dog training with a special touch...

People come to Hans Schlegel not only from Switzerland but also from mainly Germany and Austria or even from further away to seek for his advice concerning their dogs. They are not only willing to drive a long distance but also to pay a substantial amount of money to learn how to get along with their best friend, the dog. What they think is that Hans will give them simple advice and clear instructions on how to handle their dogs but when they arrive for their first lesson, they don’t know yet that this is not the case. Hans Schlegel is not just about dog training teaching dogs ‘sit’ and ‘down’ the way many people understand it, so let’s say, instructions on how to handle your dog. Hans Schlegel is about a certain philosophy of life lead by the rules of nature and his clients soon understand that they first have to change themselves before they can achieve any long lasting change with their dogs. So many people come and when they realize what is happening suffer a complete break down as they realize what is going wrong in their lives. They realize that they have to make substantial changes in order to achieve what they want and they start to panic. What I have learnt is that the dog is a very reliable mirror of his owner’s character, his strengths and his weaknesses. It is incredible but true: Hans can already characterize a person and see where the problem lies within the first 3 minutes when he meets a new client. While the client has no clue Hans already observes him very carefully when he takes the dog out of the car and starts walking. Hans already knows what’s up by looking at the way a person moves together with his dog as he has developed his own very complex movement analysis throughout the past 30 years of experience. Then, when the client starts telling Hans about his problems with the dog, Hans barely listens. For him, the only thing that matters is what the dog tells him as people have their own very subjective point of view. The dog however, is authentic, he doesn’t judge, he doesn’t make a difference between good and bad; dogs accept things just like they are and they have no good or bad conscience because they just live and do what life dictates them. Therefore, they will always tell the true story and key elements that the owner would never tell or doesn’t even realize himself. Anyways, Hans lets the client talk because the client wouldn’t understand that he is not interested at what he has to say and then he proceeds to the next part of the lesson. Although Hans at this point most of the time already knows what is the problem and the solution, he now looks more closely at the dog. He ties the dog up and the owner has to make some distance and then Hans and I confront the dog from different angles and observe his reactions and actions. Once this is done, Hans has a complete picture of the dog and his owner and knows what to do. From this Hans can see if the dog has been handled with a choke collar in the past, or if he has lived in the streets before, if his owner trained him with food or if it is the owners favourite or least favourite dog (if he has more than one dog), if he is self confident or shy or if he would potentially bite or just pretend to etc. And amazingly enough, all his conclusions were right for what I have seen! I have now observed this every single day for nearly 6 months as I was always part of it and I believe that I have learnt a lot about reading dogs and people but each time I get new surprises and you could never stop learning...It is very interesting to also observe the owner while we do the confrontations with their dogs. Most of the time you can see a huge question mark on their face...they don’t understand a single thing about what we are doing or Hans is explaining to them...and then when Hans comes up with the conclusions which is similar to a psycho analysis of the client, they just become all white...and then in the remaining 30 min of the 90 min they booked, usually Hans fixes any problem the dog has and the owner just thinks that some magic happened. But this is where the hard part starts for the dog owner because he will need to go through a process of change in order not to fall back into the same pattern again. They will need to understand the root of the problem which is always linked to the owner himself, he will need to accept this and then he will need to act upon it. It is wonderful to see how this experience on the Laubberg moves many people every day and often marks a vital change in their lives...I can surely say, that these 6 months on the Laubberg marked a considerable change in my life and that I have learnt a lot about canines but even more about the human race......I felt very alive!