The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
BARK TO THE BASICS FOR PUPS
Alpha dog teaches young pups old tricks
The key to any successful parent and child relationship comes down to communication and obedience, no matter how stubborn, or resilient, a child may be.
And it really doesn’t matter if that child toddles its way through ones’ household, or runs rampant through said household on all fours, for that matter.
“In today’s world, our dogs are our kids,” Chip Ingersoll, owner and trainer of Alpha-Dog Pet Centers L.L.C. said. “But at the end of the day, they are dogs. And if we forget that, and we let them forget that, that is where we set ourselves up to have problems. Like human kids, they will push the limits.”
For Ingersoll, laying this groundwork has been a professional and recreational passion for many years.
With both a bachelor’s and master’s degree in education, Ingersoll served as both an elementary and middle school teacher for 17 years.
Now at 40 years old,
“A lot of dog training is training people. You are training the dog, but you are also training the owner.” — Chip Ingersoll, owner and trainer of Alpha-Dog Pet Centers
Ingersoll has taken those lessons taught to students in classrooms, and has switched gears to teaching canines at his facility, located at 46370 Middle Ridge Road, in Amherst.
A fairly easy transition for him he said.
“Teaching is kind of my thing, anyway.”
As a certified canine obedience trainer, Ingersoll focuses his educational talents on the most basic of commands: Sit, lie down, stand up, sit/stay, down/ stay, recall, heal and walking on a leash without pulling. As well as dealing with behavioral issues, sprinkled in for good measure, Ingersoll said.
“I guess maybe it’s because of my background in education. I really try to focus on the psychology part of dog training, as well,” Ingersoll said. “I try to have people leaving, understanding this is why this works. Because so often, a lot of the behavioral issues we see with our dogs are because we are not communicating effectively with them.”
Far too often — and Ingersoll admits he is sometimes guilty of it with his four rescue dogs — pet owners put their own human thoughts and logic into what animals are doing and thinking, rather than seeing things though their pets’ perspective.
Ingersoll says if you want to change the behavior, you have got to think like your dog. Once you start thinking like your dog, a lot of times a light bulb goes on in both the owner and animal, and their working relationship improves.
“A lot of dog training is training people. You are training the dog, but you are also training the owner,” he said.
“We really work hard on that throughout the course, getting owners to think like their dog. By doing this, I feel like we can curb a lot of behavioral problems later on.”
For Ingersoll, basic obedience is important for both pet and owner, as it sets the foundation for the relationship the owner/handler has with their dog.
As pack animals, dogs require structure, Ingersoll said.
And by establishing who is in charge in that relationship from the beginning, pet owners can fend off many behavioral problems that would otherwise need to be corrected later in the animal’s life.
“Dogs being a pack animal, they need structure,” he said. “They need someone to be in charge. And they need someone to be in charge who understands the right way to be in charge. Basic obedience is really more about behavior than it is about obedience.”
Once pecking order is established and a canine knows its “place” without doubt, they tend to not engage in those problematic behaviors which could manifest themselves later down the road, as it gets older and larger, and set in its ways, Ingersoll said.
Instead it will become aware of what is expected of them, and what is acceptable, and what is not.
Once a week, over the course of seven weeks, Ingersoll says owner/handlers and their pets may learn how to sit, to stay, to lay down and come when they are called — which are all vital tools for a successful relationship which stands the test of longevity—but in the process of learning those things, and doing those exercises repetitiously, the dogs learn the key component to any successful relationship.
“What our dogs are learning more than anything else is, who is the boss. Who is in charge. Who is the alpha,” Ingersoll said. “And by doing that, the relationship is solidified and built. And ultimately, that is what leads to a better behaved dog.”
Outside of basic and therapy dog training group sessions, Ingersoll also provides remote collar training, and intermediate and advanced obedience training in a one-on-one setting.
For more information on all of Ingersoll’s offered programs and services, visit Alpha-Dog Pet Centers at its Amherst facility, or online at www.alphadogpets.com.