Do not attempt this technique without consulting a professional

When I help people over the phone with their dog, I sometimes ask them how many friends they have.  Then I ask them how many of their friends “have their back.”  When they don’t understand the question, I rephrase it by asking “how many of your friends would bury the body for you?”  Then, I’ve made my point!  A dog wants to know that you have his back, that he can depend on you, trust you, and that you will take care of whatever it is he is afraid of.  But a dog also has to understand what you will allow and what you will not allow.  They don’t read memos!

When I first got Pablo, I didn’t notice that he was dominant with other dogs.  I put him out with Petals, and not realizing that Petals is so overly submissive, it wasn’t a true test.  Pablo was adopted a few days ago, but because his adopter developed life-threatening allergies, Pablo was returned.  Upon his return, however, his adopter Wendy shared with me that while at Petco, Pablo charged another dog.  That’s odd!  I didn’t see that behavior.  So last night, while on leash, I put Ozzie outside to see what Pablo would do.  At first, Pablo initiated play, using his paw, and licking Ozzie’s face.  Pablo acted like a 3 month-old puppy, but then he became overly excited and tried to dominate Ozzie.  We separated the dogs, walked around the yard at a distance, and ended the exercise.  This must be fixed!

I contacted the shelter where Pablo came from, and they admitted that twice, through no fault of his own, Pablo was charged by other dogs.  The shelter believes that Pablo learned this behavior from those two incidents.  But the reason why at this point was irrelevant.  Pablo has to be fixed, and because he’s a big boy, and I’m 5′ 2″, I just didn’t feel like I had the right energy, the right experience, or the right dogs to fix Pablo.  More importantly, because Pablo is so young (maybe 7-9 months) I didn’t want to make a mistake, thus making Pablo’s behavior worse.  Pablo is too precious.  I was not going to mess this up.

I called Paul Pipitone!

This morning, Paul returned my call, checked over his schedule, dropped everything, and within an hour, he came to my house with two of his dogs, Titan and Boomer.

Paul introduced himself to Pablo, and I must admit, Pablo has no manners.  He jumps on people because he’s so excited, and because I was watching from the outside, I noticed Pablo likes to use his mouth.  He’ll mouth my hand a lot, and even though I have been discouraging him from doing that, using his mouth to communicate has become a habit for Pablo.

After one hour with Pablo, Paul did it.  It was absolutely amazing.

At first, Pablo charged the gate at Paul’s two dogs, but with constant correction and reward, Pablo achieved “avoidance.”  Once Paul and Pablo had a direct line of communication, in other words, Pablo “got it!” Paul let his dogs into my back yard, and once again, Pablo was tested!  Again, Pablo received correction and reward.  Pablo was released off of the leash, and roamed the yard with Paul’s pack, and it was amazing.

Paul arrived at 9:15am, he started working with Pablo at 9:30, and by 10:30 it was over!

Click here to read more about Pablo.

Click here for Paul Pipitone