Talking Dogs: Be a dog's best friend - MiamiHerald.com

One of the simplest, most successful means to teach a dog to be well-behaved and to maintain a great relationship is to always, always be the "good guy." Before any formal, positive training begins, your dog should understand that everything he enjoys in life is provided by you and that close to you is always the safest place to be. These two uncomplicated concepts become the foundation for a great relationship between dog and human.

For your dog to grasp the first concept, you must be able to recognize what he considers to be the positive perks in his world. Some can easily identify the most obvious - the dog loves to chase the ball, enjoys a good scratching behind the ears and is clearly pleased when we put down the food bowl. Not so obvious may include going in or out a door, having access to the room you are in and taking a walk around the block. The more things you can identify as positives in the dog's eyes, the more you have to work with. In addition, effort should be put into teaching the young dog to enjoy things that he may not, without exposure, find rewarding on his own. For example, taking the time to teach a dog to fetch a ball, catch a Frisbee, tug on a toy or enjoy a playful game of "I'm gonna getcha!" gives the owner a larger variety of reward options when higher levels of training begin.

Gaining and maintaining easy control begins with providing your dog with the perks he enjoys only when his behavior is that which you like and wish to encourage. Long before formal training begins, you can simply choose to open a door for your dog to go in or out of when he keeps all four paws on the floor, is quiet and is patient. The same goes for putting down the food bowl. As you repeat this process, a pattern begins to emerge, which the dog grasps quickly - things he wants and enjoys in life are given to him when he is calm, silent and still.

The second concept is paramount in having a great relationship with the dog: You must be trustworthy, and safe to be around. It is impossible to maintain this kind of relationship if you are a punisher. Physical corrections - spanking, muzzle grabs, collar or scruff shakes, leash pops, alpha rolls, etc., define the human as a person to be wary of, and being close to that person may result in correction. This doesn't mean, of course, that the dog will never get close to the human again; dogs are eternal optimists, after all. But it does break down the trust, and the perceptive dog may choose to move away from the human when the person's behavior is disturbing. In addition to losing trust, this puts the human at a huge disadvantage when the dog is off leash.

Dog owners seem to be under the impression that if the dog does something "wrong," or doesn't obey a command, that it must be punished. The modern dog trainer, relying on scientific studies and extensive research into modifying behavior in any animal species, knows that it is far more effective to simply withhold something the dog favors.

Lisa Moore's pet-behavior column appears once a month on the Weekly Pet Page. Write to her in care of LifeStyles, The Modesto Bee, P.O. Box 5256, Modesto 95352.

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City Council Celebrates Dog's Heroics as a Cop, Family Pet - Patch.com

Sponsored By ‹ Back to Article View full size Embed | Share      Dani became the family pet when he retired. He was great with Sgt. Barry's children, Liam and Quin. Courtesy Santa Cruz Police

A police dog is put through months of training so it can track bad guys, sniff out drugs and find bombs. But it turns out those skills that make a K-9 officer so indispensable on the street come in handy at home, too.

Santa Cruz police Sgt. Warren Barry and his family know this first-hand.

Before he was promoted and stopped pushing a patrol car, Barry had one of the most coveted jobs in any police department: K-9 handler. He was teamed with Dani, a German shepherd, and for four years, the pair caught crooks.

But one of Dani's best finds wasn't on the job. Rather, it happened at home with the Barry family after the police dog retired in 2003, and Quin, the sergeant's daughter, had lost a toy in some ivy at their house. She was pretty upset.

Sgt. Barry recounted how Dani saved the day:

"Dani had been retired for a while, and Quin asked if I could have Dani look for it. I put Dani on a 'down' and simulated (that) I threw something into the ivy, and commanded Dani to search. Within a few minutes, he lay down, alerting me he found something. He located Quin’s toy. He was Quin’s hero."

On Tuesday afternoon, Dani will be a hero to all of Santa Cruz. The City Council is expected to proclaim July 26 "Dani Barry Day" in honor of the former police dog. Dani died two weeks ago at the age of 13.

"We're extremely touched and we're honored," Sgt. Barry said. "Dani was a huge part of our lives, and he was a dedicated police dog."

Dani's police career started in 1999 when the city purchased the Czech Republic-born dog, then 2, and assigned Barry as his handler. For Barry, it was a dream come true.

"It had been something that I had wanted to do ever since I had gotten hired by the police department," he said.

Barry had twice been rejected for a K-9 handler position, then took matters into his own hands by buying a German shepherd and starting the police dog training process. That seemed to tip the scales in his favor. Four months later, Barry was given Dani, and he sold the other dog.

It proved to be a good investment all around. Dani had a good average of catching bad guys, and once, at the end of a long swing shift, he nabbed a burglar who was breaking into the Barrys' garage.

The sergeant shared how the late-night capture went down:

One night I was coming home and I lived on the East side of Santa Cruz, and my house had alley access. Being in the K-9 unit and on-call, I had a take-home car. It was about 3 in the morning, and as I was pulling into my driveway I found a person attempting to get into my garage.

