Congratulations to Who????

1st Place Best Dog Class for Real Life Rover™
2nd Place Best Dog Trainer

I'm very proud of Mama Nikki but I have to say, it gets a little old hearing people tell her congratulations all the time. I mean really, how do you think she got to the level of dog trainer? Where do you think the idea came from for Real Life Rover™? Let me help you people, it's all because of me! Since she's had me she's stepped up her game. I've had to teach her a lot about dog behavior and how to get dogs to actually pay attention. I mean, she couldn't do have the things she does if it wasn't for me. I'm the one that has to stand there and allow heathen dogs to bark and lunge on leash at me and I have to be good. I'm not allowed to bark or growl back at them so I just stand with my head turned to the side trying to be the good little assistant and if I even dare open my mouth to them guess who gets "the look". Have you ever had to stand there with your mouth closed while someone was being aggressive towards you? It's not fun and I must say, I have a lot of self-control when it comes to that. Yes, I may have a little self-control issue when I see a really pretty tail running by screaming, 'bite me', but I have self-control for all of those bad dogs barking and lunging at precious little me. You'd think I'd won 1st place assistant dog trainer but no, they don't have that category. Maybe I should write a letter...

Tbaa

Humans On My Mind!

Yes, another complaint.

Why, oh why is it that every time I stick my nose/head in between someone's legs, or at least attempt to, they always reply with,

'she must smell my dog?'



Exactly what was your dog doing there in the first place? Do you make it a habit to have your dog in between your legs at various times of the day?

People, really, I can smell your dog from ten feet away, why do you think I'm a search dog? I stick my nose/head in between your legs because it makes you pet me every single time!

Humans are so darn simple!

Tbaa

Protection Dog?

So I've got another complaint towards humans. I hear so many people about how they want their dog to be their almighty protector and Mama Nikki has even received phone calls on training their dogs to be their protectors. Natural breeds such as the Rockin' Rottweiler, the Diablo Doberman, the Shameless Shepherd and the Powerful Pyranees. People get these dogs and are either surprised at their "territorial aggression" or they want them to be less friendly. I have to say, I don't get it!

So really people, let me ask you this, do you really want your dog to be protective? This is the way I look at things and this is the rule that I live by. If someone comes to the house and I bark at them, if Mama tells me 'enough' then I stop because that's her way of telling me that she has it under control. If I bark at someone and she says nothing, I take it as she wants me to continue but this is the main thing, if I bark at someone and my mama's aren't home and that person I'm barking at comes into the house anyway then I know that they're packing something a little more dangerous than my teeth and I'm getting the hello out of there. Don't think I haven't run from a door opening that I didn't know who was on the other side of it and was obviously not disturbed from my barking.

So humans, trust that your dogs will take care of things if someone is really hurting you but if someone continues to come into the house while we're barking, do you really want us to stand there and get shot or would you rather us run and hide under the bed?

Just something to think about.

Tbaa

Why Did God Make Man the Smartest? Or did he?

Sometimes I just linger in my Mama Nikki's truck and watch people. Some strut around like they own the place, some slink so no one will see them and some think that everything and everybody likes them. Now, please know that I'm not meaning this blog to be mean to people because there is a lesson here, so just bare with me. (Seriously, does mama Nikki really think she's cool here? I love her but sometimes she's just a goof ball!)


