A warm, sunny Monday (Aug 23rd) brought Michelle and I just outside of Ellsworth, WI to the home of Eileen Petaja and her 3 year old Jack Russel Terrier, Dusty.
Eilleen has a fabulous relationship with Dusty. She exhibits good leadership over him and he responds well to it. He even runs on a tread mill with or without Eileen by his side, which impressed us a great deal. Eileen is a bright lady and has alot in her favor, as she understands and agrees with Cesar Millan's techniques, which we utilize in our work with our clients. All she needed was a coach to help her sew it all together. That's where we came in.
Dusty had been presenting Eileen with some aggressive issues as he was becoming protective of her. He would randomly lash out at both people and dogs, as well as just plain barge into people's space and didn't understand the concept of respecting their boundaries.
When we first arrived, he basically wanted to jump and play and gave us every indication that he needed help in getting his Gentle Leader halter off! He exhibited no aggression as I was expecting, however, when I wouldn't let him sniff my bags and used my hand to create a bite to his neck, he snapped at me. (We had removed the halter by then). That was the begining of dominance ritual #1. He was very good about it and surrendered to me quickly then layed on the floor until I let him up in a few minutes. After that he and I had no problems with each other and we were both calmer.
The exercise was repeated by Michelle about 5 minutes later when he did the same thing to her. She, too, had the same positive experience with it that I did. What that did was set us in Pack Leadership in Dusty's eyes. A very good thing to make the session a success.
The WALK portion went well, but we had difficulties with Dusty wanting to rub off his Gentle Leader halter. I replaced it with a prong collar, which definately gave us a better walk, but Dusty was very vocal about his new aparatis. It wasn't hurting him, but the suprise of the rounded prongs on his neck statled him. Some dogs are more vocal than others. I then switched to a flat nylon slip leash. He immediately took advantage of this and began to pull, which was something that he could not do on the prong.
When we went into the pole shed to enjoy the cooler temps in there, I got the idea to use a Gentle Leader HARNESS on him, which rides down low around the girth of the chest of the dog. Now, please note: I do not endorse the use of harnesses on dogs for the structured walk because it gives them the advantage and allows them to forge ahead of you, making for an unsuccessful walk. Harnesses were originally used for cart pulling and that is where they function best. The GL Harness, however, is designed to keep the dog back with you and can be the answer to your prayers when you are having dificulty finding a collar that works for your dog. We were all delighted when the GL Harness won the contest and saved the day. It is a tool that I rarely recommend, but in this case, it gave us what we needed for Dusty.
In all fairness to the prong collar, we did find that it was very helpful and needful in keeping Dusty from charging the door when visitors came. We practiced with it a couple of times with Michelle and I taking turns coming to the door with Dusty unawares. When we knocked, he escalated immediately from a 1 to a 10 and the tug and release we used with the prong collar settled him down quickly. Eileen was very suprised after going to the door to let Michelle in, that when she came back, find Dusty was sitting calmly with his ears back in between my feet as I stood over him loosely holding his collar. ( I was the one handling him on the leash for that practice run). Michelle had the same success with it that I did when it was her turn.
We are in hopes that Eileen can convince her friends that when they come over, the best thing they can do is utilize a "No Touch, No Talk, No eye contact" behavior with Dusty can settle down quicker and give them their space politely. Once that happens, then they can give him affection and a good time will be had by all.
I have every confidence in Eileen and Dusty to overcome the challenges they presented to us on this visit. I look forward to our follow up visit. If you ask me, Dusty is gong to come out shining!
~Candiss DelCastillo
Walks & Wags Pet Service
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