A few years back a very distressed woman came into my office. When I looked at her I thought she was recently battered. She took a chair, sat down and started to weep. I gave her a cup of coffee and just waited for her to say something. When she took some deep breaths, she looked like she was ready to speak.
She then started to make clear that the two black n’ blue eyes and the bloody and broken nose were from her 110 lb. dog – an adult black lab. She was in obvious need of some of my best Dog Training tips.
She told me that her dog was unmanageable, that just a few days before she had tried to take him for a nice and long walk. As she was locking her door and leaving her home her dog spotted a squirrel on the opposite lawn and went chasing after it. She gripped the leash hard until she fell and went face first into the interlocking brick of her walkway.
She said that she truly appreciated and loved Ralph, but was totally clueless when it came to dog obedience training and that was, she said, the source of her dog behavior problems.
She thought that since she could not walk her dog, how she could possibly keep him? In her past puppy training attempts when Ralph was small, she attempted the pet store recommended choke and prong collars, but they didn’t work.
I guaranteed her that we could get her dog Ralph obeying and walking beside her, under control, on a leash. I took out a Gentle Leader head collar from my cupboard and said that she can use this for her upcoming dog training attempts on a leash.