Lanzarote Dog Trainer

Ronnia was adopted out of Sara and into a home in Austria. Unfortunately this turned out not to be the right home for her and she spent a little while in foster care before finding another new home, this time in Germany with a lovely lady and her two daughters. She has a new name too, Ronnia is now known as Pebbles and is settling into her new family perfectly. Here are a couple of photos of Pebbles with her new family.

A few photos of Ronnia during her training at Sara Protectora de Animales in Lanzarote.

We have had some fantastic news about Ronnia. A kind family in Austria has heard of her special needs and has decided to adopt her. She is waiting for a flight to become available and then she will be off to her new home.

Ronnia has come a long way from when I first met her and now walks to heel well on a lead, will respond to the hand signals for sit, stay, come and down. She has learnt that when her collar vibrates that she is to come.

I wish her a long and happy life with her new family. Success!!

We have a had few days off training as Ronnia has had her ‘little girl’ operation. She is back to her normal adorable self today which is good news as her vibrating collar has arrived. Today we are going to let her wear it for a little while to become used to it and then train her to respond to the vibration by looking to me.

I have no problem putting it on as Ronnia is already very good on a collar and lead. To start with she wears the collar while we go through the hand signals she already knows, sit, stay, down. This is important for her to do something she is confident with while she gets used to the weight of the attachment on the collar.

When she is calm and concentrating I have her sit close to me and press the remote control to deliver a vibration at the lowest level. This I combine with a tasty bit of chicken and very quickly she is associating the sensation of the vibration with the food.

Next we move to wandering about the patio. When Ronnia moves away from me and shows interest in something else I vibrate the collar and she comes to me for her reward. Ronnia is very food orientated and even when she has run off round the corner to greet someone coming in, I send a vibration and she comes running back. This is a superb start for training with the vibrating collar.

On another note. Today we have been training in a patio that is right next door to the cattery and Ronnia has formed a particularly strong bond with one of the cats that keeps escaping the cattery to play with her. The cat, Monica, doesn’t like other cats and is fairly indifferent to people but loves Ronnia. In an ideal world these two would be adopted together, but what it does show is that Ronnia is fantastic with cats opening up her adoption opportunities.

Another day out in the big wild world. Ronnia is coming along very well although it is still hard for her to concentrate outside as she is unable to hear anything approaching so is continually looking around. This will improve in time as she becomes used to walking and has built up trust in me and, when she finds a home, in her new owner.

I am expecting a delivery of a vibrating collar next week so I can then start training her to respond to that. The collar has a small vibrating attachment which is remote controlled and will deliver a low level, short vibration to her neck when pressed. This will eventually lead to her being able to be let off lead for runs with her new owner knowing that she has been trained to return when she feels the vibration on her neck. It is essential to have a means by which to catch a deaf dog’s attention if she is to be let off lead as all the hand signals in the world will not work if the dog is not looking in your direction!

First time today to take Ronnia out on a lead. After the initial excitement at seeing me and being released from her cage I get the collar on and out we go.

Obviously full of energy from being caged so many hours of the day, the first thing we do is go for a run. This is a fantastic way of burning off some excess energy and getting in tune with a dog, a dog’s natural speed is often a good deal faster than our walking speed.

After the run we take some time out to practice the hand signals she has learnt. It is, of course, a little bit more difficult to keep her attention out in the big wide world with all the distractions, but she will still come and sit on command.

Monday today and I’ve not seen Ronnia over the weekend but the clever little girl remembers the hand signal for come and for sit. Today we work mainly on reinforcing what she has already learnt until I am sure that she has really got it.

I add today to her training session the stay command. This is quite difficult for a deaf dog as the tone of your voice is normally the best tool for this, but it doesn’t take her too long to get the idea and by the end of the session she will stay in the sitting position for me to take 3 paces away. Very good!!

I also add the down command which takes her from sitting to lying down. The next step is to see how she is out on a walk with a collar and lead and start teaching her to stay focused outside with all the distractions.

So today I want to work mainly on the sit hand signal. We start the session refreshing the come command and Ronnia slips straight back into training mode. After a few positive responses to come we start on working towards perfecting the sit.

The sit hand signal takes plenty of patience as Ronnia’s natural response to seeing the treat is to jump up and try and get it out of my hand, moving away just doesn’t make sense to her! We get there eventually and once she realises that placing her bottom on the floor is the guaranteed way to receive to the treat she’s cracked it and repeats it over and over.

I decide to leave it there for today, it’s important to finish training sessions on a positive note and to keep the dog interested.

Ronnia and I meet for the first time today. She is a little bundle of energy throwing herself excitedly at anyone willing to play.

She may be deaf but she has the most amazing sense of smell and within seconds has located the treats in my back pocket!

We start with just getting to know each other a bit and having a little play and run about in one of the enclosed patios.

I need to find out if she knows any commands or has had any form of training and it looks like she hasn’t.

When I produce a treat to see if she knows how to sit she jumps up at my hand over and over and when that doesn’t work she starts to jump up at my pocket to try her luck there.

I decide to start with teaching her a basic come command hand signal which combined with the treat reward she soon gets the hang of, coming running to me each time I give the command.

The end of our first session is nearing and I finally, with plenty of patience, have her sitting to receive a treat. This will be the next hand signal to teach as sit is a very important command to learn, especially for a deaf dog, as it teaches focus and attention.

Ronnia

Ronnia is a small, 6 month old Dalmatian cross. She is a sweet, affectionate puppy but is totally deaf. I will be working with her over a period of a few weeks to teach her to understand and respond to hand signals. She will learn with me how to come, sit, stay, lie down and walk to heel.

Deaf dogs make loving pets and the bond between a well-trained deaf dog and her owner can be that much stronger as all the commands require eye contact and trust on both sides.

Ronnia would be ideally suited to an owner with the patience to keep up with reinforcing her training and, as she is part Dalmatian and still a puppy, she needs an owner with the time and energy for long daily walks and good play sessions.

She is an intelligent dog, quick to learn and enjoys the training.