# Don Sullivan's The Perfect Dog



## JoelSilverman (Oct 21, 2008)

My suggestion is that even if your dog has some leash aggression issues, contact a trainer in your area that specializes in dealing with aggression. Ask for references. That trainer that you hire should come and help you deal with the issues right where they are happening. _*Please do not waste your money buying a DVD. You are not going to be able to take take care of most aggression problems like that by watching a DVD because every aggression situation is so different. (This means anyone's DVD, including any of mine.)*_

I would also recommend that you read a little about this person you are talking about and take a look at how he actually trains the dogs. Listening to his infomercial, I am pretty leary of people that boast "quick fixes" with dogs as he does. We all know that training takes time. Honestly, I have no idea of what he does, and he is pretty hush hush about it. But the dogs do wear some sort of collar. _I will also tell you he makes several pretty lame statements in his infomercial, one of them being not to use treats to train your dog. _There are hundreds of trainers I know that would disagree with that. .......Another trainer making broad generalizations, and blanket statements.


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## cinnamonteal (May 16, 2008)

JoelSilverman said:


> That's fine and dandy, but we are talking about dogs, not wolves. And by the way, I have trained wolves for movies and TV. That is not the way we would train a wolf. If you tried that you would get eaten.


lol! Love it! 

Thanks for your response, Joel. I sent an email to my father in law and told him that the best thing for the dog would be to find a good trainer. He seemed open to the idea, so I think he's off to a good start.

I was looking at Don Sullivan's website and a some big red flags kept popping up, like not using treats, claiming that positive training methods lead to biting  and advocating the use of force. But yeah, he really didn't give any clear indication what sort of methods he teaches. It all sounded like hype and marketing speak.


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## Taps (Jan 28, 2008)

*Don Sullivan*

He has a very rigid program. He came to my house as we live in the same vicinity and was so hard on my sweet golden I couldn't believe it. His theory is that if the first correction is extreme enough you never have to train again. He believes that in the wild the mother corrects immediately and decisively and the pup always obeys after that.

He told me to wear leather gloves and yank the training really hard. Hard enough that without gloves I would injure my hands.

By the time half our lesson was over my dog was trying to get away from him. I do believe he can get any dog to do what he wants and maybe some breeds can be taught that way but certainly not a golden. I obviously cancelled my next appt. with him and told him that I wasn't happy with being so hard on my dog. I will admit though that for awhile my dog did sit when someone came to the door after that. I was supposed to keep the lead on him in the house for 2 weeks and yank it hard whenever he didn't mind me. YES, HE CAN TRAIN DOGS BUT IN MY OPINION IT IS WITH FEAR NOT RESPECT.


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## cinnamonteal (May 16, 2008)

Thanks for the info, Taps. No wonder he doesn't tell you about his methods before hand. No one would buy his program!


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## JoelSilverman (Oct 21, 2008)

Taps said:


> YES, HE CAN TRAIN DOGS BUT IN MY OPINION IT IS WITH FEAR NOT RESPECT.


If that is true, guess what? He can't train dogs. If the only way you can train a dog is by doing what you say he did to your dog, he cannot train dogs.


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## Muddypaws (Apr 20, 2009)

Taps said:


> He told me to wear leather gloves and yank the training really hard. Hard enough that without gloves I would injure my hands..


After that statement I would have bodily tossed him out of the house. No one "yanks" on my dog. I bet you were furious, you have more restraint then I would have. (I'm a red zone case - zero to 10 in a nanosecond  )

v


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## FlyingQuizini (Oct 24, 2006)

I recommend the book Feisty Fido by Patricia McConnell. It's all about on-leash aggression.


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## cinnamonteal (May 16, 2008)

Thanks so much, Stephanie! I'll pass that along to him.


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