Oh my heck, where on earth did that trainer learn that??

How ridiculous. More than likely your dog could scent the stress (anal glands or whatever) and acted accordingly. Or just sensed the trainer was horrible

Wys
x

Probably from the likes of Cesar? According to that man dogs are trying to dominate everything from their owners to cats to LIGHT. It made no sense to me either. As if dogs could ever ACT one way when they weren't feeling it. And why would she act scared anyway? It was so strange.

I originally thought she was reacting to the mirrors and having threshold issues because it was a new place (and she sometimes does). But then we went to the class with the current trainer and it was a new place and had mirrors too. She walked in like "Oh boy what is this exciting place?!" No slinking, no signs of fear, just a happy dog.

I think she probably sensed the stress from the other dogs and maybe even from their owners. The whole place was TENSE. No one talked to anyone else. The trainer didn't really even introduce herself or chat with any of us. The other people didn't introduce themselves and kept their dogs far away from mine. All but one of the other dogs was severely reactive.

I walked out of the second class and burst out into tears and hugged my dog and apologized to her. We sat outside on the lawn and relaxed for a bit, then just to clear the air as it were, I did a little bit of happy upbeat positive training. And then fed her all of the rest of the steak I had brought for training. One big jackpot for our getting the hell out of dodge!

Oh, I sooo empathise

I attended a hellish class like that. Halfway through Dexter was in such a state I had to take him out and I was in tears. The trainer didn't give a damn - but his girlfriend who was there was really sweet and followed me out to offer some words of encouragement.

After the class I felt so bad that I'd even taken Dex there that I spent the whole journey home hugging him and saying sorry - so I really can relate to how you felt.

We had a couple of issues with particular trainers at a club (not all of the trainers there though).

Max hates people examining him and WILL bite unless muzzled, and one trainer told me I was just being a silly girl about it all.

She got down so her face was on a level with his head, grabbed his head in her hands and tried to look in his eyes, by moving his eyelids.

His mouth only just missed her face, and she got a nasty bite on the hand instead.

Well, I did warn her. Luckily, one of the other trainers was nearby and saw the whole thing (including me warning her)...

Well, there was a trainer on the group walk I went on yesterday coming out with some real pro-shock collar gems. Apparently you can't make your mind up on a shock collar by hearing negative things from others, you should give it a try for yourself. Guess I will doubt the toxicity of arsenic and give that a whirl before I believe all the nonsense others are spouting about it, too...
Also overheard him telling someone that other methods of training result in you being left at the end of the course with no backup and no progress. Funny, that, guess it's all a coincidence that Casper's reactive dog workshop helped. Guess all those people who go to positive-based training classes have the same coincidences too. What was even funnier, I noticed that his dogs all had e-collars on themselves. I thought his method of training was mean to leave you with results, so if it works that well, why the need for the collars to remain?

I know! I was soooooo disappointed with him I mean, I have to admit, his dogs were very well trained. He said "down" and all there hit the floor, he said "come" and they all came back. I really wanted to talk to him so I said hi and we got chatting about Cain's problems. He told me a bit about recall on a longline and then said "of course the other alternative is an e-collar...." and my heart hit the ground He then spent a good 20 mins harping on about them, trying to convince me, and I was being too polite to walk away!

He told me that without an e-collar I risk NEVER EVER being able to let Cain off lead Like you Karly, I suppose his current progress with positive training is all down to luck... Yes, it might be slower but at least I'm dealing with his emotional issues as well.

One of the rescue dogs had been running around, causing a bit of a ruckas. He pointed out that he'd put an e-collar on the dog and had had to zap him "only" three times. This poor dog was terrified to leave the man from the rescue's legs! He was literally glued to his side as he had something scary happening and didn't know what. He stopped to sniff the grass a second, the man carried on walking and the dog bolted right back to his side. He tail was down, it was so sad to watch Yes, it had "fixed" the problem, the dog was no longer running around scrapping with other dogs. Instead he was depressed, scared and I'll bet he wasn't making a positive association with the other dogs! Tell me...what did that achieve?

It's the first time I've seen an e-collar in action and it was very clear to me why they are a bad idea.

Phew, glad I got that off my chest. Rant over!