Tails From The 

Dog House

My trip to Kansas began with a phone call a few weeks before from my client, Maggie. Her call was filled with desperation, something I’ve grown accustomed to hearing working with dogs . When people call me, it’s usually because all other training styles have not worked and they are out of options. She explains the long back story about how they adopted their dog, but not just that. She explained to me her husband’s story as well. I get a lot of calls to go out of state and requests to train their dogs, but due to time constraints and cost I typically must turn them down. This one struck me on a more personal level. Maggie explained to me about her Marine husband, Brian, who had suffered multiple debilitating injuries while in the service to our country. His injuries have caused him not just physical pain, but emotional pain as well. His time protecting our country took a toll on him. As with many returning combat vets, PTSD is something he struggled with on a daily basis. Though I can not imagine the struggle he personally is going through, I can in many ways relate. I, too, have been coming to terms with things I’ve seen, things I’ve survived as a firefighter. Hearing about his struggle, his service to our country and the love his wife had for him struck a deep and lasting cord with me. I knew before hearing anything else that I’d be flying to them in the coming weeks. To cope with the ghosts of war, Brian had a neat little dog named Frog as his emotional support animal. It took him years to build the bond he had with his dog, but the bond they built was unbreakable. I, too, have deep bonds with all my dogs, but none greater than the one I have with my dog, Astro. That dog is my four legged soulmate, my teacher, and my emotional support. So I truly understood the love he had for his Froggy. Well, like many of us do, they saw a beautiful pup online about to be euthanized in California and fell in love with her. A large network of rescues were pushing hard to get this girl adopted because her time was running out. California has a major overcrowding problem when it comes to dogs all thanks to the infestation of backyard breeders. This dog was soon to become a victim of that infestation. Maggie and Brian decided to do the noble thing and adopted her, eventually naming her Scarlett. As with every dog that comes from the shelter, you really don’t know anything about them. What traumas they have been through, how they truly are with small animals, if they like kids, etc. But, Maggie and Brian were open to train her and give Scarlet the home she deserved. Being experienced dog owners they knew to do slow introductions and ease their new found love into their pack. They even started training with a local trainer right away. A few weeks into their new life with Scarlet, tragedy struck. A simple mistake led to a door being left open and Scarlet wandering the house looking for her parents. As she entered the living room, Froggy, with the big attitude he had packed into his little frame, targeted Scarlet, barking and growling in her face. Scarlet reacted out of instinct and a fight ensued. As you can imagine, Frog didn’t fair so well and with that, Brian’s little buddy was gone. Seeing this happen and not being able to help Froggy hit Brian harder than any death he had seen in war or any friend he had ever lost. This loss took a piece of his soul with it. Brian blamed himself for the death of his lil buddy. Brian wore his death and the next day he attempted to take his own life. With the grace of God, Brian survived, but that loss still remained. As Brian recovered from his injuries, Maggie was forced to try and deal with the aftermath. Picking up the pieces and deciding how to proceed with Scarlet. They reached out to many other trainers to help them with the behavioral issues she was exhibiting. She displayed intense dog aggression, horrible prey drive, and just an uncontrollable nature once outside the house. Giving up on her and sending her to the pound was never an option because, despite the death she caused, they still loved her deeply. Her saving grace was that inside the home and around her people she was a true little angel, with the capacity to be an emotional support dog. Despite the advice of vets and other professionals, they were determined to not put her down. They went from trainer to trainer, but each one seemed to either make it worse or just couldn’t deal with her aggression. Most were positive only trainers and none knew how to correct her behavior. Though they did stumble upon one who showed promise and took a more balanced approach, she attempted to couple aversive techniques with positive reinforcement. The only issue was she lacked the experience in getting through to a dog of her nature. To add to the family’s struggle, Brian’s medical conditions were deteriorating and he was forced to move to Virginia to be close to the VA there. They were being given a $70,000 service dog to help Brian cope with all his medical needs, but as a requirement the charity that gave him the dog stipulated that he could not house Scarlet with his new working dog. This forced Maggie to stay behind in Kansas with Scarlet. Maggie struggled daily with this decision. She knew she needed to be with her husband and to help him heal from his wounds, but she also needed to