It was a lot of fun having the priviledge to be one of the corporate sponsors at the recent Rolex 3 day event horse show. This was the first really big horse event that I have been to in person. Everything was top notch there, and the animals were all amazing to watch. A friend of my wife’s family named Laine Ashker actually had a terrible fall at the event, and that was really a bummer. Laine actually came over and spent a good hour talking with everyone at our dinner table the night before the accident, and she was just the nicest and most humble person that anyone could possibly meet. She is a person in great shape, and I’m sure this will contribute to her recovering as quickly as someone possibly could from a fall like that. These people are tremendously courageous who ride and train for these types of events. Very dangerous sport. On the brighter side, I thought I would put a video up here of just some of the fun stuff that we did at our booth at the event. There were thousands of people there, and we hope to see a lot of them there again next year.

It was fun getting out to see our Denver school in action this past weekend, with everyone there having the students sharp as ever. It’s really satisfying to see people from all walks of life coming out of our schools, and really making an impact in their community with their dog training immediately. Dave Skoletsky, who runs our Denver school, has definetly been one of the biggest additions that we have made to our Sit Means Sit program over time with his addition to the SMS family, and with the great staff that he has as well. We also got all the staffs and students together and headed over to the Denver Pet Expo, and had a really good time over there meeting a lot of people. I could write forever in this dog training blog about what a good job that our schools do in producing trainers the way they do, but obviously the students that are coming through are also doing such a good job of taking the information and running with it. It’s a very satisfying business to be in.

It was a lot of fun this past weekend doing my very last seminar for the open public in Cleveland Ohio. After 10 years of constant travel, and getting to see a good part of this country and other places as well, and getting to work with literally thousands of dogs, it is time now to channel those energys more into all of our students that have been doing so well, and into the police world which we have seen the high demand for. I will be doing police seminars still, and am looking into having more time to do that now, a long with our upcoming police K9 school on remote training. This will also give me a bit more time for our video series, that we get a constant flow of requests for. We actually did get to recently release the very first video of that series, which is teaching dogs to swim and is available though our online store. I remember the very first seminar that I did quite a while back at Pam Green’s in Tucson Arizona, that had about 50 people there, and actually had a few people that went on to open Sit Means Sit dog training businesses years later. I remember a lot of people telling me that the general public would never accept remote dog training, but in actuality, I never really did have much problem once we got in front of the people and they got to see my dog, and I had the chance to do a demonstration with their dog as well. The general public never argued the results for the most part, and how much easier it made their lives for themselves and their dogs. I knew right from the beginning that it was going to develop into a very big thing with the help of others, and we are still in our infancy stages. I wanted to personally thank all of the people over the years that stopped by to see our program, and will still get to see it through all of our locations that I have a huge hand in personally developing. It was fun with the humane society’s, Veterinarian schools, remote collar companies, and many, many other groups that pretty much kept me busy for a good 40 weekends a year for a while. I have some very fond memories of all the upgrades that we made over the years.
I am very much looking forward to the future of spending the time developing not only the many locations that we have, but the many more that will come in the future, and the development of the police school. Many thanks to all!

Here is a video of my wife Lianne recently achieving a perfect score of 100 in a Rally competition. Dogs are different on any given day, and all you can do is to try to be as close to perfect on a daily basis, and do that as consistently as you can. Obviously, she is not going to get a perfect score the rest of the times out, but that is proof enough that even though there will be more training in the dog a year from now, everything has to go right on a given day.

This does not happen by accident though, and constantly showing your dog what you need it to do, and using whatever means you may have to have the dog’s attitude the best that he can be on a regular basis, always provides for not only a very good score, but a dog that looks good doing it. Judges also like to see very happy dogs, as does everyone in general. Great job by Lianne and Tank! The video tells it all!

We all recently had a great time with our dogs at the recent Groomers show in Kansas City, and it was a lot of fun speaking to all of the groomers there about our growing dog training business. The response was really fantastic from all of them, and I think that they spend a lot of time having to constantly take in unruly dogs and having to groom them, that we both understood each other very well. Of course it was great to get to see Tom and Carrie Mancuso again, along with J.B. from our Kansas City Dog training location, and to see their dogs. We look forward to the event again next year!!

Here is a very interesting recent article that really lets you know about the importance of dog training, and the
problems that go with an untrained dog. Very well written article by Hannah Silverman.

