Cannon
Cannon is a six pound Miniature Pinscher who is full of himself. I rescued him through Internet Miniature Pinscher Service (IMPS) in May 2005, and we adopted him in September 2005.
Cannon came with a little ‘baggage’ in that we think he had not been properly socialized with other dogs, having been around mostly humans for the first 5 months of his life. He has a hard time around other dogs and though he really only wants to play, he feels the need to establish his seniority immediately, which usually includes a lot of barking, rushing and posturing of all other dogs. He has very poor ‘dog language’.
I realized just a little too late that this was going to be an ongoing problem if we did not bring it under control. I contacted Jan Reid for help. She suggested some things for us to try that helped immediately and others that were designed more for long-term behavior changes. Jan makes sure that we stay on track. When I want to get too far ahead by going beyond Cannon’s capabilities, Jan always gets us back on track. When she sees it’s time to change what we’re doing and move on to something else, Jan never hesitates to make those changes apparent to us.
Jan stresses consistency in handling and what we appreciate most, behavior modification through positive reinforcement ONLY. There are no leash corrections, pronged collars, neck pops or forcing of my dogs into positions that they don’t understand. Jan uses the click and treat method to teach new behaviors and thanks to that and her positive reinforcement methods, Cannon can now look at other dogs without barking his head off and he can get within 10-15 feet of other dogs and still keep his attention on me.
Though it has been over a year of constant work, we are getting there! Soon he’ll be ready to be entered in his first Agility Trial……thanks Jan!!!
