MCS has a totally different approach to training dogs and people. The reason is because of my background as an Officer Survival Instructor and DOD Combat Skills Instructor. In that capacity, along with the dog training, I have taught an estimated 6-7000 people. What all this has in common is inoculating people to revert to their training under extreme stress. Over the past 30 years, I have extensively researched the human anatomical, physiological, and psychological responses to stress to common scenarios.
In February of 2000, I was in a fatal police involved shooting. At that time, I was on the SWAT team and had been through two firearms instructors’ schools. The best way to explain it would be as follows: the training that I had been provided prepared me for a real shooting like driving on the highway would prepare you for NASCAR. From that point on I began a quest to make sure that the way I was training and the way I was training others was based on reality and not fantasy. That meant training people in the scenarios that they would most likely encounter and seeing what worked and what didn’t. That is called evidence-based training. It was during this time that I became a subject matter expert in Edged Weapon Survival. This led me to teaching my program across the country at major law enforcement conferences. This is what led me to revolutionizing dog training.
When I first began working with Dogfather Bob Fink in 2017 when Elizabeth first got me Odin, I noticed that many of the Veterans and First Responders struggled. Because they had no confidence, they were only taking their dogs to and from training and not socializing them in public. My definition of socializing is that the dogs be taken into public and shown their rules, boundaries, and limitations so that they are well received by people and dogs alike. This led to a well-trained dog in specific environments. Not unlike police officers who can shoot the center out of a target on a controlled square range but end up not being able to put one bullet in a bad guy, that is if they can get their gun out of the holster.
The hardest thing to do with any dog is getting them to ignore other dogs. It doesn’t matter if it is a service dog or a pet. When I asked people if their dog walks on a loose lead and they answer “yes, until they see another dog”, then no, their dog does not walk on a loose lead. Effective training requires the ability to simplify the complex. This is accomplished by recognizing patterns of behavior and modifying them to get consistent outcomes in particular situations. In essence, identify the question before trying to find an answer.
Too much training concentrates on the dog and not the handler. Let me explain. The number 1 thing that makes a dog react and pull is the handler bending their arm. One of the most primal human responses to stress is bringing your arms and hands up towards your face in reaction to being startled. Think of someone throwing a ball at your face or trying to punch you. This is an automatic stress response to protect your head, throat, and chest (vital areas). Next time you see someone standing with a dog on a leash check to see if their arm is bent. Typically, it will be, for no reason. They are putting tension on the dog, for lack of a better word “cocking” the dog like a pistol. If the dog sees, smells, or, hears something, as soon as they move, they will immediately increase the tension and then pull against it in a primal attempt to escape. This one thing is responsible for the reactivity you see towards other dogs. When working with clients, the most common thing you will hear me say is, “stop bending your arm”. Used properly, the lead is used for safety and communication, not control. This is why we start every training session with a silent loose lead walk. Until this is accomplished, you are wasting your time doing anything else. When you have your dog on a loose lead 95% of the time, it is a mental connection, that remains in place when the lead is off. If you need a lead to control your dog, you are not controlling your dog. We walk all dogs on one finger. If you are not in control of yourself, you cannot be in control of your dog. Follow us to learn more about our Focus Based Canine Training system.
All of the above dogs came in very reactive, not aggressive. Here are their handlers taking control.