The day has just started, it is 6 am and it is completely dark, cold and foggy outside. I had to get up early so I could shower in the special dog shower at the school. The reason for this is that Hans has started renovating his house and we cannot even go inside anymore as they are tearing everything out and my shower in the caravan is boiling hot and then turns cold after 2 minutes. So I prefer to shower there before everybody arrives at 7 am and would surprise me naked in the dog shower...
At least now I have some time to catch up on Billy’s story. Billy is a long haired German shepherd I took over from his owner for 1 ½ months (I mentioned that some time back). The problem with Billy was that due to being very unsecure, he would run away from his owner each time they would meet another dog, go towards the other dog and bark and since it’s quite of an impressive dog, people wouldn’t like this too much and his owners started getting very nervous about this. If they would keep him on the leash he would start pulling, whining and barking and it would really look like a sort of a panic attack. Also, they couldn’t walk him in unknown areas as he would become very nervous and equally get his panic attack. Taking him in the car was the worse; he would whine nonstop and then bark like crazy when you would leave him alone in the car. Same thing if you would leave him alone anywhere, even in the kennel. So you can imagine the owner’s life. They could not take him along anywhere in the civilized world and neither leave him alone without the neighbours calling the police. I remember the day when the owner who once was a famous motor bike race driver dropped Billy at the Laubberg. He was quite desperate with this dog and at the same time he had tried everything to get him under control and now was very sad to leave him behind, smoking a cigarette outside his car once he had left Billy with me.
Well, Billy turned out to be key to my training here because honestly, this dog seemed completely out of control. On my first walk with him, he ran away and gave me a first taste of what he is capable of when we met another dog. In these moments, he would close up completely and there is absolutely nothing that would calm him down. Therefore, the first step of training was to teach him to run in a circle like horses do. This is the best therapy for this kind of dog. First you teach him how it works until he can run in a circle without any leash and then you confront him with other dogs. This means that he runs clockwise and the other dogs the other way around. The effect of the circle after a while is that instead of getting nervous, he just runs faster in the circle as he can’t go anywhere else. The dog at one point gets into what we call compulsion (in short, compulsion is when the dog needs as much energy to come back to his handler as he needs to run away). It may sound easy but it took me a month of hard work, having this dog run in a circle 3 times a day for 30 minutes. Once he seemed more stable, I started taking him for walks and indeed, he was under control. In the beginning he was still getting nervous and it would still happen from time to time that he would run or bark but then by using the hose technique with the right timing, he became more and more reliable. Then, I started to walk him in new areas that he wouldn’t know and even go to very busy places, lakes, rivers, cities etc. and he would stick to me like glue. He became neutral to outside elements and extremely focused on me.
The final test before he would go back to his owner was to take him to Stuttgart to one of our 3-day seminars. This time I would participate with Billy instead of acting as a trainer. Well, this was also a good test for my nerves! As Billy was exposed to an extreme level of stress due to a completely unknown environment, 20 dogs at a time on a training field, staying alone in the car on the hotel, new people etc. we got into some conflicts again. The first challenge was the car. He started whining and it took some endurance to shut this off. I had to go through the same procedure when it came to staying alone in the car, at the training field’s guest kennel or the hotel. He wouldn’t let out any situation where he could start his game again. You can imagine that when the seminar started, my nerves were already quite stretched...Then, when I took him out of the car for the first time at the training field, he got incredibly nervous when he saw all those new dogs and people. Therefore, I just wanted him to sit until he would calm down. But to get him to sit in such situations was not easy and without me taking any physical influence on him, he would whine and cry in a way that everybody who would hear him would think that I was killing him. Surprisingly enough, he turned out to be very good during the seminar and would work extremely well with the other dogs. I had him run in a circle again to demonstrate to the group how the end product looks like while they would confront him with their dogs and it worked perfectly. Also when we went for our first walk off the leash confronting bikers, joggers and other dogs he was great. However, when I thought that everything was fine, on the last day he decided to run away with Liwa in a field first thing in the morning, attack three joggers in the later morning and a farm dog in the afternoon. Obviously, I was not happy about this and talked to Hans. He was very confident and said that this is the set back that he had been waiting for because only after this he would become really stable. Well, he was right. We kept him 2 more weeks after that and he was just perfect in any situation.
