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Rolling Meadows Academy
of Dog Training
148 Bingham Industrial Dr.
Denton, NC 27239
USA
We offer the following
services
for the special needs of
our celebrity clients:
• We can personally deliver your
pre-trained dog.
• We can arrange limo service from Greensboro, Charlotte or Raleigh, NC
airport to the Academy if you pick up.
• All transactions are top secret, no name dropping or intrusions of privacy
will occur.
• We can work directly with you, your manager, your power of attorney, or
your family.
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 Are people reluctant to come inside your home
because it looks like they'll get slobbered, pounced, or peed on by your
dog? Do your dogs love to greet a visitor with all the joy of meeting a
new playmate? Does your dog defy gravity to get a good lick at a visitor's
face? Even if you don't mind this behavior, the odds are very good that
your visitors do. Submissive urination can be controlled, and you can
teach your dogs not to ambush your visitors with a little (okay, a LOT) of
patience.
All dogs need Manners. Manners are different from Basic
Obedience, and are rarely covered in detail in any class on dogs… until
now! I have just started including a class on Manners in my Basic
Obedience course.
Regardless of the amount of training your dog has had, a
dog without Manners isn’t any fun to live with.
So, what are Manners? Manners are polite, socially
appropriate behaviors.
For example, we teach Manners to children. We teach them to
not eat with their mouths open; how to answer a telephone call and take a
message; we teach little boys to put down the toilet lid (!) and little
girls to not stick their tongues out at little boys (!). We teach all of
these things, in addition to teaching them how to read, write and do
arithmetic.
In a similar way, we teach dogs a degree of
self-sufficiency so that they can manage themselves in social situations
or when left alone. Manners should be taught in addition to the
command-oriented behaviors like Coming when called, Sitting, lying Down,
and Heeling.
I’m not very impressed with a dog and handler that can
obtain a high-level obedience title. I AM IMPRESSED with a highly trained
companion dog, that’s welcome everywhere because it also has good Manners
in addition to obedience.
In other words, just because a dog has completed an obedience course, or
has a few titles, doesn’t mean it’s any fun to live with!
Likewise, with a dog, it’s much more challenging to have an
obedient and well-mannered companion, than to get the dog to perform in
the controlled environment of the obedience ring. In the real world, there
are many things that challenge your dog that won’t be there in the
obedience competition ring.
The goal in teaching a dog Manners is for you to have a dog
that is going to be welcomed, not a nuisance, and trustworthy wherever you
go, even if the dog is left with someone else. In other words we
don't just train obedience commands, we train
canine good citizens (CGC).
Manners are not usually command-oriented behaviors although
we do teach commands to remind him of his bad behavior. Behaviors are things
that you expect the dog to learn and practice without you having to
supervise them when they are adults. Manners are a way of life for a dog.
We need to teach Manners to dogs so that they are welcome
and accepted into social situations. At a bare minimum, the following
Manners should be taught to all dogs by the time they are adults:
Acceptance Of Guests: All dogs need to be taught a proper
greeting routine at the front door. The dog doesn’t get to jump up on the
guest, sniff them in inappropriate places, continue to bark or growl, or
mouth their hands. Once the guest is invited in the home, the dog should
not be allowed to bother the guests, but instead be taught to go and lay
down at a designated Place. It is your job to supervise your dog and make
sure your dog isn’t a bother to your guests. It’s not only the polite
thing to do, but you aren’t putting your guest in the position to have to
correct your dog for you. If you don’t correct your dog, then they will
(and don’t be surprised if they resort to methods that you wouldn’t
approve of).
Respect For Boundaries: I believe that a dog should be
taught that it can’t run out the front door, go into the garage, open or
get into cabinets and closets, or get on some or all of the furniture; and
it can’t leave the car w/o permission. This is an issue of safety as well
as Manners. It’s no fun chasing after a dog that’s run away, and it’s no
fun having to hold or block a dog at the front door every time it is
opened. Some dogs also become too big for their britches when allowed on
furniture, and then feel that they have the right to use aggression to
"discipline" the family and guests.
Respect For Family including pets: Adult dogs shouldn’t be
allowed to jump on, mouth, mount, discipline, or body block family
members. In addition, dogs shouldn’t be allowed to beat up the cat or
another household dog (but they should be allowed to create and maintain a
reasonable pack order). Adult dogs shouldn’t also be allowed to do any
other "bratty" behaviors. Leaving a dog in the back yard all day doesn't
teach these lessons. Instead, they are learned by living with the people,
and getting the 100,000 little corrections that dogs need to get as they
grow up to become adults. Dogs need a family to become part of the family.