Dog training subsidy plea
Article from: Sunday Mail (SA)

HANNAH SILVERMAN

March 23, 2008 12:30am

DOG owners should receive special subsidies to attend classes to help prevent canine attacks, animal welfare groups say.
The call was made in response to spiralling numbers of dog bites, with nearly seven attacks reported every day in South Australia in the 12 months ending June 30 last year.

Experts said urgent steps were needed to encourage pet owners to properly train their dogs to reduce the alarming toll.

“A subsidy would reduce the number of excuses why people haven’t done it but we are going to need to have somebody advocate that some funds be allocated,” South Australian Small Animal Practitioner branch president Warren Foreman said.

Dr Foreman, who is also a senior vet at Adelaide Animal Hospital, said tightening laws and banning breeds would not be as effective as raising public awareness and enforcing the appropriate training.

Dog attacks rose by 15.8 per cent from 2175 in the 2005-06 financial year to 2518 in 2006-07, figures released this week showed.

Adelaide Hills dog owner Libby Bennett, 28, was bitten by a dog in November while trying to break up a fight between a wandering staffordshire terrier and her own husky.

Ms Bennet said mandatory training or a subsidy on programs to prevent antisocial behaviour among dogs could help reduce the statistics.

“People need to take more responsibility with their own dogs but I think it’s just down to education,” she said.

Glenn Buckingham, CEO of Delta Society Australia, which runs Delta Dog Safe programs nationwide, also backed the education call.

“We would endorse anything that required people to adhere to at least a certain level of dog training and dog behaviour but there are a lot of other issues,” he said.

“I think one of the key elements of all of this is providing the information so people understand the full responsibility of owning a dog.”

In response to the rising statistics, the state’s health department is investigating all of last year’s dog attack cases.

Deb Kelly, chief executive of the Dog and Cat Management Board, said the board was awaiting the report and would develop new strategies accordingly.

“We need to know what the circumstances are so we know what to target,” she said.

The last time an analysis report was conducted was in 2003 when a lack of child supervision was found to be the major factor in dog attacks.

“Scooby” is one of our very famous dogs in the whole Sit Means Sit dog training organization. Not only do a lot of our graduates hear stories about Scooby before they even get out of our dog trainers school, but everyone loves stories about Labrador Retrievers. Now Scooby is even more famous by being in a country music video by the group Crossin Dixon ! Their new song ‘I love my old bird dog’, has Scooby (he’s the yellow lab, not the singers :-), in some of the scenes in their music video. You can see the video by going to this blog that is about car racing, and scrolling down to see the video called “I love my old bird dog”. You can find the link HERE. Scooby is owned by Carla Collins from our Dallas Texas Location. Scooby is also a certified FEMA dog, and past both of his difficult tests on the first try! Carla Collins also travels a good bit of the country doing Sit Means Sit dog training seminars on a variety of things. Keep an eye on our seminars/events page, to see when Carla and Scooby come to your town!

Our very good friend, Everett Police K-9 handler Suzanne Eviston and her K9 Axle are pictured here still alive and well. Suzanne was t-boned by a Burglary suspect who was fleeing the scene of a crime high on Meth. The suspect had been granted “drug court” which enables him to be in the community instead of serving time for his other numerous crimes, so he was very motivated not to be apprehended.
Fellow K9 handler Michael Braley apprehended the suspect a the scene. Suzanne was rushed to Harbourview medical center in critical condition. She managed to stabilize and then spent 2 months in the hospital with many severe injuries. Her K9 Axle had a leg broken in two places, and suffered permanent retina damage from the impact causing vision impairment. Here is a recent shot of her as she visits the mangled car, along with her dog Axel, for the first time since the crash, looking good as ever! Amazing story, and we are all happy that the both of them are still with us. You can see clips of the accident and stories on Suzanne’s website at www.vongrunheideshepherds.com

  Just a reminder to all my friends out there to check out the free concert “Live From Daryl’s House” at www.livefromdarylshouse.com  Just a break from the dog world to listen to a little music.  It’s free, and just a little more on the ever advancing video technology. 

It will be really fun as I will soon get my chance to visit Australia for the 1st time, as I have been invited to do a 3 day seminar on December 8-10 of this year, which is right around the corner, for the “Total Canine Sporting Club” in Melbourne Australia. I’m sure we will have lots of video for the site when I get back. What can be better than a working dog club in Australia in December?  Here is a slideshow that shows their beautiful place. More notes from Australia soon!