# Ins and outs of training dogs, teaching people



## Skylar (Jul 29, 2016)

Well I'm not surprised - people lie to themselves, we all lie to ourselves. We make well-intentioned plans that we don't follow through on. When that woman told you her husband would be primarily responsible - she was telling you what she hoped and maybe planned, and perhaps what her husband hoped and planned. Obviously not the reality. You can't take it personally. It would be helpful if people were straightforward and honest, it would make your job easier, but it's unrealistic.

In my limited experience, I discovered that trainers are part psychologists, whether they are aware of it or not. 

However it can be a hard and even dangerous job if you have people lying or in denial about the biting behavior of their dog.

I do think that there is a need to vent about problems you encounter with students - after all we all need to release frustration from time to time, and poodle forum is the perfect place for that.


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## lily cd re (Jul 23, 2012)

Skylar you are so spot on regarding that part psychologist concept. Of course at my main gig at the college I also have to be a sometime individual counselor and full time group psychologist to manage my students and the class environment.

On top of her husband only having come once I think they have a trip planned and I know neither of them will be in class for week 4 and I'm not sure about week 5 either. 

I have had other dogs try to take chunks out of me before, but so far I have a perfect record on not being bitten by other peoples' dogs.


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## Skylar (Jul 29, 2016)

I think you probably see a variety of people taking beginning classes - ranging from those who plan to continue into sports, therapy dog etc. training, to those who are serious about training their dog with the basics, to those who sign up and don't care, don't show up and then wonder why their dog has problems.


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## lily cd re (Jul 23, 2012)

Skylar said:


> I think you probably see a variety of people taking beginning classes - ranging from those who plan to continue into sports, therapy dog etc. training, to those who are serious about training their dog with the basics, to those who sign up and don't care, don't show up and then wonder why their dog has problems.



Yes to all of the above.


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## oshagcj914 (Jun 12, 2016)

People want the results without all the work - they think if they show up to class once a week, their dog will magically be well-behaved. I see the same thing with many of my patients. They think 2 hours a week of working on their home program will fix their problems, and it won't :/ I tell people there are 168 hours in a week - you see me for 2, so what you do in the other 166 is more important. And people lie to their doctors, nurses, and therapists all the time...like it'll actually gain them something instead of just making it harder to help them! Drives me crazy. 

Lily, do you ever have people muzzle their dogs in your class if they've tried to bite? I work in home care and we have a new pet policy that pets must be in a crate, another room, or physically restrained by someone away from the treatment area while we're in the home, but before that we had several employees who were bitten by patients' dogs :/


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## ericwd9 (Jun 13, 2014)

Most all dogs are easy to train. Most all humans are difficult to train. I have been responsible for training both, apart and together. Give me the dog any-day.

In another post recently I quipped, that with the current advances in gene splicing, one could splice standard poodle genes with human genes and improve the human genome.

Hoomadoodle anyone?

Eric


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## lily cd re (Jul 23, 2012)

oshagcj914 we don't have a requirement for muzzles on dogs that have tried to bite. We have made decisions on not allowing certain dogs (and by extension people) to come to the facility at all, but of course when that happens then nothing good moves forward for the dog. Those situations have been very rare and the circumstances pretty out of the ordinary. For example a GSD went after a steward at a trial last year. The dog actually was in utility A but the handler is a space cadet and she disconnected from him and he engaged hard eyes on the article steward who was leaving the ring with his article bag. He left the handler and blocked the steward from leaving the ring. Thankfully she wasn't hurt, but the judge wrote it up as a dog on human aggression and the handler is now banned from showing in AKC unless she can convince the judge who wrote her up to recommend she be reinstated. The club decided not to allow her to train this dog at our facility. It was all pretty unfortunate since I have worked this dog to show his handler what I thought she needed to work on to keep him with her between exercises. He is a good worker and could get a UD with a more savvy handler.

I think it is a wise policy that dogs be confined or restrained by a handler during visits from health care providers. A very protective dog could probably easily mistake manipulations of the patient or sounds of discomfort emitted by the patient as the care provider doing something that needed to be stopped. It is really hard to work in other people's homes!

As to outcomes students of all subjects tend not to do their homework. Just last week I had a student miss the 2nd week's lab in micro because of forgetting lab coat and other personal protective equipment, so instead of trying to borrow the items (I have extras and they know that) this student missed lab and did some calculus problems instead. All explained to me in great detail in an email.


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## Sammy the spoo (Jul 7, 2016)

Oh no, that was a very close call, Lily!! That must have been so scary! I'm glad you were ok!!


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## Charmed (Aug 4, 2014)

The most heartbreaking case for me was a family that came in with a Standard Poodle. They claimed that it could not be walked on a leash. I worked with each of the family members showing them how to walk the dog. Their dog was fine. I worked with the children with my own dog,first, because my dog was bombproof. So, everyone had a good experience. I asked each of the family members to work with the dog for five minutes per day, starting with a focus lesson. On the second lesson, no one had worked with the dog. I worked with the family again. They never showed up again. Now all the lessons were paid for, so no loss for us.The family claimed that they just did not have time to train the dog. I just cringe to think of that wasted potential that sits in the backyard, that could have been a well trained poodle.


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## lily cd re (Jul 23, 2012)

Charmed that is a sad story and wow that would have been a wonderfully trained poodle if he got 5 minutes per day from each of the people in the home. This is part of the deep dishonesty people perpetrate all the time. We want a lovely dog, but we expect it to pop out of a box in perfect operating order like a coffee maker. I have a couple of people (one or two homes and a couple of people who came to beginners and then disappeared from my club) who abruptly dropped my training for mysterious reasons and like you I often wonder what happened to the dogs.

Sammy, thankfully the aggressive little terrier gave plenty of warning: a curled lip, big growls then the snap out to bite. I was getting out of the way as soon as the growling started.


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## Caddy (Nov 23, 2014)

Is the terrier still in your class lily, not sure if you said? Glad he gave you a warning growl anyways, thoughtful little guy. Charmed that's so sad for the dog, and really, who can't find five minutes a day if they want to. There are always people in the classes I've been in that quite obviously don't practice anything between classes, and those who only manage to make half the classes. I never understand why someone would pay the money and not take advantage of all the classes.


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## lily cd re (Jul 23, 2012)

Caddy, the people with the terrier have travel plans. I think neither of them will be there next week and I am not sure about the week after. We generally don't give make up classes and the wife last week said something about wanting make ups. I told her that it is not normally the policy of the club to offer them and that she should contact the training director to ask what could be done. Our novice, open and utility classes operate on a drop in basis and you pay as you go. But of course people who come to open and utility are generally serious ring people and when they come I help them with whatever they need. I have a number of regulars who are nearly always there for novice and we have a pretty settled list of things we do with help as needed and wiht a fair amount of flexibility.

For beginners I do have a weekly plan for each of the 8 weeks and each week is meant to build on the prior week(s) in a sequence. The other people who teach beginners all ahve their own outline of what they do so it isn't easy to come to me one week and someone else the next week. I also don't know why people sign up when they know they can't come for the full set of classes. They aren't terribly expensive, but they aren't free either.


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