Dog Training Adelaide in Adelaide, South Australia | Dog trainer

Dog Training Adelaide

Locality: Adelaide, South Australia

Phone: +61 475 440 783

Address: lower north east road paradise 5075 Adelaide, SA, Australia

Website: http://dogtrainingadelaide.net.au

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01.01.2022 I thought you all might like this. I was asked to testify by declaration regarding a human bite case in SoCal. Animal control petitioned the court to put this f...amily’s dog down after one bite incident. The judge asked both sides to have an expert witness testify in writing as to whether a dog can be rehabilitated. I submitted my declaration and then was asked to issue a rebuttal to their behaviorists declaration. Glad to say we won and the dog is currently being trained. Names have been removed for privacy sake. I can’t post what she submitted because it is a legal document and has case info all over it. Let’s just say it’s typical pos only training. My declaration was converted to legalese and then submitted. Here is my rebuttal In response to Ms.______ evaluation, she is correct in many regards. She is correct that when considering rehabilitation of a dog there are many factors we must evaluate: the severity of the bite, the willingness of the owner to complete and consistently apply the training that is required, how long the dog has been practicing the behavior, and the determination as to what exactly are the dog's triggers. Where her declaration fails is in the fact that all she gave was ways to mitigate the behavior using preventative measures. Also, where she states that "there is no cure for aggression, that there is always a risk of aggression" is incorrect. In my response, I will illustrate the steps we take to effectively change the behavior. She fails to take into account that behaviors can be corrected utilizing a balanced training approach. Her statement that using punitive measure and tools will "likely cause the problem to worsen" or the dog will exhibit "learned helplessness" is patently false. This is a point of contention between "positive only trainers" and "balanced trainers." A balanced trainer, like myself, train using dog psychology as a basis for our teaching. In a pack, the dog learns though positive punishment (meaning adding an aversive consequence after an undesired behavior is emitted to decrease future responses) and negative punishment (meaning to take away a certain reinforcing item after the undesired behavior happens in order to decrease future responses). Some examples of these are when a dog is acting too aggressively the mother dog will bite the muzzle of her pup and submit her until her energy changes or a pack-mate might walk away if the puppy is playing too rough. These training styes are found in nature and dogs easily relate to this type of behavior modification. When Ms. _____ refers to aversive tools like e-collar, prong collars and leash corrections making the problem worse again she is wrong. There is proven history of these techniques being extremely effective. Again, I give you two of my own dogs at home as examples. Both Astro and Kibo had e-collars and leash corrections applied to them and they are living anything, but a helpless life. They are well-balanced dogs, are now working dogs for me and are used to help rehabilitate other dogs. Where positive only trainers fail to understand is that the use of the aversive tools gives a negative response to the behavior the dog is exhibiting, but then we use positive reinforcement to teach an alternative response. In other words, we teach the dog to make the right choices. When a dog has a bite history the dog has learned to use his or her teeth to get what they want. In most cases, the removal of something they fear. So we must change that thought pattern. The first step in "e-collar" or "shock collar" training is to teach the dog that its normal response to said stimuli is no longer working for him. He gets a low level nick with the e-collar as he attempts to bite. In a sense, I'm taking his tool away from him and he must eventually figure out a different approach. In the ladder of behaviors a dog will display, to fight is at the bottom. The next rung up is avoidance followed by to surrender. Once the dog has determined that using the bite is no longer working for him, his next choice is to move away from the stimuli. This, we refer to as avoidance and we reward it, as we would any desired learned behavior. This is repeated until he is consistently making the right choice of avoidance in any given situation and environment, or known as proofing a behavior. It is at this point when we start to bring the owner back into the situation to see how the owner's own energy is effecting the dog. This is the point where we merge the human training with the dog training. Teaching the owner how to lead the dog in any given situation and to teach the dog that the owner is there to protect him and he no longer needs to fear for his safety. Applying these techniques appropriately teaches the dog to surrender or in other words to trust his owner. As with all training, it will be a life-long requirement of the owner to maintain that trust and to continue to socialize the dog in real world scenarios. I, as well as many balanced trainers, have had great success in rehabilitating "aggressive dogs" following these approaches. Can we guarantee a dog we worked won't bite again? No. Dogs like humans have free will, but I also can't guarantee a dog who has never shown aggression won't ever bite. A dog is an animal and there are never any guarantees, but with that they deserve the chance to change.