What a week.
Rach went into labor on Monday and we went to the hospital around noon. The nursing staff were incredibly nice and her midwife was awesome. Rach did the entire birth all natural.
No drugs or anything.
I can’t say I’d do the same. After watching her I’d be on the phone with the pharmacy asking the entire staff to load up trays and make their way up to my room. Then again, I’m not as tough as she is.
But I have to add, everyone talks about how tough the mom has it, how much hard work she has to do. I gotta say my job was difficult. My job required crackerjack timing and the smallest slip up would have had dire consequences.
Feeding her grape popsicles in between contractions requires impeccable timing, which thanks to my cat like reflexes developed over years of dog training, I was able to execute perfectly.
Anyway, at one point before she was in full blown labor, the second shift nurse came in and said to me: “I heard that you are a dog trainer.”
“See Rach, I told you I was famous,” I said.
She was unimpressed.
Turns out the nurse is a dog lover and has been to some obedience classes. She has one major problem that she wants to end but has not been successful.
Before she told me what the problem was she was called away. I started wondering what the behavior was. Was it aggression, housetraining? Must be jumping or maybe stealing food off the counters.
She came back and said….
…..“He sticks his nose up everyone’s butt and it keeps getting worse.”
I smiled because this is not a common behavior problem that people ask me about. But as a highly trained, extremely skilled, seasoned canine behavior specialist with years of experience I had a good idea that I could help with the nose in the butt dilemma.
First, I would do a complete evaluation and find out what kind of food the dog eats. I would then check the medical records to make sure there were no physical problems. I would spend some time interviewing her on why she thought her dog stuffed his nose in her guests’ butts. Then I would dig deeper to find the underlying reason.
Then, THEN, THEN…..
……I would tell the dog, “NO!” with a well-timed negative consequence.
DONE!
Problem solved.
Onto the next assignment. Case of the “Nose In Butt Dog” in the books.
Listen….sometimes things (dog training) are made way more complicated than they have to be.
The dog is doing a behavior you don’t like. You need to END the behavior.
No one likes to explain to their guests:
“Sorry Fred, we appreciate you coming over to visit but our dog likes to spend the first few minutes with his nose thoroughly planted in our guest’s butt. It’s really just a normal, natural canine behavior and once he gets a good sniff he’ll move onto your wife. Would you like a beer or something?”
You are not going to stop the behavior by redirecting, counter-conditioning, putting him the crate, asking him to sit or any of the other ineffective, “force-free” methods.
Say, “NO,” apply a negative consequence and move on.
Sheesh.
If you’d like to see how I do it, head on over to The Dog Training Inner Circle and watch the video, “How To Teach Your Dog No.”
Just $1.00 to get started. Here’s where to go NOW:
Best,
Eric
P.S. In case you missed my earlier emails, we had a boy. Spencer Brady came in just a shade under 9lbs. Mom and baby are doing great and I am as happy as a tick on a big dog.