Many people don’t understand why we train dogs. For some, they just think it is a bunch of tricks, and just want a dog that will Sit and Come. To me, and my students, there is a lot more to it than that.
I have been working through Obedience work with a young male Border Collie. The initial concerns were that the dog had snapped at a few people who had unexpectedly reached out to touch him in public. That stuff scared him, and he didn’t like it. Fast forward to this week, that stuff isn’t a concern anymore. We have been working on intermediate obedience exercises, he has been doing great, and we have been laying the foundation for future work doing either herding work or agility or both.
In the past month or so, the wife injured her knee, and yesterday, I found out she now is scheduled for artificial knee replacement surgery in a month. Thank goodness that they continued their obedience training beyond the initial concerns, because the wife will need about 4 months of physical rehabilitation and can’t allow this dog to hurt or hassle her. We did some scenario work last night and discusses the things they should be focusing on leading up to the surgery as well as what to do with their dog during the interim break in training. This dog is close to being very solid in Stays (Sit, Down, Stand) and Place, is good in the Come, and good in the Heel.
I want them to tighten up on all of that over the next month. No one expected that this dog was going to need to be ready for this emergency, but he will be. We will put some finishing touches on him in the next 2 weeks. We need to clean up his occasional Jumping, and I want to demonstrate how I work with a dog during a full lesson. I have my students do most of the work when training their dogs, so they develop a good training relationship, I also want them to both gain solid fundamentals. But, considering where we are at, I want them to see me working their dog to see some fine points. My technique is excellent, and a lot can be learned by watching me do the work, and seeing how I conduct a thorough lesson that directly addresses what they will need to master over these next 5 months.
I have another past student that was in this type of situation. We had worked through a tremendous list of problems with her dog, starting with some serious insecurities because of not being socialized as a puppy during the COVID shutdowns. She told me that she needed one last major issue to resolve: Jumping. She had encouraged her dog to jump in her lap for affection, and the dog liked it as a place of security when stressed. Up to that point, it wasn’t an issue. But now, she found out she needed a mastectomy, and so the Jumping had to stop. Now. So, I went over to her home on a free follow up and set up a plan for her to reverse the Jumping without her having to use any force on her dog. After the surgery, she wouldn’t have any upper body strength, so something else had to be done. The good part was that we had so much Foundation in her dog, the switch was a smooth transition. If we had been dealing with a raw, untrained dog, things would have been a lot more difficult.
Other similar situations are where the owner developed a disability, and now the obedience work was necessary, not just optional.
You never know when you won’t just want your dog to do this or that but might need your dog to do this or that because an emergency has developed. I always train dogs with a long-term viewpoint, if someday my students will need a lot more from their dogs than just companionship. I stress the Fundamentals so those transitions, if ever necessary, can be made without much effort.
If I have any advice for all dog owners, it is this: dogs often have been used for more than just being pets, and I would always assume, with every dog, that one day your life or lifestyle might just depend on that dog. See what you are doing as more than just teaching your dog some tricks. Instead, what you are going might become essential abilities that you, or a family member, might need to continue.