Do you ever run into those people that just know all because they've been around? I see this a lot with people, especially during our PR events. My Mama Nikki will be talking to some family with a dog completely out of control telling them all about how much she could help them, I mean, can they not see me lying quiet and behaving like a good little assistant? Anyway, the mother always seems interested because she's tired of her Sunday best being ruined, the food being pulled off the counters, the front door with paw prints at eye level and this is all coming from their Jack Russell Terrier. All the while the father is standing there holding the little dog on a leash that's way too long, wrapped around his hand about twenty times forcing the dog to bounce around in the only spot the leash allows and scanning the remainder of the booths looking for a hot dog to fill his belly since the wife didn't make him breakfast because they wanted to beat the crowd. He then stops his searching, turns to Mama Nikki and says, "We don't need any help, the dog minds me just fine. I've had dogs all my life..." When I hear that last line I usually have to pop up my head just to see the face of the poor sucker that said it. I then glance at Mama Nikki as she puts on her fake "I'm really saying this in a joking manner way" smile and says, "I've had a toilet all my life but that don't make me a plumber." By then the sucker has checked out thinking about mustard and relish and the poor wife is there saying her apologies, taking a business card and saying goodbye.

This leads me into the real reason for this post. Look people, just because you grew up with dogs all your life doesn't mean you know jack about them. We're complicated animals that require many things, things that the average Joe doesn't even know about. For example, did you know that we need to socialize with other dogs? A lot! Yes, get us around your friends, around strange men in hats, around granny in her wheelchair but please, please, get us around our own kind so we can practice the skill of being a dog! Yes, we're dogs! And being around our sibling, the older dog of the household, isn't enough. We need dogs with different personalities, different play styles, different sizes and different attitudes. And another thing, we have fur, do you know what fur is? It's a very thick, heavy, HOT type of hair that covers our entire body! Not just our legs, our arms, our armpits and our head, but our entire body. This makes us comfortable in the winter and hot in the summer so please, please, stop dressing us up in your clothes. It may seem cute to you but it's suffocating to us. And last but surely not least, if there's a dog that is shying away from you, snarling his lip at you, or peeing just at the sight of you, DON'T bend over patting your legs making Kissie sounds, this does not make us want to come closer to you, tt actually makes us want to bite you even more. Not all dogs like you, not all dogs want to be petted by you and not all dogs want you to find the one spot that makes them kick their leg uncontrollably.

Good Day and God Bless!
TBAA

Speaking Dog: Ignoring

As a dog, there's a technique that we use when we want to avoid someone or to avoid conflict and that is ignoring. Anytime we feel someone or something is threatening we will turn our head, our body, do something else, basically, pretend they're not there. For example, when you try to take a picture of us you will squat down in front of us with that weird gadget in our hand that we don't understand and as soon as you push the little button for the picture we turn our heads. That is because the camera is weird to us and we see it as conflict, therefore, we're going to ignore it until it goes away. I, on the other hand love the camera and will always look to get my picture taken.

Another example is when someone is coming up to us in a confrontational way we will turn our head or body to make the person calm down, even if they're giving the "sweet dog talk" to us. Or when we're out in the yard and you start calling us to come but we don't necessarily understand the "come" command and so we don't and you start getting mad and your voice gets deeper and harsher, all that does is makes us do something else and ignore you until you calm down, I mean, who really wants to come to someone who's screaming like that? Get a clue humans!

Mama Nikki teaches owners how to use this valuable tool in training. She teaches them that when their dog jumps to turn away and ignore. It's amazing how hard this is for people. They will not pet but they'll stare at the dog or they'll push the dog off of them and that my friends is NOT ignoring. Ignoring is pretending like the dog isn't even there. It is a powerful tool because dogs understand it so well. Once the dog stops jumping on you and has had their feet on the floor for at least three seconds then you can tell them how good they are and pet on them. If they jump during that, stop petting and ignore. And remember, jumping doesn't just mean on you, it may be two feet on the couch or chair, two feet up on the fence or baby gate, jumping up and down to get you to throw the ball, etc. Jumping is when two feet are off the ground whether they're touching something or not. Humans just need to think. If you give us something that we want while we're doing a behavior then we're more than likely going too repeat that behavior. If we have two feet on the fence trying to see you and walk through the gate, you're rewarding us, even if you're ignoring us because we wanted YOU.

