When Pigs Fly_ Training Success With Impossible Dogs - Jane Killion [2]
Nicky (on right) could not relax enough to go out for a walk, but now he can enjoy a stroll with some friends.
“The Dud” is Ruby who, at eighteen months, completed three agility titles. Agility requires the dog to run fast, and Ruby was as much as 10 seconds under the allowed time. Oh, by the way, she was also Winners Bitch at The Bull Terrier Club of America National Specialty that month. In order to beat out the other dogs she had to show like a house on fire for about two hours, and she did. I’d say these are remarkable accomplishments for a dog that would almost never break out of a walk.
So, what’s the point?
You may or may not have interest in doing performance sports with your dog, but the fact that I could train my dogs to these advanced levels is proof that you can train yours to do any basic thing that you would like him to do. Your dog, no matter what his breed or type, loves to learn, and that is what this book is all about. I have never met a dog that did not like training and learning new things. Pick the dog you love first, and I will show you how to have lots of fun training him. I will give you the skills you need to shape your pal into a happy, fun companion who is a pleasure to live with. You will have a system that you can use to build the skills necessary for virtually any activity you wish to participate in with your dog. Maybe you just love your dog and wish you could teach him a few things so life would be more harmonious around the house or out on walks. Maybe you have an “odd” breed of dog and you want to earn your breed club’s versatility award. Maybe you have a breed of dog that is not normally seen in performance sports and you want to get in on some of the fun your friends with obedient Shelties are having. Whatever your ultimate goal is, this book is dedicated to teaching you how to have a great time getting there.
Ruby, who almost never broke out of a walk when she was a young dog, now tears through agility weave poles. With the right training, Ruby went from “Dud” to “Dynamic!”
Are you thinking, “Yeah, but my dog is too hard to train?” I sympathize with people who insist that their dog is too difficult, too stubborn, too slow, or too hyper to train, but I can’t agree with them. As you can see from the stories of my own dogs, I have faced and dealt with all of those issues. The only problem that I see is that most people need a better understanding of how dogs learn and how to teach them.
Why Does My Dog Seem Hard to Train?
The Nature of the Pigs Fly Kinda Dog
Let’s talk about the term “difficult to train.” When we say a dog is difficult to train, part of what we really mean is that the dog is not biddable. Biddable means willing to do your bidding, just because you ask. Biddability is something that has been selectively bred into certain breeds that need to work closely with humans. Herding breeds need to respond to the shepherd’s commands. Gun dogs need to work as a team with the hunter. Terriers need to think on their own to outsmart and kill vermin…hmm. Sounds like we bred independent thinking instead of biddability into that group.
Pig-tionary
Biddable: willing to carry out the wishes of others: amenable, compliant, conformable, docile, obedient, submissive, supple, tractable (Roget’s II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition 1995). These are qualities that have been highly prized by breeders of working dogs throughout the centuries. Careful breeding over thousands of years has cultivated dogs that have an inclination to both work with and take direction from man. If you are reading this book, you probably do not have one of those dogs. If you laughed when you read the definition of biddable you definitely do not have one of those dogs.
Before you throw up your hands and say, “Well, there it is. My dog is genetically programmed to ignore me,” consider this: If you were comfortably