It is now a very common thing to do but almost 15 years ago, if you told someone you had hired a personal trainer for your dog, people would have thought you had a few screws loose. But I like to be thorough in all things—I like doing research and analyzing things to death—it aids my decision making—I derive comfort from the fact that I have explored all my options and if things do not proceed as planned, it wasn’t my fault—I had anticipated every scenario. I like feeling well-prepared. And since (according to Briana) you can’t put a price on convenience, I employed Tony the high priced dog trainer.
Tony was an essential hire because Jasper (my Wheaton terrier) was a rescue dog and he was a bit damaged (my “free” shelter dog cost me 2K in dog therapy). And Tony turned out to be an excellent teacher for Jasper, me and the entire family. I, in particular soaked up every ounce of knowledge I could. And here’s the funny thing, once a human get trained as an alpha, and once you understand strategies of canine obedience, it naturally carries over into your human relationships.
I developed this habit when my kids were little that made them insane. I would clap my hands to get their attention and then I would use hand signals to command them to come, sit and stay. I couldn’t help it. Canine training had become part of my being. I even used the signals on my mother. And I learned that being quiet and staring down your opponent caused unease and ultimately submission. And the curious thing was although my kids and my mother resented being disciplined like a dog—it worked like a charm.
Jasper was a bit possessive and when he had his bone, he would sneer and make a low growl—it was canine-speak for F-off, vacate my space. And we got Jasper out of the habit by playing a game—if you drop it and give me the bone when I ask, you will receive a treat (which by the way, because Jasper was and still is a smart dog, turned into this game: Jasper would randomly throw his bone at you as if to say I am giving you my bone bitch, now give me my cookie.) So learned both spectrums-- how to dominate from both the human and canine perspective.
My husband I were out to dinner a few years back and the male child sitting behind us kept getting out of his seat, running around, and basically annoying the crap out of us. And the parents would say to the child honey come over here and sit down, you are annoying the people—as if by acknowledging their total lack of discipline the patrons would just forgive them for their ineptitude. And the child would say No! and continue his bad behavior. And, as you might imagine, this lack of control the family had over their child escaladed with time as he saw that there were no consequences for his bad behavior.
So at some point, I had reached my saturation. So when the little demon came close to my table, and I determined that what I was about to do was out of the view of the parents, I did something I am not too proud of: I stared the little bastard down, hunched up my shoulders, raised my lip on the left side in an animal-like sneer, and uttered a low guttural growl. And I continued to glare and sneer and growl with my shoulders hunched up until the kid got so fearful that he quietly sat down in his seat. And he did not get up again.
My husband looked at me and said I can’t believe you just did that. I can’t believe you just growled at a little kid. And I said so are you unhappy with the results? And he said no—but what possessed you do such a thing? And I told him. Clearly that kid was an animal and not a human being and so the only way to control him was to treat him as such. In the animal kingdom, instinctively all animals understand territory and boundaries and they communicate it through body language. And that is all I did—I spoke to the little beast in a language that he could understand. It was actually pretty simple. And Tony the trainer would have been quite proud—I totally grasped animal behavior.
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