The Alpha Canine Group

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Once we have picked your dog up from your home, it then stays with us for 10 or 20 days depending on the course selected. Some dogs may require longer courses depending on their behavioural issues, particularly if they are aggressive towards their owners or intensely aggressive to strangers, but as a general rule, dogs requiring longer stays are few and far between.

You will see here that the training is always done under distraction. This way the dogs learn to listen and follow their handlers. During the training process our trainers also swap dogs so that the dogs learn to listen to different people, not just one person. This is an important process that helps transfer the training over to the owners during the 2 – 3 hour hand-back session in their home. Alpha Boarding School For Dogs currently has 7 full-time and 2 part-time trainers training and caring for all the dogs that stay with us.

There are so many distractions that we introduce into the training – walking calmly through the trainers own dogs at reception is just one measure of how well the dogs in for training are progressing.

The drop step-away is one of the most important commands your dog can learn and it forms a foundation of trust and understanding between the owner and the dog. What you are watching now is a young, boisterous and excitable Pugalier holding his drop step-away – he is working on a flat collar and is totally off-lead whilst ignoring all the commands given to the other dogs as they are being trained around him. This exercise is part of his 20 day course requirement where he will learn to hold this position for 1hr under similar distraction. On the 10 day course dogs are taught to hold their drop step-away for 20 minutes. The reliability of this important exercise is then demonstrated to the owners when we return their dogs home again and it doesn't matter if there are children, other dogs or cats running around – we then teach the owners these new obedience skills under the same realistic and relevant distractions.

Alpha Boarding School For Dogs has developed proven teaching strategies around the hand-back session in the owners home that demonstrate how to maintain the obedience training and manners. This boisterous Irish Setter is going through the hand-back session in country Victoria. Alpha Boarding School For Dogs is a service that caters to dog owners all around Melbourne, Victoria, and beyond. We have even had dogs travel from interstate for our Boarding School service, but we now have an interstate private tuition alternative that is more practical for both the owners and the dogs.

The owners here are now learning the handling techniques in their own home with a little puppy adding some welcomed distraction into the session.

All the owners get to have a go and are involved in the handback. As the session progresses we move onto off-lead obedience and the all-important Canine Good Behaviour Shaping – manners that really matter! For instance, teaching the dog to wait patiently at the back door until invited inside again.

Training around other animals such as sheep, ponies and cats also allows the trainers to establish more creative and stimulating distractions for their training sessions. At Alpha Boarding School For Dogs we have found that challenging the obedience and good behaviour shaping in novel and bustling situations best prepares the dog for the distractions that will be encountered once home again.

Another reason to train the dogs around other animals is that it is a great way to stimulate predatory or defensive behaviours that may be lurking underneath. This then gives the trainers a valuable opportunity to rehabilitate the behaviour whilst we have the dog in for training. This young Labradoodle is obviously spooked by the ponies so he is being trained nearby so he can become more accepting of their presence.

This type of training scenario allows us to apply our effective and practical methods to achieve positive outcomes by establishing high levels of trust and clear and consistent leadership. Whether a dog exhibits fearful, predatory or aggressive behaviour towards other animals or people, we have proven that trust and leadership are the most important factors in achieving successful rehabilitation.

We are now looking at the Labradoodle again in the same situation with the ponies that had startled it earlier in this video. You can see one of the ponies rubbing against the gate and the dog is now interested in what is going on – not jumpy or fearful. This footage is about 10 days into a 20 day course and the dog is listening to the trainer and feeling more confident now that trust and leadership have been established.

Now he is taken outside the gate to get up close and more personal. You can see that he is taking everything in his stride and virtually touches his nose against the pony's. His confidence is steady as the pony moves around – there is still no panicking.

And then, just to make sure everything is fine, the trainer changes things up a bit by presenting the ponies in a different environment. As you can see, again the dog takes it all in his stride, listening to the trainer.

