Thank you everyone for all the support and kind words. I will be finishing the class due to the cost and we did learn a lot from her in the first class. I heard about this trainer from a lot of people at the dog park in my area, and people from doggy day care so I felt good about it. But I won't be doing another class with her. She gave me flak in the puppy class when Axel was 4 months old, but at that time I understood why. As I had posted on here at that time, Axel was a crazy humper... so that was her reasoning. But fast forward 5 months and he's not like that anymore (not to that extent) so clearly it wasn't because he needed to be neutered. Which thank fully for all you wonderful people giving me advice back then, I did not neuter him and just trained him out of it as best I could. So for the rest of the classes I will just stand tall with my choice He doesn't mark yet, or show dominance in any way. Even again today at the dog park he was very submissive with all the dogs. Their owners kept having to take axels ball away from their own dogs because Axel won't try and get it if another dog goes for it. Oh and to answer one question about confusion about the trainer giving cues to Axel @bbrown Because Axel was in the previous course she asked to borrow him to show the new people what she wants the dog to do, so just a quick demo which is when she found out he's still intact... that will probably be the last of using him as an example! Ha oh well. Thank you @Snowshoe for that website. I looked and she's definitely not on the list. Sadly only one person is on that list where I'm from. She's an agility trainer. Something I have had interest in but I don't know if I could afford to do it. But maybe I'll look into it Once again thanks everyone!
Well, tonight would have been the last beginner 1 puppy class for Axel. If we hadn't dropped out three weeks ago. So relieved. I was tense and grumpy every week leading up to it. No matter how great Axel did, and I'm not just saying that, he did really great.. even when she took him as an example probably hoping he would fail he always proved her wrong. Anyways, no matter how well he did she always had to comment on the fact he's not neutered and how now he's the way he is because we didn't fix him soon enough. As if that's a bad thing? He's so sweet, wonderful at day care, they just love him there. Day care said he gets along with absolutely everyone so he's the one dog who gets to play the most during the day as they split the dogs into play groups based on temperament, so he gets to play with everyone in all the groups. He still hasn't started marking his territory, he's just a chill dog. One thing I am working on is he is a bit protective of me on walks at night. He will woof at people coming straight at us. I don't know if that's due to him not being neutered though.. but how I'm working on it is getting him off to the side and making him sit and as they go by I hand him treat after treat as he watches them, all while praising him. If anyone has any advice that would work better than that please share!
It sounds like he's just a bit fearful of the people running towards you at night - completely understandable as a direct approach is quite hostile in dog language. What you're doing is great. Just keep an eye on him and see how he reacts; when my two are feeling tense, it's better for them to be standing rather than in a sit, because they seem to feel less vulnerable - I guess they feel the "flight" option is more accessible from a stand, so they are able to stay better relaxed.
Super weird that a trainer would focus on that as an issue. Good for you for quitting...I wanted to quit Quinn's current class when the trainer told me the only way you could have 100% recall was with a shock collar...I just told her I would never consider that and politely disagreed and made it clear I will only use positive methods. Luckily, as it is a recall specific class only, there hasn't been anything but positive training but I have been on high alert. Finding a good training class is a mine field...
Ah a shock collar for recall? Let alone a shock collar period, that's terrible. Definitely agree, hard to find a good trainer. I'm going to focus on training by myself with the help of this forum
