WHY A TERRIER SPECIFIC APPROACH?
WHY ONLINE?
There are many benefits to working with an expert on terrier behavior who works from a terrier specific approach. There are also many benefits to online coaching.
BENEFITS OF A TERRIER SPECIFIC APPROACH
Terriers are often considered “naughty dogs with selective hearing.” The reality is with the right approach, it is possible to achieve impressive results with your terrier.
Without the ability to effectively communicate, we may feel pressure to use methods that punish a dog to stop unwanted or unsafe behaviors. When a dog is confused and fails repeatedly, confusion and failure can become as aversive as overt punishment.
Ill-suited methods lead to maladaptation for the dog (definition: failure to adjust adequately or appropriately to the environment or situation), which can cause them to opt out all together, and often lead us to say, “my dog is naughty or stubborn,” or, “they only do it when they feel like it.”
Most people aren’t born knowing how to work with terriers, and most terriers aren’t born knowing how to work with people. A terrier who understands you will not only listen to you, but will crave working with you! These are working dogs after all, they just don’t automatically know how to work with us.
BENEFITS OF ONLINE COACHING
Terriers are very sensitive to environment. When a professional comes into your home, your dog may respond, but often things will revert back when the professional leaves. So you had to clean your house, and your dog still won’t “listen” to you?!
With online coaching, you don’t have to clean your house if you don’t want to (no judgement here), and your dog will learn to respond to you. You are the one who is sharing your life with your dog, not me, afterall! I want you to have success when you and your dog are on your own, in real life.
I am known for my ability to customize every detail of the program to the team at hand. You will not only learn how to work with your dog effectively, but you will receive the necessary coaching to feel confident in your daily life when I am not there. Terriers keep life interesting, and nothing is better than feeling like you know how to react as situations arise.
UNDERSTANDING TERRIERS
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Terriers have done our dirty work for centuries, yet they are some of the most misunderstood dogs today.
Terrier History
For hundreds of years, we bred and used terriers to protect our food sources from vermin and predators. This intense working role required terriers to possess strong work traits such as resource guarding, motion tracking, gameness to rise and chase based upon the most subtle cues, impulsivity, and the willingness to hunt and kill with no concern to their own well-being and safety. Did you know that terriers were placed in the trenches of war to keep our soldiers safe from disease?
Modern Challenges as Pets
As pets, terriers are expected to behave in ways that go against the very working nature that we have cultivated over hundreds of years. To this day very few if any terrier breeding programs have distinctions between working and conformation/companion lines. Is carrying on the nature of working breeds a bad thing? I don’t think so, if we can recognize and respect differences and understand their needs for life as companion dogs. Most terriers need help learning how to be companion animals.
“Terriers Are Naughty and Don’t Listen”
It is common even in positive-reinforcement based circles for terriers to be considered the exception to the rule. Expectations can be low. We are quick to be told our dogs are jerks, aloof, lazy… It really doesn’t need to be that way. A terrier who is understood will blossom in ways you never thought possible. The most wonderful experience is getting to know who your dog really is when barriers to learning begin to melt away!
Success is Possible With Understanding
It IS possible to have an incredibly engaged and enjoyable terrier, one that will bring you great joy, be fun and safe to live with, and that will impress the general public! The programs developed by Emma Kesler, CDBC, CPDT-KA are focused on all aspects of life. The truth is, it isn’t just training. No dog bites or is rehomed because they don’t know how to sit. My goal is to coach you through all aspects of life together.
