Difficult dogs...

Today was the last day of the seminar for difficult dogs. We drove to an area where we could confront the dogs with walking people, bicycles, cats, other dogs etc. during the walk. This time, I joined with Liwa who was quite insecure but followed me nicely all the time. However, at the end of the walk, when we arrived at the parking, she escaped and jumped into the first car she could find!
In the afternoon, there was an incident on the training ground which was quite tough for everybody and one person even cried (I was happy to have my sun glasses on as I had watery eyes too). A young German shepherd who had already bitten a person before, wouldn’t cooperate with his owner at all. So Hans at this point saw no other option but to discipline him. So when the dog would jump onto him or not jump into his box or misbehave in any way, Hans would just hold him tight on the leash. Hans wouldn’t really do much and remain very calm but the dog was fighting so much against this that he would strangle himself. This would go on and on until the dog finally gave up and cooperated. Hans said that it should never come so far but that in certain cases, there is no other way. If you don’t discipline the dog, then he will discipline us and keep on biting and scratching. Dogs don’t evaluate things, they just act and it is only by acting ourselves that the dog will respect us.
When the seminar was finished, we thought that we were done for the day but we found out that we still had another lesson with a hunter and his dog in the village. I took Paulo with me as I wanted to spend some time with him too. Once this was over, it was so late that we decided to stop in the village for a nice steak and a few glasses of wine...