Digby is a terrier cross; his owners were becoming increasingly concerned about his behaviour and in particular the fact that he would terrorise people that came to the front door, he would jump at them, some times growl and snap and sometimes he would even urinate on them.  It was beginning to impact on their social lives as people had stopped visiting them and it was really getting them down.  He was also becoming embarrassing to walk as he was aggressive to other dogs and would sometimes bark and lunge at other people, so they had stopped walking him – can’t say I blame them!  There were other minor problems too but we were going to concentrate on these two big ones.  So I arrived at their home and am pleased to say that I wasn’t pee’d on (although it wouldn’t have been the first time if he had!)  He was very excitable and I could see straight away that he was also stressed, we sat down and had a good chat over a cup of tea, because Digby was so over excited we just ignored him and eventually he settled down and stopped barking and growling and I was able to say hello to him, Digby was actually a really friendly dog and I fell in love with him almost straight away.  His owners were clearly distressed and revealed to me that I was his last hope; they had already seen other trainers who were unable to help him and were going to try to find him a new home if I wasn’t able to help him (no pressure then!!)

So we got started, the walk is so crucial to a dog so I always begin there, teaching him to walk calmly by your side is the key to good behaviour on the walk and will also impact on his behaviour at home too.  So we got started, I started the training so that his family could see how it was done, he was extremely excitable when we started but within half an hour he was walking to heel, his owners were amazed at how quickly it could happen and I explained to them that knowing how to communicate to your dog is the key to achieving this – no amount of treats were ever going to help him.  They were even more surprised to see that he was actually starting to ignore other dogs, he turned and barked at a few but I showed them how to handle him and he soon settled back down again, he had also stopped lunging and barking at people.  When they finally took over they were thrilled, they too were able to walk him just as I had and only a few pointers were needed to keep them on the right track.  Because I had shown them how to walk him like a pack leader he was happy to follow their lead and no longer felt he had to protect them from other dogs and people.

After nearly two hours we arrived home and we all took a well earned five minute break before we started working on his greeting at the front door.  I started by knocking on the door and Digby went nuts, as we expected, I showed his family how to calm him down and take control of him and they were able to open the front door after about 30 minutes, we repeated the exercise twice more and on the third time Digby had caught on – it took less than a minute to get him ready to open the door!  Of course there was no one at the door so it was easy for him, what we needed was an actual guest so we asked a neighbour to call by.  When the door bell rang Digby ran to the front door and barked as he always had, but this time when his owner came to the door he immediately calmed down and stood back from the door like he had been shown.  She opened the door and invited her guest in, Digby didn’t move, he just sat patiently while her guest walked into the house and through to the kitchen, her neighbour was amazed and was thrilled to be able to give Digby a belly rub.

Well done Digby!

(NB every dog is different and will respond to training differently and at different rates)