If you gentle horse lovers are ever looking for some eye opening, mind boggling, brilliant dog training – this book is it. Using Jan Fennell’s easy to learn principles took our new “rescue” dog Wolfe, from aggression to calm confidence in two days. Two days! It was almost like throwing a light switch.
It’s a gentle training method that fits with our horse philosophy too. It’s simple – no pulling, yanking, smacking or shouting and it’s incredibly effective even for older dogs at solving all kinds of things from aggression to separation anxiety, to pulling on a lead when they’re walking, to disobedience and the plain bad manners of jumping all over you. It’s also an enjoyable read, simply, clearly and well written. I tell you, the woman’s a dog genius. (Thanks Chris for recommending it!)
Wolf joined our family as a 7 year old, from the German Shepherd rescue people. He’d clearly had a fabulous first owner, he was well trained and he’d been their local CFA mascot, so clearly he had been well behaved as well. But after his owner died he was passed around the family and that didn’t work so well. He settled into our home very quickly and easily, but quite soon I had to hang on to his collar very firmly when people came to the front gate and he was very aggressive with other dogs out on the lead.
And given that healing work is part of what I do for a living, we have a lot of people coming to the front gate and lots of them are bringing dogs.
Bless his cotton socks, he was protecting me. I knew that, but he wasn’t listening to me telling him he didn’t need to behave like that. He’s still a brilliant guard dog, but he’s relaxed now, has confidence in his job and there’s no need for that kind of aggression any more.
Jan has four principles to follow – the two easiest ones to implement were the keys to that dramatic turn around in 2 days.
There’s no point to trying to describe them here, Jan herself does a brilliant job with all her compelling stories and the Kindle version is only $1.99 US from Amazon.
Jenny your timing is perfect! Thinking of applying to adopt another rescue dog. A cocker spaniel who I imagine would be bouncerier (sorry dodgy spelling) than our tiny terrier and I did have some concerns how I was going to improve his training. I now have the answers. Thank you.
I had an email from a dear friend and long time Fast Track afficianado yesterday who had a bunch of Not Quite Rights as she was reading this book. She wanted to know “where does listening to the dog and seeing information and communication come into it, let alone partnership?” It made me smile. I must have included my Feel for Wolfe (the way I work my Feel for a horse) on auto pilot. I’ve asked her if she would consider writing a bit more to go with the article. I’m hoping that she says yes! You’ve got Fast track Jackie, so you’ve been working on developing your Feel. My suggestion is that you apply that to your dog with Jan Fennel’s ideas.
I went to meet a new client and her “nervous” dog recently, and she said she was actually shocked at how quickly he took to me, and all I did was ignore him when he barked, walked through doorways before him etc. – his owner is now reading that book, when I told her that it is my turn-to text, and that I do the basics of Jan’s Amichien Bonding with my clients’ dogs, especially ones with “issues” 🙂
Yes it IS almost shocking how fast they change – kind of “why the heck didn’t anyone tell me this BEFORE”? And by the way – thanks for the recommendation to the book!