Chance the American Bulldog

Luke wanted to share with everyone where Chance the American Bulldog is with his training and development.

Chance has the most significant aggression issues out of all the dogs. Those that are training members will have seen more of his outbursts.

He will attack when a dog turns their back, shows weakness, challenges him, is dominant, acts strangely. So … most situations really, he isn’t that selective.

Whilst he is all this, he is also the one that has the most incredible innate quality to want to do the right thing.

It means he tries REALLY hard. And when he gets it wrong, he has a lot of genuine remorse.

It also means he will likely be here the longest.

But Luke believes in this guy so much. He can see the real diamond in the rough.

These kind of chats in the past have attracted a bit of negativity. People struggle perhaps with a problem that doesn’t offer an immediate solution. The reality is, these kind of issues take a lot of time in training. There’s no quick ‘fix’. There’s a lot of videos out there that show say, aggression diminish in 10 mins. Any trainer can show that, a change in handler with the right attitude, some experience and skill will have a dog show a level of immediate improvement compared to the owner. But training for ‘reliability’ is a very very long game.

It would likely be deemed unaffordable to hire the right person for how long it actually takes. And so management and avoidance is usually the answer. Both VERY workable solutions with the right owners (don’t get us wrong). But none of those options have obviously worked for Chance in the past.

So we’re making ourselves comfortable here and settling in for the long haul with this guy.

And there’s a lot of hope in that. He’s been too big of a problem in his past, but not this time.

Chancey boy. You now have a full time Luke at your disposal. And he really really believes in you. And there’s this big world of supporters behind you too buddy.

It’s going to be alright.

Oh and I’m not sure if it was fully explained, Chance postures over Frankie and is corrected with a wrist pop on the lead. I ask Luke to explain what Chance did and what it would lead to, but what was missed I think, was that Chance shows very subtle cues pre outburst. Luke can tell from a change in direction of his ears say. With a dog like Chance you have to be quick and know the dogs’ specific cues to mark the behaviour. Or else Chance doesn’t learn AND you’ve done a poor job of protecting your pack.