Dog Community

A Trainer's Dogs

Posted : 6/28/2006 7:37:08 PM

I was thinking of doing an advanced obedience class with Little Misty, just for the fun of it and to fine tune her a bit more. So, I went to observe a class a local trainer was running, upon her invitatiion, to see how it was run. At one point in the class, she retrieved her two dogs from her house to demonstrate with them. They followed out to the training area, and then she turned around and told them to "SIT." Both dogs did a great big submissive pee as they sat.

WHOA, great demonstration, thank you, I'll move on now. She's a Cesar Milan fan, and I wonder if she's alpha'd these two dogs into total submission.

I can't imagine submissive peeing is ever a good thing, what causes it to happen? Luckily, I have no experience with it and was just curious

griffinej5

Posted : 6/28/2006 8:17:47 PM

I have no clue what was up with those dogs. Max has only done the peeing thing once, at the vet, because he was completely terrified. There was a dog in one of Max's classes who did it whenever she came in the room, because she was so overwhelmed by the situation. She was fine once she got in there for a bit though.
In other comments about trainer's dogs, I love my trainer's one dog. Maxine is such a sweetheart, and she is very well trained. She's pretty funny too. She won't accept any junky treats. She only eats the best stuff. I think that's pretty cute too.

miranadobe

Posted : 6/28/2006 8:27:53 PM

I agree if that was submissive peeing, I would have said "thanks, no thanks", too.

What was her reaction/response when the dogs peed? What did she tell the onlookers about it?

ewin0210

Posted : 6/28/2006 8:33:34 PM

Some dogs are more sensitive to other no matter what kinds of methods you use. That being said it seems odd that both of them were submissive pee-ers. How was the rest of the class? Did you like any of the other stuff that went on?

BTW, if a dog defecates in the obedience or rally ring it is disqualified.

angelamarie

Posted : 6/28/2006 8:58:58 PM

The trainer didn't say a thing about the peeing, she just seemed to ignore it.

As for the remainder of the content of the class, I wasn't really impressed. It was much too treat driven, first of all, and also the trainer didn't use as much positive energy as I would like. She didn't seem to be a good leader. It was the 8th in a series of 10 classes and the dogs in it were completely out of hand, which means either she's not teaching well or, more likely, for some reason people aren't doing their homework.

I'll look elsewhere, I think.

fuzzy_dogs_mom

Posted : 6/28/2006 10:06:12 PM

Wow. Max is asked to *sit* when we come to the curb before we cross the street, in the kitchen when he gets a treat, in the entry before I open the front door to see who's there .... I'm sure glad he doesn't pee every time I ask him to sit. [][]

Joyce

jennie_c_d

Posted : 6/29/2006 12:00:20 AM

Emma is a submissive peer. She's also mildly incontinent, which makes this worse, LOL. She often pees at my feet, when I get home. I ignore it, and go on with life. No big deal, wipe up the pee, wipe the dog (she rolls and pees, she has done that since puppyhood), go throw a frisbee. She doesn't pee when I ask her to sit... That's a little odd. She'll pee if I use a stern voice with her, on occasion.

Both non-puppies making puddles when asked to sit would make me realllly uncomfortable.

Terri

Posted : 6/29/2006 10:17:12 AM

I agree, I don't think I'd have anything to do with that trainer. During our first class with Loki, our trainer brought out her 5 year old lab, who is a working service dog. Seeing the trainer with him was just amazing. He paid constant attention to her despite 8 puppies running around and barking. He followed every command flawlessly (including "go to bed", "down", "stay", "take it" and "leave it"--and the last two he was taking and leaving a toy stuffed with treats and peanut butter). He was not frightened of her, he had not been beaten into submission. But you could tell he respected her. That sold us on her classes and we've been back for 4 more between our two dogs!

keedokes

Posted : 6/29/2006 10:27:18 AM

When I was a young lass

my mom took our Saint to obedience, mostly because she was totally hyper and scared other people by her sheer size. I went to a couple of classes and remember crying because I thought he was hurting her. He had her in a choke collar and would just yank the crap out of her every time she disobeyed (sometimes pulling her off of the ground), which wasn't very often, because looking back I can see she was terrified of him. Which makes me wonder why we kept going back.

PS Someday soon I'm going to add my own repitoire of dog stories to these...man I wish we would have moved into that other apartment. Gr. And Gr.

griffinej5

Posted : 6/29/2006 10:30:14 AM

lokis_mom, that's exactly how the interaction between our trainer and her dog is. That dog listens to everything she is told, and even if it's something weird, like during dog/dog aggression class when we brought our dogs up to sniff her. She just sat there, and trusted that her person would not do anything to her that was going to get her hurt.

Kara

Posted : 6/29/2006 10:34:10 AM

My Gracie will sometimes do the submissive urination if she's stressed then put under pressure. Like we took her to the vet for a vaginal infection and she was fine with the vet, but when the vet tech went to hold her head she peed.. which was ok cause they needed a urine sample anyway [8|] If Gracie does the submissive urination I know she's being pushed way beyond her comfort limits.