Tuesday, February 9, 2010

A New Vocation

Starting today I'll be taking in dogs for training. Not just any training, mind you, I'm going to take dogs in and start them on stock... all without ever leaving my house. Oh yes, this will be a good way to take out the potential for danger and injury for your dog.

I will start by teaching a stop using the back door method. When I recall a dog to come inside I'll slam the door shut in their faces while screaming "Lie DOWN!". When they hit the deck I'll toss a cookie through the doggie door. This, of course, will become less effective as the dogs learn they can come through the doggie door, so this will need to be implemented at a young age.

Next they'll learn to call off. This will be taught on a long line, and I'll teach them to call off from chasing Zippy. I mean, he's white. Mostly. And silly, and he doesn't notice when other dogs harrass him anyway. So, recall will be taught from chasing the Small Dog. I can see as to where this might be a problem considering that Zippy doesn't really run very often, but I assure you, my skeptical future employers, that I'll find a way around that. Even Small Dog runs for dinner.

The next part of the Inner-City Sheepdog Training Program is teaching flanks. I'll start them off in the back yard on a long line, and then progress to free lungeing with treats thrown at an intermittent reinforcement schedule to reinforce directions. From there we will progress to flanking around the house. I'll use a chuck-it and big strong man (big strong man TBD) to reinforce the flanks out of sight. This should open the dogs up nicely, and give nice *square* flanks.

Driving might be a bit tricky, but for this we'll make use of the long sidewalk in front of my house, and a remote-controlled car. I'll teach the dogs to follow along behind a remote-controlled car, and will keep them on a long line so as to ensure their safety while adjacent to our slightly busy street. I can, of course, stand on the porch for this exercise. Additionally, I will smear peanut butter on the spoiler of the car to reinforce rapt following of said car.

Finally they'll complete the starting portion of their training with some beginner shedding. I'll start them out with a couch cushion setup. It's important to have cushions that neither cling or swirl, and I'll have to set them on different sides of the living room to make sure there's enough room to call the dog through. When the dog gets proficient at cushion shedding, we'll move on to shedding the dogs that live in the house. If they can shed the Crazies... they can shed ANYTHING.

Should the neighbor's duck get loose again I'll utilize him to introduce the dog to different stock.

After all of this, your dog should return to you sufficiently started to do anything you need him to do. For this amazing service I will charge $1800 per month, per dog, and they must bring their own food. You, the owner, must supply sufficient cookies to cement these methods. I am intending to implement an online training follow up course, entitled "Training your dog on look backs using items you have in your own home".

Please email me for more information. I'm eager to get started, and I'm sure your sheepdog is too! Annnnnnd.... if you act now I'll throw in one free week of look back training too!

This message has been brought to you in jest and does not seriously reflect the true thoughts or methods of the author. Disclaimer: Please, do not try this at home

11 comments:

Kristi said...

I'm in! One Wicked T. Dog coming your way. Um, she's kinda mean. I understand if you need to charge more for her.

Rachel said...

You crack me up! Glad to see your are keeping your sense of humor through all this job crud!

Laura Carson said...

Kristi, send her on. Meanness adds an additional $100/month, but I'm sure that in light of my very generous and reasonable prices that should be no problem.

Paula - if you act now I'll even throw in a second dog discount... just for friends mind you. Email please.

Rachel - I'm trying. Really trying. LOL!

Jean said...

Do you offer super-deep discounts for four? Four for the price of three, perhaps? I'm sure my four herders (two borders, two shelties) would have a great time and they could sure use some training. I hope you can figure out some at-home techniques to use on deaf, visually impaired, canine-cognitive-disordered Oliver. The Princess, of course, will be your assistant trainer; I'm sure she'll do an excellent job at screaming when the door slams.

Laura Carson said...

Ok, Jean, sounds reasonable to me. I believe I can offer a "train four, pay for three" package. For Oliver we'll use a ponying type technique - by tying him to another dog. A slow one. I know, we'll pony him to June! I can see endless possibilities for your dogs. In the meantime I'll send you my pamphlet "Preparing for Inner-City Herding". It's 3200 pages long, however, so you'd better start now. You'll need to work on desensitizing them to the sounds of the trains screaming past and the sounds of my next door neighbor (aka Drug Thug Afro Guy) slapping his 70 year old grandmother. Oh yes, time's a wasting!

BCxFour said...

o m doG...you made me spill tea in my lap. Dying laughing!

Thank you for the grin in my unemployed day.

-Carolynn
Fellow Job Hunter

Laura Carson said...

For you, Carolynn, I'll do one for free. Fellow job hunters unite! But shhhhh... don't tell anyone lest I'm bombarded by requests.

Kristi said...

Before you agree to take her on, I feel I should tell you in the one arena trial in which I ran her, she barked furiously, then grabbed my crook and started tugging. But I'd like to run 3 Open dogs this year and I only have 2, so if you could keep that in mind as the end goal, that would be super. I can't imagine that she would need more than a month's training.

Kthankxbai.

Laura said...

You forgot the most important part of the training - the CLICKER! Shame on you! EVERY good stockdog trainer has one these days.

If I send mine with their own clickers, do I get a discount? lol

MGHughes said...

Hey... Big things come of crazy ideas... You never know!

Laura Carson said...

Ok, I'll offer up a BYOC discount. If a dog comes with it's own clicker I'll offer a $100/month discount. Fair enough.

Who is ready to sign up? I have used Moon as my first guinea pig, and suspect she'll be ready to run at the World Trial by next month!