Monday, 29 May 2023
– Hey, everybody, Jeff Gellman of Solid K9 Training with my What Would Jeff Do? dog training tip of the day, tip number 116 Are you having fun? We're talking about the dogs, are the dogs having fun? A lot of times folks will see dogs, at least on our social media pages, and they're like, ooh, I hope they're having fun
This is the thing When these dogs are struggling with, okay, let me clarify We deal with dogs that are human aggressive, dog aggressive, reactive on the leash, massive anxiety, not trained whatsoever, and a bunch of other stuff A lot of behavior modification we do and rehab Chances are they were probably having fun before they got to us
Guess who wasn't having fun, was the owners So being owner-centric, which does not mean I don't care about dogs, being owner-centric, we're more about how's the owner doing? Are you enjoying owning this dog? And most of the people are like, not really My dog's sort of a pain in the butt So, when a dog comes into rehab at our facility, whether they're having fun or not is not a priority Now that doesn't mean we're being mean to them
See, a lot of people have these extremes Oh, well, if you like this, you must hate that No, it doesn't work that way But it's called priorities A dog that's with us for three to five weeks, that was human aggressive, dog aggressive, leash reactive, whether they're having fun during the rehab process or not is usually not a consideration
Are we getting the results that we're looking for? Sometimes it's not fun, like losing weight I can't eat that anymore? Nope I've gotta work out that much? Yep I gotta stop going to my favorite bakery, restaurant Yeah, if you want to reach a certain goal
But guess what? Eating donuts is pretty freaking fun, ain't it? Right? Sitting around watching TV, that's fun for a lot of people But you're not gonna get the goals you want So whenever you want to make dramatic or even small changes in your life, there's gonna be sacrifices Now, on the other side of all that, struggle, work, sacrifices, is a better you Same with the dog
On the flip side of a lot of this changing of behavior, taking away some things that the dog enjoyed doing, like being leash reactive, running the fence line, getting into dog fights, lashing out at people A lot of people are like oh, it's 'cause it's afraid We see a lot of dogs that actually enjoy that behavior So our goal is this, can we train and rehab the dog so the owners can finally have a better connection with their dog? And then everybody starts having more fun 'Cause when you're an owner with a badly behaved dog, it sucks a lot of the time
And nobody seems to be talking about this We do, so do we want the dogs to be miserable? No Do we want them to not have fun? No, but we know that they don't always have fun But they're only with us for a few weeks out of their life, so we're looking for the other side We know what we do today, tomorrow, the next couple of weeks, on the flip side, the other side of it, is gonna be an awesome life for them and their dogs
Jeff Gellman, Solid K9 Training, madly in love with you Dog training tip of the day I'll see you all tomorrow
