'We talk to the dogs in dog'

FOR two years, the dog had patrolled the verandah. Safely ensconced on its perch at the top of a flight of stairs off the street, it had refused all efforts to coax it down. A German Shepherd cross, it resisted to such an extent that when the owner tried to drag it down, its paws bled.

Half an hour after Danny Wilson arrived at the flat in the Bronx, New York, the dog was going up and down the stairs. The astonished neighbours came to gawp at the dog that never moved, and was now moving. The owner's wife called her husband at work, telling him he'd better come home and take his dog out.

This is one of the many stories Danny and wife Sylvia tell to demonstrate the success of their dog training method. It has given them a global empire, stretching across four continents.

Danny and Sylvia met in Australia, although both have strong North-East roots. Sylvia was born in Newcastle and emigrated to Australia, and Danny, an Australian by birth, lived in Throckley, Northumberland, when he was a boy, before moving back Down Under.

They worked in an RSPCA shelter, and it was that experience which prompted them to turn to dog training. Owners whose dogs were out of control and thought to be beyond training would bring them to the shelter to be put to sleep. Sylvia decided to try to fix the dog's behaviour instead. In 1989 they left the RSPCA and started Bark Busters, which now has 300 franchises in seven countries. They calculate they have trained around half a million dogs so far.

The majority of training is carried out in the dog's home, the site of most of the bad behaviour, and is guaranteed for the life of the dog. The techniques are based on observation, and seem common sense once they've been explained.

"By watching how dogs behave and how they communicate with each other, we have come up with a system where we can walk into most homes and control most dogs within two hours," Danny says. And much of the "secret" is in the language.

"We don't talk to the dogs in English, or French or German. We talk to the dogs in dog. If a dog says no to another dog, he would growl. What we have learned to do is to use a guttural sound - bah - to let the dog know when he has made a mistake.

"We use the language that dogs actually speak to each other, and we have turned it into a way that we can communicate with them."

He says once a dog has been trained, using this "bah" sound will stop it in its tracks. As well as "bah", the training also looks at the dog's body language in the run-up to its bad behaviour.

"If a dog is barking when somebody comes in the house, the best time to stop the dog doing that is before it gets into the whole thing, when it is just still thinking about it," says Danny. "If you wait until he is barking and growling then the adrenaline rush has started and it is harder to stop.

"If you watch the dog's ears they are a great indication. They will tell you when a dog is just about to fire up and attack another dog. If you turn the message off while it is still thinking about it, then it will stop thinking about it.

"You have got to catch the dog in the act. Dogs will show you body language when they're just about to toilet, and you have to act on that."

He says many people make the mistake of trying to make friends with dogs, with often terrible results.

"A lot of people let the dogs sniff the back of their hand. That is dangerous," he says. "We have worked with dogs for 30 years. We have never seen a dog walk up to another dog and present the back of its paw."

"For a dog to sniff you to get your scent it should be the dog's decision, not yours. A lot of people make that mistake. They say they have got to make friends with the dog, but if you don't know the dog don't pat it. If people followed these rules you would not get so many people with faces ripped off."

According to Sylvia, for many owners, the harsh reality is the root of the dog's bad behaviour lies not with the dog itself, but with its owner.

"One of the things we often find is that the dog is dominating and the owner is allowing it to happen," she says. "A lot of it is about who is in charge, and how you let your dog know that it is you.

"People think if they step out of the way to let the dog in their house first that they're being polite. In fact, they're showing the dog who is the leader. They think a dog jumping up on them is being friendly. It is not. That dog is trying to dominate them."

As pack animals, dogs naturally vie for the position of pack leader. If their owner lets them take it, then they will. If the dog thinks it is the pack leader, then it will decide who comes in the house, or who sits on the settee.

"The problem with humans is we're terribly inconsistent, and dogs look at that as weakness," says Danny. "Dogs would always look to the pack leader. When the pack leader gets old they become inconsistent and the dogs see that as weakness and then vie for pack leadership.

"The dog looks at a human family in a pack structure, and if the structure is weak then the dog will vie for leadership."

In one house in the North-East, the trainer found the only person who could control the dog was the three-year-old child. The reason soon became clear. The rest of the family always let the three-year-old do everything first, so the dog believed it was the pack leader.

Although some owners may balk at the prospect of being brusque with little Fifi, they must learn to dominate their dogs if they don't want their dogs to dominate them, Danny argues.

"Dog owners have to realise that they pay the vet bills. The dog should conform to their rules, not the other way around," he says. "If you treat a dog like a human then it won't be long before it starts treating you like a dog."

The solution to a dog's bad behaviour, Sylvia believes, lies not with curing the dog, but in curing the owner.

"It is too simple for human beings. Humans naturally try and complicate things, and we have become sophisticated and civilised and we've lost that natural talent we had when we first got together with the canine," she says.

"No dog is beyond help, it doesn't matter how old it is. It all depends on the owners: if they don't want to dominate their dog, they're going to have to live with the problem, there is nothing else we can do to help them. People say they have tried everything, but they're living with what we can fix."

* www.barkbusters.co.uk or call 0808 100 4071.

Bark Busters' top ten training tips

1 Never drag the dog back to the scene of the crime. The dog knows only what is happening now, not what happened five minutes ago.

2 To stop a dog fouling where they shouldn't, you have to catch it in the act. Watch out for the body language which tells you it is about to toilet.

3 If your dog runs away, when you catch up with it do not chastise it. That will only make it stay away. Instead, praise it and make it seem like the most wonderful thing the dog has done.

4 Do not try to control your dog physically, for example by grabbing its collar. That will only teach it to stop you by biting at your hand.

5 Do not play rough, that will teach the dog to use their mouth on humans.

6 Do not sleep with your dog. A pack leader would never sleep with the other dogs. Instead, make the dog its own den.

7 Do not encourage your dog to bark. A dog will instinctively know when something is wrong, but a dog that barks at everything is not a good guard dog.

8 If you have a puppy, go down to their level instead of picking them up to yours. Th at will encourage them to jump up.

9 Be consistent. Sit down with your family and write a list of what you want your dog to do and stick to it.

10 Get your dog trained. If you can't train it yourself, get an expert in. You are going to be with the dog a long time, and if there is no communication you will only create problems for yourself.