[Parker]

I have really great dogs. For the most part, they are very well behaved and follow my verbal and non-verbal commands without fuss, save for the occasional stubbornness of my 15yo girl, Harley who is a dominant old bitch and the stubbornness/confusion of my little old man, Max who lived on the street for so long, some of this is hard for him to grasp. But I rarely have a problem with the puppy or my big boy not listening to me.

If I say "bedroom," they head straight for the bedroom; if I say "outside," they head outside; if I tell the boys to get their toys or if I am outside and I simply point at a toy, they grab their toys, one by one, and bring them inside.

They sit, they lay, they eat nice, they are not food or toy aggressive. They sit before eating or before being let out of confinement without my saying a word - even a friend who dog sat while I was gone for a week noticed that; she didnt have to say a thing, they just sat and waited for her.

I dont train them to do tricks though - I used to think that was cool and I still think it is fun to watch a dog doing tricks, but these are my companions, not my circus animals, so the commands they follow are just to keep them from being all rowdy and stuff.

So I've been watching this dog training show on CBS called Dogs in the City and when I watch it and see the problems with these other dogs, I realize what a great pack I have - and the only thing I would change is how they flip the fuck out when someone knocks on the door &/or comes inside:

The old girl and the puppy both bark bloody murder; my big Boxer/Pit, all 80lbs of him, tries to jump on people to give them kisses; and my little old man, Max, runs into the back yard and barks at the people in the house, endlessly.

Unfortunately, whenever I watched Cesar, I never learned anything - the only thing he would tell us, ever, is that we have -HAVE- to walk our dogs all the damn time. Well, sorry brother, but I cant do that, what else you got?

Also, whenever he did any kind of training, he was either did a bunch of stuff off camera or he was just generally very vague about what he was doing - so you didnt learn anything, you just felt like you should buy all of his books and DVDs. lol

But this Justin dude on DitC - the "Dog Guru" - doesnt just show the people with dog problems what to do, he does it on camera so we ALL get to see what to do in these situations.

One day, I finally saw a situation close to mine where the people couldnt answer the damn door because their dogs were going ape shit - so I watched what Justin did and saw that it was something I could do by myself, inside and suddenly, I felt empowered - like I could fix this issue without hiring outside help!

So, today, we did our first of many training sessions. When training, Justin likes to use deli turkey vs. dog cookies; but I wanted something uniform instead of just tearing off clumps of meat, so I thought of getting a package of pepperoni, but didnt like the idea of feeding them those spices, so I got a small package of Canadian bacon that was about the size of silver dollars.

One of the things he pointed out was that a lot of dog owners try to teach or train from a negative perspective instead of a positive one. When he asked the woman what she wanted her dogs to do when someone knocked on the door, she said what I also said, out-loud to the tv (lol), "I want them to not bark."

He said that's a negative, think of something positive - what do you what them to do? She thought about it, as did I, and no answer was forthcoming, so he suggested to have the dogs sit on the opposite side of the room as the door, leaving the space for the door to be answered and people to walk inside. Made perfect sense to me, so I decided my dogs should go to or on the couch when someone knocks on the door.

So, I started out by getting them all to sit in front of or on the couch and gave them a piece of ham. Then I walked back several feet while telling them verbally and with hand gestures to "stay." They did, so I gave them all another piece. I did this several times, moving farther and farther back each time - and even turning my back to them - and each time, I came back to give them a piece of ham.

Then I moved all the way to the door and knocked. The older dogs stayed sitting and quiet but the puppy (Jack) got up, startled and boofed. I gave him the hand gesture and verbal command to sit and stay and he did, so more ham. I did that several more times, each time knocking longer and louder and each time they didnt bark and rush the door, I gave them a piece of ham.

The puppy didnt bark after that first time until the last time because I was pounding on the door and it freaked him a little, but both times I was able to calm him down quickly and he stayed put.

This was not a bad start at all! My goal is 2-fold: I would like them to automatically go to the couch and sit on or in front of it quietly when someone knocks on the door and I would like for them to recognize the command "couch" the same way they do the commands, "bedroom" and "outside," meaning, when I say "couch," I would like for them to go to the couch and sit quietly.

If I am consistent with this training, they will eventually get it and I think we will reach our goals - because, like I said, they are great dogs.


Zeke, my 10yo, 80lb Boxer/Pit (L) and Max, my 7-ish yo 18lb Taiwan alley dog (R):



Harley, my 15yo, 45lb hound dog (L) and Jack, my 2yo, 35lb Formosan (Taiwan) Mountain Dog (R):