers work those dogs every day and hand them back to families who then have to live with the result.
That is the difference in this library. It is not a curriculum written for a camera with a cooperative demo dog on a good day. It is the protocol our trainers use on hard dogs, taught by the people using it.
There is a real facility, with kennels and staff, in Mullica Hill, New Jersey. You can come and look at it.
Crossing the street to avoid other dogs. Dreading the walk.
Read morePerfect at home, deaf on a walk. A recall that works only when it doesn’t matter.
Read moreBiting, potty training, and a window everyone says matters.
Read morePanics when left alone. The crate, the door, the damage.
Read moreCome and watch how we work, or tell us about your dog and we'll tell you honestly whether this is something you can do at home.
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