Laron

Hello everyone! My name is Melissa, I'm Chewy's trainer, and as requested by many of you, here is my side of this rather interesting debate. By the way, I'm posting under my partner's username as he's never used it lol and mine was going to take too long to get back, and I had this afternoon free so I wanted to get this sorted out quickly! Of course I am very dissapointed that so much has been said without anyone actually contacting me to ask my opinion (until now) and much slander of my business and training abilities by many who only have a few posts by one of my clients to go off and have not actually seen my training or spoken to me. This is something I'm sure any business owner (trainer or not) can understand to be very damaging regardless if it is warranted or not. Now if this had been said annonymously without my website getting involved, I'd much rather leave the discussion be, as I'm not a big fan of jumping up and down and tooting my own horn so to speak, however this is my job, this is what I do to survive, and of course in a dream world I'd have loved to have been asked for my side of the story before people completely degraded my experiance and training methods. Having said that, if it had been someone telling me what I read on the forum about myself, about another trainer, I suppose I could have reacted without thinking about the consequenses too. (I have been guilty of that in the past, guess I now know what it feels like! ouchh) First up, hate mail... No, I most definately did not make this up to get my website off of the post, it was real, but it was also not hundreds lol...I think my client did misunderstand me there, and I did not actually recieve phone calls (thank god) however the contents of the emails i did recieve did indeed leave me crying and not wanting to go to work as I felt anyone could easily have booked me in to come see them after reading everything on these forums and perhaps take things into their own hands. Now that I think about it, I perhaps overreacted as it is the first time something this serious has happened to me, and it was a huge shock to me. Imagine yourselves just getting home from a reletives wedding after being away for most of the week, and finding all this stuff in your email and then reading the posts...it's just such a huge shock! The thing is so much has been said about me I obviously can't address everything, but I am not an abusive trainer. I love my job so much because I love every single one of the dog's i work with, yes even Chewy! There is nothing I have wanted to do more since I was a child than work with animals, infact, I havn't even held a non animal related job lol. I cannot go into detail about the techniques I actually use, because they cannot be explained properly online without someone actually seeing it and the last thing I need is more misunderstandings. To understand the training session with Chewy, one would have to actually meet Chewy and myself and his parents and SEE what happened. However I will make it very clear, nothing I did hurt him (physically or mentally). With Chewy, he bites everyone and everything that even looks at him, bails his owner up at the top of the stairs and refuses to allow her into the house without biting and barking at her. The fact he was biting me while i was working with him had very little to do with what i was actually doing, but more that anytime you get close and try and move him anywhere, he has a ...chew...on you. I was not seriously bitten, (I've had worse from dog's 1/10th of his size lol) I allowed him to bite me while I was working with me many times as in, i could have done a few painful things that may (or may not) have stopped him biting (momentarily of course), but i allowed him to because i did not wish to hurt him back (thus making his aggressoin worse) and he really doesn't bite that hard, it's like a big puppy chewing on you lol more of a bruise thing than actually breaking the skin. The thing is, I cannot and will not discuss this case in detail on here for confidentiality reasons suffice to say he has a lot of problems from being misunderstood by his owners. (which isn't their fault, we aren't given a manual for our dogs when we get them and it is especially hard for first time dog owners) I don't see Chewy as this horrible dominant dog that needs to be set straight, and what techniques i did manage to use were to calm him down (hold the judgement till you actually see it being done please) My whole aim in training is to keep it as gentle as possible as I know only too well, the more aggression or pain you use with an animal, the more it will use it back at you. (something i learned especially so while horse training actually) I am very much into positive reinforcement / treats etc, however anyone with any experiance with dogs will know you cannot bring out the treats when the dog's hanging off your arm lol. Honestly I was not trying to hold Chewy on his side with my leg or anything like that, I was trying to settle him down, but he was not interested in that at all. For many of my clients dogs, lying them on their side and calming them down (lots of patting and softly talking to them) settles them right down HOWEVER...with chewy, I was not aware till AFTER I started working with him, he had previously been