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Canwest News Service
It's a blustery November morning, and Brad Pattison is on a roll. After getting down on all fours at Victoria's Clover Point, he playfully sniffs a mound of wet grass before biting into a gnarled, windswept tree branch.
"Man, that stick was salty!" he quips, his voice muted by a symphony of seagulls and crashing waves.
The dog advocate and life coach is here to shoot three Season 6 episodes of At the End of My Leash, the series that airs on Slice network – and as In the Dog House on Animal Planet – and in more than 35 countries.
His mission: to help dogs and owners overcome behavioural problems by attacking their causes.
"I put a lot of emphasis on 'tomorrow,' " Pattison says. "Today is one thing, and I can't change the past, so let's stop making excuses for our inept behaviour. If we fail our dog, then we shouldn't be a dog owner."
Pattison, whose use of body language to communicate with dogs is a sight to behold, doesn't mince his words. And although his revolutionary, in-your-face approach has its detractors, he gets amazing results.
"People might get pissed off, but they get blown away with the kind of dogs they have at the end of the day."
A common problem, he says, is when owners treat their dogs like children. "They get into their head that suddenly this four-legged creature is a two- legged person that needs to be showered with treats," he says. "They're setting themselves up for disaster."
On this day, he's working with one of the three Victoria subjects whose episodes will air next spring.
Cathy has such a stressful life, it's affecting the behaviour of her pit- bull cross Mia, and her relationship with Nando, her boyfriend struggling to find his role in the training process as she tries to cope with Mia's unruliness. The producers are keeping the couple's last names under wraps.
After sending Cathy off to yoga class to mellow out, Pattison reunites with the couple to help her appreciate Nando's supportiveness, and to involve them in training exercises for her pooch.
"They haven't been able to spend as much time with the dog because of moving and other stresses, so the dog was pretty badly behaved, first thing," producer Matthew Kershaw explained. "It's very energetic and needs lots of exercise and stimulation."
Mia is endearing and playful – a surprise, thanks to negative stereotyping.
"We're also breaking the myth of the pit bull," Kershaw says. "Brad's philosophy is 'a dog is a dog.' They're all basically the same and can be trained the same way, but pit bulls are stigmatized."
It has made matters worse for Cathy, who has discouraged Mia from meeting other dogs to avoid being misjudged.
"That makes Mia even more curious to meet other dogs," Kershaw says. "Part of the training is to expose it to other dogs."
Two roving cameras and sound units shadow every move. It can be a challenge when dog-walking locals suddenly enter the picture – such as a gentleman whose Rottweiler became fast friends with Mia, who's already showing signs of improvement.
The passerby signs a release form in case he appears on camera.
Although Pattison's the star, he's supported by a cast of canines.
"They're here to help dogs learn proper behaviour," says dog wrangler Leslie Reid, referring to Gage, her gentle black German shepherd, and Bisco, an Irish terrier Pattison once trained.
Without getting into spoilers, he seems to like this couple he says has good role-model potential. "It happens pretty much every episode, because I want to see people succeed after I see them going through hell."
It's when dog owners aren't willing to put in the work that Pattison relies most on tough-love tactics.
"Some people just say, 'I'm not doing anything,' and that's when I have to raise the hammer."
Writer-director Heather McCrae says an episode takes a month to produce. There's a rough scenario, but no script, and McCrae keeps things on track through story meetings with two script supervisors "who log everything that happens on the show."
The laborious casting process is critical.
"A bad-dog scenario isn't enough," Kershaw says. "We need a troubled relationship, and something we haven't done before."
Why did they decide to shoot here?
"It's a very dog-oriented community, and the climate helps," Kershaw says. "People have larger dogs they can take out."
Victoria Times Colonist
mreid@tc.canwest.com
Illustration:
* Colour Photo: Purple Dog Media / Nando, left, and Cathy get some pointers about handling Mia from Brad Pattison during shooting of At the End of My Leash.
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Brad Pattison is one of the worst trainers to achieve notoriety in quite a long time. His punishment based approach to dog training harkens back to the old whip and stick trainers of days gone by.
What he calls respect is nothing more than fear and the compliance he gets is because the dog want to avoid the punisher in this he is using the same methods he criticizes about positive reinforcement.
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except instead of working for something (ie the reinforcers) they are working to avoid something (the punishment). Given the long list adverse effects that come with punishment base methods, there is no excuse to train this way.
Finally Brad Pattison has never put a single title on a dog because his fear based methods would work in the real world.
Please continue discussion on the forum: link