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14 day intensive dog training

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  • Jul 24th, 2018 8:30 am
Deal Addict
Feb 16, 2018
1292 posts
1311 upvotes

14 day intensive dog training

We have a dog we brought home about 2 years ago. He is a decent sized dog about 40 lbs Shortly after bringing the dog home, my wife and I both fell severely ill. I ended up with cancer and my wife ended up with a chronic illness. It was not a good time for us and as such we were unable to devote the time and energy to properly train the dog.

Fast forward 2 years later and the dog has behavioral issues. He's an extremely smart affectionate & friendly dog but he has some really annoying habits. Anytime anyone walks past the house, be it person or animal he goes absolutely ballistic. He lunges at the window and barks and scratches at the window and is almost uncontrollable. We were unable to properly socialize the dog and anytime we attempt to take him to the dog park or for walks he goes apeshit whenever he sees another person or dog nearby.We do have a second dog which is fully trained (hes about 12 years old) and the two get along just fine but any other animal he goes nuts. He is very difficult to walk as he strains at the leash, does not come when called when going nuts etc etc. He roots thru garbage pails in the house, steals food off of tables etc.



I'm not blaming the dog, it is our fault as dog owners to let the behavior continue to this point and we are almost ready to pull the trigger on a 14 day intensive dog training program. I was curious if anyone has had any experience with this type of training before?

It basically involves the dog going to the trainers house and living with the trainer for 14 days and getting intensive training for 14 days. Upon completion the dog is supposed to be fully trained and come with a lifetime guarantee. the cost is $2k. The dog lives with the owner and his family and is exposed to real life situations and will be fully trained.

Anyone ever done this and if so any thoughts to share?
15 replies
Deal Addict
Oct 13, 2014
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Your dog is now the "Alpha" in your house. When you brought him home and through your subsequent illness he probably sensed that both you and your wife were now the weaker individuals in the house and he took over the duties of being the protector. I always question these programs that will train your dog for you and then send the dog home. In essence they are now introducing the dog to a new "Alpha" and that is the trainer, once back at home, unless you and your wife take a strong role, he may revert back to being the "Alpha" in the house. Now, if this course affords you and your wife the opportunity to participate in the training itself, exerting your authority over the dog under guidance I have my doubts to the effectiveness of the training. In short both you and your wife have to start now to take a strong approach to showing your dog that he is not the "Alpha", an easy start would be to physically remove the dog when such situations arise, not just yelling "no or bad dog".

All said above I will leave it to others with more experience to chime in.
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Aug 15, 2015
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Markham, ON
Let us know if you goto the 14 days of intense training. I have never heard of such training before. You can tell me if it works or not. Please update with your dog's result after spending 2k so the rest of us at redflag knows if it's worth it or not.
Deal Addict
Jan 16, 2007
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Toronto
After the 14 days, wouldn't the dog just returns back to it's old ways?
Deal Addict
Apr 25, 2011
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British Columbia
You need to change with the dog. The dog is not so much the one that needs the training as the people that have allowed it to become this way. Hire a behaviourist to come in and evaluate your situation if you do not think you can tackle the issues on your own.

In a new environment the dog could easily not exhibit any of these issues as it tries finding its place in a new household. There's a "honeymoon" period often with dogs when they're shuffled around where they're on their best behaviour. It's also very stressful for the dog as well. Don't do it.

Besides establishing your dominance in situations which requires a firm consistent approach, you may also consider modifying the environment around your dog - such as garbage bins he cannot get in & not leaving things in reach of your dog to prevent counter surfing, as well as giving him more exercise daily. Often a tired dog is a more well behaved dog.
Deal Addict
Feb 16, 2018
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We decided to go ahead with it after more research and talking in depth to an acquaintance who is an ex K9 officer and is also involved heavily in the training of police dogs. This is not who we are bringing the dog to , rather someone who is heavily involved in training dogs and is "in the know" so to speak. Our dog was sent to the trainer on Wedesday

As for posters having never heard of it before, if you google any dog training company, they all offer this service. Some are 10 days some are 14, but it's offered by them all.