The dog we are looking at now has well-established aggression towards people – his owners included. This is the type of aggression that sometimes requires us to keep a dog longer, so we can not only bond with them, but so we can also use the extra time to proof them in different scenarios.

You will notice that this dog is showing signs of fear and apprehension, but on his home turf he is far more dominant and actively aggressive to anyone who comes in the house. Basically, he has been allowed to develop this aggressive behaviour over a three year period and he is now at the stage of showing no bite inhibition what-so-ever. Our trainer here is checking to see if his aggression is as bad as the owners described as often it isn't the case – even with some of the more intense dogs. In this case however... They were right!

So now we have an aggressive dog on our hands. Our first step is to train the dog on head halter and then for those dogs attending a 20 day course, we move to off-lead training. Dogs exhibiting any form of aggression need to do the 20 day course. When dealing with dogs such as this one in particular, you again need to develop trust in the relationship if you are to be seen as a leader. Our obedience and good behaviour shaping methods are focussed on this relationship and help the dog to settle down without trying to be in charge all the time. This is a huge turnaround for this dog who is for the first time in his life choosing to follow rather than resisting and aggressively lashing out. This is what we call the transition phase and as the new leadership is applied at home by the owners, the dogs can finally begin to relax.

The trust developed during the training process shows a complete contrast compared to the first clip in this video.

Now we have a dog with a completely different set of behavioural issues. On her first day in for a 20 day course we can see intense and aggressive behaviour towards the ponies and a little later we will see the same outbursts towards other dogs.

Despite this less than perfect starting point, we can still teach the dog what is acceptable and unacceptable behaviour, this wouldn’t matter whether it was aggressive, fearful, anxious or over-excitable.

The Canine Leadership System is the product of what we call Canine R&D active, a hands-on approach to developing methods that can be proven to work time, and time again... with virtually any dog of varying age, breed or disposition. This means that we apply our theories, obedience training and canine behavioural rehabilitation strategies whilst working with real owners and their very real dogs... often with very real behavioural issues.

Look at how attentive and calm the dog is now.

It is because of all the hands-on research and development that has gone on over the last 15 years – since 1996 - that has allowed us to observe many exciting canine behavioural and learning responses that seem to exceed the accepted and academic opinions of the day. What I mean here is that we can often achieve very positive outcomes to problem canine behaviour that is often considered to be abnormal or beyond help - particularly by food reward methods. We are continually offering second opinions to owners who have been told that their dogs require drug therapy or that they will just have to accept and manage their dog's behaviour as it is. More often than not we can show that there is a more realistic approach that can be taken if owners are willing to do the work.

As you can see here, the dog is now on a flat training collar and following the trainer, who is clearly now a leader in the dog's eyes. The dog is now a little intimidated by the ponies, because she can't try to control the situation anymore, but again, she is willing to follow, listening to the trainer and sticking by her side. This is a huge change of attitude and now, the perfect start to behavioural rehabilitation

So now we'll look at this same dog displaying aggression to other dogs. It is her first day of training and again, her behavioural outbursts are intense. Again you will see her on a flat collar in the same scenario – 10 days later, and then walking calmly and confidently through the kennel reception area with the trainer's own dogs and a once-dog aggressive Dachshund roaming free around her.

Through proven, Alpha developed concepts such as The Pattern Learning Training Method, Reinforcement Contrast Effect, Canine Good Behaviour Shaping, Reinforcement Crossover Consistency and The Reset Learning Principle, we can achieve consistent and positive outcomes that effectively interrupt any dog's behavioural outbursts.

Boarding School is a genuine training option, but the owners still need to follow the important guidelines taught during the hand-back session in their own home. We have many, many success stories, but that is because the owners we work with continue on with the Leadership obedience and Canine good Behaviour Shaping they have been taught under the supervision of a professional trainer.

