|
Max
Breed: Yellow Lab
Owner(s): Joe
"MAX"
Colorado
 We are proud to introduce Joe (human) and Max (dog). We discovered Max while substituting
for their current dog walker who was on holiday. Max is a three year old Yellow Lab from
hunting lines. He has high drive for his ball and frisbee. He pulls on leash and barks at
whoever has his ball in hope of a play session. He is very social with humans (both adults
and children), and cats. There is no guarding behavior with either toys or food. Very good
natural bite inhibition with humans.
Problem:
Extreme fear when other dogs violate his
comfort zone. His behavior when this happens is immediate
attack, on or off leash, with no pre-cursors such as growling
or barking. Max alerts on all dogs regardless of distance. No
bite history. Solution prior to meeting us was isolation in
his back yard. Here is his story in Joe's words:
I adopted a 3 year old yellow lab named Max who was very
mild tempered and friendly toward other dogs. Shortly
thereafter, during on one of our leash walks an off leash dog
came up and attacked him, almost severing his ear. After this
terrible experience I was never able to walk Max on a leash
because he developed a very severe case of dog aggression
toward other dogs. Every time I tried to walk him if he saw
other dogs around the neighborhood he would pull, lunge, and
growl at other dogs in an uncontrollable manner. I realized
that my dog Max had changed forever and ultimately I had to
limit his outdoor activity to the back yard only to insure
that he did not endanger another dog, me or another person.
I tried to work with him myself to break him of this
behavior and nothing seemed to work. I researched training
methods on the internet and I also tried the
"clicker" training method. Nothing I tried seemed to
help. I was at my wits end and very discouraged and then my
new pet sitter referred me to John and Diane with Two Bears
Inc. John offered to do a free demonstration with his dog,
Wart, and demonstrated various techniques and clues into the
psyche of a dog that has come under attack by another dog. It
was very educational to say the least and I have continued
with John until now. We are now training Max with an
electronic collar under the supervision of John. Max has made
a tremendous improvement from when we first started. It is
almost if though our dog has been transformed and we know that
we still have much more work to do but his improvements have
just been outstanding.
Even though Max will not be completely free of dog
aggression from the attack incident but when he is under my
command his aggressive behavior toward other dogs will be
controlled. Max is much more confident now and a much more
easy to handle. The training has also been a wonderful bonding
experience for both Max and I. Max will immediately sit and
give eye contact when he knows it is time to put the collar on
and have some fun! Both Max and I are very grateful to John
because we now can go back to enjoying a favorite past time of
walking around the neighborhood gracefully.
Joe
Erie, Colorado
|