"I lit him up with my spotlight and yelled at the guy. Dani began to bark. The guy ran past the passenger side of my car north down the alley. I put the car in reverse; however,  the alley is partially a dirt road, and dust was being kicked up. I could not see behind me. I went forward and began to put out on the radio what was going on. Other officers began to arrive and began looking for the person. I began to go into my neighbors' backyards, and I found the hat the person was originally wearing. I went back and pulled Dani from the car, and began a track. Using the hat as a starting point, Dani led me from the alley to the street down through front yards to a house where the suspect was hiding on a front porch. The subject was arrested and found to be in possession of items that were from a car that had been previously stolen."

Police K-9s, though property of the police department, live with their handlers. Sgt. Barry's family learned some of the German commands the dog obeyed, but Dani paid them little attention while he was on the police force.

Barry said after the dog retired "he mellowed out" and became the family pet. He had a special bond with Quin, who was just a baby when Dani joined the family. When she broke her arm badly and underwent surgery, the dog slept at the foot of her bed to make sure she was OK.

"Dani and Quin were extremely tight," Sgt. Barry said. "He was real protective of her. He always gave her a break." 

His wife, Jana, and their 14-year-old son, Liam, also were close with Dani.

Two weeks ago, the family decided it was time to euthanize the dog. Dani's sight was fading, his hearing was gone and his hips were failing. Still, it was a hard decision, Barry said. Dani was their only dog.

"It's a pretty fresh wound," Barry said Tuesday.

Barry no longer is a K-9 handler for SCPD, though the department has two other police dogs on its force.

Barry said if his family gets another dog, he'll take the lessons he learned from Dani to train the new pet, and he suggests other dog owners do the same.

"You are really going to enjoy your dog a lot more when it's trained and obedient," Barry said. "Take the time to train with it. Spend time with it or go to a trainer. It'll increase the bond between you and the dog a lot.

"All they want is to be loved," he added.

The Dani Barry Day proclamation is on the 3 p.m. City Council agenda. Dani will be the first retired K-9 to be honored by the city.

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A dog's life suits Andy down to the ground... - Craven Herald

12:20pm Sunday 16th January 2011

Search-and-rescue dog trainer Andy Colau could be heading for the history books.

He has just started training his fifth mountain rescue search dog – and, if he succeeds, he believes he could be the first member of the Search and Rescue Dog Association (Sarda) to achieve the feat.

However, it is still early days. Belle will have to complete at least two years of training and then there is no guarantee she will make the grade.

“Training a search-and-rescue dog is time-consuming and quite daunting,” said Andy, a part-time lecturer at Craven College and a part-time electrical contractor. “There are only 35 Sarda dogs in the whole of England.”

Andy, who lives in Stainforth, began training Border collies more than 30 years ago – and his interest almost came about by accident.

A keen mountaineer and potholer, he was a member of the Clapham-based Cave Rescue Organisation, and saw an advert on the centre’s noticeboard asking for volunteers to sit on Ingleborough and wait to be found as part of a dog training exercise.

“I didn’t think I would be found, but while I was sitting there, this collie called Gwen came out of nowhere. I was intrigued and I decided to try training search-and-rescue dogs myself. Three weeks later, I got my first dog. She was advertised in the Craven Herald as ‘free to good home, sheepdog-type bitch with spotted legs’.”

That first dog was Corrie. He then trained Corrie’s daughter, Gael, and their exploits were filmed over two years for the BBC documentary Search Dogs Of The Summits. Both Corrie and Gael searched for survivors after terrorists blew up a Pan Am plane over Lockerbie in 1988.

“It was a big learning curve for everyone involved,” said Andy, who subsequently launched K9 Search and Rescue to train dogs specifically for UK disasters.

He even trained one of his dogs, Fionn, to search for people trapped under collapsed buildings. “This was frowned on by some mountain rescue teams because up to that point, Sarda was the only dog rescue team recognised.”

His third mountain rescue dog was Gael’s daughter, Rhona, who helped to search for missing tourist Jeffrey Hodgson on the island of Ibiza in 2001. Sadly, they had been looking in the wrong place and his body was found 18 months later.

Rhona went missing in 2003 and her body was found in quicksand at Helwith Bridge five months later.

It was in Rhona’s memory that Andy started training Tara, who is still an active search and rescue dog at the grand age of nearly ten.

“After that I vowed never to train another search dog, and give up my life as a volunteer mountain rescuer and spend more time with my wife, Jennifer. But, I just couldn’t do it – I am still fit and capable.”

So now the household has a new member, Belle, who was bred by a hill shepherd and trainer on the slopes of Blencathra, near Keswick.

Andy, who is also a member of the Upper Wharfedale Fell Rescue Association, attended 25 Sarda callouts last year.

“I may be in my 60s, but I am very happy being out there in the dark, snow and cold. These days I usually have a navigator and we have Satmap which pinpoints your position to within an inch and very powerful LED lighting. It is much easier than it used to be.”

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