Sit Stay Fetch

My husband and I are pet lovers. We have two cats and two dogs. The cats are in the house and the dogs are kept in a large kennel outdoors. They are hunting dogs that my husband spends a great deal of time training. He begins obedience training when the dogs are six weeks old. He makes the lessons fun, but he is serious about teaching the dogs not to jump, to be quiet, to sit, to come when called and to kennel when told. This obedience training takes time, but it is so nice to have pets that will listen to you. It is also helpful for the pet to be able to please you as master by doing what they are told.

I have a good friend who bought a terrier when she was still single. She did nothing to discipline the puppy. He never got too big so she controlled him from jumping up on people and barking by picking him up and putting him in his kennel. Eventually she married and had two children. The terrier eventually died. Unfortunately so did my friends husband. About five years after his death she bought another terrier puppy. This particular breed was bigger. The male dog was about forty five pounds as an adult. Again she did not follow through with teaching the dog obedience. I hated going over to her house because the first twenty minutes after arrival was listening to the dog bark and watching her trying to control the animal. He would jump up on you and would bark. He was very protective of the children. Her furniture looked terrible because he was constantly jumping up on it.

I mentioned to my friend that I had seen some information about SitStayFetch: A Dog training program to stop your dogs behavior problems. The training program was geared to cut the amount of time needed to train your dog to have the behavior that you want it to have. She told me she planned to take the dog to obedience training once she found the time. I told he that this was the nice thing about the SitStayFetch program; you could follow it in your own home.

A few weeks later my friend called to let me know that she had hired a dog behavior specialist to work with the dog as well as her and the kids. The dog had bit a neighbor child. The parents understood, however she realized that she had to get the dogs behavior under control before someone was bitten badly and sued her. The behavior specialist was very expensive, but she thought there would be fast improvement in the dogs poor behavior. Unfortunately the dog continued to dominate the family. He bit another child. The aggressiveness was always towards children. The parents of this child were quite upset. My friend called the behaviorist and the veterinarian to see what they suggested. They both agreed that it was in everyones best interest to put the dog down. I feel bad that a healthy animal had to be destroyed because of lack of training and obedience expectations. It is so very important to work with your animal so you can live well together.