I've been telling Axl that we're bringing in the trainer to fix him because he's broke. Well last night began the fixing process. I was very hesitant about bringing in a trainer for a couple of reasons. What if I didn't like them? What if I didn't agree with their methods? What if they asked me to do things that were unreasonable? But Axl has gotten so bad I had to do something. He pulls on the leash worse then any dog I've ever seen. It doesn't help that he's incredibly powerful. He has also taken to losing his mind when he sees another dog. Sunday night we took them to the park for a little walk and there was another guy there walking his dog. Well Axl just went crazy. He was barking and lunging and spinning around trying to get to that dog. The thing is I know he's not vicious. If he got loose and got over there he'd probably want to play with the dog. But boy does he look scary when he's freaking out. That's what finally led to the call to the trainer. His behaviors are escalating and soon I won't be able to leave the house with him.
The first thing she did when she got here was work on coming in the gate. Axl has taken to jumping at people at the gate, so she worked on that. I noticed that it's pretty amazing when you know what you're doing how quickly something can work. She came in and out of the gate 3 times and Axl was calming down about it. Anyway, then we sat and talked for almost an hour. She explained her background to us and I told her the issues we were having with Axl. After listening she almost immediately nailed it as uncertainty. She started describing behaviors that were exactly what Axl does. It felt good to finally understand what was the underlying problem. We went over some things to do at the dog park with him to make him more confident and secure. We then started to work on the walking. She recommends the gentle leader for cases like him. I have to say, I've used it before but Axl threw a fit about it. Well, she put it on him last night and he threw a fit again. She described it as throwing a tantrum and that's exactly what he was doing. Just like a 2 year old. She then proceeded to show me how to combat that tantrum. Hmmm, yelling at him wasn't the way! Who knew. Anyway, it was off to the park for a walk.
When we got there she initially walked with him to show me what to do. After a couple of minutes she passed the leash to me. I understand this process is as much about training me as it is helping Axl and I'm totally open to that. So we spent about 20 minutes at the park walking around, working on him not trying to get the gentle leader off and getting him to sit calmly. It was fun and interesting and I think Axl is going to be just fine. She said he was really doing great and with some work he really will be fine. So my homework is to walk him every night to get him completely used to the gentle leader. This weekend or so we are going to meet with the trainer again only she's going to have a dog with her. This way we can work on him not losing his mind when he sees another dog.
I'm so happy I did this and I think Axl is going to be just fine in a very short time. Stay tuned.
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