The biggest thing the sanitary maintenance industry has in common with dog training is that working in either field is not necessarily a conscious choice. Some of us end up in these places by chance.

Jim Severson, purchasing agent for Savoie Supply in Minneapolis, bought a male Doberman Pinscher 26 years ago, about the same time he started in this industry. Jim enrolled the dog in obedience classes, and one thing led to another. The dog ended up competing in dog shows, and Jim ended up an instructor in a dog obedience school.

Today Jim — besides his full time job at a distributorship — shows dogs competitively and teaches five dog obedience classes per week. What are the tricks to teaching dogs? “I teach the people and the people teach their dogs,” Jim said. “Dogs are easy to train — people are tough. Dogs are only as good as their owners.”

Jim’s favorite canine students are the beginners, typically six-month-old dogs. Before a dog is enrolled in a 10-week beginner training class, it might start out in “puppy kindergarten.” (Puppy kindergarten is strictly for socialization purposes — there are no corrections in this curriculum, just the chance to be around other dogs.) Some dogs go through beginner and intermediate training, and then progress to a “novice” class, an official competitive category in American Kennel Club (AKC) dog shows.

I asked if there are any dogs that just can’t be trained. Jim said he has only encountered one: a dog that attacked him in the middle of class.

Too much friendliness can also be a training issue. “I was showing my first Golden Retriever in an AKC Novice competition. My dog was a friendly one, and it took one look at the judge and jumped on her, wanting to play. We were disqualified from the competition — rightly so,” Jim said.

Gary Gatz, a return goods clerk for the Nilfisk-Advance Machine Co., in Plymouth, Minn., is also a part-time dog trainer. Twenty-five years ago, Gary got married and his wife got a dog. The dog was uncontrollable, so Gary’s wife enrolled it in obedience school. Later, while she was preparing to enter the dog in a competition, Gary challenged her saying, “I can do that better than you can.” So Gary, with no experience, entered the show with the dog. When they won second place, Gary decided to get his own dog. Now, the Gatz’s are part owners of a dog training school, and compete in 15 to 20 dog shows per year. Sounds like a lot, but that’s down from the 40 shows they used to do every year.

Gary usually trains Golden Retrievers, but now he’s training a dog that was so crazy that nobody wanted him. Gary told a friend, “If you find a dog with a lot of ‘fire,’ I’d be interested in working with it.” Three years later, the guy gave Gary a 55-pound Aussie. “It was wild,” Gary said. “The first night, it jumped on the counters, tables, kennels, television… everywhere but the floor.” Two years later, that dog — Rocky — ranked in the top 10 United Kennel Club (UKC) winners in the United States in the novice class.

I knew it wasn’t a fair question, but I asked both Jim and Gary if they had an all-time favorite dog. Neither of them had to think too hard. For Jim, it was a female Doberman Pinscher named Kayla. “We were breeding Shelties at the time, and she’d get in the cage and mother the puppies,” he said. That same dog won two dog championships in a row. “She was the highest-scoring dog in a competition in Appleton, Wis., one day and the highest-scoring dog in an Oshkosh, Wis., show the next day.” Jim’s current dog in training is Racer, a Golden Retriever.

Gary’s favorite dog is Royce, a 14-year old Golden Retriever, who was once an American/Canadian obedience trial champion, and, according to Gary, “could just about walk on water.”

Dog obedience training, it is said, should result in a dog being a well-trained, enjoyable, and useful companion, just like Kayla and Royce. I wonder if they could teach our two cats a thing or two.

Gretchen Roufs, a 14-year janitorial supply industry veteran, owns Auxiliary Marketing Services of San Antonio, Texas. To suggest someone you think should be featured in “freetime,” contact her at (210) 601-4572.




POSTED ON: 6/1/2001