I’ve talked to quite a few dog owners as a result of writing Bad Dog to Best Friend. Once you write a book about training a problem dog, you find yourself meeting people with problem dogs everywhere you go.

One of those dog owners had been through several dogs and when her dogs hit that rebellious teenager stage, she’d ship them off to somebody else and go adopt a puppy. She never quite got the hang of training a dog so adopting a new puppy didn’t solve the problem, it just started the cycle all over again. From her perspective, she just hadn’t found “the right dog” yet.

What she didn’t realize is that there is no such thing as “the right dog.” Puppies come to us as blank slates and it is our job as the dog trainer to fill that blank slate with positive dog training. While there are certain factors based on the dog’s breed that will steer the dog in one direction or another, you are still in control of where your dog ultimately ends up on the training scale.

And if you think you are not a dog trainer, think again. The minute you adopt a dog you become his trainer regardless of how you see yourself. Not training a dog is just as powerful as training him, because he will be learning from you. Failure to take the lead results in a dog who hits that teenage rebellion stage, putting you at your wit’s end and sending your dog to the dog pound.

I tried to gently explain to my friend that learning the skills of how to train your dog carries with you for life. While that first bad dog may be a learning experience as our dog Dakota was, once you learn the proper skills of training a puppy, from that day forward all of your dogs will be good dogs. The dog training techniques will be with you for every dog you adopt thereafter.

Not only that, the dog training skills that you learn will rub off on your friends and family. If you have kids, you can teach them the skills so that their lives can be full of happy, well-behaved, well-adjusted dogs. Your friends will see your well-trained dogs and they’ll watch you for tips to take home to their own dogs.

So while taking on the challenge of training a problem dog seems overwhelming, it’s only overwhelming for the training of that one dog. You almost learn more yourself when you have to take on a big challenge, such as training a dog that you’ve allowed to travel down the bad dog trail.

It’s totally worth the effort to learn the skills of dog training so that all of your dogs can be happy housemates and make no mistake — owning a dog makes you a dog trainer whether you like it or not, so why not learn how to train your dog successfully?

If you’d like to read the story of the problem dog that challenged us, Bad Dog to Best Friend shares her dirty deeds, head-strong nature, humorous anecdotes, and some of our tips in retraining her.

If you know someone with a dog who never quite got the hang of potty training, or who thinks the house is a giant chew toy, give them this book. Dakota was a semi-adult shelter dog who was the Queen of Bad Behavior and the Master of Dirty Tricks. Bad Dog to Best Friend takes you from Dakota’s awful beginnings to her amazing transformation, and includes detailed how-to’s for potty training an adult dog and stopping your dog from chewing your house to pieces.

Bad Dog to Best Friend: The Book Paperback, Kindle, Nook, Kobo, Audiobook book cover hosted on www.flickr.com

Tags: adopting the right dog, bad dog, bad dog problems, bad dog to best friend, dog, dog problems, dog training, dog training techniques, dog training tips, dogs, finding the right dog, problem dog, sharon delarose, techniques for dog training, techniques for training a dog, the right dog, tips for dog training, tips for training a dog, training a bad dog, training a dog, training a problem dog, training a puppy

Category: Dog Tails of Adventure

She was a dreamboat
(What were her previous owners thinking?)

We often hesitate to adopt a dog from the dog pound because we figure we don’t know what we’re getting into adopting somebody else’s used dog. We assume that if the dog is at the dog pound there must be a reason. He chews up your smelly shoes, he pees on Aunt Molly, he rummages through the trash…. there must be something really wrong for the dog to be at the dog pound.

That’s the big myth. In fact, when adopting a dog from a dog pound they often have some kind of record about the dog: any training he’s had, whether he’s been an outdoor or indoor dog, plus they’ve spent a few days around him and know if he’s an aggressive dog, friendly, fearful, etc. Dogs don’t just appear on their doorstep. People turn their dogs in and they must fill out a fact sheet about the dog.

