Holly went to bootcamp

[Richard Crowe]

Holly has been afraid of large dogs all her life. In fact, most larger dogs actually terrified her although she loved small dogs. She has also been somewhat reserved with children since we have no children living with or near us. We bit the bullet and sent Holly to a three week resident training program which guaranteed that she would lose her fear of large dogs and also become acclimated to children. The other benefits of the program were that she would come home versed in all the other niceties of a well-trained dog.

The course, resident training was expensive but, since Holly is our only big dog and because we wanted a really well trained companion; we decided to use the services of PetTrain in Vista, California. This organization trains service dogs as well as protection dogs.

We really missed Holly during the time she was at school and we were overjoyed when we got a call from the trainers that, after two weeks, Holly had passed everything with flying colors and was ready to return to us a week early.

When we came to pick up Holly, the trainers put on a demonstration with Holly in their driveway and with four big dogs walking on leashes around her. The big dogs did not bother her a bit. She just ignored them. She has lost her fear of large dogs.

We brought out grand-nephew and niece (7 and 10 years old) along when we picked up Holly and she was confident and very friendly with them. Now she seems anxious to greet children.

Holly was a nice dog before she attended school but, she is a GREAT dog now! We recently visited our daughter and son-in-law who own a well trained Labrador. We were extremely proud of Holly because she exhibited even better manners than did their Labrador.

[Richard Crowe]

We continue with her training at home and we make sure to expose her to children and to friendly big dogs. We had our neighbors precocious granddaughters over to use our pool today. They are giggly and flighty as only little girls seven and nine can be. Holly used to be very wary of them and not at all friendly. We had her on a lead today to see how Holly would react. She was not at all frightened in fact; she was very friendly. She kissed the girls and happily let them walk her around the yard with them holding the lead.


She knows certain commands that we continue with such as "Hup!" when we want her to jump into our car. She also sits patiently when we stop the vehicle and waits for us to give her permission to leave the car. This is a big safety factor.

the other night when we had dinner at our daughter's house, we gave Holly a "down!" and a "stay" command and she slept through dinner.

Guide dogs are trained to sit patiently with the use of a very short lead that is attached to the furniture that their person is sitting or lying on. That way, they get used to not wandering off and will be there when their person needs them. of course, as soon as they learn to stay near their person; they are no longer physically restricted.

We didn't feel this need with Holly. She never wanders far from our bedside.

[Kyoko]

WoW! That's amazing! I wonder how they do that.....

[Adina P]

That's really neat Richard! Not too many of our members have done the boot camp thing...I'm happy to hear it turned out well for Holly =)

[HANNAH 8/2/07 & HONEY 7/2/08]

Glad to hear bootcamp worked, did they show you how to train with Holly now that she is home and reinforce what they taught? Never sent a dog away to be trained so curious what back up help do they offer once the dog is back home.