Dogs behaving badly?

[doggyfail]

Has anyone ever been on ? Do people think these shows work for desperate people?

Getting help from a properly qualified behaviourist, and following through on their advice, can absolutely work. We saw a behaviourist who helped us completely solve one problem (aggression towards visitors - now he thinks they're there to play fetch with him) and make great progress with another one (reactivity). Will my dog ever be perfect? No, but we understand each other better, and can live with each other now!

Unfortunately, Graeme Hall is not qualified. A great many people have spoken out against him - this is a post from a qualified behaviourist about a recent episode, but it's far from the only time concerns have been raised.
www.facebook.com/128633927155926/posts/5212785662074035/

Can you give us an outline of the issues you're facing?

They basically fall into two categories

• training issues, which are those things that every dog needs to learn, such as basic commands, recall, not jumping up, toilet training etc. For this the best person to see is an APDT qualified trainer.
• behaviour issues, which are mostly motivated by fear - aggression, separation anxiety, reactivity, chasing livestock, resource guarding etc. For this the best person to see is an APBC or CCAB accredited behaviourist.

There are directories of these people on the APDT / APBC / ASAB websites respectively.

As with Graeme Hall, unfortunately literally anyone can call themselves a trainer or behaviourist, which is why it's important to see someone qualified by one of the above organisations.

Literally came to say the same as @user468375484. Graeme Hall is NOT a qualified trainer or behaviourist and there's numerous petitions and campaigns to get that entire show taken off air.

I really like Victoria whats-her-name. She always seems to give sensible strategies.

I do think that for many dogs they have never been trained to do or not do certain things, and so some decent training works. That is obvious from the dogs and owners on all these shows.
But that for other dogs, particularly deeply ingrained fear based behaviour, whatever you do, you will struggle to remove the underlying fear.

I areas thought that whatever Graham comes up with is very obvious and I'm always surprised the owners have never implemented these strategies before.

I think they go through a very selective recruitment process. Clueless owners with easy to sort out dogs.

I don't dislike Graeme Hall, he seems like a nice enough bloke and he gets some good results with what I think - as someone else said before - are quite obvious strategies. He doesn't use any punishment style techniques although sometimes the lead jerking grates a bit. And in past episodes he's raised his voice.

I do feel faintly uneasy that Channel 5 watching dog owners are out there copying the methods of an unqualified individual thinking it's the holy grail.

The border terrier the other night was hilarious - sooo obvious! But maybe I'm being arrogant, I've had a nightmare terrier in the past and never manage to resolve her issues so what do I know.

I really dislike him.

He provides so-called quick or instant fixes and a lot of the methods he uses make me cringe. I'm surprised he's not been bitten more often, in all honesty.

He doesn't use any punishment style techniques although sometimes the lead jerking grates a bit

Lead jerking IS a punishment based strategy. It's intended to be unpleasant for the dog, with the dog modifying its behaviour to avoid the unpleasant lead jerking.

@user468375484

He doesn't use any punishment style techniques although sometimes the lead jerking grates a bit

Lead jerking IS a punishment based strategy. It's intended to be unpleasant for the dog, with the dog modifying its behaviour to avoid the unpleasant lead jerking.

Yes, fair comment. I recall watching older episodes and getting a bit uncomfortable with some of the methods - but the one and a half recent ones I saw he had toned it down a bit, so who knows, maybe the producers are taking heed.

If I reframe what I said originally, he's not great but it could be a lot worse?

“I think they go through a very selective recruitment process. Clueless owners with easy to sort out dogs.”

That’s exactly what they do, they were looking for dogs before the first series on various dog forums and firstly wouldn’t say who it was or their qualifications, lol, understandably once it came out, but also weren’t interested in real issues that take a lot of time to resolve - because it is firstly an entertainment programme over anything else.

@vivainsomnia

I areas thought that whatever Graham comes up with is very obvious and I'm always surprised the owners have never implemented these strategies before.

