Cody Almost Goes Bye-Bye

Things were going well. Sandra was enjoying having Cody in the house with her. It helped the days go better. Most of the time he would just hang out, laying on the ground. Occasionally, he would have a burst of energy. Sandra learned quickly to take him out to the backyard, play with him there and burn it out of him.
One day Sandra called me at work crying her eyes out. Obviously, this rapidly got my complete attention. She finally was able to tell me that Cody bit her. As I mentioned in an earlier post I am very protective of Sandra and for my dog to do this to her... Well, let's just say I was very furious.
I told her I was on the way. As I was gathering my stuff I told my business partners I had to go, that Cody just bit Sandra.
I won't say how fast I was driving, but lets just say I made it home in record time. By the time I got home she was calmer and wisely said it wasn't as bad as it seemed earlier. I am glad she said so because I was about ready to do a rambo on Cody.

Apparently, Cody was having one of his energy bursts, was running between our bedroom and the living room. With his mouth open, like he always does when he is running around, he got too close to Sandra and his mouth/teeth made contact with her leg. What scared her was that she could not control him when she told him to stop. This, combined with his teeth making contact with her leg (he did break skin) was what caused her to lose it.
She was justifiably scared of Cody, but mainly because she did not know how to control him. We needed to help her (and me) learn how to get him to obey. This would let him be himself, but we would control him.
So, I got on the internet and started doing some quick searching for a dog trainer. After looking at a few I called Southland Dog Training. I am so glad that they were the ones I was chose. I filled out a form on their web page and sent it. Less than 10 minutes later the owner, Vince, called me. It was nice to get someone that was not interested in just getting my money, do some stuff with my dog and never see or hear from them again. The phone call took time. He asked me why I called, what had happened. He wanted as much information as I could give him. Then he proceeded to ask me about things that I had not thought about before hand. He wanted to know everything he could about us as well as the dog so that he knew how to approach the plan of action.
Only after he was satisfied with the information we were able to give him did he propose the plan of action. He forwarded the information to the actual trainer that would come by the house. Later that day the trainer, Christie, called and we set up the schedule. She would stop by once a week for six weeks.
Those six weeks were great! She did not train the dog. She spent the time to train us on how to work with Cody to be the one in control. We were the ones that needed training. It was great. She was available anytime we needed her throughout the week.
We were so pleased with the success of the training that we have gone back to them for any other training we needed with our other dogs. We are very pleased with the work that Southland does. In fact, when we are at the dog park we are approached frequently by people wanting to know how we got our dogs to be so obedient. I tell them two things: I am the alpha and the training we received from Southland. I have even spoken to people at Petsmart while the were looking for a training collar. I have their business cards with me nearly everywhere I go. They saved us from the potential of getting rid of our first and best dog. For this we will always be grateful.