Okay, so, the next time your dog jumps on you, barks at you, paws at your leg, whines, sticks his nose under your hand to pet him or whatever annoying thing he does to get your attention, IGNORE him. If you're consistent, the behavior you don't like will go away. And I mean be consistent. There's a thing about dogs, we will try a behavior many times to see if it's going to get a reward, whether its a behavior you like or not, and if it gets rewarded one time, we will assume it's one that works and keep it. So be tough and consistent and ignore all those things you don't like. I'll write later about self-rewarding behaviors that you can't ignore and how you can handle that.

Have a great day!
Tbaa

Working my TAIL Off!

As many of you know I'm a search and rescue dog which means if you get lost, I'll come find you. Well, I also do recovery, if you drown or pass on land, I'll come find you. Yes, it's stinky work but I must tell you, some live smell just as bad. The past two weeks I've unfortunately been on two drownings, one in Maury Co. and one in Bedford Co. A mid 50's man went into the Duck River on his ATV, the ATV has been found but he has not. This happened at the end of March so he's been gone for awhile. The Duck River has also flooded twice since then. I worked for three hours on the boat a few miles on the Duck River on Tuesday of this past week and got nothing. The two guys that were in the boat with us were very nice and would pet my butt and head every so often which was nice. My Mama Nikki sounded so proud of me, she should have been since she got me up at 5am and after the search we had to work with a couple of clients with some pretty but a little obnoxious dogs, my opinion only because they bark at me. Anyway, the missing man still hasn't been found. We're praying for his family.

The lady in Maury Co. allegedley jumped off a bridge two weeks ago, she was also in her mid 50's. We were out searching for her within four days and this was the first water search I'd had in three years. Mama Nikki was a little nervous that I wasn't going to do my best because it had been so long but I tried telling her that just because I haven't worked on the water I still work cadaver and I know what I'm looking for. So, we started our search area and I immediately smelled what I was supposed to smell and so I laid down, which is what I do to tell my mama that I've found the scent. So I laid down and looked for my treat. She told me "good girl" and "get back to work" so I stood back up and smelled the appropriate scent and so I laid down again. I did get a treat that time. Mama made them turn the boat around and go back downstream to search that area again. I don't know why she makes me go back over the spot several times but she does. The second trip I alerted again and by the third time my Mama Nikki had the nerve to tell me, "I don't believe you, get to work." I have never...so, I did what any working dog would do, I looked her straight in the eye, growled and laid down. Needless to say, the look on her face was priceless. I earned my treat and we didn't have to search that area again.

Well, after I was finished my buddy Dingo got in the boat with his Daddy Bill and searched the same area of course neither one of them knew where I had alerted. Mama Nikki went with them and she saw Dingo alert in the same area. So now it was up to Mama Nikki to tell the detectives where this body could be located but she was having a problem giving a general area because of the differences in depth and the speed of the current, but she did the best she could and then we went off to work with clients. I'm happy to say that the body of our missing woman was located on Weds. and she was floating near the location we told them to look and Mama Nikki was really proud of me then!

So that is my two weeks worth of work. Drownings, SAR training, and clients with dogs that like to bark and lunge at me. I'm taking a break this weekend by staying with my ever so favorite Aunt Shirley for some much needed R&R.

I hope everyone has a wonderful Easter holiday weekend!

God Bless.
TBAA

Why?

Did God give dog's tails if he didn't intend for me to bite them?

I got in so much trouble over the weekend for chasing down Piper, a black lab, and biting his tail. He got mad but not like Mama Nikki did. She made me go up on the deck by myself and watch all the other dogs play. I don't know why I like to bite tails so much but I do. Mama Nikki says that's why dogs don't want to play with me because I'm too rough.

All I'm saying is the tail looks like a fun stick just waving in the wind when the dog goes running by me to catch a stupid frisbee.

