Fred Hassen interview with Adam Katz of dogproblems.com
HERE IS AN INTERVIEW THAT ADAM KATZ OF DOGPROBLEMS.COM DID WITH ME. ADAM HAS ONE OF THE MOST INFORMATIVE SITES ON THE INTERNET TODAY, AND SUBSCRIBING TO HIS NEWSLETTER IS A MUST.
Taken from dogproblems.com newsletter.
HERE’S THE FIRST PART OF MY INTERVIEW WITH DOG TRAINING LEGEND,
FRED HASSEN.
"Fred Hassen may be the most innovative dog trainer who’s ever
lived".
The dog training that he’s doing with the remote electronic collar
are making it easy for anybody to get competition level obedience
from their dog. And while it’s not necessary to use a remote electronic
collar to train a dog, the speed and effectiveness that Fred is
able to get from his dogs and students is truly mouth dropping.
What Fred is teaching will eventually turn the dog training
industry on it’s ear.
Adam: Fred, can you tell me how you use the remote electronic
collar differently than others?
Fred replies: There are many things that differentiate our
programs from others, but if I were to just mention 2 of them that
jump out at you, they would be:
1. “Teaching with a collar”. I don’t really think that anyone
can be really good at this, unless they learn all of the ‘teaching’
mechanics that go a long with this type of training if you are
going to do it successfully at the level that we teach it, which
will make it easier for it to be transferred as well.
If you read even some of the manufacturer stuff, they will tell you
that you need to leash train the dog first, then do this, then do
that, then after all of that is done, you can enforce a known
command to the dog with the collar. There are two significant
errors in that thought pattern.
The first one is that almost everyone on the planet does it that
way now, and they sure are not having any success with it, or very
little success. How many dogs do you see on the street with
remote collars on? How many classes do you see out there that are
training with remote collars, even though every dog in the class
has been trained traditionally first? That’s because it still
doesn’t go smoothly in doing it that way, and people want to see
positive results immediately, or at least in a very short period of
time.
People love their dogs, they absolutely adore their dogs, and we
understand that, so I went about finding out the fastest transition
possible. That’s the same with any training though, the general
public may not be professional dog trainers, but the vast majority
of them are intelligent enough to be able to tell if things are
going positively in a short period of time. No intelligent human
being, is going to keep getting negative results with any kind of
dog training and keep it up for very long. We’re fast, we’re
efficient, and we are very positive and motivating. We are
transferring information through the collar to the dog, in helping
him learn, and keeping him at the highest possible level through a
constant transfer of information. That’s why they work so
positively, and for so long in my system. That’s why we do a lot
of video. We want to SHOW you, and we want to raise the level of
dog training everywhere. The late Captain Haggerty said it best
after he came out to visit me a few times. He basically said that
this training system that I’ve come up with is a train that is not
going to stop… either get on, or get run over. Something to
that effect.
2. Using the collar on both ends. If you have a device and you
are only using it for punishment, well you are giving up half of
the arena before you start, and you are giving up the better
half!!! You need to be able to have dogs jump on and off, bite and
let go, run and stop etc.
Yes, there are a lot of ways to do all of these things
traditionally, but we are not taking that knowledge away from
someone…we are just adding to it. If you just look up the word
“remote” in a dictionary, that alone should tell you something in
it’s definition that it is the ability to work away or ‘remote’
from you. Having that ability, in and of itself, gives you a
tremendous advantage over a traditional trainer. The problem lies
in learning the system and being able to transfer that information
to the dog from anywhere. You can see it in our videos,
especially with the deaf dogs where we aren’t even talking to them,
so it’s visually clear that information is being communicated.
Again, talk is cheap… we show you. Sometimes it’s hard to
have an educated discussion if you don’t know what someone is
talking about. I experience it on a regular basis whenever I go to
get my car fixed. I don’t know the first thing about fixing a
car, so when they sit me down and explain in detail what they are
doing, and I don’t understand a word they are saying……..it’s
because I’m not literate in this language. We understand that a
lot of what we do might go against traditional dog training
‘theories’, but we show it in application.
Part Two of Interview
Pretext: Fred Hassen may be the most innovative dog trainer who’s ever lived.
