Going to miss my dog so much - residential training for 3 weeks

[brassandswitch]

We've decided to put our lovely 18 month dachshund into residential training with my cousin for three weeks. I work from home so I spend every single day with her and it's going to be torture not seeing her or having her to keep me sane at home, as it gets very lonely. Is it normal to miss my dog so much, I feel like she's not coming back

Why does a dachshund need this? Thought this sort of thing was for working gun dogs etc

I agree with the previous poster, I can't understand why you'd need to send your dog away for 3 weeks

Gosh 3 weeks is a long time and I'd miss my dog too. However, with dog training a lot of the training needs to be done on the owner, not just the dog so how will this work? You need to learn your dogs behaviour, triggers and how to manage.

Are the going in due to reactivity or separation anxiety?

@crumblingschools @rainydaysandrainbows @Titasaducksarse it's because she's very reactive to children, larger dogs and random people petting her or coming close to her not separation anxiety (thank god). I will be doing the training myself once she's back but she needs three weeks without us to get into a routine first

I wouldn't be putting any dog of mine into residential training.

Please don’t do that

I thought that residential training was more suited to teaching a wide range of relatively complex working-dog style tasks, not to correcting behavioural problems.
Wouldn't it be better to take time off work to spend time intensively with the dog yourself, with the support of a behaviourist to help you deal with whatever is triggering her reactive behaviour?

I just don’t get residential training, any training needs the owners present as that’s part of owning a dog. There’s absolutely no way I could be away from my dog for 3 weeks. Some trainers use methods I certainly wouldn’t use myself, so I hope you’ve done your research on what methods your cousin uses.

No dog needs residential training because a key part of training is having the owner there. The dog can do all these things for the trainer, but the second they get back to the owner 99.9% of time the poor behaviour emerges again.

And any trainer who says the dog needs to 'get into a routine' or 'be by herself' to get the training is a charlatan.

This won't fix anything and, I know people will come at me for saying this, if you cant be arsed or don't have the time to do it yourself first then you're not cut out to be a dog owner. And if you have already tried and failed - and I mean repeatedly for years - to fix these issues and can't then you need to look at PTS your dog because residential training won't change anything you'll just be out of pocket with a dog that's still aggressive.

What have you done so far to try and rectify these problems?

Totally agreed, it really isn't necessary

The word "training" is a problem, really. It suggests a range of cognitive tasks, the acquisition of technical skills. In a few cases (largely with working dogs), that is what we are primarily aiming at when we go through all the exercises that we use to shape our dog. But for the most part, "training" is about shaping attitudes, habits and relationships. That's why it needs to be embedded in the dog's everyday environment and to be carried out by its own clan of humans.

That may be particularly true in the case of a reactive dog, since the "training" is in a large part to do with helping the dog to feel safe, and to look to its owners to keep it safe in situations that it finds potentially threatening.

If there are strong habits that need to be broken (eg barking at the postman), I can see the value of temporarily relocating to a new setting, but not the value of leaving behind the people the dog must learn to rely on

Residential training is not the answer.
You would be far better placed having a behaviourist come and work with you and the dog at home and out and about in your local environment.

I am going to admit that so sent my rescue dog for residential training when he was around that age because I could not cope with him at all and felt desperate. It was that or send him back I felt at the time and I had already tried classes and 1:1 lessons at home.

It cost a bomb, didn't solve anything and I 100% regretted it. There are all these glowing testimonies on the websites what they don’t tell you is that it is achieved with aversive methods. When I would not agree to a shock collar they sent him back. He had lost weight and they hadn't groomed him properly so he had matts. I feel so guilty because I fear they mistreated him. Certainly they did not love or care for him like I do.

In the end we soldiered on with training at home with positive trainers and with time and perseverance he grew out of a lot of the worst behaviours. He still has his issues but in the whole we love him and we will in along together with some accommodations.

I guess if it's your cousin maybe it's a bit different as you presumably are not paying and can trust them but I would never do it again.

Dachshunds are reactive aren't they? I have never really met one that wasn't...

This will not help your dog long term. Dogs need to learn with their handlers. So she'll do great with the trainers there but will be back to square one with you I am sorry to say. Residential training only works for very specific role based dogs. Not pet dogs.

They don't need to be. Neither do terriers. Or any dogs. It's relatively easy to 'fix' and the fix is the dog learns to disengage and focus on you instead in the early days and then going forward this enables them to relax more around other dogs. This is not achieved in a residential setting with strangers. It's very easy to do on a one to one basis with a trainer weekly.

All this will achieve is your dog learning to behave for the trainer, and then running rings round you again when it gets home. Dog training needs to involve the owner.

Those all sound like fear responses and would require her to have absolute trust in you that the child/dog/person are not scary things and that you’ll keep her safe. Three weeks away with someone else is likely to have the opposite effect.

Is your cousin an actual dog trainer?

So I presume your cousin isn’t the trainer but is going instead of you?

I agree with the previous posters that, it may cure some of the problems, but you should be there to learn the tricks and advice. A lot of it is recognising the dogs behaviour, and this can be quite subtle. How good will your cousin be at relying this to you?

Also, three weeks?! It would be cheaper and more effective to have a dog behaviourist come to you.

You don't train a dog, you train an owner to work a dog.

Fuck all use if you aren't training with him really. I don't understand why people waste money thinking this is a solution.

Put the time in.

Its already all been said really.
Don't do it, its a bad idea and unecesssary

Just to put a different POV...

There was a poster on here some years ago who got completely ripped to shreds for sending her dog away for training. She was told it would be a disaster, waste of money, make things worse, she was the one who needed to learn etc etc.

She explained that she would be in touch with the trainer through the process, that there was a fairly detailed handover in place with some regular sessions afterwards and ongoing contact.

She still got ripped to shreds. MN just doesn't like board and train.

A friend of mine sent her young dog (working gundog) for board and train, because she was suffering a lot of ill-health and joint issues and wasn't able to train the dog herself. The dog came home happy and confident and ready to go into work. I know this dog, so her being happy etc isn't just hearsay.

I've recently been watching videos of an in-house board and train. The dog has gone from an anxious, overwrought, dog-aggressive mess to living happily with the trainer's dogs, playing happily out of doors, recalling well. Knowing what I know of that trainer, he will ensure a good handover with lots of support.

Sometimes a change of scene and experienced trainer can get through the bad habits and maladaptive learned behaviour and then show the owner how to maintain that. If I ever went down that route, I'd want to speak to previous clients - but it's not something I'd just rule out completely because I didn't like the idea or because it might go wrong.

You have described very typical dachshund behaviour. Lots (most) of them just are like that.

dachshund’s are also typically one family dogs, who are very very very attached to their people.

I wish you well and success of course but your dog will likely be quite upset at being separated from you and attempting a quick fix for centuries of genetic inheritance might not be the panacea you are hoping for

I think alot if the issues in this case is that op isn’t actually going to be trained, and is relying on her Cousin to teach her.

As previous people have said, you train the owner, not the dog.