Free Finally Home-Lessons on Life from a Free-Spirited Dog by Elizabeth Parker Page A

never been able to keep him five feet in front of us, much less by our side. To make us feel a little bit better, it turned out our neighbor was a dog trainer. He demonstrated once again, explained what he ’d done, and then handed me the leash . I finally felt confiden t that I could control this dog. It was all so simple .
    As fast as that thought had entered my mind was as fast as that thought subsided. Somehow, I don’t think I appeared quite as graceful. As I stood up straight, I grabbed the leash and began my walk with Buddy. I tried mirroring my neighbor’s walking technique, but Buddy pulled me without any effort.
    He pulled so much that within one minute my sneaker flew off of one foot , and I was chasing him down the road with one sneaker on and one sneaker off. I had both hands on the leash, trying to gain some type of dignity and composure . I’m sure it was quite a comedy act for anyone watching.
    I did not find it so funny, as m y face was blushing with embarrassment and my hands were raw from the crazy dog pulling me. I would not dare show my hands. I felt like a complete failure and knew that Buddy was just laughing in the only way that dogs could.
    While I mumbled curses under my breath, Michael and our neighbor kind of chuckled. Our new friend proceeded to talk us out of the good old choker collar and turn ed us on to the harness instead . This was like a skit from a magic show to put on, but it yielded great result s . I think Buddy knew how to put th e thing on better than we did.
    To our pleasant surprise, Buddy pulled much less. We learned to hold the leash midway to keep him closer, loosening the leash when he was being good. We tried to make him focus on us instead of us focusing on him.
    The leash actually served as an extension of my arm, so if I was tense, the dog would sense that by the tension of my grip on the leash. Ideally, according to my neighbor, we wanted to be able to be in command of the dog while there is still plenty of slack in the leash.
    Since our neighbor was a trainer, he was very resourceful and recommended some helpful strategies . We told him about our desperate attempts to be in command of Buddy. He explained that we should not mix two commands, such as “Sit down!” “ Sit ” means sit , and “ down ” means lie down. When we mix ed the two, the dog would get confused as if to say , “What is it that you want?”
    We were also advised to change the tone of our v oice and speak clearly when we we re issuing a command, so it would get Buddy’s attention and he w ould know that what we were saying was important . Well, with this, our voice somehow sounded like the beginning of the Black Sabbath song “Ironman.” All that did was send Michael and me into a fit of hysterical laughter while Buddy cocked his head at us as if to say , “ I diots , ” and kept on doing his thing.
    We learned that yelling at any dog wa s not going to yield the desired results . For a dog to obey their master they need ed to trust that the master wa s sane enough to give the precise commands. No amount of yelling wa s going to portray that type of leadership . All it did was depict instability . It may have cause d them to fear their owner , but they w ould not recognize you as the Alpha dog.
    If a dog wa s going to listen, they w ould obey a quiet voice. No yelling or screaming was necessary. It was all starting to make sense.
    We were lucky in one particular aspect, as d espite all of his issues, Buddy demonstrated quite impressive etiquette. During our walk s he never stopped to relieve himself on someone’s property or in the middle of the street. He always waited until we were near a vacant area to take care of business.
    In addition, as bad as he was during these early years, he managed to practice great table manners. He would lie down without crying, begging , or jumping while we were eating our meal. We decided to give him table scraps if and only if he was good. It was the one