Ty The Dog Guy On The Daily

It’s gorgeous here in Utah—75 degrees, clear sky, no wind—and easily the nicest day we’ve had all year. Up in the Northeast, though, they have a huge storm coming in. Some places are getting upwards of three feet of snow.

It’s Saturday evening. I’m dirty, sore, tired—and fulfilled! That’s unusual. If you know me at all, you know that I despise manual labor. I always joke that I’m the hardest working lazy man you’ll ever meet. I don’t mind getting a leash in my hand and working with dogs, but other manual tasks like mowing the lawn and fixing stuff around the house just aren’t my cup of tea. But that’s what I’ve been doing all day.

I opened up my email today and saw a question from a person looking for advice. “My dog is six months old and he’s starting to get aggressive. Do you think he’ll grow out of it?” My very frank response was “No, he’ll probably grow into it.” My experience suggests that he’ll start to do it more frequently.

One thing I’m fond of telling people is that calmness is a skill set. A big pet peeve of mine is when people say: “Oh, just wait until the dog gets older. He’ll calm down.” What they’re saying is that calmness is a product of age, and that a dog just needs to get older to naturally calm down. There are two problems with this logic, the first being that it’s just wrong. Plenty of ten-year-old dogs are still very hyper.However, even if this logic is correct, it means that you have to wait years to really enjoy your dog. That’s why I try to help people understand that calmness is a skill, and that it can be learned and taught.

A few years ago I had a client with a Doberman. We were talking about training and commands, and I gave it a “sit” command in English. They said, “Oh no, we’re going to train the dog in German.” I’ve trained hundreds of dogs in German over the years, so I had no problem with that. But when I asked them why they wanted to train in German, they just said “Well, she’s a Doberman.” By their tone of voice I could tell that they were surprised I was even asking. “She’s from Germany originally,” they told me, “which means she’ll understand German commands better naturally.”

I’ve been teaching dogs to heel on the left for twenty years, and if a dog is trained on the right I get awkward. I always joke that you get used to putting your pants on with the same leg first every single day. Try doing it the other way tomorrow! It feels weird. For me, that’s the same feeling I get when a dog heels to the right side.

In this post, I’d like to talk about the role that exercise plays in making sure your dog is well-trained. This stems from a question that I’ve received a lot over the years, thanks to a certain dog trainer named Cesar Milan.

Today I want to talk about dogs that take advantage of their owners. This has been on my mind because I’m working with an owner who has cancer and is physically weakened as a result. In a possible correlation, he’s seen behavior problems and boundary-pushing popping up in his dog.

Today, I spent some time in my backyard with my dog Chocolate Chip and a Belgian Malamute who’s staying at my house to be trained as a personal protection dog. Needless to say, there was a lot of growling involved. So I thought I’d take a few minutes to talk about growling and what it means.

I’ve found that among dog trainers, as in any skill-based profession, there are a lot of disagreements. This arguments tend to revolve around methodology and identification of problems. Some trainers are adamant that one training method is the best, while others will swear that another is ideal. I’ve realized in the past few years that if a dog trainer is trying to achieve a certain goal with a dog, then the training program that they put together toward that goal is probably the correct one.

Lately I’ve been working a lot with Sword, a protection dog in training. Protection dogs are a big investment, usually around $20,000 to $50,000. Today we were working on Sword’s sit command. He often understands this command to mean sitting at someone’s side, but right now I want to train him to sit in front of me. Right now he gets confused and tries to sit at my side, so I’m teaching him to sit where I ask him to sit.

I want to talk to for a minute your about how your dog’s breed learns. Very frequently, dog owners will ask me, “Have you ever dealt with this breed before?” Sometimes I chuckle when it’s a very common breed. You’d be surprised at how many people have asked me if I’ve ever trained a German Shepherd, for instance. My response? “Well, not since twenty minutes ago!”

I flew back to Georgia last Thursday to buy some service and protection dogs for my clients. The trip was planned with very short notice. Now, I’m a planner who likes to plan things with as much notice as is possible, partially because I’m a big guy who likes to sit in an aisle or window seat. What I never, ever want is the middle seat.

training is just one component of your dog’s overall behavior. It might be the most important component at some times, but it isn’t always. I’ve never made an exhaustive list of every component that I can think of, but you need to consider things like nutrition, exercise, relationship with the owner, supervision, and the amount of affection the dog is getting. Some of these things are directly related to training quite a bit; the better a dog walks on a leash, for example, the easier it is to exercise them.

Today I’m going to talk about your dog playing you for a fool. It happens all the time, and there are a lot of dogs that are smart enough for it. Experts say that 90% of communication is nonverbal, and I totally believe that to be true. I think we as people learn nonverbal cues from others, and we don’t often recognize it. That’s still a big part of how we communicate. Dogs are the same: most of their communication, and most of their understanding of our communication, is nonverbal. They see patterns within our movements and words and interpret them. That allows us to train them, but it’s also what allows them to play us for fools sometimes.

I was truly fascinated by that. I know not everyone comes from a dog family—in fact, I didn’t come from a dog family—and that not everyone wants to be around dogs. But to meet someone who hadn’t touched a dog in so many years seemed strange and unique to me. Because this client was so allergic and hadn’t been able to be around dogs, she had developed a fear of them. She was from an area that is very dog-friendly, so there were always dogs everywhere. That was scary for her. So she overcome this fear with her dog had been tough. Her puppy was sweet, but very nippy. That just fed her fear even more.

In today’s post, I want to talk about something difficult: your stubborn dog! I’ve been thinking about this topic a lot because Facebook was kind enough to show me a memory of a quote that I shared three or four years ago: “In order for a dog to be considered stubborn, he must first know what the rule is and then actively choose to disobey it. There are very few stubborn dogs in this world, but there are a lot of untrained dogs.”

The other day I heard some barking in my backyard. I live in a very unique neighborhood. In the small block that I live on, there are about fifteen houses. Out of all those houses, my family is the only one that owns dogs. Nowhere else in America will you see fifteen houses in a row, only one of which has a dog! It’s crazy.

I want to talk about leadership. This is one of those concepts that a lot of people realize they need to do better, particularly in relation to their dogs. Unfortunately, some of these people end up practicing that only looks like leadership. Some of them just try to look tougher, some say things in a deeper voice, and some attempt to appear meaner or “more alpha.” These terms that come to mind when people think about leadership.

Today, I’d like to talk about a slightly unusual topic: laser pointers. Around the beginning of my business, I got a call from an owner who had three Boston terriers. They were one of the first clients that I had while working on my own. On the phone, they told me that their dogs chased lights, shadows, and other moving light disturbances. If cars driving down the road cast a shadow, for instance, the dogs would chase after it barking maniacally. When someone opened a door, the dogs would see the reflection on the wall and freak out.