A lot of us know what it is like to not have a job for a period of time. We get lazy, cranky, and don’t understand why people get upset with us when we don’t do what people think we ought to do. The same is true for dogs. Dogs need a job to be completely happy and fulfilled. A life living day-to-day in just a kennel without much interaction with people and other dogs can make for some tough training. This is the story of Goose, who now has a job and has made a complete turnaround after being “on-the-shelf” for two years.
 For the past three months, I have been training a two-year old Labrador Retriever named Goose. Goose has been kenneled for most of his life, and his owner has not had much time to spend with him. Thus, Goose had no manners and thought the world revolved around him. When I first met Goose and started training him, we would have a session where everything went great, and then another session where he was constantly trying to dominate me by peeing on my leg. Since he had been left alone for so long, he thought he was the alpha dog and that everything was subordinate to him. He tried the leg pee once too often and wound up on his back with me breathing down his neck. I only had to do this one more time and he was cured of trying to pee anywhere except where I gave him explicit permission. This trait and the fact that this dog did not seem happy made the initial obedience training difficult, and I thought this dog might be a lost cause. I couldn’t get any reaction that he was happy about working.Well, Goose and I started working on his basic obedience skills and as he progressed in his learning of those skills we started throwing fun bumpers. At first, he could care less about the bumpers flying through the air for him. I thought at that time that he did not have any desire to retrieve. As we went through force fetch his attitude started changing. He started firing out at bumpers thrown and he looked a lot happier doing his job. This was a major breakthrough from a dog that I thought didn’t have the desire to hunt and chase.
When I first started training him, a great obedience trainer reminded me that he was physically two years old but mentally I needed to treat him like a six month old. I slowed down and added patience to my repertoire because you couldn’t scold this dog since he had no mental images of what was expected from him. I slowly created mental images of proper obedience and then progressed to force fetch. Finally, we made it all the way to field work and basic marks in all types of cover. We haven’t progressed to lining drills yet because it took a while to build his confidence and momentum. Building momentum helps the dog overcome obstacles in his training regimen.
At two years old, this dog has a great opportunity to become one great dog. It still will take him longer to understand what his owner expects from him. But, Goose from start until now has become a completely different dog in that he is happier with his job and the play associated. The lesson from this dog is that it is never too late to recover from a lack of training as long as you are patient.
|
