Feedback from my call with Neil

[Indy]

If anyone is thinking about scheduling a call with Neil-- DO IT! I had an hour long call with him to discuss my new dog Nelly and some of the issues we'd been dealing with. She was adopted from the local kill shelter and I'd only had her for about 2.5 weeks when we had the call, but I wanted to make sure I had a good understanding of how to implement the techniques and see if I was missing anything before I got too far in.

Sure enough, on the call Neil was able to determine that I had pretty much neglected incorporating any sort of relaxation into our training. Nelly is very reactive on walks when she sees another dog, a squirrel, etc. She also has a lot of resistance to her crate and has to be physically manipulated into it. I thought it was simply more pushing and more tug to get that energy out, but the key is for her to able to relax WHILE experiencing higher levels of attraction and energy.

The biggest breakthrough though was that Neil was able to nail down exactly what I felt in the moments when Nelly "freaked" out, and suggested that I could take a different approach. I was all in my head and not "feeling" what Nelly needed during these times, and this was counterproductive to trying to get past these hurdles. It's easy to disregard how much how you feel and think affects training and your relationship, but it is a critical component.

The call ranged from talking about Nelly to reflecting on how I view relationships with dogs in general. The great thing is that his questions enable you to make your own realizations about what is going on with you and your dog. I thought I had way more than an hour's worth of content, but Neil was able to connect-the-dots and get down to the true "problem".

It's definitely worth having a call if you've got questions or concerns. I've started to implement what we discussed and it's already making a noticeable difference!

[BrownieNJoyce]

Thanks for your post. I was on the conference call with Kevin a month or so ago and he gave great advice but it's been hard to follow it through on my own. My husband is on board with the idea of NDT but is just beginning to get practically involved. I shouldn't need any encouragement to take advantage of the opportunity to have a consult with Neil to help me with our dog since I think his writing and DVD and forum posts are fantastic and have helped me tremendously. But apparently I do need a bit of a reminder that more support is available--- your post made me aware (again) that I tend to try to do things on my own and don't always ask for help. So I'll arrange for something in July when I'm not traveling as much and a major work deadline has passed for my husband. We could maybe also go up to work with Kevin sometime. We live in Western Mass. and VT is straight north. So thanks!