I met someone recently who told me a story that floored me. She approached me while I was walking my three dogs and asked if I was a trainer. She had heard that I was and had a question for me. 

She had a beautiful King Charles Cavalier puppy that was as sweet as could be. He acted like a normal 6-month old and approached my dogs with interest and a normal amount of hesitation when approaching my two big Collies and my Sheltie. 

Another potential client contacted me a while back to “fix” her dog that she dropped off at a “boot camp” for two weeks.

I have heard this scenario many times over the years. Her dog was aggressive and a trainer told her  that “she needed to show it who is boss” and she believed him. She dropped her dog off in the care of this “dog trainer” that assured her that her problems would be solved when she picked her dog up.

I got a sad call from a new client yesterday. She said her dog was showing signs of dog-dog aggression and, from the advice of someone in the dog park, she hired a trainer that uses choke chains. She said initially the training wasn't too physical, but she ended up firing him because of his increasingly abusive techniques when dogs were around her dog.

While working with a private client on Wednesday, we ran into another local Chicago trainer. It was interesting, because we were both teaching our clients the exact same lesson, using different philosophies. The goal was to have our dogs meet each other calmly. My client and I were walking a 2 year old wheaton terrier, and the other trainer and his client each had a dog that they were working with.

I used one of many strategies to get Misty to greet nicely.