Solo visit to Petsmart made me feel so much better

[stacyd]

@habanero I totally hated going to petsmart with my dog for the longest time after one of their employees from their pet training center came up to me and got onto me about my vocal husky and told me that it was my fault he was vocal because I taught him to be that way from a young age.

I was like wtf and had to correct her because 1) I got him as an full grown adult (he was a rescue) so I didn't raise him, and 2) I explained that when I first got him he hated people even and for me to have worked with him for him to be happy and trying to get attention from people, and not just other animals, now is a huge turnaround that took quite awhile to get to.

He went from not ever looking at anyone and growling when someone would try to pet him, walk as far away as he could to the other end of the house and just lay there, to now where he loves everyone, and it takes awhile to get a dog who only cares about other dogs and hates people to finally focus on you to even start training them.

I really hated how presumptuous the petsmart trainer was though; how she acted like I have done absolutely nothing to try towards working with him. Feel like she should know better than to assume everyone gets their dog as a puppy especially since she looked like she was in her 50's and definitely should have lived life long enough (especially as a dog trainer) to know that some people adopt older rescues.

 

[habanero]

@stacyd From what I hear, the education program for Petsmart trainers is a joke. It’s like, two weeks. And they advocate for (try to upsell) adversive tools. I’m sorry you had to hear that. It’s so frustrating dealing with ding dongs who think their uninformed opinion is necessary.

 

[bumbletree]

@habanero Actually, in my experience having taken two 6 week sessions at petsmart, they dont allow aversives. Flat collar or harness is all that's allowed. I took the beginning and intermediate class at our local store and the trainer was really great. I had do back out of the advanced class because I was unable to help my(incredibly obedient and wonderful at home) dog through his reactivity in the store even though he was relaxed enough to sleep through portions of class inside the training walls:/ looking back I shouldnt have subjected my dog to known triggers and pushed him past his threshold, but I can't change that now. We're trying to work on it now with a private trainer, not in a store.

Ymmv, my trainer was great and never suggested aversives for reactive weirdo. Ever. I would have stayed with her if we could have trained not in the store. I think petsmart classes are an ok affordable option for basic training classes for non reactive dogs...

 

[stacyd]

@habanero Shoot, two weeks is nothing for dog training, for a puppy who needs different stages of training or for an adult rescue who possibly needs a ton of unlearned bad habits to replace with good ones.

Like I feel 2 weeks is the check in point to see how well the person has done so far and how far they have come with the first stage of training.

 

[michael1997]

@habanero This post just made me go hug my dog

 

[habanero]

@michael1997 Hell yes!

 

[singledaisy]

@habanero Thank you for writing about your experience, I'm having a similar struggle with my younger girl. She's reactive and anxious, and once she ramps up enough it's like she can't hear us anymore. She's quite well trained now after a year of SUPER HARD work, but that anxiety is a hell of a wall. We're trying to get her some meds so she'll feel better, and that's been a hellish struggle, too! She forced me to learn so much about dogs, how they think, what they need, and how to work with them.

My mom will still give me bs dominance advice, that I need to do shit like flip my dog on her back and scream at her to make her stop reacting. I tried explaining how that would be a huge breach of trust we've built, it would make whatever stimulus more threatening to her later, etc. but that dominance nonsense is in deep. It's frustrating to be sure, but the only thing to do is to keep working and making baby steps forward.

 

[whyayeman]

@habanero My female is pretty bomb proof. She's been in airports, planes, stadiums, pretty much everywhere I can take her, she's been there. She cannot handle stores. She instantly tenses up, which makes her walk on her nails and so she loses traction and she just hates them. So I never brought her to another store. My male, who is dog reactive, has no problem with stores or any building, he just thinks other dogs are going to kill him.

I've found that most dogs don't really like the huge sensory overload that can happen at stores.

 

[blessme32]

@habanero I love this post. Thank you.

 

[tery]

@habanero I took my dog with me last week to our local pet store (not PetSmart). Wasn't sure how it was going to go but figured if there were a lot of dogs in there we would just leave again. Turns out there was only 1 other dog, and it was a puppy in the cart. The puppy barked at my guy a few times, and he just ignored it, until we were in line with only 1 other person between us. The puppy barked, my guy barked louder, the puppy stopped barking. He did so great and I'm so proud of him!