Life on the Leash

I worked with Athena the GSD and her person Cat over five years ago (where has the time gone?). Athena was Cat’s first dog, and the early stages of their relationship proved to be trial by fire. Cat was armed with plenty of old-school training advice, but the “Alpha Rolls” and corrections weren’t working, and Cat was beyond frustrated. She called me, and after a quick non-judgmental (I hope) conversation about dog training methods, we started our clicker training journey together.

Fast forward to present day … Cat’s relationship with Athena was so transformative that she wrote a book about it! Cat has graciously agreed to share an excerpt of  “my” chapter with you (the one where we begin working together), so today, instead of reading what I have to say about my clients, here’s what my client has to say about me!

(She’s still seeking a publisher - any takers out there?)

“Princess Athena: A Royally Funny German Shepherd”

Chapter 13 - Puppy Obedience

When Athena was around three months of age, I knew I had to start puppy training.  She was still a destructive little hellion who bit me regularly and didn’t know how to walk on a leash.  She knew how to sit.  That was so far our only accomplishment.  Megan had called to remind me about her training class, but I had been avoiding her call, dreading both a vomit-soaked car ride and constant reprimands for my clumsiness.  I looked online, and found the perfect solution—a trainer who came to your house.  The company was “Good Dog Obedience” and the website comically featured a Weimaraner standing on a picnic table with the caption “from this…” and underneath was the same Weimaraner sitting placidly with a halo over its head “…to this.”  I emailed the owner/trainer, Victoria Schade, and inquired about rates and classes.  I explained my idiocy around Athena’s breeder, the car sickness and Athena’s overall craziness.  Victoria emailed me back immediately; she seemed friendly, reassuring, and humorous.  Her only opening was 8am on Saturdays, and I readily took it.

We had a consultation first, and I let Athena into the living room.  She jumped on Victoria, trying to bite her hands, and Victoria looked away and pretended Athena didn’t exist.  Cowed and confused, Athena dutifully trotted next to Victoria, fascinated.  Victoria went over the details, pulling a bully stick out of her bag.  As if Athena had suddenly morphed into “…to this,” she left us to chew the stick in the kitchen.  “Just so we don’t have any distractions,” Victoria said.  Athena ran away from a perfectly good set of new hands to bite.  It was unprecedented.

We settled on 8am every Saturday for seven weeks.  Half-fearing the little hooligan chewing away on her stick, I couldn’t wait to start training.  Victoria picked up on my fear.  “You seem almost a bit afraid of your own dog,” she said.  I was astounded by how obvious it was, and I admitted with some shame that I was still slightly nervous around dogs in general.  I told her, blushing, that Athena bit me almost daily, and I was worried how she was going to turn out, given that she had very little—an almost Sociopathic lack of—awareness or natural remorse when I disciplined her.  She never had an angry demeanor when she bit; she didn’t growl or look hostile.  If anything, she looked thoroughly contented when she was doing it.  I just didn’t want to have to resort to pinning her for every single infraction.  It was the only thing that she seemed to understand.  She had no aggression for anything else; from the beginning first days with her, I reached in routinely and took food out of her bowl, pulled her away from the bowl, and tugged on her while she was eating.  Never once did she demonstrate any annoyed, dominant food-aggression.  But I knew hardly anything about dog behavior, and certainly not the proper way to deal with a puppy that went as rumble-tumble nuts as she did every day.  Victoria assured me that with training, Athena would have a structured outlet for her energy, and it would help give me some boundaries, a framework, to work with her. “I think we both need this,” I said, sighing in relief.  She looked at me kindly, and said the fact that I was even worried about it showed that I wanted to become a responsible dog owner.  I nodded vigorously like a bobble-head.

For the next seven Saturdays, it rained every single lesson except one, so we had to improvise and train inside exclusively.    Our lessons consisted of the click-treat method.  I received from Victoria an official apron to hold treats and two clickers.  I was instructed to give Athena a command, and if she complied, click the tiny toy and quickly give her a small piece of food.  We settled on cut-up turkey hot dogs.  My mother ended up with a clicker eventually. She was so enamored of the idea of clicking something as praise that I gave her one of her own.  She attached the thing to her keychain, and she liked to tell me that she clicked herself when she did something she was proud of, such as finding and fitting into a particularly difficult parallel parking spot on a busy road or putting together a desk.  “Clickah Clickah!” my mom sang, if she was praising one of us kids on the phone, and within seconds, we would hear the click.  Pressing the clicker joined biting into an apple as an empowering trick she learned whenever she faced something daunting.  “You can’t doubt yourself when you’re biting into a crisp apple,” my mother said one day.  I heard the clicker go off and she started to laugh; she was clicking her own good advice.

I liked Victoria immediately.  She smiled easily and didn’t make me feel stupid if I made a mistake.  I got the hang of click-treating fairly rapidly, and having goals finally gave me some much-needed confidence with my puppy.

Athena loved training.  As she did with anything she was enthused about, she went all out.  She barreled into my hand to get the hot dog, usually missing it in her excitement.  For weeks my fingers had long bloody lines on them from where she had scraped her teeth across them in her frantic urgency to get her reward.  I looked like I had a tank full of baby alligators I was feeding by hand.  Athena proved to be an apt pupil, and I dutifully put her through our “homework” every day.

I love it! Isn’t Cat a great writer? Don’t you want to read more? Fingers crossed that Cat finds a publisher for her baby!