on his back many times with his owner and bitten his owner in this position and they'd had a nice fight about it, so he already had a psychological fear of being on his back,so while I'm waiting for him to settle down, he's just getting more worked up... hell, I didn't even find out till two days ago about that...it would have made a huge difference in what we did and didn't do with him. Of course everyone wants to know, why the hell did you have your leg on him? Chewy at first was okay being on his side, and sometimes I will move one leg half over the dog (not actually meant to be touching the dog and I don't use it to hold him down) Why? because I cannot bend my right leg more than around 100 degrees (like right angles)! I had a very bad motorbike-meets-drunk-driver-on-wrong-side-of-road accidentlate '05 on the way back from my job vet nursing in QLD, and subsequently lost a large amount of the use of my right leg. It's honestly just a comfort thing for me, I have had to learn how to work around this which has been a huge chalange especially when I'm working with larger dogs. Of course this injury is something I do not like to tell people, so many of my clients don't even know I cannot run, jump, squat etc and have constant pain to my right knee. I guess I will have to remember to let them know so we don't have misunderstandings like this in the future. (before you decide I am not fit to do my job though, please show my your med cert) As for the door and the stairs, ChrisB (my client) has explained that to you and I think he did that very acurately, once again though, it was most definatly NOT painful or cruel. When I first found out about the posting about my training etc, the reason I was so heartbroken (and I use that term honestly,) was because I am NOT a bad trainer! I am not a cruel trainer seeing dogs as having to constantly being dominated and ruled over. I have so many happy clients, with even happier dogs, dogs that wouldn't talk to them because they were scared, and together we got them back together, and dogs that were about to be sent to the pound and RSPCA and even be put down, but with a lot of love and care, I have worked with them and helped so many dog's back to enjoying their lives with their owners instead of being locked out the back constantly because the owners are too scared or worried to walk them outside. My aim is to IMPROVE dog's lives, and so many times I'm confronted with situations where it is so clear the dog is not being loved like it should, and it kills me because i just want to show the owners how much fun dogs can be and how much joy they can bring, but the owners are too busy thinking about themselves and want instant fixes for their problems, not caring to actualy put some bloody TIME into the dog! I don't know how many people I try to tell, it's just not like fixing a computer or a car, it's so different, every dog has it's individual personality and training needs, and if you havn't got the time to find out what that is, don't bother calling me. There's so much being said about my being a shady trainer, it really really hurts me because I strive above all to be honest with my clients. My business and my work IS my life, I lie awake at night thinking about how I can do things better, it's not a job to me, it's my life and i consider myself very lucky to be able to do this. I turn people down who want their dog trained a certain way which I find to be cruel, or people who are not willing to put the time and effort in. I am constantly throwing out check / chocker chains and fitting dogs with soft collars, trying to show owners you can walk your dog without destroying it's windpipe! I get pissed off at owners even mentioning the use of E-Collars, spiked collars, or any other pain based training method. The only hope I have of clearing up these misunderstandings is if you guys can appreciate I am someone much like yourselves, who really does not wish any pain on any animals i train! The only pain they may get in a session is when they do somethings stupid like bolt to the end of the leash, jump of the side of the stairs, or slip over on the floor whilst trying to use the living room like a race course I actually told many of my clients in the last couple of days the things being stated about me on this site, and I honestly asked them if I was being cruel to their dogs but perhaps not seeing it myself? They all really couldn't believe that people were saying these things, they were ready to come on here and tell everyone what I'm really like. I have references and success stories running out my ears from people happy with my training, ESPECIALLY, how kind I have been to their dogs. I just wish to finish off by telling people as much as this did really bother me, I'm not as offended as you probably think i am, and especially not at anyone in particular because I understand what it means to be concerned about another dog's welfare and if anyone wishes to personally message me I'd be happy to discuss this further, but this is my first and last post on here for 07 Oh, and to ChrisB and Angoria, I hope this in no way has offended you, see you guys tomorrow, and thanks very much to those of you who did post saying there is always two sides to every story. Happy training! -Melissa Bruce, Clever Paws MDT