Hello from Oklahoma!

[Melissa]

I have two dogs, Peanut and Amigo. I adopted Peanut (I was his 3rd owner by the time he was 8 months old) back in 2007 and little did I know how my life would change. I had loved dogs my whole life and had a few growing up, but I was not prepared for the "ride" my little Peanut would take me on. I have gone from dominance training , to clicker training, to T-Touch, now to NDT in search of answers - and results.

In only a few short weeks of doing the basic pushing technique and "speaking" I have seen more progress than I have in the last 4 years. I really believe it's because this deals with the root issues - not just the behavior. He seems to really connect with pushing and picked it up within seconds.. literally.

I am almost finished reading My Dog is My Mirror and I am hanging out on Chapter 18 - it hits so close to home for me I haven't been able to move on the next one. I think it was the first time I realized that my guilty feelings about Peanut have only added to the problem. From almost the moment I brought him home, the guilty feelings started: guilty for having to leave him crated while I was at work, guilty for getting angry at him for being "bad", guilty about taking him to the vet and stressing him out as well as stressing out the entire staff, then the clencher - extremely guilty when he got really sick and I didn't catch the signs - although there really weren't that many I still felt guilty about it. Even now I am hypervigilant about his health and whenever I think some is wrong I get very nervous and focus almost exclusively on him. Now.. he does have some actual health problems, but most of the time my worries and fears are blown way out of proportion. But that fear that I won't catch something in time is always there.

So, not only do I feel like I am making progress with Peanut's emotional problems.. but I am dealing with my own. Oh.. and not to leave Amigo out. His name says it all really. I found him as a stray last year and seeing the differences in their temperaments is striking - oh.. except when it comes to cats - they are in agreement that all cats must die Or other dogs on the other side of the fence. We are going to work on that too.



I have started the NDT book, but to be honest, it's a difficult read for me. (And I haven't found the part about pushing in it yet..) But I will continue on.

Neil, you have really great info on your site and I so much appreciate how you communicate the concepts and techniques.

Melissa