When Pigs Fly_ Training Success With Impossible Dogs - Jane Killion [1]
Walks are no fun when your dog has a mind of his own and you have no way to get him to pay attention to you.
Any healthy dog can be trained, and I am going to show you how to do it. By the time you finish this book your dog will be well trained, but that’s not all. You and your dog will have learned to love training, and you will be training your dog whenever you get the chance, just for the fun of it. You will have the confidence that you can teach your dog anything and the understanding that your dog is capable of learning, and loving it. You and your dog will be a successful team and you will be able to live in harmony together. As improbable as this may seem to you now, this is the book where the impossible becomes possible—Pigs Can Fly!
Sound Familiar?
Three Dogs
Consider the following descriptions of three successful performance dogs. Do any of them resemble your dog?
Dog number one is “The Bolter.” She attends basic obedience class. With one leash correction, she slows down. If the correction is repeated, she stops. If a third try is hazarded, she sits down like a mule and patently refuses to move. When off leash, however, this dog has no trouble moving very rapidly. Unfortunately, she is generally moving very rapidly in the wrong direction. She does not give a rat’s behind about what her handler wants her to do. It takes a great deal of sweaty and frustrating effort just to capture her after she runs off. Sometimes she actually has to be tackled.
Dog number two is “The Maniac.” He is so highly excitable that his heart literally beats out of control when he is in public. He has to be on beta-blocker medication to (in the words of his vet) “keep him from keeling over.” Even a walk down the street is out of the question. Anytime he meets a strange person or dogs his heart races, his tongue turns black, and he collapses on the ground. Sometimes his excitement is so great that he vomits and loses control of his bowels. One time he became so over stimulated by a visit from a neighbor that veterinary intervention was required to save his life.
Cherry’s original mission in life was to run away from me, but she eventually learned to jump through hoops for me instead!
Dog number three is “The Dud.” She carefully and precisely follows her handler around—at a walk. Toys, food, praise, and handler gyrations bring absolutely no change in her pace. She has two speeds—dead slow or stopped.
After reading these descriptions, you may find yourself re-reading my first sentence. “Did she say successful performance dogs?” Yes, I did. These are my Bull Terriers, and they all have gone on to great performance careers.
“The Bolter” is Cherry. Shortly after I figured out how to train her, she achieved 9 agility titles, with 24 first place finishes. To get these titles, Cherry had to run off leash in an unfenced ring with hundreds of people and dogs standing nearby. She had to navigate a course of obstacles like jumps, tunnels, see saws, and a five and a half foot high A-frame, all off leash, at top speed, at my direction, without me touching her. Not bad for a dog that previously spent most of her time figuring out how to run away from me.
“The Maniac” is Nicky, who earned his first leg toward an American Kennel Club obedience title at the Bull Terrier Club of America’s National Specialty, going High in Trial. To achieve this honor, Nicky had to walk exactly by my left side, turn with me, speed up and slow down with me, sit automatically when I halted, and stand still and allow the judge to run her hands down his back, both on and off leash. All of this had to be performed with little or no verbal cues from me. In addition, he had to stay in a line up of strange dogs with me 35 feet away from him for a total of five minutes. He had to perform in the hustle bustle of an obedience