Sit, Rover, sit: Class teaches pooches some basic obedience
By Becky Barclay
Published in News on September 25, 2016 1:45 AM
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Erin Cooke helps owners pick out a training collar. She shows them that the training collars don't hurt by putting them on the owners.
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Rebecca and Melvin Flores take a break from dog obedience class with their pet, Tink.
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Erin Cooke calls Siberian Husky Athena to her. She's trying to get the dog to jump up on her so she can show owners, Michael and Renee Digiovanna, how to get her to obey the command "off." Off is one of six basic commands that Ms. Cooke teaches during a six-week dog obedience course.
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Erin Cook, left, uses a shelter dog, Liza Jane, to demonstrate the heel command to those in the dog obedience class. After she tells the owners how to do it and demonstrates it with Liza Jane, then she has the owners do the command with their dogs.
Carolyn Mitchell's 5-month-old yorkie, Lexi, saw an opportunity to run -- and run she did.
"My husband and I were chasing her down the road," Mrs. Mitchell said. "That was quite scary."
To keep this from happening again, Mrs. Mitchell signed Lexi up for dog obedience class.
Certified dog trainer Erin Cooke teaches dog obedience classes by AKC standards at Pet Supplies Plus.
"It's a six-week course that teaches basic commands," she said. "The commands are walking on a leash, sit, off, down, recall and stay. Recall is calling your dog to come to you. Down is lying in the down position. Off is not jumping on you or your furniture or anything that you would not want them to touch. Walking on a leash is them staying beside you, not walking in front of you or behind you."
Ms. Cooke said dog obedience is a 50-50 thing between dog and owner.
"The dog needs it because they look for a pack leader," she said. "If they don't have a pack leader in the owner, they become a pack leader.
"Therefore, they're very likely to be very territorial and become very destructive. So when we as owners assert ourselves as a pack leader, the dog understands that and accepts it and is less likely to be destructive, and it will be obedient to the commands that you're asking your dog to do."
She said teaching a dog obedience makes it less likely to end up at a shelter because the owner couldn't control it.
"It's a very crucial thing from puppy on up," Ms. Cooke said. "There's never an age that's too old to train a dog. I would start at eight weeks with certain training tips, but don't actually bring them to a class until they've had their vaccines, for health reasons.
"Contacting a trainer, you can get some great tips over the phone to just guide you through that period until they're vaccinated at about 14 weeks."
Ms. Cooke breaks her one-hour classes up into two parts. The first half is review and the second half is learning a new command.
"The sixth week is where we graduate your dog," she said. "I shake your dog's paw and it gets a graduation certificate and a goodie bag from Pet Supplies Plus."
After that, the dog may attend any future classes for free.
"All dogs really need longer than six weeks to fully understand things," Ms. Cooke said. "And there are different dogs in each class. Some dogs need to be worked around bigger dogs and some need to be worked around smaller dogs."
She said a dog can learn a new command by the end of class.
"It's just a matter of the owner being consistent and practicing with them at home," Ms. Cooke said. "That is the biggest thing. You generally aim for 15 minutes a day. But life happens, so it's not a strict schedule."
To teach a new command, Ms. Cooke demonstrates what she's physically doing with the dog and by verbally saying it at the same time. Then she has the owner do it. Then the class does it together.
At the end of each class, the owner gets a homework assignment with written instructions so they can look back in case they have any questions about how to teach that command.
Ms. Cooke said she's not found a dog yet that couldn't be trained.
"Each breed has its own stubbornness," she said. "Some are very headstrong dogs so they require a firmer pack leader.
"You have some dogs that are verbally sensitive. I have great Danes and they're verbally sensitive. So if I talk to them in a deep tone, it gets their attention. They don't need a whole lot of collar correction. They like that tone. But my retriever needs a lot of collar correction, not so much verbally. Each breed is a little bit different on how they respond. And that's where we tweak the training."
Ms. Cooke said a lot falls on the owner and his or her willingness to practice the commands and socialize their.
"Sometimes it's not so much that the dog is not trained, but the owner and the dog are not a good match. I pulled a dog one time that was high energy and I trained him myself, but he was so destructive in the home. I found him a home that was a stay-at-home mom with five children and he never destroyed anything and he's still living a beautiful life."
Ms. Cooke said a person should not have to change his or her life to revolve around the dog.
Sometimes training can become almost comical.
"I've had some puppies that I've tried to teach the down command and they've completely laid on their back and show their belly area," Ms. Cooke said.
"I had a Doberman that, when we would heel, walk on a leash, he would hop. He always hopped. So he'd pick up both feet and hop, then he would continue to walk. He was our hopper. They all have cute little unique things."
Mrs. Mitchell took Lexi to the class strictly for safety reasons.
"I want her to learn to stop when I tell her to stop and also to say," she said. "And I want her to come when I tell her to come so I can get her harness on to go outside. When she sees it, she runs from me."
Michael and Renee Digiovanni wanted their 6-month-old Siberian Husky, Athena, to learn to listen to them.
"She doesn't know who the alpha is," Mrs. Digiovanni said, "and that's pretty much the problem."
Tina Ellsworth wants her 6-month-old standard poodle Kala to learn the basic commands so one day Kala can become a therapy dog.
"She's very good with other people and children and she listens well," Ms. Ellsworth said. "We got her when she was 5 months old and she'd never been on a leash before, so all that's new for her."
Rebecca Flores had dogs when she was growing up, but they were never trained.
"They became very afraid of humans and there was no fixing it," she said. "Whenever I got a dog, I wanted it to be trained.
"I read up and dogs enjoy being able to have that pack leader moreso than just being able to roam free. It makes them happier in the long run."
So when her husband, Melvin, got Tink, a Malti Tzu, they enrolled her in obedience class.
"She did really good in tonight's class considering how hyper she is," Mrs. Flores said.
Anyone wanting to enroll their dog in obedience class can pick up an application at Pet Supplies Plus.