Parker was sold by a Boston Terrier Kennel on a showing contract. The new owners understood that the kennel wanted him to achieve his Championship status, which would reflect well on his father’s and mother’s pedigree.
The agreement allowed the breeder to show Parker (at the Kennel’s expense) until he reached the age of three, in order to try and achieve this goal. Parker was not going to be shown every weekend or anything extraneous like that, just enough to achieve the goal.
The kennel waited until Parker was more mature and at 15 months called the new owners to begin the process of finishing his title. The owners brought the dog to the Kennel’s handler three days before the show in order for her to have time to work with Parker and do some show training. The normal day to day training that most people do should be well ingrained right?
Well, not exactly. He knew his basic commands, but only when given by his family members. You see, they had, as responsible owners taken Parker to obedience classes, where he had become very aggressive towards other dogs at the age of one year. The trainer had instructed them that when they were walking Parker they should cross the street to avoid confrontations and then promptly threw them out of the class. They went through several trainers after that and the situation always ended up the same. They quit and kept the dog at home.
Over the next few months, they noticed that Parker was now attacking the front door and anyone coming through it. The same was true of their infrequent attempts at a walk. Parker not only went after the dogs they met on these attempted walks, but the people too. A walk now rather resembled an obstacle course of changing sides of the street and direction in an attempt to avoid seeing or running into other users of the sidewalk. Parker’s owners had been told and decided that this was the nature of the beast and this would be their world with a dog for the rest of his life, so they did not bother to contact the breeder. They did, after all, have the expert opinions of several “Professional” Obedience Trainers to go on. He was just who he was and that was that!
When our handler went to take Parker from his owners hand, he attacked, full force. Parker’s owner apologized profusely and wanted to take him home. Our handler objected and informed his owner that this was “not typical behavior from a Boston, nor should it be from any dog”. She instructed him to put Parker into his crate (thankfully he was still crate trained) and walk away. His owner did just that.
Parker’s handler phoned the breeder to bring them up to speed on the situation and tell them that the dog was by no means able to participate in the show that weekend. The handler proceeded to say that the Breeder needed to call the owner and express to him that the dog’s behavior needed to be addressed. The handler suggested that the most prudent option was to take the dog back to the Behavior Academy immediately for behavioral analysis and retraining.
And so the next chapter in Parker’s life began, but not before he bit several people over the course of the weekend when he was being let out of and returning to his crate. Parker returned to the Academy and began the first days of his six week retraining program. At the beginning of this retraining whenever he was unsure of himself, he was unreliable and quick to threaten or bite. Parker also would become very dominant and aggressive in his behavior patterns. He did not take direction from humans, had very little respect for humans. Parker was determined to aggressively control any other dogs approach or attempted interaction.
Since the handler has removed Parker from his familiar environment he grudgingly trusted her, but not the rest of us when he arrived. However within 10 days even the young children could approach him without mishap. Within the six weeks he was at the Behavioral Academy he progressed by leaps and bounds.
We were however, wasting the entry fees for the shows he had to miss during this period. Our handler decided at week 5 to run him with the “show crew” for that weekend and reported to us that while he was not shown, he was taken up and down grooming areas, by ringside meeting total strangers with no problem. Week six we held our breath as we awaited a call from our handler; Parkers big debut was week 6.
The call came at the end of the first day; Parker had successfully made it into the ring, performed his duties, and had an excellent result-he won 3 points towards his Championship. Saturday was a repeat performance and he now had 7 points. Sunday he won his class but no points. The following weekend garnered him is Canadian Championship with a Best of Breed over Specials (Champion Class) and a Group Third! What a wonderful testament to how a dog’s behavior can be reborn!
The next weekend was a repeat of the stability of the previous weekend. He finished his Championship in a truly magnificent style with the award of 3 more points, Best of Breed, and a Group 3rd!!
Parker’s owner took home his Group 3 Canadian Champion on the Sunday night, after receiving maintenance behavioral instructions from the Academy and to this day 4 years later has never again been a “difficult” dog in their family pack. See for yourself.