11 JunCase study: Skype training with Maria, Apple and Delilah

As dog trainers, we spend a lot of our time talking to people about their dogs. While we also love cuddling their dogs and getting slobbered on, sometimes we do a kind of training that really minimizes the amount of drool we get on our jeans: We work with clients over Skype.

Maria is a client who lives in an area of Brooklyn called Georgetown. I'm a fourth generation New Yorker and I'd never heard of Georgetown. It's a section of Bergen Beach, which is also apparently a place.

Maria wanted some help working with her two retrievers, Delilah and Apple. Apple, the younger of the two, has a lot of anxiety. She came to live with Maria last summer and, since then, has been fearful about going onto the street, or even out the front door.

Because Georgetown is about an hour from us and is outside our normal service area, Maria and I worked together on basic training over Skype. The girls learned sit, down, and stay, among other things. Maria became very good at using a clicker. She purchased some excellent educational toys and modified her dogs' diet based on recommendations made during a nutritional consultation she did with Kate.  After her series of five Skype sessions were completed, I went out to her house to help her with some training that would be better done in person. We worked on helping Apple feel comfortable going out the front door, and I showed Maria how to use the clicker to improve Apple's feelings about objects that were very scary to her, like the watering can.

Apple meets a nemesis: The watering can

Apple had another issue: she was eating the patch of grass in Maria's closed-off backyard, and also ingesting some of the bits of debris that would collect in the grass, blown there from the street. The result was a lot of puke. I suggested muzzling Apple when letting in the yard, or, better yet, getting rid of the grass, which, in addition to collecting garbage, also probably had weird non-pet-friendly fertilizers on it. But these are the kind of suggestions that I often give without fully expecting anyone is going to listen to me. Most people feel it's a drag to put on a muzzle on their dog, and suggesting someone get rid of grass in New York City is like advising them to dry wall over exposed brick. A lot of people would rather just have a puking dog.

But today I got an email from Maria that really made me smile.

Hope all is well with you. The girls are doing great.  Apple has not vomited since I put the muzzle on her when she goes outside.  She has made friends with the broom and we are working on the vacuum for both of them.  I am having the grass taken out and the concrete work starts on June 26th.  I will be taking vacation days the week of July 7th and I would like to schedule 1 or 2 90-minute appointments at the house.  Please let me know your availability. 

I really love my job.