Long Week

I know it's been over a week since I've posted, believe it or not, I had started on Monday morning but was interrupted when we got a call for a drowning. It's been so long since I've been out on a drowning and I have to say, I've missed it. There's nothing like standing on a hot aluminum boat speeding down the river with dirty water splashing in your face knowing that so many things have decomposed in there...overall, I loved every second of it. I know you're all wondering if we found our drowning victim and the answer is yes and no. See, when you're looking for someone in water it's very difficult to pinpoint the body due to the moving water. If you're a little squeamish, you may want to skip the rest of this paragraph, I'll not get graphic. You see, decomposition starts the second the body ceases in life and gases begin to build, when a body is in water the scent is released and out into the water, the water follows the current and depending on the depth depends on when it reaches the surface and up into the air us dogs to smell it. That means that we can alert to the scent that's rising out of the water but it's up to our handlers to put the rest of the puzzle pieces together to give the divers a general area to look. Well, I alerted on an area and so did my good friend Dingo but our handlers couldn't come up with the general area. HUMANS! I mean, we do all this work and all they're supposed to do is put a few little pieces together and they can't even do that!! I just wish they'd "FIGURE IT OUT!"

The rest of the week Mama Nikki's been busier than a one-legged man in a butt-kickin' contest. Not sure where I heard that but it kinda stuck. I've been stuck here all week with my siblings that are about as boring as the day is long. All I wanted to do was to go back out and search! We were supposed to go out again today but all the rain from the night before made it too dangerous for us but I heard that they may have found her. I'm sure it will be on the news if they did so keep your eyes open.

In the meantime Mama Nikki has been working on her new certification program called Real Life Rover and yes folks, that is trademarked. It's a really neat test to prepare dogs for the real world unlike most training classes or programs out there. Don't get me wrong, any training is good for the human and the dog, okay, almost any training. If it causes pain to the dog, take it from me, 'WE DON'T LIKE IT AND WE DON'T UNDERSTAND IT!' But if you just learn to communicate with us and understand us, we'll do anything for you. Anyway, Mama Nikki is trying to finish the last bit of detail so she can set up the training class for twenty-five lucky individuals to be the first certified handler/dog team in your area and no, this isn't just for search and rescue dogs or working dogs, this is for every human/dog team that likes to spend time together going out in public. This will give the human and the dog a whole new life together. If you're interested in it go check it out on the front page of our website. www.dogspeak101.com

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend. I look forward to sharing my adventures with you next week.

Humans!

I'm sure you're going to see many blogs with this title because we all know how they can be.

As many of you know, mama Nikki can be real tough. She has her rules, her expectations, her desire to be as perfect as any human can be, which means, she wants ME to be as perfect as I can be. However, there are times that I just don't live up to those expectations and I must say, there's times she doesn't live up to it either.

This past Sunday, I had search & rescue, which I must say, I did pretty darn good, especially when it came to cadaver, I nailed it. Anyway, this isn't about me. I did my work and then my mother put me down into a "stay" while she worked with the other dogs. "Stay" means that I'm supposed to stay in one spot, well, on this particular day, I had a hard time with it. I moved a few times before she released me and boy, did she give me that look. When I get that look, I move quickly back to my spot and if I had a tail long enough, it would probably be between my legs. Not that she beats me or anything, but you know that look where you wish it was just a beating and not the guilt that they put on you. You would think that she'd remember the good things I did instead of the bad things but nope, she's human and they sometimes get stuck inside of a box. Overall, I didn't get in terrible trouble. I was allowed to roam and sniff the deer tracks and stuff while she was eating dinner with the grandparents and boy was I tired.

So the purpose of this blog is to tell all those humans out there to stop concentrating on all the bad stuff that your dog does and instead, concentrate on the behaviors that you do like. If you start looking at the good stuff then that's all you will see and yes, the bad will still happen on occasion, we're not robots and you can't just program us to never make a mistake, but the bad won't seem so bad since it's going to be rare. Just like you, we're not always going to do the right thing but if you praise us enough, we'll start to want to do the right things more.