From discussing it at length with the trainer we sent the dog to as well as our acquaintance, what we can expect from this type of training is not behavior modification, rather a very obedient dog. We will never get rid of the dog's desire to go ballistic when someone walks by the house or stop the dog's desire to grab food off of the kitchen counter or go ballistic when passing other dogs at the dog park but rather we we can expect instant obedience when the dog is told to stop such behavior. When the dog goes ballistic and previously he wouldn't listen, when the training is complete and someone walks by the house and he goes ballistic, we can expect an instant response to our telling him to come and sit rather than forcefully removing him from the room struggling the entire way.

There is no concern about the dog not exhibiting any of the issues we are experiencing in a new environment as part of the training is addressing all our concerns. For example In regards to people walking past the house, if it is still an issue where the dog won't come when called when the dog comes home, the trainer comes to the home free of charge and will have his other trainers walk past the house with or without animals to trigger our dogs reaction and end it.

If our dog goes to the dog park and is still unresponsive to commands when other animals are around, the owner will come free of charge and put the dog in that situation and correct it.

If anyone is curious I'll update the results when he comes home
Deal Addict
Apr 25, 2011
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I am curious of the results. Please do post them.

By the way, I disagree that the dog will never learn to not go balistic when it sees other dogs. That just may take more than 2 weeks to fix.

I have two dogs, they both are extremely well behaved with me. My family lets them get away with murder - for example, when I send them into the backyard they are calm and composed, sit and wait until they are told to go outside. The only issue I had with them was one would run out and bark for no reason. When I was tired of this behavior I told her off consistently for maybe 4 days. She doesn't do it anymore. Meanwhile, my family that has no control over the dogs have barking, jumping, even scratching at the door crazy animals that both bark like crazy when let out. It is very horrendous behavior. Simply because the dogs can and because none of my family are taken seriously. The dogs desire to act like idiots overrides anything my family have to say to them. Or, another example. One dog is fed in a crate. She doesn't make a peep for an hour or more if I put her in there with her dinner. I always feed her and and was shocked to come home late one day to hear her barking like crazy. Family had fed her that night and told me she always barks immeditaly after she eats and doesn't stop if I'm not home. Becaue she knows she can and likely, because eventually someone lets her out.

I am extrnemly curious how dogs coming out of this program are going to act any differnetly. Unless you want this trainer to live with you, you are likely going to have to earn your own respect. To expect such obedience without the work put in on your end really concerns me as to their methods of training.
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Feb 16, 2018
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Karala wrote: I am curious of the results. Please do post them.

By the way, I disagree that the dog will never learn to not go balistic when it sees other dogs. That just may take more than 2 weeks to fix.

I never said the dog will never learn not to do certain things, I said we were told you won't be able to get rid of the desire for the dog to want to do things. The dog will eventually learn that he can't do x anymore even when he want's to, after an adjustment period of coming back into our home.
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Dec 12, 2009
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Toronto
HghSsociety wrote: It basically involves the dog going to the trainers house and living with the trainer for 14 days and getting intensive training for 14 days. Upon completion the dog is supposed to be fully trained and come with a lifetime guarantee. the cost is $2k. The dog lives with the owner and his family and is exposed to real life situations and will be fully trained.

Anyone ever done this and if so any thoughts to share?
Unless the owner/handler is part of the training and willing to change their ways, the training will fail.
Deal Addict
Feb 16, 2018
1292 posts
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Ducky wrote: subscribed.
Poppwl wrote: Let us know if you goto the 14 days of intense training. I have never heard of such training before. You can tell me if it works or not. Please update with your dog's result after spending 2k so the rest of us at redflag knows if it's worth it or not.
NubNub wrote: After the 14 days, wouldn't the dog just returns back to it's old ways?
Karala wrote: I am curious of the results. Please do post them.
ROYinTO wrote: Unless the owner/handler is part of the training and willing to change their ways, the training will fail.
So our dog came back 3 days ago.

We couldn't be happier. We were told there may be an adjustment period where the dog tests us because he's gotten away with his bad behavior for 2 years and he's like a kid he will want to revert to his bad behavior. We were told that in order to prevent this for the next month or so every morning when we get up to put him thu a set of commands for a few minutes so the dog is focused on commands right from the start each morning. Things like sit, down come etc.