These are things that YOU have to do with your dog — you can’t just send
your dog off somewhere to be fixed, like a broken VCR. I can show you, but
it will still be up to you to teach them because living with a dog is
about establishing a RELATIONSHIP.
Respect For My Things: No destructive chewing, no stealing
of objects, no urine marking in the house. Sometimes a dog is being
destructive because the dog is suffering from Separation Anxiety. That’s
not an issue of respect, and shouldn’t be treated that way. On the other
hand, normal puppies should be expected to tear up your place until you
teach them what is and isn’t acceptable to chew on. I don’t believe that
you can trust a dog to be alone in your car or home until the dog is
around 1 year old, AND you’ve actively worked on teaching the dog
acceptable chewing habits. If you aren’t sure whether your dog is chewing
because of a lack of Manners, or because your dog is suffering from
Separation Anxiety, you SHOULD NOT apply a remedy until you’ve talked to
me about it and gotten a diagnosis.
Able To Play On Their Own: I don’t like going over to
people’s houses when their kids can’t play on their own. I feel that
children should be taught to live a balanced life: able to both interact
with people AND be able to entertain themselves: a coloring book, Disney
video, eating a snack, playing with a toy, etc. When a child cannot allow
other people to visit, then the adults need to teach the child, and
encourage them, to learn to play by themselves. We want them to learn to
be self-sufficient adults. Likewise, I believe a dog should be taught to
chew on a chew toy or play with a play toy, if it has nothing else to do,
instead of constantly pestering the owners and guests for attention.
No Inappropriate Aggression: No "stink eye" (staring and
posturing against friendly people or animals), no growling, and no biting.
There are several reasons why a dog should be allowed to be aggressive:
legitimate self protection, establishment and maintenance of a pack order
with the other dogs in the house, protection of territory, protection of
the family from attack, legitimate police or sport or protection work, and
legal hunting purposes. All other forms of aggression are unacceptable
Manners and need to be suppressed.
Manners In Public: Your dog should be welcome everywhere
that dogs are allowed. All dogs should be expected to be able to Heel,
Sit, Down and Come in public, plus have proper public Manners.
Respect For the Pack Order: Dogs need to become a member of
your human "pack." That means they view the world as them being
accountable to the family, not on a "hunt", and not the leader. You
can’t properly manage a dog, especially one of the more dominant breeds,
without being your dog’s leader. For example, dogs shouldn’t take YOU for
a walk, which is tantamount to them ignoring your leadership, but you
should be taking THEM for a walk. It makes all the difference in the world
when you need them to obey in a distracting environment. You need to be a
loving "parent" of, and leader to, your dog. Dogs should be allowed to set
up a pack order with the other animals in the household. When we interfere
with the formation of a pack order among the animals in the household, we
can cause our dogs to fight with one another.
Dogs don’t come pre-programmed with good Manners from the
"factory." Manners have to be taught. Teaching a dog Manners isn’t any
fun. It requires a lot of hard work and constant supervision. I tell
customers that when you are reading dog books, trying to find the perfect
breed for your family, they are always describing an ADULT dog that was
well bred, socialized, trained and one with good Manners. They never
describe how ill behaved the puppy will be, or how much work it will be to
make that puppy into an easygoing adult dog!
If this running pup image bothers you, then you might want
to purchase a pre-trained adult pet dog. You will
also have to be careful to allow your dog to just be a dog and have
some free fun time without you getting irritated. Some breeds, and some
individual dogs, are especially difficult to teach good Manners. It takes
daily work to get the dog to be what you want the dog to be. Some dogs
take us longer to finish training then others. I find that
especially true with Golden Retrievers. People fall in love with these
dogs, not realizing that the great dogs they see were both bred and made
that way. Golden pups are extremely sociable and active, can be really
difficult to live with, and they need lots of supervision, appropriate
leadership, and training in order to turn out to be manageable adults.
One of the biggest mistakes I see people make with their
dogs is to avoid dealing with Manners at all; they instead just put the
dog in a crate or kennel or back yard. A dog isn’t going to learn good
Manners on its own. All you are doing, by putting the dog away, is just
postponing the inevitable work that needs to be put in to make the dog a
good citizen and family member. Using the crate as a way of punishing a
dog WON’T WORK, so stop being lazy, bring your dog inside, let the dog
make mistakes, and work with your dog.
When you buy a pre-trained adult pet dog from us, we start
buy finding dogs with the best pet qualities. We then take the time
to bring the dogs into our home and let them make mistakes and then teach
them proper manners.
An Equal Opportunity Employer
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Rolling Meadows Academy Of Dog Training, LLC.
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Copyright 1995- 2003 -
2003-2007
This site designed and maintained by Glen "Allen" Simpson, all rights
reserved
Last updated on
08/02/2008 10:57:52 PM
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