You see, we don't know right from wrong, bad or good, all we know is what gets us attention and what doesn't. When you acknowledge behavior, we will repeat it, if you ignore it, we will eventually stop doing it. Unless it's self-rewarding, but I'm not going to go into that in this blog. I want you to go right now and tell your dog how wonderful he/she is being and then reach into the cabinet and get him/her a treat and then allow them up on the couch with you, by invitation only of course.

Meet the Family

My family consists of two humans, two other dogs and three cats. My first human is my partner in the business, Nikki. Most of the time she's patient and laid back but if I try to pick up a piece of food off the ground like I did today at the Irish Festival in Erin her horns come out. I mean really, it was just a small piece of cotton candy, half a kielbasa sausage, a few potatoes, of course, peppers, onions, oh, and a piece of schnitzel. I don't know why she gets so uptight about it. I've attached a picture of mama Nikki and mama Kim.


Mama Kim, she's fairly new to all the dog rules and mama Nikki is constantly teaching her, especially with the newest addition, Duke. They say he's a dachshund/beagle mix, but I hear mama Nikki call him "just another midget mutt" more often times than not. He's fun to play with but he's a little bit of a weenie, no pun intended. I nicked him on the ear one time because he was going after my treat and ever since then, I look at him and he runs, if I run after him, he scoots and if I get close, he screams. Today was his first festival and boy, let me tell you, he's not very good. I mean, he pulled mama Kim all the way from the car til she twisted her knee and mama Nikki had to take over. They haven't worked on leash walking but they need to. I thought his eyes were going to bulge out of his head. And then he also tried to eat everything off the ground but when it came to the rabbits, need I say more? I guess he didn't get a lot of socialization with little people, I'm not sure, he's only been with us for a few months, but every time a little person reached out to pet him he would lay his ears back and scoot around. The only time he did get petted by the little people he sat quietly but he dribbled, if you know what I mean. Adolescents! The crowds got really big and he got stepped on twice, so overall, I don't think he enjoyed it very much. He was actually kinda cute on the way home, I even let him lay his head on my paw.


Bandit is the oldest dog of the family at 15, but you wouldn't know it most of the time. She got to go today and was surprisingly good the entire time. She tried picking thing up off the ground but she's really a midget mutt so I don't even think mama or mama realized she was doing it. Bandit and I have had our differences but overall, she's not so bad. She constantly tries to get on my bed even though she has her own bed. I growl at her but mama Nikki says she can't hear so I'm wasting my breath. Can you really waste your breath?

The cats can be fun but I get in trouble for chasing them sometimes. Amethyst is my cat and she's not too bad except when she starts rubbing up against my face. Adonis and Stumpie were mama Kim's cats first and they've been okay. I sometimes chase them just to see them puff up.

That's my family. I love them and don't have many complaints. I hope everyone enjoys their weekend!

Love,
TBAA

Welcome!

My name is TBAA, short for 'Touched By An Angel', I'm a 7.5 year old Rottweiler. I live in Mt. Juliet, TN with my owners. I work for a living helping my one owner teach dogs how to behave around other dogs, I'm also a search & rescue dog where I go into the woods looking for missing persons such as elderly persons or children. I'm also into forensics searching for dead people on land and in water. When I search for people in the water I ride in a boat because I don't like to actually get into the water. My mom has often said that I look like a deer having a heart attack when I'm in the water. I guess you can say I have a small aversion to it. It's not like I was once abused by being thrown into the water or held under for a mini-second, nope, I just guess I didn't get the "lab" gene. But I've come to terms with it and my mom has to.

I will posting several times a week on various topics. Sometimes it may be about search & rescue and my adventures and sometimes it will be to rant about the humans I come in contact with, or should I say, the humans my "dog clients" come in contact with. Hopefully this blog will give some humans a new way of thinking about us canines and it just may bring some smiles to a few Bloodhounds out there since they look like they never smile.

I look forward to getting to know each one of you and share my knowledge and adventures with you all.

TBAA