Alpha Boarding School For Dogs is a great start to the training or behavioural rehabilitation process – for happy-go-lucky or problem dogs. We can give you the tools, the plans and we'll show you how to build it, but like any other form of effective training method, you still have to build it! But one thing is for sure – it's much easier if the methods are relevant, practical and actually work!"); break; case 'rehabilitationText': new_window.document.write("Alpha Boarding School For Dogs provides a unique Canine Behavioural Rehabilitation service for owners of all dogs, but especially for those with extreme behavioural issues.

One of the owners of the first two dogs on this video came to see us at an Alpha Dog Training weekly training session one winter's evening desperately seeking help. He told us that his two dogs were fighting and needed to be kept muzzled during the day so they couldn't do damage to each other. They would be left at separate exit points when the owners left for work, but on return this is what greeted them.

The owners had already seen an experienced veterinary behaviourist who had them fill out a detailed behavioural questionnaire about their dog's behaviour. She then tried to train the dogs with food lures – showing how to hold the treat above your eyes so the dogs would look up when commanded to sit. This was futile however because as soon as the dogs saw each other through the glass doors they immediately ignored the owners and ran over to start fighting again. The owners were never shown how to make the food reward training work – the practice under supervision was aborted, but they were then told that with more practice it would improve.

The behaviourist then suggested to put the bitch on drugs that would calm her behaviour as she was the main aggressor. Within a few days the male dog soon took advantage of this and started to take the upper hand - there are many reasons for this happening – the fighting continued and he was also prescribed the same drugs.

From that point nothing changed and the dogs continued to fight. The owners tried in vein to follow the training advice given to them at the consultation and from a report that contained various fact or help sheets - sent to them about a week later. There were no demonstrations of any effective hands-on obedience or rehabilitation strategies, just a lot of discussion and theories – it was seemingly left up to the drugs to do all the work.

By comparison, we applied Alpha's modern and relevant leadership obedience, Canine Good Behaviour Shaping and Realistic Canine Behavioural Rehabilitation methods and were able to train and rehabilitate these two dogs using hands-on techniques and strategies that really work. The focus is on positive reinforcement and a specific reward process that doesn't require food lures. We also teach the dogs a correction process that pinpoints the exact, unacceptable behaviour and then allows us to create a stronger, positive contrast which promotes consistent and positive behavioural choices. We can usually show owners their dogs making these choices right before their eyes.

This is a very different training and rehabilitation process to that used by positive motivation, food reward trainers who insist that telling dogs \"NO\" and applying physical corrections is unnecessary or harsh. With The Canine Leadership System we can demonstrate - hands-on and in real-time - the most exciting and positive turn-arounds in extreme canine behaviour. The Alpha Canine Group has spent the last 15 years researching and developing how to apply negative reinforcement to achieve incredible and positive outcomes. Owners who see and experience the results as they occur in relevant and distracting situations never cease to be amazed by the process.

As you can see here, 12 months after their training – two happy and tolerant dogs. It takes a lot of effort and understanding, but it can be done!

This pre-rehabilitation video footage was provided to us by the owners over in Tasmania and it shows their dog, a four year old Anatolian Shepherd who is indiscriminately dog aggressive. Since she was about 10 months old the dog has been impossible to walk without aggressive outbursts towards other dogs and she gets quite worked up even at some distance.

You will also see the dog turning back towards its owner when it is the heat of the aggression – this is called redirection and it is a sign of how intense this behaviour is – some dogs even inadvertently bite their owners during redirection, it is not deliberate, but it still hurts.

Managing this large dog out on walks, in the owner's words, \"has been a nightmare\" and despite seeking the help of a veterinary behaviourist, nothing changed. Again this dog was prescribed drugs that were meant to make her safer and more manageable, but they had no affect at all. In the end the behaviourist told the owners that there was nothing more that could be done for this dog and that they would just have to manage her behaviour as this is as good as it would get.

Bronte was flown over to us from Tasmania and stayed for the 20 day Boarding School course. The results you are seeing now are at about day 13 of that course. In the end she stayed longer so her hand-back could coincide with the owners moving into their new home in Hobart.