deal with her dog and to find her the right trainer so she might have more options. After a couple years of training and flying back and forth to Virginia, nothing was changing with Scarlet. If anything, she was getting worse. She was forced to face the hard reality, give her up which would be a death sentence or risk her marriage and her husband’s health by staying. A truly impossible decision when you love your family, two legged and four. Here is where I come in. There are a lot of people that follow my page on Facebook, K9 Intuition, but for some odd reason I remember when I got a friend request from Maggie. It was about two years ago and though we never spoke, I could tell she quietly followed my work. Little did I know she was following so closely that she felt the need to reach out. She left me a long message explaining how and why she needed help. We spoke on the phone for about an hour and in the end she asked me if she should put her dog down to spare Scarlett from having to suffer any more traumas in her life. She knew Scarlett wasn’t happy, how could she be when every time she went outside she was in the red zone with little ability to self regulate? That’s no way for any animal to live. She knew she didn’t have the tools to deal with Scarlet and her family’s health was in the balance. I explained that I just can’t give an assessment over the phone, but I did say it’s very rare I would ever recommend a dog be put to sleep. Without skipping a beat, she asked if she paid my flight would I travel out to assess her dog? As I explained before, I had already known I would be flying to Kansas. I felt it was my duty. Picking me up late in the evening at the airport, Maggie and I drove to get dinner. Maggie was a refreshingly straight forward, no nonsense kind of woman, who told me exactly how it was. She was a very cerebral person who approached this situation logically, but still with a profound love of her dog. She alleviated my fear that if I knew right away I couldn’t help this dog, would being here for four days be a complete waste of her time and money? She explained that no matter the outcome, the fact I came out to help would never be a waste. Waiting at the restaurant was Julie, the trainer I described before. The one who showed the most promise utilizing a balanced approach in training Scarlett. Julie was a young, very sweet woman, who clearly loved Scarlett and for that matter Scarlett’s whole family. She was a certified trainer with a very good grasp of the balanced training concepts. She just truly lacked the knowledge of how to apply those concepts to affect change in the dog. With reactive dogs, timing and the appropriate amount of correction is critical. If you have never been trained on how to apply those, then you won’t be effective. She explained to me the approaches she has taken and what effect it had on the dog. The one thing that struck me about Julie was her lack of ego and her openness to learn from me. I knew she would end up being a critical component in the success of this training. We started early the first day with Scarlet, working her off leash at Maggie’s mom’s ranch. I saw a woman who had a natural assertiveness when she walked with her dog, but was over correcting Scarlett, something I remember I used to do with Astro as I was learning. This approach told Scarlett that she had a lack of confidence in herself and Scarlett, in turn, exhibited neurotic behaviors. I asked them, Maggie and her trainer Julie, to correct her behavior when she was getting a bit too excited around the fish in the koi pond. As I had expected, the corrections were not pronounced enough nor did they follow through until the dog submitted and gave them attention. From there, we traveled to a nearby park where Julie brought an unbalanced dog that she was working on. This time I handled Scarlett because her strength was hard for Maggie to handle. I allowed Scarlett to demonstrate the behavior she has been practicing for the last couple years. It was intense. She brought herself into the red zone with ease and I could see why they struggled to bring her out of it. I made a quick, but very clear touch correction which caused Scarlett to break focus on the other dog and to place it on me. At this point, we moved away and started over. I knew I needed to establish who I was to the dog and that she was no longer going to take a leadership role. I needed her to accept the fact she will be following me from this day forward. We readdressed Julie’s dog and had a completely different result. Scarlett’s excitement level was much less and she was easily corrected out of it. We worked closer and closer to the other dog. As we did and the more control I exhibited with Scarlett, the less reactive Julie’s dog became. When dogs see a handler is dealing with the situation, they naturally take to a follower's position and thus calm down. Within the first ten minutes in the park, I knew exactly what issues we were dealing with. Scarlett was completely, without a doubt, a savable dog. Through the next couple days, I did my best to not just change the dog, but change the relationship Maggie had with her. I had to teach her how it to lead her dog in any situation. I worked on giving her all the tools possible to correct her behavior before it ever gets to that energy level that she used to display. We