Are you a dog owner? If so, then you will undoubtedly agree that sharing your life with a dog has it's shares of ups and downs. There are wonderful moments, and then there are others that are extremely challenging for all kinds of reasons. The fact remains however, that through it all, dogs are still "man's best friend" in my opinion...it is just harder to make friends with some dogs than with others.

Currently we share our home with a very smart, and very loving little miniature schnauzer. Although things are great with him, they weren't always. Shortly after he came to live with us, we learned that he:

1. Jumped and/or growled at every visitor to our house and barked at everything.

2. Absolutely hated going to the groomers to get clipped.

So what did we do? We did some research and spoke with our vet to discover some strategies and techniques that we could use to help make him a "good friend". Here is how we resolved these issues.

1. It took a while to help him with the growling/jumping/barking problem because, as a good little schnauzer it was very important to him to protect his territory. Unfortunately, him being territorial, meant he was scaring all of our friends and neighbors. So we tried tons of training methods to teach him better manners: reward systems, squirting water, coins in a can, newspapers, you name it, we probably tried it. Nothing really worked. So we discussed the problem with our vet who suggested a remote training collar. Not really knowing anything about how they worked, we did more research and finally decided to try the Innotek Ultrasmart Remote Trainer. Perhaps the thing we liked the best about it was that it had 9 different stimulation levels so that we had a lot of flexibility in controlling the settings, so that we could always give the least amount of stimulation that would be effective. In addition there is a tone-only training option that provides even more versatility. We also decided to get the Innotek Ultrasmart Remote Trainer, 300 yds. which allows for training within a 300 yard range. What was the best thing about the Innotek Ultrasmart? It worked. In no time at all, our little dog learned how to not scare our guests, and we were able to have visitors again!

2. Helping our dog overcome the stress of going to the groomers each month involved not really training him. but training us. We figured that if we could learn to do his monthly clip at home, we would be able to help him feel more comfortable, and be able to get the job done quicker, making him happier as well. So we invested in the Oster A5 Turbo Clipper, and it has made all the difference in the world. We chose these clippers because as an Oster product, we knew they would last forever, so we wouldn't have to buy new ones each year, and because of the reviews on what a smooth, quiet, and fast job they did. I will say that we have been very pleased with how the Oster A5 Turbo Clipper works: other than it getting warm, which we easily solved with cleaning and changing out the blades and using Oster Kool Lube, it has been so easy to do his clipping. Once we learned how to do home grooming, voila, no more schnauzer trauma! In fact, since our dog gets a treat at the end, I actually think he likes getting clipped each month.

Dog ownership should be a joy, and it truly can be, even if there is some work to be done to get to that point. For us, we had some help from the Innotek Ultrasmart Remote Trainer, and the Oster A5 Turbo Clipper. But it has been so worthwhile for us to have made the investment in our time to learn how to use these simple tools. Life with and for our little schnauzer is so much better, and as a result we have been rewarded with a happy little friend whose desire to please, affection and intelligence make him the best friend anyone could want!