Dog training, Puppy training, In home Dog Training

I made contact with Paul from K9 Centre Australia  after hearing of a program
that you could board your dog for 2 weeks and have it trained at the same time.
We were at our wits end with our 12 month old German Shepherd called Gemma.
We were at the stage where we couldn’t handle the dog and our family were
starting be scared of her.  We were thinking we should find her a new home.

Gemma is a hi energy dog who just wants to play all the time.  The issue
with that was she was big and was starting to boss the kids around by
jumping on them.  Mouthing their arms, starting to stop the kids walking
away from her and pulling them to play with her.  She would also jump on
people when she first met them.  We found this cute when she was a puppy but
she was 30 kgs and could really knock you down if she caught us off guard.
This wasn’t the only problem, she is dog aggressive.  When she was a puppy
we were walking her and 3 little white fluffy dogs attacked her and one of
them bit her on the back leg breaking the skin.   After that she would go
crazy out of fear at any dog she saw, it was scary.  I’m a big guy (about 95
kgs) and I had to fight a lot to keep her under control.

Anyway this meant we were confined to our house with the dog and the kids
didn’t want to play with her.

We had “dog listeners” come to our house to assist with Gemma and they spoke
about standing tall and gesture feeding to show the dog who was boss.  Lets
just say we didn’t have much luck with that and if anything it drove the dog
crazy with us taunting it with food.

Paul came to our house about 3 months ago and listened to our concerns.   He
spent a little bit of time with Gemma and told us that she was a good dog
and he knew how to calm her down, as long as we followed his techniques.  He
recommended that we didn’t send the dog away to be trained and showed us a
technique called Calm Pressure.  It is very simple and involves using a lead
to teach the dog to be in a calm state.  We also use our dog crate to create
a safe haven for the dog to chill out in which she loves.  He showed us (Me,
my wife and 3 kids) how to do this and it is very simple. We have been using
this technique and we couldn’t be happier with the results.  It wasn’t a one
visit deal where you’re given a few tips, hand over your money and they’re
gone.  Paul and I regularly discuss how Gemma is going and he has organised
time to catch up and check on how we are progressing.  Paul is more than
happy to take calls when you need extra support and provide advice, he
genuinely cares about how things are going.

We recently had a family vacation and we needed to kennel Gemma, we decided
to board Gemma with Paul so he could train her while we were on vacation.
She came back a different dog.

So does it work?  Yes, absolutely.  It’s been 3 months and my dog has gone
from a high energy nut bag to a dog that still has a lot of energy but will
sit, drop, stay, come and be corrected all by verbal commands.  This means
she plays when we say she can and she doesn’t intimidate anyone.  If she
over steps the mark its a quick ‘Ahh!’ followed by a drop and stay.  The dog
responds and calms down.  Then the play can start again.

We are still working with Paul on the dog aggression and have made good
progress.  On Paul’s last visit Gemma was able to play with his dog ‘Slam’.
It was the first time we have seen Gemma do this I can’t describe how
excited we were for this to happen.  The Dog aggression will take some time
to resolve but with Paul’s help and support we’re sure we will get there.

Here is Gemma on news years eve, she was calm enough to wear the hat.

Matt Macdonald & Family

Brisbane South