An Update on the Dog Situation

My grandfather (now 90) has never understood why you would want a dog living in your house. When he was growing up dogs lived outside and ate what you did not want to eat. He cannot hear well anymore and when I begrudgingly told him the Dave had been bitten by the dog we rescued, his response was something like 'What? Say that again, I don't think I heard you right, Where is the dog now? WITH YOU? Where is David? He WANTS to keep the dog? You both must be crazy, I'd kill it immediately - no questions asked - what are you waiting for'. Now every time I talk to him, he asks 'Do you still have that dog?' with the expectation that by now I would have abandoned him under a bridge or shot him in the back yard. He sighs with that 'you're crazy' tone and hands the phone to my Grandmother when I answer that we do. My Father and Aunts and Uncle had several dogs growing up - none of whom ever made the cut when they moved. Granddaddy told me once that years ago he lied to my teary six year old Aunt and said 'yes, of course we'll bring Boy/Sport/Generic Name along when we move back to the U.S.' right before giving him to a Korean gardener - fate unknown.

Even I think we are ridiculous sometimes and doubt whether or not we'll ever have more dogs after the two we have now. After the biting incident, our vet recommended that since the situation is stable and that the incident was provoked rather than random and constant, that we have a licensed dog trainer/behaviorist come access the situation and decide if we can keep him. From our admittedly somewhat crazy dog loving perspective it would be irresponsible to give him away to someone else with his problems, and a mistake to end his life having never worked with him to give him a chance to live normally. Enter Kevin.


We began in-home visits with Kevin the Behaviorist three weeks ago. Before our meeting, the first step was to fill out a ten page history of our dog's exact behavioral problems, health problems, history of his rescue, blood type, fecal consistency, etc. When our trainer showed up, he gave us a folder - 'Mandel Family' - containing written information about the issues that we had raised. Our first session involved discussion about dog behavior and how we handle problems. Kevin gave us some guidelines to follow and skills to work on for the next two weeks and diagnosed Neeko with Fear and/or Dominance problems. According to our trainer and literature, this behavior can be remedied with consistent environmental and training modifications. Unfortunately some of the reccomendations are common sense, but until someone tells you that laying on the dog beds with the dogs is not a good way to establish dominance or respect, some of us humans continue to do these things.

Our second visit with Kevin was this week. As he approached the front door, Neeko slammed himself into the window like he usually greets our guests. When we opened the door and both hundred pound dogs spastically ran outside to greet him, Kevin used the same tone that he uses with the dogs when he said to us in his dominant tone 'what was that?'. The door problem had not been our focus from the previous meeting, so our first lesson of the day was learning to react properly to guests and the doorbell. This one is going to take time but we now surprise the dogs with the doorbell once a day to desensitize them - and us. Come to find out the way we drop what we're doing and run to the door does nothing to help the dog reaction.

We proceeded to tell Kevin all of the things that we HAD worked on since we saw him last - and the progress that has been made. The session ended with a demonstrative neighborhood walk to address their pulling problems. Their nemesis, Mr. Bean (a five pound Shih Tzu), happened to walk by during our lesson which gave us an opportunity to watch how they should behave. Nothing builds human confidence like walking back and forth down your street infront of your neighbors learning how to properly walk your pet.

All in all I think that progress is being made. Kevin expects results from us next week, and we'll work to ensure that he sees them - however embarrassing and humbling getting trained by a dog trainer might be.