Recife, Pernambuco, Brazil

Sit Means Sit

June 29th, 2012 | Posted by Brianna in Dogs

Colby from Sit Means Sit and MayaMeet Colby.

Colby likes dogs.

Colby changed everything.

Maya was a maniac when we adopted her in 2007.  Out of a varied litter of spirited puppies, we elected to take home the one with the most gusto, adventurous spirit, and unbridled energy.  Of course we did.  We shared those traits with her, and she was perfect for us.  She loved to learn and explore, unfailingly mastering new commands and joyfully joining us for tailgate parties and hikes.  Our friends and family all knew she was a wild one, but it was harmless zest and she was a young dog.

Moving to North Carolina though, both visitors to the house and pup-welcome outings have been fewer and further between (our mistake).  We’ve worked hard to keep up her exercise, physical and intellectual, but overlooked her regression in amicability from under-socialization.  Basically, she’s a real bitch to everyone but us.  We touched on this and our somewhat frantic reaction briefly in a previous post, but suffice it to say that Colby’s first visit brought out the very worst in our dear dog, completely eclipsing her response to the vet and confirming our need to evaluate her quickly worsening disposition.

As I said though, Colby changed everything.  Colby is an Owner and Head Trainer of Sit Means Sit Dog Training in Raleigh.  We found him at a crowded outdoor concert, playing on his phone with his back turned to a young pup who stood off-leash, but under complete control of his owner, despite the crowds of people, children, and other four-legged friends passing excitedly by.  We were amazed.  That is what we want, we said.  Fast-forward to last Friday when Colby came over for a free demonstration.  Fast-forward past his five-month-old dog showing us how it’s done and past Maya flipping shit in the front yard bringing the neighbors to their windows.  Fast-forward to just after that, when this stranger gained complete control of our dog.  We were sold and find ourselves, after two training sessions, even more so.

I won’t go into too much detail on Colby’s secret recipe, but I will give it a stellar review.  Colby and the Sit Means Sit program have taught Maya how to make the mental decision during anxiety inducing situations to pay attention to her owners rather than simply launching into full-fledged aggression.  She’s certainly not a perfectly behaved dog now by any means.  We have more training ahead of us, but we also have the tools to move in the right direction, the ongoing support as we do so, and a dog that is controlled enough to work with.  We were skeptics from the beginning, but Colby came into our home with the goals of helping us to understand our issues and the possible solutions available.  There was no pushiness, no judgement.  Just understanding and support.  We would recommend a consultation to anyone, and if you’re in the Raleigh area, you can contact Colby and his wife, Andie, here.

The real test will come next week when we visit our families, and for once, we’re looking forward to that challenge!

Colby from Sit Means Sit and MayaColby from Sit Means Sit and Maya

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 You can leave a response, or trackback.

3 Responses



Leave a Reply to Terri with Sit Means Sit, Northern Nevada Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>