By Sara Poirier Correa
Sentinel Business Reporter
Obedience training is more than just teaching a dog to sit or fetch for Westchester, N.Y.-based behaviorist Jack DiBiccari; it’s a way to make man’s best friend everyone’s best friend.
An animal lover since childhood, the former construction worker – who still works in the field from time to time – owns JACKDog, a company providing one-on-one reward-based dog training.
“My passion is to bring out the best in each and every dog I train, to create a deeper bond between them and their owner, and to motivate them to be well behaved and happy,” DiBiccari said on his website, jackdog.org.
Acting on the core principles of trust, love and respect, reward-based training and education, JACKDog aims to help dog owners and the dogs themselves.
“When you train your dog, you open up your dog’s life,” DiBiccari said, adding that he’s not averse to tackling any training situation, and would gladly refer to other resources should the case prove too extreme. With the animal’s best interest at heart, he said once a dog is a customer, he’s available anytime, should problems arise.
Of his own dogs – Rottweilers named Baby and Bella – DiBiccari said they are “everything you want in a dog.”
“They know if you’re sad; they know if you’re crying,” he said, adding that people would see how well behaved his dogs were and ask him if he could teach their dogs to be the same way.
From there the business grew, according to DiBiccari, who not only does in-home training but also socializes with the dogs around the towns in which they live so as to acclimate the pet to different environments. This includes taking dogs to parades, parks and downtown shopping areas.
However, despite his efforts, one of the biggest challenges he said he encounters in his work is a lackadaisical dog owner, adding that he wishes many owners would “do more work.”
“I think people think they don’t need to train dogs,” DiBiccari said. “There has to be a consequence for an action. It doesn’t have to be harsh and harmful but [the dogs] have to learn that ‘no, that doesn’t go here’.”
DiBiccari said his approach with the dogs is of a friendly yet assertive nature, and he often talks to disobeying animals as if they were children who have done something bad.
“I try to make them my best friend and then go from there,” DiBiccari said of his method, which includes asserting himself as the pack leader when he walks into a room with a new trainee.
“I walk into a house and dogs know,” he said. “I don’t go in hard. I’m kind.”
DiBiccari said there’s “a timing you have to work” when reward training a dog; it’s not just a matter of repeating a command over and over.
“If I ask a dog to sit, the dog has to sit,” he said. “If they don’t sit, I gently make them sit. Don’t say sit, sit, sit.
“I try to tell people, ‘Don’t call your dog if they’re not coming to you.”
DiBiccari also said he rewards the dogs he trains with escalating prizes as they do better and better, including giving hot chicken or roast beef for a game of recall, instead of a dry dog biscuit.
“We’re so busy that we don’t think we can take 10 minutes, 15 minutes for our dog,” he said of some dog owners. “You can do so much with dogs. Do it twice a day.”
“Don’t get upset [with bad dog behavior],” DiBiccari added. “Reward your dog [for good behavior].”
He said if the training is strong enough, a dog should be able to be in a public place without fear that it will run off or cause harm to someone.
“If my dog is on the other side of the street and I say, ‘Down, stay,’ that’s important,” DiBiccari said. “‘Down, stay’ keeps you safe.
“‘Stay’ means right now, not in two minutes.”
For more about JACKDog, call DiBiccari at 914.879.8804, e-mail him at JackDiBiccari@yahoo.com or bella12834@gmail.com, or visit his website.