The dog training that he’s doing with the remote electronic collar
are making it easy for anybody to get competition level obedience
with their dog. And while it’s not necessary to use a remote
electronic collar to train a dog, the speed and effectiveness that
Fred is able to get from his dogs and students is truly amazing.
What Fred is teaching will eventually turn the dog training
industry on it’s ear.
Fred continues: That’s why we have all ‘hands-on’ training when we
teach it to the locations. They are not going to get it in a
book, this system is learned through experience of hands-on
training.
Adam asks: How did you discover your method of remote collar
training?
Fred replies: That’s a good question Adam. You know, I remember
the very first time that I saw a collar in a catalog years ago. I
could tell by the picture and the write-up that the dog wore a box
and you had a remote in your hand, and that it transferred some
sort of electric stimulation, that was adjustable. The boxes were
bigger back then, and you had to change the stimulation levels with
individual prongs, but I was still doing demos in the middle of
people’s streets before they decided, but it is a lot easier today
when the new “Sit Means Sit” businesses open.
Anyway, I see this remote collar, and the thought that it’s going
to ‘hurt the dog’, or do any physical harm to him… just doesn’t
enter my mind. Not even a thought. Commonsense just told me that
they wouldn’t be selling them. I just kind of looked at it, like
in the old days when you had a telephone on your wall, but you
couldn’t take it past the 6 foot cord, and someone shows you a cell
phone. I just went ‘wow’. I was completely self-taught, and
just got it and started using it for a lot of different things, and
I used it from the get-go regularly.
This thing really evolved by me starting by training in the streets
and cities of Las Vegas. I didn’t have a ‘training field’, so the
world was my field. I would run into a lot of houses that had
walls on them as I was walking down the street, and I’d be learning
how to get dogs on these different size shapes and walls, and
turning them and all kinds of stuff. I would use the ends of
sidewalks for place boards in at the same time, teach the dog to
not only stop at the curb, but also come through it if I called
him, and a lot of the beginnings of teaching the dogs things from
both ends with the remote. I’d ride my bike in the street, and
learn to keep the dog with me, but have her stay on the sidewalk
with the remote, but run a long side of me.
I remember that once I would start running into different things
like scent work and things, the thought that you couldn’t do that
with a collar also didn’t enter my mind. I would just sit there
and watch, and go ‘hmmm, I wonder how I would do this with a
collar’. I was relentless in my quest to learn, and I was
passionate….very passionate. I mean, once you have a cell
phone, it’s pretty hard to go back to the phone on the wall thing.
Adam asks: 3. What does a typical first session look like?
Fred replies: The first session always shows tremendous change. I
think the videos on my website that show us taking dogs from
scratch in the seminars, or in the deaf dog video, where the dog
knows nothing when we get there, is an accurate portrayal of what
most of them look like. You have to remember also, that we are
taking on anything and everything, and in alot of instances, the
dogs have had problems for years, so there is a learning curve, but
there is a learning curve in all training… ours is just
tremendously shorter.
We can do things that you just couldn’t do traditionally. I think
that what makes the training that we do so popular, and why all the
businesses are doing so well, is because it does look so well right
from the beginning. As I’ve said earlier, people love their dogs,
and they want to see improvement fast. They can tell positive
improvement immediately. That is the main reason that we do
everything in public. We want the people to see.
A lot of people may have preconceived notions before they start,
but it’s usually pretty obvious to them once they see the immediate
change, and once they see how happy they are. Happy dogs sell.
Whether you are in a competition, or with a pet dog client, a happy
dog sells, and they want to see a happy dog. We obviously would
not be doing everything publicly if we weren’t producing happy dogs
and happy owners. I’m a strong believer that if you are a
professional dog trainer, that you should be doing a demo with not
only your own dog, but letting the people see what you do with
their dog as well, before they make a decision.
It’s kind of like buying a T.V. and asking the salesman to turn the
picture on. If you are a positive trainer, you shouldn’t have any
problem showing positive changes immediately, or in a reasonably
short amount of time. I think this will raise the people’s
consciousness about dog training in general, and raise the bar
dramatically, and educate the consumer. Next time you go in to
buy a T.V. don’t forget to ask them to turn it on so you can at
least see the picture.
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