It was the most amazing experience to give Billy back to his owner. They just couldn’t believe what they saw and thought that it was a different dog. They were incredibly happy and grateful. We walked tighter with Billy along a river and through a city and he was perfectly well behaved even with his owner taking the lead. Now it comes to teach the owners as their insecurities and mistakes could surely provoke a setback. Every 2 weeks they are coming for lessons and so far so good...
At least now I have some time to catch up on Billy’s story. Billy is a long haired German shepherd I took over from his owner for 1 ½ months (I mentioned that some time back). The problem with Billy was that due to being very unsecure, he would run away from his owner each time they would meet another dog, go towards the other dog and bark and since it’s quite of an impressive dog, people wouldn’t like this too much and his owners started getting very nervous about this. If they would keep him on the leash he would start pulling, whining and barking and it would really look like a sort of a panic attack. Also, they couldn’t walk him in unknown areas as he would become very nervous and equally get his panic attack. Taking him in the car was the worse; he would whine nonstop and then bark like crazy when you would leave him alone in the car. Same thing if you would leave him alone anywhere, even in the kennel. So you can imagine the owner’s life. They could not take him along anywhere in the civilized world and neither leave him alone without the neighbours calling the police. I remember the day when the owner who once was a famous motor bike race driver dropped Billy at the Laubberg. He was quite desperate with this dog and at the same time he had tried everything to get him under control and now was very sad to leave him behind, smoking a cigarette outside his car once he had left Billy with me.
Well, Billy turned out to be key to my training here because honestly, this dog seemed completely out of control. On my first walk with him, he ran away and gave me a first taste of what he is capable of when we met another dog. In these moments, he would close up completely and there is absolutely nothing that would calm him down. Therefore, the first step of training was to teach him to run in a circle like horses do. This is the best therapy for this kind of dog. First you teach him how it works until he can run in a circle without any leash and then you confront him with other dogs. This means that he runs clockwise and the other dogs the other way around. The effect of the circle after a while is that instead of getting nervous, he just runs faster in the circle as he can’t go anywhere else. The dog at one point gets into what we call compulsion (in short, compulsion is when the dog needs as much energy to come back to his handler as he needs to run away). It may sound easy but it took me a month of hard work, having this dog run in a circle 3 times a day for 30 minutes. Once he seemed more stable, I started taking him for walks and indeed, he was under control. In the beginning he was still getting nervous and it would still happen from time to time that he would run or bark but then by using the hose technique with the right timing, he became more and more reliable. Then, I started to walk him in new areas that he wouldn’t know and even go to very busy places, lakes, rivers, cities etc. and he would stick to me like glue. He became neutral to outside elements and extremely focused on me.
The final test before he would go back to his owner was to take him to Stuttgart to one of our 3-day seminars. This time I would participate with Billy instead of acting as a trainer. Well, this was also a good test for my nerves! As Billy was exposed to an extreme level of stress due to a completely unknown environment, 20 dogs at a time on a training field, staying alone in the car on the hotel, new people etc. we got into some conflicts again. The first challenge was the car. He started whining and it took some endurance to shut this off. I had to go through the same procedure when it came to staying alone in the car, at the training field’s guest kennel or the hotel. He wouldn’t let out any situation where he could start his game again. You can imagine that when the seminar started, my nerves were already quite stretched...Then, when I took him out of the car for the first time at the training field, he got incredibly nervous when he saw all those new dogs and people. Therefore, I just wanted him to sit until he would calm down. But to get him to sit in such situations was not easy and without me taking any physical influence on him, he would whine and cry in a way that everybody who would hear him would think that I was killing him. Surprisingly enough, he turned out to be very good during the seminar and would work extremely well with the other dogs. I had him run in a circle again to demonstrate to the group how the end product looks like while they would confront him with their dogs and it worked perfectly. Also when we went for our first walk off the leash confronting bikers, joggers and other dogs he was great. However, when I thought that everything was fine, on the last day he decided to run away with Liwa in a field first thing in the morning, attack three joggers in the later morning and a farm dog in the afternoon. Obviously, I was not happy about this and talked to Hans. He was very confident and said that this is the set back that he had been waiting for because only after this he would become really stable. Well, he was right. We kept him 2 more weeks after that and he was just perfect in any situation.
It was the most amazing experience to give Billy back to his owner. They just couldn’t believe what they saw and thought that it was a different dog. They were incredibly happy and grateful. We walked tighter with Billy along a river and through a city and he was perfectly well behaved even with his owner taking the lead. Now it comes to teach the owners as their insecurities and mistakes could surely provoke a setback. Every 2 weeks they are coming for lessons and so far so good...
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