The Dog Blog

My dog, Sanchez, and I participated in the Dog Days of Summer on Saturday. The San Francisco Giants were playing the Philadelphia Phillies and invited dogs to attend the game, an annual activity at the AT&T ball park. A portion of proceeds benefited the San Francisco SPCA and dogs had their own bleacher “seats”. When I learned that they were expecting 600 dogs, I thought it would be great fun for us. After all, Sanchez is a career change dog from Guide Dogs for the Blind and had a great amount of experience in large crowds, in a variety of social settings, when he was in training as a puppy. I hadn’t been to a ballgame since I left New York, over 20 years ago, so I thought I would also enjoy the experience.

I've spent to past several years indoctrinating my sister on the merits of reward based training.  Her family has raised a lovely Newfoundland using a very positive approach.  Although they have been quite frustrated that more positive group classes weren’t being offered in their area (in Western Maryland) and that her children could not get involved in dog sports with their dog.  4-H is very popular in her area and she was very surprised to learn that the national 4-H program lists a choke chain as the first piece of equipment needed to train a dog.  

So, she started a 4-H specialty club called Paws 'N Pals to offer a variety of activities for kids (and their parents) who love dogs and want to learn family friendly training. She found a reward based trainer that lived close enough to drive into their town to teach basic training classes for the club and they were off and running.

Well, it finally happened to me!  My dogs got skunked! It was, of course about 9:30pm, and I had just put the baby to bed. My husband was reading the 4-year-old his story and I let the dogs out into my fenced-in backyard.

Recently I was listening to a few dog trainers discussing the best way to teach a dog to retrieve a dumbbell.  Apparently the owner in question had completely burned her dog out on the exercise by repeatedly working on it in a manner that was very aversive to the dog - although she wasn't using forceful methods the dog was totally unmotivated to learn to take a dumbbell from her hand.