My New, Miracle Dog Training Technique. You Heard it Here First!

[Laurie, Fudge, and Vern]

My dog-training regimen, or lack thereof, has been well documented on DK.  I have the absolute best indoor dogs in the world, who turn into completely different dogs when out on our daily walks.  Vern pulls like an ox, is oblivious to his prong collar and thinks corrections are my way of letting him know I am ready for another surge or lunge forward.  I am starting to think a correction for Vern is the same as a “Mush” for a sled dog. Fudge has a nervous energy to her that radiates from every pore in her body while on a walk and the vibes she gives off prove conductive for Vern.  Over the past year, she has become reactive to cars and primarily, white trucks or vans, which may be directly related to the service vehicles that patrol the campground where we walk.  In addition, I think most of the drivers of these service vehicles have dyslexia and feel the posted speed limit signs of 15 actually say 51 or think they are taking their victory lap after winning the Indianapolis 500.  Sometimes, it is as if they appear out of nowhere and I am sure my startled reactions have added fuel to Fudge’s fire.

 

They say that “God helps those who help themselves,” and I know there is stuff I could be doing, but basically, I just want my dogs to shape up because I asked them to.  Both dogs have had plenty of obedience training classes and can and do heel, but I want our walks to be fun. I want them to be able to sniff, roll, and move about freely as long as they do not pull.  If we pass another dog, I want them to nod in acknowledgment and move forward without a peep.  Barking in the car is another no-no, because I find it distracting when I am simultaneously yelling, “GET OFF THE ROAD, GRANDPA!” and “QUIET, FUDGE AND VERN!”  I feel as if I am sending mixed messages to other drivers, as well as my dogs.  It’s not as if I don’t want advice or to hear how you corrected all of this with your own dogs, but I am almost 99% sure that I will pretend I am going to follow through with what was said and then go back to complaining about my dogs and continuing to look for a “minimal effort” fix. 

 

In the past, I have tried obedience training with a class full of Belgian Malinois elitist owners, private training with a woman who terrified the dogs and me, fun dog training classes, working with a trainer one-on-one, all kinds of collars, and lots of yelling.  In fact, John has called me the Dog Yeller a couple of times, usually right after I say something about my dog training abilities and refer to myself as the Dog Whisperer. The kids or John have also called me Old Yeller and mentioned once or twice that I should pay special attention to the ending of that movie. Unfortunately, like my kids, yelling never seems to work. In fact, I can remember one incident from years gone by when John raised his voices at our girls and caused them to burst out crying.  As they were relaying his mistreatment to me, I said, “I yell all the time and you never cry,” and Megan answered back that I never yell at them.  This caused me to wonder if their hearing needed to be checked and then it dawned on me, they thought my yelling voice was my normal speaking voice. 

 

One of my most effective training methods to date was a child’s bike horn I purchased for the sole purpose of “horning” my dogs every time they started to bark at something in the car.  I also used an air horn, but found that passengers in the car could get very testy when their daydreams were interrupted by a shrill blast of air and a woman screaming, “bark again and there is more where that came from.”  For that reason and the fact that the air horn broke, I switched to the child’s bike horn. It worked beautifully at first and since there was no law on the books that you cannot “horn and drive”, I could blow that horn repeatedly while driving into our park to discourage barking at people, dogs, groundhogs, and bike riders. I will say that several passengers mentioned that the punishment seemed worse, and by worse, I mean louder, than the crime, but that didn’t stop me from pulling that horn out every chance I got.  Fudge HATED the horn and since she was usually leading the party, it worked for a while.  Eventually, they got accustomed to the horn and since it probably was not made for the purpose for which it was being used, the “horning” started to sound more like weak pinging and lost its mojo. I really think, at the end, the dogs thought the bike horn was my way of barking right along with them.

 

Now, before you despair, I have hit upon another idea and if this takes off, please remember you heard it here first.  It’s cheap, easy to carry, and equally annoying to dogs and family members….the KAZOO. 

Yes, you read that right, a kazoo.  I bought one to keep in my camera bag to get the dog’s attention when I am shooting a picture and quickly found out that Fudge is afraid of the sound. It seems it scares her almost as much as a good sneeze, but since I can’t produce a sneeze at whim; the kazoo seems to be a very reliable fill-in.  So far, the only draw back to this training method is I seem to lose the kazoo in my bag, much like I do my cell phone, car keys, and glasses.  Usually, by the time I locate the kazoo, the crisis is over.  I have tried keeping it in my mouth as I drive, but I find myself unable to talk without making “kazoo” conversation with my passengers and I fear if I keep this up, I will have no passengers in the future and de-sensitize Fudge to the annoying sound.  So, the kazoo takes a bit of finagling, but I am thinking of designing a kazoo necklace, which should eliminate 90% of the problems I have been having.  Just yesterday on our walk, we passed by a man with a dog, and the dogs looked ready to bark when I said into my kazoo, “one bark and you will be rehomed.”  John started laughing and asked if he could go with the dogs and I told him in kazoo talk, “until death do us part and you don’t look dead to me,” and I noticed my kazoo seemed to work on quieting down humans, too.  I am sitting on a gold mine with this idea. Just remember, you heard it here first!

[Laurie, Fudge, and Vern]

Sherri, Good for you...another foster dog. You are amazing!! I can't even imagine walking THREE dogs. LOL Try the kazoo :)

Cheryl, Great captions. Yes, Luca showed me who was boss :) Love that guy!

[Sherri, Sophie, Winston, & Kitty]

I'm not sure what I found more entertaining - the blog or the comments that followed. Thanks Laurie for a good laugh! I have been training my foster dog to heel using good old fashioned treat bribery and I would love to teach all three dogs not to lunge with excitment the second another dog or friendly human comes near. I will have to consider the Kazoo method. although I'm sure after a few weeks there won't be many neighbourhood dogs or humans coming near us, so in a way, it would certainly work.

[Joanne ~ Spud*]

LOL!   Funny Cheryl!   

[F, Calla & Luca]

Luca is so flattered : ) these pictures and captions are great.

[Cheryl and Finnegan]

Count me in as a big Luca lover!  That adorable imp makes me smile with his antics.  I've never seen a happier guy! 

Laurie training Luca

 Luca training Laurie

[F, Calla & Luca]

Imp fits him to a tee as do a lot of other names, some not so endearing.

[Laurie, Fudge, and Vern]

Add me to the list of people who love Luca :) Such an imp! He did try and steal my rubber chicken that squeaks, but someone distracted him with a ball.

[F, Calla & Luca]

Aw,thanks J he claimed my heart from Day 1.

[Joanne ~ Spud*]

A disclaimer here.... F's Luca won my heart.  He is my kind of dog. So, giving credit to him, he is a dream dog. He  is curious, loving, playful, wonderful nature, and would be amused with just about anything Laurie has in her bag of tricks. She does have a bag and a bathtub full of tricks, believe me.  Maybe she will share a video one day with her clownish tactics ...hint hint

[Lonnie & Libby Lu]

OMD these pictures are priceless!  Kazoomania!