I Grudgingly Learn that I Have to Accept Porter for Who He Is.
- ericamargaret5
- May 11
- 5 min read
Our sessions with Trainer Doug continued for a few more weeks.
At our initial appointment with Trainer Doug, we had identified these problems and these solutions (below is the short version. Expanded version in previous post.)
Problem: People stepping over him.
Solution: Start a PSA campaign to warn friends and family.
Problem: People stepping over him while sleeping
Solution: PSA Campaign/Don't let him fall asleep in a place where people will step over him.
Problem: Strange men moving their hands quickly
Solutions: Porter either needed to be on his leash with a handler who was far away from the person or in his crate/Desensitizing.
Problem: Strangers getting near me
Solution: Same as a above. Put Porter in a crate or leashed for away where he could monitor the situation but not take action.
Problem: Kids hugging him.
Solution: Launch 2nd PSA campaign to parents of children/ Porter goes in the spare bedroom until that child goes home.
Problem: Any stranger or dog trying to say "hi" to him after his parents have dragged him through a long day of hiking (which he likes) and breweries (which he hates).
Solution: Get new dog parents who won't do this to Porter.
The next few sessions, were just okay. Twice the trainer mixed up the dates and locations where we were supposed to meet and, over I felt the sessions did not really work on the second half of my training request, which was that we start desensitize Porter to his triggers. When I brought it up the trainer said "We don't do that." (grrrrrrrr because that was one of two things I brought up in the initial phone call and that I really wanted to figure out.) We had paid up front so I just resigned myself to finishing up the contracted lessons and finding another trainer to help with the desensitizing.
We did three lessons after the initial consultation, where we completed the following activities:
Lesson 1: I met the trainer at his training location and we ran through some agility. He also brought out his dog for a bit to test Porter's body language (it was not positive), and showed me how to handle Porter (I don't remember what the feedback was.)
Lesson 2: We met in Old Town Alexandria. The waterfront down there is beautiful and very busy and I felt a little worried about someone wanting to pet Porter. As part of my PSA campaign to let the whole world know that Porter is a rescue and needs space, I bought him this bandana to wear in public. He clearly loved it and did not hate me for dressing him up this way:
Honestly, though, I really loved the bandana and wished I had one for myself at work some days.
Our field trip to Old Town was a success. We walked around and practiced commands in the park with lots of distractions around.
In the end, Porter and I survived our lessons and when they were done, I remember feeling underwhelmed. I remember distinctly thinking that "I just paid a lot of money for someone to tell me to respect Porter's boundaries."
Once I got some distance from the initial disappointment, though, I realized I that I did get a bit from the training:
Foremost, I did not want to have to call in another trainer for Porter's behavior. We really cracked down on making sure he was not too overwhelmed and we would put in in his crate or another safe space if we knew that a particular situation would set him off.
The trainer helped Chris and I agree on strategies, so it saved us a lot of bickering.
I learned that I'm my dog's best advocate. I need to stick up for Porter if someone is making him uncomfortable.
It's okay to have clear behavior boundaries for your dog.
Porter's behaviors are not the worst thing the trainer has come across. (Honestly, this in itself was worth a lot. Here I was being like "That's it. Everything is over. He's the worst dog in the whole world. He will never be able to leave the house. I will never be able to socialize ever again ever." The trainer was like: "I've seen it before. It will be fine. Keep working at it." That the trainer wasn't immediately matching my "THIS IS AN EMERGENCY ENERGY" was very helpful. He knew it was going to be fine, and therefore, I could start believing it was going to be fine.
Thankfully, Porter hit 3-years-old and started calming down, in general. There were fewer outbursts and there were long periods of time where he would relax on the couch and snooze. (Thank God).
The most important lesson, though, was that I had to accept Porter for who he was. He does not like strangers. He does not like kids. He does not like crowds. He does not like new situations. He does not like camping. He does not like to run. He does not like warm weather. He does not like road trips. He does not like breweries. Basically, Porter hates everything I was hoping he would like and I just had to get over that. It was okay if I needed him to learn to accept some of these things temporarily as we go through life, but it was not okay for me to expect him to be something that he was not. That's been really hard for me to accept. I seriously thought I could train him to be a therapy dog, and make people happy with the mere presence of my dog, but I can't. He's not interested and therefore, I need to get over it. He is who he is and everything got a lot better when I started to wrap my head around that.
Nevertheless, I wasn't done with his training yet.
I had read too many issues of AKC Family Dog where some grouchy rescue found his zen through nose work and the family lived happily ever after and I wanted in! We were going to try all the sports!
Also, on a more realistic note, I really did want to learn how to desensitize him to his triggers."Desensitizing" had come up in every book I'd read and I wanted to see this in action. Since I've been a teacher for a long time, I knew that most of the time what worked in the books I read did not always work in the real world. I wanted to see how this was done properly.
Armed with these goals, Porter and I set out on the next steps of our training journey.
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