Simply put, we will come to your home to meet you and your dog and learn about your training goals. We will help you to understand why your dog may be doing the things you are wanting to change and help you to devise a plan to do just that. We will then get straight down to business making positive change through our positive training methods.
We will teach and support you as how best to train your dog, or if you’re busy and need to see faster results, we can do the training for you!
In accordance with worldwide leading professional dog trainers, training organisations, and science, we pride ourselves on using only positive, humane, scientifically-proven reward-based training methods. Behavioural science has come a long way over the last few decades, releasing us from traditional training methods often based around pain, discomfort, force or intimidation, as well as outdated concepts like “alpha” and “dominance”; and this is a great thing! Now that we know better, we can do better. Not only is positive training even more effective, but it is also much safer and much much more fun!
More often than not, displays of aggressive behaviour such as barking, lunging, growling, snapping and even biting are expressions of fear and/or stress. Some fearful dogs will hide or run away; others quickly learn that barking or lunging toward their trigger will make it go away.
While this can be an effective strategy for a dog, it is certainly not safe or socially acceptable. Dogs who show aggressive behaviours are also very stressful to live with. Whether they be showing aggressive behaviours toward other dogs, strangers or family members, the earlier you seek help, the better; aggressive behaviour generally escalates and grows worse with time.
Absolutely. Though every dog and every case are different, using positive training methods will greatly reduce your stress by seeking to change the way your dog views the world. If your dog is no longer afraid of visitors to the home, they will have no need to bark and lunge at them to make them go away.
Unfortunately, traditional training methods that rely on punishing a dog for displays of aggression result in either worsening the behaviour, or suppressing it temporarily (the ‘quick fix’); it is also not training, it’s simply punishment. The issue with punishing a dog for growling or lunging when they feel unsafe, is that if they do stop in the moment, they are just suppressing those feelings of stress and fear. Dogs may learn not to growl or lunge, and then ‘without warning’ (because that was punished out of them) they escalate their behaviour to biting.
Fortunately, positive training will change both how your dog feels about the things they dislike or perceive as threatening, as well as their behaviour. Not only is this modern approach to training significantly more effective, but it is also enjoyable for dog and human alike.
If this is you, we would love to help.
Group puppy training, dog training classes and specialised workshops are held in Balhannah and Mount Barker, in the Adelaide Hills, South Australia.
If you are located in the Copper Coast Council area, Yorke Peninsula Council, Mid Murray Council area, Southern Barossa Council or Murray Bridge Council area, we travel to these locations monthly. Please contact us to find out when we will next be in your area.