05/2024
From time to time people ask about my background training dogs.
While I have trained my own, and helped others train theirs for almost 40 years, I decided to take that experience to the Fort Smith River Valley, under the business name of ‘Mark’s Dog Leash Living’.
How I Got Started In Dog Training
Early in my dog training experience, I worked with professional trainers, who owned a pet supply business, and had a boarding and training facility in Fort Smith, Arkansas.
My first official training with professionals was with a Rottweiler, named J.J., in a multiple dog, class setting.
Dogs would learn basic obedience, including heel, sit, down, stay, recall, on and off leash heel and recall. All while working alongside other people and their dogs. In this setting, sometimes people would take turns. Other times we would be working our dogs within a couple of feet of others. I worked multiple dogs this way.
My Break From Traditional Dog Training
But I found that some of the methods the trainers were prescribing for serious reactivity correction were unacceptable, in their effect on the health and safety of the dogs.
As I worked and studied my own dogs and others, I proved that I could produce better dog training results with what I worked out personally, rather than the overly-harsh methods from other trainers.
This led to my start of an adventure that has lasted all these decades.
Decades seeking out all kinds of dogs, especially big, hard charging Rottweilers, German Shepherds, Doberman Pinchers, Pit Bulls, Labradors, Mastiffs, standard Poodles, a Hybrid Wolf Dog.
Those along with rescue mixed breeds that included great dane mixes, shepherd mixes, boxer mixes, pit bull mixes, and about as many combinations as you can think of.
In the mix were small dogs, Papillion, Lhasa Apso, Sheltie, and numerous small mixed breeds.
All dogs. Some soft, easy going. Others hard, stubborn. Some steady. Some violently reactive.
All trainable.
In getting these dogs, showing them off, getting a reputation, people began approaching me for advice on their dogs.
So, I set about helping them when I could find the time. I began looking at, evaluating others’ dogs and the owners’ handling of them.
While I never cared to compete, I worked and trained multiple Rottweilers to show-quality obedience ability.
My Own Advocacy For Training Dogs For How You Live
But my training developed naturally into taking basic obedience and advanced obedience into what I know as ‘Living Training’ or ‘Dog Training For How You Live’ – My business tagline now.
In considering starting a dog training business, I first presented all training of my dogs (one in particular – part of my logo) for three years.
Since I put up and officially started the business 7 1/2 months before this writing, I have had no one question my ability to train. No push-back on any training tools or methods. The evidence of success is right in front of anybody who wants to look.
The groundwork for that was laid with what I put out on social media in the form of written posts, pictures, videos. Working with dogs, proving what works, while keeping them engaged and energetic.
All out in the open, public presentations, proof that I can teach people to train their dogs.
I continue to put out that content today, as my own dogs develop in training, with all being mixed breeds, originally rescues. Those are a German Shepherd mix, a pit bull/lab, and a Rottweiler/Pyrenees.
The two that are most heavily trained are the Shepherd mix, and the Rott/Pyrenees. The second of those two is the current center of my training displays and promotion.
That, combined with some work with clients is how it all progressed up to today.
The vast array of breeds I have owned and trained, and the ones I have helped others with, is what makes me uniquely suited to being able to spend a few minutes observing a person and their dog, and being able to determine the course of action to take.
A plan going in, with the ability to adjust to a dog’s unique characteristics and personality.
A love of dogs. An adult lifetime of training them.
And that intent for the rest of my life going forward.
~Mark Rogers