| A supervisor came into the office of a fenced maintenance yard the size of a city block, where I was working as a contractor, and said, “We can escort you to your cars for lunch. There is a wild pregnant chow dog loose in the lot terrorizing everyone, that we have called the Animal Control to come and get.”
I thought, “Aww, gee, a chow, pregnant and wild? They will put her down for sure” and was impelled to go out, check on the dog facing the death sentence, as that was the policy of our animal control people for feral dogs.
When I got to the lot, I saw a male dog that was terrorized out of his mind. There was no focus of eyes when he looked at you, just knee-jerk barking, snarling and running. As an environmental safety and health risk manager of 35 years, my primary thought, “Could I safely help this dog without endangering my self, the workers of my client, or even this dog escaping into the street from this secure?”
I had been watching the new Dog Whisperer show with Cesar Milan. Working with show and rescue dogs all my life, I thought I could try some of the techniques he had talked about without danger.
"Depression and aggression is often really frustration. Discharge the energy first; let the dog wear himself out". Finally, the chow went between the storage shed and concrete wall, changing his energy from aggressive confrontation to fearful retreat. I followed the "Red-Zone" Rescue Steps Cesar had outlined.
"Take control of the space.” I blocked his way out, sat down in the entry and claimed the space.
"No touch, no talk, no eye contact.” I sat sideways blocking his exit, in 105 degree heat for two hours.
Finally, he came up to me. I ignored him. He bumped me with his nose. He had shifted to calm-submissive, quiet, balanced energy. Without looking, I reach my hand out to massage his shoulder, finally pulled him to me, and then carried him to the car to introduce him to the pack – Cesar’s way.
Signal was the first dog of my pack to be trained in Cesar’s way from the first moments. I have been astonished at how much easier it has been simply working with a dog using Cesar’s techniques than with my other dogs that were being “humanized” for over ten years, B.C. (before Cesar).
Since that time, I have become inspired to facilitate a Dog Whisperer Fans and Friends email list on Yahoo and, so far, have rescued, rehabilitated, and placed four other dogs who were about to be put down from behavior problems which were supposedly un-resolvable but changed with the consistent application of Cesar’s rules, boundaries, and limitations.
Read on. |