worked her around dogs at the dog park, squirrels and even Julie’s incredibly well-trained cat who simply sat in the middle of the parking lot as we worked to change Scarlett’s thought process about prey. By the end of our last day, we were able to hold the cat right above Scarlett with her choosing to only sniff the cat and not actually eat the cat. As some of you might have noticed, Maggie’s husband, Brian, was not mentioned in this training session. His medical issues prevented him from being able to fly out and join us. But that last night, as Maggie and I drove to have dinner with her fiery mom whom she lovingly or annoyingly calls Banana, we got a Skype phone call from Brian. This was my first time speaking with him at length. Maggie had spent the last three days describing me as his twin. Not looks, but personality wise. She said he and I have much the same drives in life and have a way of carrying ourselves that brought a calmness to crazy situations. Well, hitting it off was an understatement. Brian and I seemed to connect on a special level or wavelength, you might say. One where we were able to understand each other and relate to the scars we carry. I spoke to him about how well his dog did and what our plans were for her. We talked about his past and what he has been going through. I explained to him how I found an outlet for the things that bothered me and it was working with the broken dogs. What many don’t realize, is that people who choose jobs like military, fire, and police do so because we have a calling to serve, a desire to protect our fellow man. This isn’t just a job for us. It becomes who we are to the core. When that goes away and we are no longer firefighters, cops, or warriors there is an emptiness that remains. It’s not just the job that creates the emptiness, it’s the friendships we make and the purpose we serve. I have known many firefighters that once they retire, die within a couple years. It’s almost as if they lose the will to live because a part of them died when they stopped doing what they love. The ones that last are those who find another outlet. Something they can do that still serves a purpose. Something that gives them value to their lives. For us, simply existing isn’t enough. PTSD coupled with the loss of purpose can be more than many can take and this typically ends in tragedy. Brian had brought up to his wife the day before, the idea of me working with the wounded vets and teaching them how to work with dogs. How to heal their wounds by healing the four legged broken souls. When Maggie told me this, I was forced to smile because it has been a plan for the ranch for some time. When Maggie described Brian, she repeatedly spoke of his ability with dogs, how even the most scared dogs gravitate to him. So, as Brian and I spoke, I brought up that idea to him, of me working with wounded vets. He said he thought I’d be perfect for it. Not just because I’m a trainer, but because I understand and can relate with what many of them are dealing with. I looked at Brian and as he finished his sentence and asked him if he would like to be my first. I swear at that moment I think I saw a small smile on his face. He did express interest and has a plan in place to come to California to meet with me in November. I cannot imagine a better man to start to give back to than Brian. What I can’t tell you about him, is how Brian served our county. His level of warrior is beyond comprehension as is the amount of respect I have for this man. This brings us back to Scarlett. What do we do? Where do we go from here? No matter how good I got her, we still need to come to terms with the fact that she can’t live with their other dog. Options for her are extremely limited. First, she is a pit mix. Second, she has reactivity issues. Third, she is in Kansas. Over the last three days, we came up with what we believe is a solid plan. Maggie and Julie will continue to apply the training techniques I have taught them daily, getting Scarlett to a better energy and making her more adoptable. Then, in January, when hopefully my facility will be open, I will bring her in and continue her training. As soon as she is ready, we will network her until we find her a new home. Success takes many forms. Though ultimately, I’d have loved to keep their family together, the powers that be won’t permit it. So we need to look for other ways for us to succeed for Scarlett. This will ultimately be a new home with a family that will love her unconditionally as Maggie and Brian did. This, I promised them. I will treat her as my own and will find her the best family possible. As with many of my clients, a bond was created between us. Having the opportunity to help people in their time of need tends to bring people closer together. This trip was not just about helping a dog, but about healing a family. It was about giving them hope where there was none. Because of this, the bond I gained with Maggie and her family is incredible. It truly feels like I have an extended family in Kansas and Virginia. I look forward to seeing them again and hopefully having the chance to help Brian start a new mission in life. I never know where my journeys will take me. What I do know is they aren't by chance. Change starts with us, all of us. Never stop making a difference no matter how small. Part two : Where Dreams Go