Should I Send My Dog to Boot Camp?

By Ed Frawley

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I often get emails from people who are frustrated with various behavioral problems their dogs have, most of the time aggression problems. They ask my opinion on sending their dog to "Boot Camp" to solve their problem. I always say "no" and point them to my article Ed Frawley's Philosophy of Dog Training.

Today I received one of these emails and decided to post it and my answer for others to read. Here is the email:

I can unequivocally tell you without a doubt in my mind that BOOT CAMPS don't work.

Your dogs got the way they are because of the way you live with them and their problems are not going to be fixed by someone else. You have to fix the problem yourself if you don't want to see these problems persist.

I don't say this with malice – it's a simple fact. You have not established pack structure and the dogs don't respect your leadership. You may think they do but dogs don't do what you describe and respect their handlers. Pack leaders decide when to fight and when to be aggressive – not lower-ranking members of the family pack.

This only happens because:

• People don't understand the dynamics of pack structure.
• People are too small to physically deal with a large dog and don't know what they can do to equal the playing field.
• People treat their dogs like little humans and not dogs. Oftentimes, as equals. In the dog world, there are no equals. You're either a leader or a lower-ranking pack member.
• People are too lazy to train their dogs.

Sending a dog to a BOOT CAMP will result in the dog learning to respect the people who run the camp. But these dogs will always revert to their old selves when they come home. This may not happen in a week or two, but it will always happen.

Only when owners learn how to become respected leaders and introduce and enforce OWNERS RULES will their dogs ever change.

If you want to solve your problems, you can, but it needs to be done by you and your husband. You need to run these dogs through a pack structure program at home. This isn't difficult or time-consuming. It simply means you change the way you live with your dog. I've written an article about establishing pack structure but if you want to go in-depth, I've also released a DVD titled Establishing Pack Structure with the Family Pet. All of our DVDs are also available to stream online.

Three-quarters of the way through this program, you should begin to retrain the dog in obedience. Most likely, your dog's obedience isn't good. So start from scratch and begin again. Use the foundation in my Basic Dog Obedience DVD.

I can almost guarantee that you will need to finish this obedience work with remote collars. This doesn't mean you take the dog out and fry them. It means you learn to use low-level stimulation in your training. This is a learned skill and it's explained in the DVD, Remote Collar Training for the Pet Owner.

In the end, you will find that you never take your dogs for a walk without their collars on – not ever. Once dogs fight, they almost always fall into this category. It's the same as when I worked as a K9 handler in the sheriff's department. I never left home without my dog having his collar on. I did this because I wanted to be prepared. In the end, I SELDOM had to use it.

I use a Dogtra 1900NCP on my personal dog. Cindy (my other half) uses Dogtra 200NCP on her dogs. It's a little smaller in size than the 1900. There are less expensive collars on the market but I don't believe there are better collars.

I prefer the 1900 because it has a digital readout on the transmitter that goes from 1 to 127. This allows very precise control. I am raising a GSD right now and he started wearing the collar at 4 months. I would never own a dog again without using a remote collar. (In years to come, we may switch to different models but in 2008, this is what we are using.)

The information to solve all of these problems is here for learning. It must be done by you and your husband. Go and read the article on my philosophy of dog training. You will get a better idea of what I am talking about and probably see a little bit of yourself in that article.

My website has a large number of articles that I've written. Go to the main article page and start from there.

I will also add that a great many people who write me have dominant and aggressive dogs. These people can benefit from my DVD of the same name Dealing with Dominant and Aggressive Dogs. Oftentimes, I can't tell from an email if people just need the pack structure work or if they need this along with the more advanced dominant and aggressive dog work.

The bottom line is that people need to educate themselves on correct training, handling, and environmental control of their dogs. When they do things correctly, they will have a safe, submissive dog that is under their control.

In conclusion, it is the DOG HANDLER that needs the boot camp, not dogs. Get the DVDs (also available as streams) I recommended as your own personal boot camp. There are over 11 hours of instruction. They are not meant to be watched once or twice. They are meant to be studied. Every time you watch them you will pick up something you missed earlier. If you really want to take your training seriously, you can take our self-study online course versions of the DVDs I recommended:

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About Author

Ed Frawley

Ed Frawley is the founder of Leerburg. He has been training dogs since the 1950s. For 30 years, Ed bred working bloodline German Shepherds and has produced over 350 litters. During this time, Ed began recording dog training videos and soon grew an interest in police service dogs. His narcotic dogs have been involved in over 1,000 narcotics searches resulting in hundreds of arrests in the state of Wisconsin. Ed now solely focuses on producing dog training courses with renowned dog trainers nationwide. If you want to learn more about Ed, read about his history here.

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