Perfect Pearl, in residence for awhile, and what a sweet and beautiful creature she is.

  July 1, 2008 – At least once a day, sometimes more, I yell at my dogs. I yell at Rose when she runs the sheep up my butt and they knock me down. “What is wrong with you?” I yell. “Get back.” I yell at Izzy when he loses himself and gets too close to the road. “No street,” I yell, “get back.” I yell at Lenore when she takes here third or fourth mouthful of sheep poop or donkey manure, and I look ahead to the Odor Off I will be using when she throws it up at 3 o’clock in the morning.
  I am an enthusiastic positive reinforcement trainer, an advocate of that method. Reinforce the good behaviors, ignore the bad. Wish I could do it all the time.
  But I have to be honest, it is a rare day I don’t yell at least once at one or all of my dogs.  Rose pays little mind to it, really, going about her business and tolerating my outbursts. Lenore looks abashed, once in awhile but still is eating sheep and donkey poop. Izzy seems the most sensitive to it. As a training method, yelling is counterproductive. It cranks up the dogs, and is simply likely the reinforce the very behavior you’re trying to avoid or curb.
  I am a believer in serious dog training, but unfortunately, I am also a human, and a very imperfect one, and I am prone to distraction, impatience and frustration, and have often been at odds with many elements of the dog world who believe they have single-handedly uncovered the dog secrets of the universe and pursue them with fanatic and self-righteous zeal. I’ve never learned to handle self-righteousness and I am working on it. They don’t generally like me either.
  I know that most good trainers, especially the agility and herding people, have developed enthusiastic, “up” voices to train their dogs, and these methods work. Caryn, who helps clean the farmhouse, is a terrific trainer, and she has dancing Welsh Corgis and she and I joke all the time about this, even talking to each other in squeaky voices. “Caryn,” I chirped at her Monday, “will you PLEEEEEZE!” clean the kitchen floor? She cracked up and chirped back at me. The dogs love her and follow her around.
  Sometimes, it seems some dog lovers are running around like chipmunks piping happily at their dogs, and there is no doubt that the dogs love it and respond to it. I guess I am not, in that way, an “up” person and thus have often been scolded by positive reinforcement trainers for not being enthusiastic enough. I sometimes wish the positive reinforcement trainers were more positive with me but some never seem to get the irony of speaking warmly to dogs and yelling at people.
  So I wanted to be up front and confess that I do yell at my dogs. And to be honest, I sort of like the whole persona, the busy, grumpy farmer shouting at his dogs to get moving, do their work.
  They are also, I have to say, pretty great and obedient dogs. They come, sit, stay and lie down, more or less on command. I can take them anywhere, they are good with people and animals, and we do things like herding, hospice work,  and book readings. One day, I will work on my voice. I will keep you posted.