My partner and I welcomed our miniature schnauzer puppy, Gemma, at 8 weeks old and we knew we…read morewanted to begin training right away using positive reinforcement methods. After looking at other Yelp reviews, we decided on Dizine Canine, and we're glad we did. After a private initial consultation, we enrolled Gemma in "Early Start for Puppies", and later on, "Life Skills: Basic Manners", all led by Jen Reynolds.
Our hope with Gemma was that she'd be a "blank slate" and that we'd train her to be the "perfect dog", but after the first puppy class, it was clear she came with her own quirks: she wanted to lunge and play with all dogs of any size; she was distracted with everything that moved and wanted to chase them; and she wasn't all that treat motivated. Getting her attention was next to impossible. Yes, some of these are characteristics of a puppy in general, but after a few classes, Jen agreed with what we clearly knew and feared... Gemma would be a difficult dog to train, and we had a challenge ahead of us.
In the group classes, we began learning the basics. Early Start for Puppies had a lot of puppy socialization and desensitization, in addition to learning basics commands like sit, down, and come here. Eventually in Life Skills, we learned about walking in the neighbourhood, people and dog greetings, impulse control methods, "leave it", and leash walking. All of the lessons were clear and well paced, but Gemma's distraction levels made for very difficult classes. We would often leave class deflated, questioning if Gemma actually learned anything.
In addition to the classes, we began working with Jen privately. I'll be the first to admit that we were at a loss at the beginning. Gemma was just so tough to train! With Jen's help and guidance, we slowly began to see progress. In our eyes, Jen is a dog whisperer, and we're pretty sure the dog treats she uses are magical. We have realized that training a puppy/dog is more of a lesson in patience and handling for the owners, and Jen's ability to maintain a calm demeanour in the face of our dire frustrations, loss of patience, and "I give up" sighs was amazing. Jen kept reminding us to stay the course and maintain consistency with our training, and she would coach us over many weeks to become the best handlers we could be. We would slowly build upon what we learned in class. Once we realized Gemma was more toy motivated, Jen introduced toy rewards to get the behaviours we were looking for. We challenged Jen many times on the effectiveness of positive reinforcement training. We became big skeptics when we felt like we were not seeing any results. She maintained that there is a strong case (and an evidence-based reason) to stick with positive reinforcement methods. We joked that we needed weekly affirmations from her to tell us we were doing a good job, which she did, ha! Jen could see in her mind the dog Gemma could become, and that we just needed to stay consistent. We were laying a great foundation for Gemma, and with coaching, training would get easier as Gemma continued to learn and grow.
After 4 months of consistent training, Gemma is progressing so well! There's still lots of work ahead, but it's clear now that future-Gemma will be a well trained dog. She used to pull on her leash, dash from side to side when we tried to walk her, and would barely listen to or acknowledge us. Now, she mostly walks on one side on a loose leash. Her recall is getting better each day. She's a well socialized puppy with great bite inhibition and she plays well with other dogs. She pays attention to us, and will look to us (occasionally!) for cues on what to do next. She's still fixated on other dogs most of the time and can be quite stubborn, and we're still working on Gemma's impulse control around other dogs, but I believe there are some personality traits that will always be there! She is a terrier, after all :). But the fact that by the end of Life Skills, we were able to keep Gemma calm on her mat while other dogs barked or walked around was amazing. We've learned so much from Dizine Canine's excellent group classes and our one-on-one training with Jen, and we can't recommend them enough.