Here you can see her running free with other dogs, totally relaxed and playful. Whilst staying with us we trained her around small dogs, large dogs, timid dogs and antisocial dogs – anything and everything – we always have lots to choose from.

Like all the dogs we train and rehabilitate, emphasis was put on the positive reinforcement for her passive and relaxed behaviour, but she was also taught a consistent correction process that made it absolutely clear which responses or reactions to other dogs were unacceptable. The exciting thing about this training process is that GOOD BOY/GIRL becomes the most powerful tool in your behaviour shaping kit and this is so easily demonstrated to owners the moment we take the dogs home again.

This footage was sent to us by the owners six months after Bronte's return home.

Once owners understand how to recognise what we call The Canine Leadership Challenges that occur around the home on a daily basis and then learn how to shape these pushy and demanding behaviours into manners that really matter, there is a change in the dog's attitude that is tangible and relevant in all common interactions.

All these positive results are achievable without the need for food rewards by applying practical and relevant methods that address the often overlooked problems occurring within the owner and dog relationship – primarily, lack of clear and positive leadership based on trust and understanding.

The dog we are now looking at has some serious trust issues and although very pushy and demanding at home, when on her own she can be lacking in confidence and potentially aggressive. Before coming to us the owners were told by their vet that they tried to sedate the dog so they could groom it, but she was so aggressive, even under heavy sedation, that they could not continue without the risk of being bitten. Apparently it took three people to try and control her – all to no avail.

Even on her first day the trainers get started, assessing the dog's confidence and behaviour away from home. They do a little socialisation work and generally get her familiar with her new home for the next 20 days.

Now we come to the real test – clipping the dog's coat.

The feet area being a sensitive issue for this dog, the trainer shows positive leadership and helps her through the ordeal. There is no pussyfooting around the dog's apprehension and she is dealing with the clipping of her feet and legs without the need to lash out aggressively. Not only is she not sedated, she isn't even wearing a muzzle.

As you can see the clipping has been a success and the dog is confident and happy. This behavioural rehabilitation is the result of many years of hands-on research and development into methods that really work!

I picked up this last dog we are looking at on this video from the lost dogs home where it was waiting to be destroyed. It had been declared dangerous by the council for mauling sheep. The owners had been fighting for his life through the courts and had asked me to write a letter stating that the dog could be rehabilitated with proper training. I stated that within 20 days we could have the dog running free with sheep – totally off lead and safe.

The judge gave the ok, but it was still up to the council rangers to give the go-ahead for the training. It was an 11th hour decision, but we got our chance. This dog's life was literally on the line – if we failed, the dog died.

As you can see from this footage, he couldn't care less about the ponies – it's the sheep he wants! It just goes to show you that any dog can display selective, predatory behaviour, even our favorite family dog – the Labrador.

Incidently, the other dog that committed the crime was caught at the scene and destroyed – no second chances.

The power of GOOD BOY – See how the dog aborted his attention towards the sheep - this is what we call Canine Behaviour Interrupt – and we can show this principle in action and under distraction after teaching a dog just two basic obedience exercises. The Canine Leadership System is driven by three core principles – Pattern, Precedent and Consistency. Combined, these three principles bind our methods together to achieve consistent and positive results!

I know that many trainers and behaviourists believe that this type of behaviour cannot be rehabilitated without breaking the dog's spirit or using electric shock collars, but I can confidently say that that is not the case.

The Alpha Canine Group has developed methods that take canine behavioural and learning theory in exciting new directions, directions that defy the common and often outdated theories that are perpetuated throughout our industry. This is especially the case when dealing with the more serious end of the canine behavioural spectrum.

Look at the results – it doesn't get much better than this. The trainer isn't saying a single word and the dog is now relaxed and actively jumping away from the running sheep – the whole time wagging his tale – look at the bond with the trainer – it would be the same with any of us who were working him at the time. Now that's consistency – that's leadership!"); break; } new_window.document.write(""); new_window.document.close(); }