Four Legged Scholars LLC – Ravenna – Certified Dog Trainer and Surrounding Areas

Do you struggle with getting your dog to listen? We understand this pain. Your first reaction maybe to fix this problem on your own.

However, if that doesn’t work you are likely to talk with your vet or look online for a dog trainer.

Unfortunately, there are many dog trainers that are not educated and market themselves as awesome dog trainers. We wanted to let you know that you are in good hands with Four Legged Scholars LLC, Ravenna. Certified Dog Trainer probably isn’t one of your search terms when you search on google.

However, looking for a certified trainer is important.  Because anyone can wake up one day and market themselves as a dog trainer, it is important that you educate yourself in finding a good trainer.

A certified pet dog trainer, means the trainer has basic knowledge of how animals learn from a psychological perspective. The trainer has to take a  written test that takes about 2-3 hours to take.

The Certification Council for Professional Dog Trainers creates the test. You must have a certain score to pass the test and become certified.

The trainer also has to continually educate themselves and get CEU’s (continual education units) in order to keep their certification. This is completely fine with me because I absolutely love learning more dog training.

As a result, I attended a seminar in Akron near Ravenna. Certified Dog Trainer is a title that I want to keep so getting more CEU’s is important to me.

At the Holiday Inn – Akron / Fairlawn Pat Miller came to do a talk on Positive Solutions to Aggression. She owns Peaceable Paws.

I learned a ton of new knowledge. So you can look forward to even better results with Four Legged Scholars LLC, Ravenna.

Much knowledge knew, however, I had huge aha’s here and there. One, I will share with you right now. When a dog has aggression issues many times it is a result of stress. Stress is usually a compiled factor.

So rather than just targeting on the issue at hand (such as reactivity toward other dogs), Pat recommends taking a stress inventory.

Look at the dog’s day to day life and identify each individual stressor. From there you can decide what you will do with each stressor.

Pat has a chart that has a list that you check off for the solution for each stressor. This list includes:

1.) Get rid of the stressor.

2.) Live with it. Meaning that you will do nothing about this at the moment. This is a category that you don’t want to use for multiple stressors on the list.

3.) Change opinion of the stressor. Generally, this is done through counter conditioning which means that the dog gets something positive in the presence of the stimulus / trigger. Usually this is treats.

As a result, the dog will start forming a conditioned emotional response (CER). This means that the dog becomes excited about treats when he sees the stimulus (previous trigger).

4.) Teach an alternate behavior. This could mean getting the dog to sit, watch, down etc. so that the dog is unable to perform the so called “bad” behavior anymore.

5.) Management. This means you changes the environment so that your dog is no longer able to the behavior. If your dog barks at cars, you could manage it by staying away from walks with cars.

I want you to really understand the importance of knowing this new information so that I can better help out dog owners in Ravenna. Certified Dog Trainer(s) are few and fair between in some locations.

By knowing this knowledge, I can explain to my clients that their dog is reacting to many triggers that are compiled.

Here is an example. I will use yesterday as an example because I got really stressed and yelled at my daughter. I will write it as a list so you can see how the stressors added up.

1.) I am a single mom with no one else living with myself and my daughter.

2.) I felt dizzy.

3.) I also felt tired.

4.) I got home later than I was expecting.

5.) Iris got juice out of the fridge and spilled it all over herself.

6.) She went to wiped off the juice with water and got water all over the floor in the apartment.

7.) She put the water that she wanted to wipe herself with in a glass cup that could easily break if she dropped it.

8.) I was cooking dinner while all of this was happening.

9.) Her dad calls on Skype in the mist of all this, and I let Iris talk to him.

10.) While she was eating she spills corn on the floor.

Needless to say I am not a parent that usually yells often. Yesterday evening I yelled a lot. It was a result of many triggers compiling together.

Let’s give a dog example.

1.) Dog has pain in his back leg.

2.) Dog was barking earlier today so his cortisol levels are high.

3.) Dog doesn’t like to be bothered on his bed.

4.) Dog isn’t that fond of children.

5.) Children come over to the house and are loud.

6.) A child bumps into the dog when he is laying on his bed.

The dog bites the child. Is this a bad dog? Nope. He was stressed.

Now if we address each stressor above then we will have better results than if we just address the exact situation that appeared to trigger the bite. The incident was a result of many triggers not just one.

Let’s get started. We want to help you in Ravenna. Certified Dog Trainer is now a term that you can search and find some trainers listed.

Make sure they really have their CPDT and are fully educated. If the answer is yes, then they are probably a great person to hire.

Johanna Teresi, Owner of Four Legged Scholars LLC, Ravenna, Certified Dog Trainer

Contact us and tell us about your dog