after the initial night, I immediately noticed a difference in wally. he was much more focused on me when I was talking to him, much more likely to obey when I gave him the sit command. I didn’t really see the really stubborn dog who had lived with me for a couple of weeks. every once in a while, he would dig his heels in, but if I challenged him he didn’t growl at me or look at me with that rage in his eyes. I read so many mixed reviews about whether neutering an adult dog would help with aggression, but luckily in my case, it worked pretty well.
so, the only command that we could get wally to reliably obey was “sit”. we were wary of trying to teach him any new tricks that involved touching or pushing him in any way because of his previous aggression towards that. he even bit my friend gina’s mom when she came over to try and help us teach him “down” before he was neutered. he just did not like being pushed or pulled. I had this dilemma, because I knew that he was very smart – if you ever looked into his eyes, you could tell that there was lots of intelligence bouncing around in that little skull. he was very smart, and I knew I wasn’t challenging him in a way that was stimulating that part of his brain. after much hemming and hawing, I decided to hire a dog trainer. the shelter where I got wally offered a dog-training seminar once a month, so I decided to go check it out. I was reasonably impressed with what I saw from the speaker, who was an animal control officer and a long-time dog trainer. he offered classes, so I decided to splurge for the classes.
this has probably been the most important investment that I have made in wally so far.
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