Four Legged Scholars LLC, Dog Training, Nelson, Ohio and Surrounding Areas

Are you struggling at getting your dog to listen? We definitely can help!

Cathy Duderstadt is a client of ours and she has a dog named Oakley, an Australian Shepherd. Last week, we did a private session with her, and her dog made significant improvement.

She had difficulty practicing at home because she has so many dogs in a tight living space. She arrived about 45 minutes early to class. By the time I arrived to class, Oakley was walking loosely on his leash and was listening to basic obedience commands.

The week before she was struggling at getting her dog to perform watch and target. This week Cathy and Oakley had become a pro at it. It was awesome to see their improvement as they practiced dog training. Nelson is where they live.  I was so impressed I had a to take a video of how well Oakley was listening to his owner.

You can see that training is going on in the video, as well. When Oakley jumps on Cathy, she turns her back. She use to want to push Oakley down and this reinforced the behavior. Also, it was fun for Oakley. Oakley is now understanding that when he jumps it means the removal of anything fun because his owner is going to ignore him.

Cathy found that calling Oakely back her worked best when he pulls on the leash so you will see her calling her dog back with “come.” I usually don’t use this method when training loose leash walking.

However, as Cathy was performing dog training in Nelson she discovered that this method worked best for her. I am always a huge advocate of doing what is best for both the owner and the dog.

Cathy is also using hand signals to get Oakley to perform sit, down, watch and target. Hand signals do help with obedience. Nelson, Ohio dog owners will find that their dog’s listen best to them when they use both visual and verbal cues.

In time, your dog can listen to one or the other. However, in the beginning to help with ultimate understanding it is best to use both.

I was very glad to have a private session with Cathy. She does much better when I can give her personalized attention so Oakley made tons of progress.

She mentioned that Oakley responds well to “come” so we focused on training “come” with some minor distractions such as people walking past us or smells on the ground.  He did great with dog training. Nelson visitors will be impressed when they come and visit Cathy.

We also talked about how to make Oakley more comfortable with brushing and grooming.

We discussed training wait at the door so her dogs won’t bolt out the door at home. She has quite a few dogs in Nelson. As a result, she will need to be persistent in training this behavior with all of her dogs. Of course if she needs more help with dog training, Nelson is a location we can easily drive to and help them.

Tell us about your dog.

Johanna Teresi, Nelson, Ohio Dog Trainer of Four Legged Scholars LLC, Dog Training, Nelson and surrounding areas