victor’s story
LET ME TELL YOU HOW IT ALL GOT STARTED…
From that point on there were only two things that I wanted to do with my life: become an Optician, or a dog trainer, better yet, train Seeing Eye dogs. Well, the optician won for awhile, but I never stopped. Training dogs is my passion. My first trainer was a gentleman named Larry Heist. He was the owner and trainer of one of the dogs featured in the Walt Disney movie “Big Red”. The dog was an Irish setter. Larry taught me a lot about training for movies verses household obedience, food or corrective discipline, Which is better and why?
Then, graduation day came and my Dad said, “Are you ready to go?” I said, “No, I don’t want to be embarrassed in front of all the adults,” so we didn’t go. Two weeks later I saw one of the ladies from the class in a store and she asked me, “How come you didn’t come to graduation?” I told her the truth, “I didn’t want to embarrass myself in front of all the adults.” I told her that my dog was not as good as the rest of the dogs. After all, I was only thirteen you are all adults how could I compete with grown-ups? When she told me Larry was very upset that I did not come to graduation, I asked why and she said that Larry said my dog was the only one that would have graduated.
In my early twenties, I started working with 4 PAWS K-9 academy. 4 PAWS main training was more for personal protection than obedience, but most important was a calm, friendly, loving family pet. I learned a lot about instincts and body language, fear and aggression, what to do and what not to do. Every year we would do demonstrations at the L.A. county fair to show how a loving family pet can be so obedient and also protect you. I was with 4 PAWS for almost five years.
