Several years ago, I had the good fortune to come across Shake-A-Paw Dog training. I owned a very dominant, spayed female Alaskan Malamute -- that happened to be about 31" at the shoulder and 130 pounds.
Tala had broken most of my fingers, on several occasions, left gashes and bruises on me and blacked out my eyes on several occasions, from snout punching. A favorite game was to rip the sleep off of my shirt on a walk at the midway point. She was a problem-dog.
I called her the TalaGator most of the time. She and I had been removed or released from several obedience classes in other training facilities. Tala scared the other people in the class or she scared the trainers or she would try to neuter any intact male she came across. I tried for months to find a decent training program. I resigned myself to the that fact I had a dog who would never go out in public. I was referred to Paola and she spent months working on the pair of us. When we began we were 50' or so away from any other living thing.
The TalaGator loved to rear up on her hind legs, let out a snarl and show the world her teeth. Eventually, I had control of the dog, extreme, precise control from obedience lessons taught by Paula and her friends. I gained knowledge. But, most importantly I gained a pet. Tala and I did multiple sessions of obedience and agility training with Paola over the next few years. Tala became signal-trained, word-trained and a behaved dog. The dog could go anywhere. I gained all that from attending Paola's training classes.
Unfortunately, Tala died at 4.5 years of age from osteosarcoma. I am only grateful that I was able to attend the many sessions at Shake-A-Paw that I did, so that what time I had with the TalaGator, was as memorable as it is now. (Tanya)
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