My very first dog was a dog pound special, also known as a “shelter dog” or “rescue dog”. Gypsy Rose was a year and a half old and it was a tough decision whether to adopt an adult dog or a puppy. I didn’t want to train a dog from scratch so I didn’t want a puppy. I wanted the dog to at least be housebroken and maybe sit or lay down on command.

According to their records Gypsy Rose was housebroken, knew the command sit and preferred the outdoors. I liked what I saw in her eyes: they were calm. She wasn’t jumping around and barking like the other dogs. There was no sign of aggression or fear. She sat calmly, looking at me with a question mark in her eyes.

Today her eyes are full of joy and laughter and love and the question mark is in my eyes because I don’t understand how she came to be abandoned by two different families. Somebody, somewhere, spent a lot of time with this dog and it shows. Gypsy Rose knew a lot more when I adopted her than just sit.

She was about the closest thing to the perfect dog that I could ever imagine and it baffled me utterly that anyone would have gotten rid of her. To think how close she was to the gas chamber. She’d been there for a week already and I don’t know how long they keep a dog before the axe falls but I don’t think it’s much more than a week.

Obviously not all shelter dogs are going to be as perfect as Gypsy Rose. She’s got her quirks as do all of us but the moral of the story is never to assume that just because somebody dumped the dog, that there’s something wrong with the dog. Maybe it’s the owner that was the problem.

###

This article was written in 1999 in honor of our perfect dog. Gypsy Rose passed away at the age of 15 years old in 2009. We adopted another shelter dog in 2007 who didn’t come to us as well trained as Gypsy Rose. Her name was Dakota and she took us on a wild ride. She filled our life with “Don’t Kill the Dog” sticky notes and she was quite a handful. We wrote several articles during her first two years with us about the retraining of this awful dog and later turned them into a book which is now available on Amazon.com.

Training a shelter dog who wasn’t as perfect as Gypsy Rose. Dakota was the exact opposite. From Bad Dog to Best Friend takes you from her awful beginnings to her amazing transformation.
Paperback	Kindle

Tags: adopt a dog, adopting a dog, bad dog, dog, dog pound, dog rescue, dog shelter, dog training, dogs, good dog, perfect dog, rescue dog, rescue dogs, shelter dog, shelter dogs, train a dog, training a dog, used dog

Category: Dog Tails of Adventure

We were never bothered by flies in the house. Our dog Gypsy Rose could catch a fly in midair. Catching bugs, especially flying bugs, was one of her favorite pastimes. She could also catch wasps.

The first time our dog tried to catch a wasp I stopped her, afraid that she would get stung. Hovering like an overprotective mother I would intervene. Wasps in the house were an uncommon occurrence so I didn’t expect to encounter this again right away.

The next day brought more wasps. So did the day after and many days to follow. The wasps kept coming. Apparently they had some secret door into the house.

Gypsy Rose was mesmerized by these loud, buzzing creatures. Flies had always been a favorite treat and the wasps were bigger and noisier. She yearned for the hunt and I was growing tired of being the bad guy who kept spoiling her joy so one day I decided to just let her be. Gypsy Rose would get stung and she’d learn not to mess with wasps again. That would be the end of it.

To my utter disbelief she caught the wasp in midflight, pulling her lips back from her teeth and snapping the wasp in half. Several quick snaps of her teeth chopped the wasp to pieces before it could extend the stinger and the pieces disappeared down her throat as happy little dog treats. I was in awe. Surely this was a fluke.

The days passed and our dog caught wasp after wasp, thoroughly enjoying this tasty new morsel. I developed a morbid fascination watching her accomplish this daring deed. If she got stung it did not faze her because for all the rest of her years, Gypsy Rose happily caught wasps and ate them. Gypsy Rose was our bug catcher.

Dakota on the other hand preferred much bigger game. Dakota was an Australian Cattle Dog / Husky mix. These were two dog breeds from some of the wildest, untamed territories known to man. Cattle Dogs were bred to herd cattle out on the open range, running for hours on end to keep the cattle in line, risking their lives when a frisky cow would try to kick them away. Siberian Huskies were bred for the wilds of Alaska. Neither was a dainty breed.