The dog came back fully trained. Previously he was uncontrollable. Would not sit, come, heel, could not take him on a walk without it being a non stop tug of war and extreme aggression towards other dogs. Steal food off of tables, beg at meal times and root thru garbage. Anytime anyone would walk past our house he would go nuts and paw and scratch at the window. The dog is about 40-50 lbs so he's not a small dog and not easy to manhandle when he gets like that.

Our dog now pretty much obeys any commands we give him. Inside our home he will sit, come, lie down and place with zero issues when we tell him to. ("place" being the dog's chill spot. When we say "place" he goes to his dog bed in the living room and will not move unless released. When the dog is allowed to do what he wants we tell him to "break" which is his command to do whatever he wants to do.

We have had zero issues at meal times. We tell the dog to sit or place and he does not move, no begging at all. We can tell the dog to "sit" or "down" and he will sit or lie down until we release him no matter where we go or what we do.

Problems with stealing food of the table or rooting thru garbage have been solved due to the fact he is so obedient that if we suspect he is up to something we just tell him to come and he comes. We were told that we would never stop those two particular behaviors but we could prevent them by having the dog either A) come when called or B) Putting the dog in a sit stay when we wanted to make sure he did not root thru garbages

When someone walks by our house on the sidewalk the dog still has that instinct to go ballistic but the huge difference being when he starts to go nuts or when we see his body tense and is about to go nuts telling him to "come" followed by putting him is a sit/stay or down stay or telling him to "place" instantly stops the behavior. The worst he does now is whines a little when that happens after putting him in a sit/stay when he starts lunging at the window. This is effective even when we are on another level of the house and can only hear him go nuts but not see him. We were told that eventually the dog will learn to ignore the window over time because he will learn that the behavior puts him in a down/stay and in the dog will focus on command mode.

We have had our first follow up session and our next follow up is scheduled 1 week from now. There are 4 follow up sessions of 2 hours each to fine tune and polish the owners, not the dog as the trainer says,

The only aspect that we are not entirely satisfied with and we were told that would be the case before he came back was walking the dog on the leash. He doesn't pull anymore and he walks beside us however he is aggressive towards some dogs a little bit in the dog park and sometimes it takes us to say the commands more than once before he will listen. He kind of goes a little scatterbrained when hit by the stimuli of 30+ dogs and 20 + People all in a closed space however we noticed a huge improvement on our first trip to the dog park and 3 trips later his behavior and listening to commands is getting better. He is not perfect in the dog park but he's no longer difficult either. He listens but he's like a small child where he sometimes has to be told a few times before he listens.

Overall very happy. While very expensive it was worth every penny.
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Aug 15, 2015
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Your dog sounds like a different dog. Do you miss your old dog in any way?

I am impressed with the result but if my dog was that obedient, I would miss my dogs begging or longing face for food. Its so cute.
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Dec 27, 2009
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NubNub wrote: After the 14 days, wouldn't the dog just returns back to it's old ways?
No, the trainer also works with you to teach you how to handle the dog. You have to stick with it.
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Dec 27, 2009
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Please don't take offense OP, but I'm really curious why you take your reactive dog to dog parks? We avoid dog parks (for a variety of reasons), and there are many other places you can walk your dog. Just curious.
Newbie
Dec 16, 2017
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My youngest dog was sent to puppy boot camp at five months old, paid for by her breeder. She was distinctly changed when she came back, although her age and breed meant there were still an awful lot of shenanigans. But all her boundary issues were managed and I learned how to manage her better.

Agree with Chickinvic, the last place your dog needs to go is a dog park. It's not a training or socialization place, it's a place for dogs that are already trained and socialized. Every time you step in there, you're setting your dog up for failure.
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JohnB65779 wrote: The trainer needs to share the process to handle the dog properly. Handling these type of behaviors from a dog need experience. I hope you will do this. But you have said - "you ended up with cancer". How come? and how are you now?
What do you mean "how come"? Do you honestly think cancer is that straight forward? Most people won't have an answer for how come they got cancer. Just you asking that is kind of rude (seems to imply that maybe OP did something that caused it).

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