I think they go through a very selective recruitment process. Clueless owners with easy to sort out dogs.

Definitely.

The advertised on a beagle group I'm a member of - they just wanted easy cases - things like pulling on the lead, stealing food, minor reactivity to other dogs etc.

Never fails to amaze me how he sorts out the problems just like that, in about half an hour. It is ridiculous, all experienced dog owners know that training doesn't happen overnight.

Graeme means well I guess and does give the owners confidence BUT and a big but he never ever looks at what the dogs need just the owners.

So many of the behaviours he sees could be changed by encouraging the dogs to use their natural predatory motor patterns. The dogs are generally dogs that have no outlet for this so then resort to frustrated, stressed behaviour.

Although the treatment of a reactive collie made me very upset with the way Graeme treated the dog and the new behaviour which Graema created and said was a cure but actually was a completely traumatised and shut down collie who would in time explode.

Makes good tv I guess .....

He also says that the owners have "to keep it up" or the dogs will go back to the original behaviour. That in itself shows the dogs are not learning how to change behaviour just worried about the correction they will get so will resort to original behaviour if left.

Much better to change dogs emotional state to change behaviour as that will change behaviour for ever.

However (sorry to go on!) but the microphone in the gnome to stop poo eating was hysterical stupid but hysterical

Oh god, I hate watch it every week! It winds me up so much for two reasons:

1. So often the problems are fairly obvious and easy to solve, and the owners seem to have tried absolutely nothing. I hope its just the way it's cut, to make it seem worse, but some of them seem really dim to have not tried the completely bleeding obvious.

1. I have a highly strung dog with some behaviour problems, she's come a long way but it's slow going. However, because of this show, I have to listen to my DM tell me, "Graham just puts his hand up and says no sternly, have you tried that???"

The spaniel that was licking the walls and floors the other week was quite distressing to see, I wondered why they hadn't taken it to a vet or behaviourist before letting it get so far.

The border collie episode wasn’t an easy to fix case. But I did notice in the update they said it was still a “work in progress”

@Kizty

The border collie episode wasn’t an easy to fix case. But I did notice in the update they said it was still a “work in progress”

I've noticed it says about every dog that doesn't have a really basic fix, lol.

I think he's probably okay at dealing with basic issues but anything more complex requires a proper, registered behaviourist.

If he ever wants to take on the challenge of pointer recall - I'm here

His main problems seem to be - my frenchies shag people's legs and we all laugh hehehe

Well his recall with a terrier was a long line and surprise suprise jerking the lead to make the dog come back............

Postdatedpandemic maybe if you wear a waistcoat it will work for you too

There was a recent episode of it with a Golden Retriever and while I didn’t see it a lot of people (including very experienced and qualified behaviourists) in the FB breed group were very scathing
I love Victoria Stillwell though

I'll sort the collie tbh it was pretty common everyday collie issue with a collie not having a natural outlet for it's behaviour and so going self employed tbh.

Introduce calm to the collie
Introduce working in arousal and lowering arousal
Working on disengagment

equals

Happy collie with no "behavioral" issues.

In other news, I sacked a qualified behaviourist today for trying to use aversive techniques on my dog.

Judge the behaviourists behaviour not their qualifications.

Postedpandemic what qualifications did they have ? What professional body did they belong to?

@Postdatedpandemic

In other news, I sacked a qualified behaviourist today for trying to use aversive techniques on my dog.

Judge the behaviourists behaviour not their qualifications.

I mean, I kind of feel like if someone’s on tv you can kind of do both tbh, lol

I made a note and checked their qualifications, can't remember what they were. Probably gained in the 70s or 80s though.
After two sessions I decided they were a weird blend of Barbara Woodhouse meets alpha wolf meets gun dog nuts (choke chains and e-collars). Too much lead yanking and bum pushing down plus misogyny to make your eyes water.
I'll ask the vet to recommend the next one.