My First Lesson
There was an incident that made me decide, I should get a dog that will be suitable for protection. A suitable choice for me would be a GSD, for ever since I was a kid I was dreaming of having one. I finally got a male working line GSD, the next problem was having him trained. During that time I was observing a local dog forum, there was a group there that was quite controversial, and they where exclusive. Their philosophy about dog training was intriguing as they are more on the practical side of using dogs for real work. Their methods and approach were very different from what is commonly available information on dog training. I had a hard time entering the group, and my first working line GSD needs training ASAP.
I was assisted by a new friend to train my dog, I was excited as I on my way to their place. There I meet his group, most of them have Belgian malinois. My dog was so unstable and I don't know what to do. I was not allowed to use prong, only soft collar. He said using prong collar on my dog at a young age will destroy my dog. Since I was new to working dog training, I followed. Next week I went back to their training group, we did the same routines. I got back home and my dog did not learn anything. I cannot say its the trainer or the method, may be it was because of me.
Suddenly I received a message from one member of the group I was mentioning. I was invited and had the privilege to join their training. Once again my dog went unstable, wanting to bite anybody and any dog near us. I was told to put the prong collar, so I did, my dog became a bit controllable. Then we started training. Their approach is very different, they exposed handlers and dogs to different stressful situations, crossing the river, crossing the bamboo bridge, having some smoke in the path, and with some gun shot simulations. We are doing this as we are teaching obedience to the dog. All this are done without treats or toys, we just simply praise the dog. This was done during the morning. Then we went for a break. Our mentor then asks that the dog be on long down stays. I was shocked, with all the other dogs, chicken and other people around he is asking me to ask my dog to do long down stay, and I have to do this from a distance. He said to me “put your dog on a down stay and come here”. I don't know what to reply, so I said, my dog never did a long down stay before. He replied, “just tell your dog to down, say stay and come here”, so I did tell my dog, down, stay, but as I was walking away from my dog, may be around 3 steps away I looked back at him and I was hesitant that he would follow my command, so right there he stand slowly, I have to put him to down position again. The trainer said, I should not look back and I should learn to trust my dog. He said “TRUST your dog, put him on down stay, then come here and don't look back”. That was exactly what I did, and when I reached my trainer he said, “see your dog can do it, so trust your dog”. He even asked me how come the dog stayed, I cannot answer, so he jokingly said, its magic.
So after some years that has gone by, I can never forget the first lesson I learned, and that is I should Trust my dog. Today as I meet some people interested in working their dogs, I see my self a few years back, they are telling me their dog may not be able to do it. I just smile and answer them, “trust your dog”. Those who do is surprisingly amazed of the outcome as quoted from a true Dogman “It is human mindset that stands in the way of success. Believing is a very strong power, as disbelieving. - Guenther”