While Dakota would happily tackle a bug on the floor and eat it, she could not master the art of catching flies in midair as Gypsy Rose had done. She preferred the chase of a squirrel or chipmunk, pursuits that fed her need to run fast and hard in the great outdoors.

More often than not she ignored my calls to come in. The Call of the Wild was an aphrodisiac full of irresistable temptations. Dakota was a house dog who loved the outdoors. The treats I offered to lure her back inside paled in comparison to the wonders that Mother Nature offered.

One particular morning I let her out for her final morning potty, the potty that would hold her the rest of the day while we were at work. I let her have a few extra minutes outdoors while I prepared my lunch. When I called for Dakota to come back in I was answered with silence. Something had captured her attention again. I called and called and several minutes passed before she finally came trotting up the stairs carrying something in her mouth. To my great surprise Dakota laid a four inch round turtle on the floor at my feet, her face alit with pure joy. He was tucked tight into his shell and appeared to be unharmed.

“Look at the really cool thing I found in the woods!” her eyes seemed to say. “Can I have it please? Can I keep it?” Joy and innocence shined in her eyes as she shared her greatest moment with me.

Being more focused on getting to work I didn’t stop to think how I should handle this important moment in our dog’s life. I picked up the turtle and gently told her no, she couldn’t have the turtle, then I took it outdoors and let it go free and off to work I went.

The event haunted me. I’d missed a golden opportunity. I got halfway up the street when I had to turn around. All I could think about was how I should have taken pictures of Dakota and the turtle before taking it away. I should have taken a picture of the turtle up next to something to demonstrate its size. I should have taken a photo of Dakota’s happy face, of her holding the turtle, of the turtle on the ground at her feet. I should have preserved this special moment to remember it always. This was an important moment for her, sharing this big find. I had to go back. I had to take pictures.

I turned the car around and went back home with the intention of bringing the turtle back in for a couple of quick photos then setting it loose again. A five minute delay, that’s all I needed. But there was one giant dilemma: the turtle was gone. I searched high and low for that turtle, all thru the woods and across the yard, circling wider and wider. Surely he couldn’t have disappeared so quickly! How far could a turtle have possibly have gotten? I searched and searched to no avail. The turtle was nowhere to be found.

All the way to work I tormented myself over an additional mistake I’d made in reacting to Dakota with the turtle. I realized that I’d handled the whole affair totally wrong. Dakota had brought that turtle to me having no idea I’d take it away from her. She’d never attempt to bring another in. From that moment forward she simply wouldn’t come when I called her. I’d worked so hard in trying to train her to come in from outside on command and now I’d sent the message loud and clear that to keep her tasty dog treat she’d have to stay outdoors and ignore my calls. We’d been struggling with this stage of her dog training.

What should I have done? I’m no dog expert but I believe I should have given her something in trade. The moment I took the turtle away I should have given her a desireable dog treat in its place. That’s how we taught her what she could chew in the house. We traded legal dog chews for illegal objects.

This tactic had worked well and Dakota had learned not to chew anything except what we gave her to chew. Rather than focusing totally on the negative, the NO, we were swapping it with a positive. We didn’t just punish her by taking something away and leaving her frustrated, we offered a replacement to entice her to make a good decision.

Had I traded for the turtle I would have sent the message that the turtle was not okay but that I would give her something enjoyable in its place. Instead I sent the message that she’d better go find a hidey hole if she wanted to keep her turtles. If mama calls you’d better run and hide!

Tags: ausky, australian cattle dog, bee, bug catcher, call of the wild, dog, dog catches flies, dog catches wasps, dog catching a fly, dog catching a wasp, dog chews, dog doesn't come, dog doesn't come when called, dog eating a fly, dog eating a wasp, dog eats a turtle, dog eats flies, dog eats wasps, dog got stung, dog prefers outdoors, dog stung, dog training, dog training tips, dog treats, teaching a dog not to chew, turtle, wasp

Category: Dog Tails of Adventure