Ross Lindy: Unleashing the Power of Pawsitive Communication in Dog Training

Ross Lindy: Unleashing the Power of Pawsitive Communication in Dog Training

Uncover the secrets of pawsitive canine communication and training with Ross Lindy, Head Dog Trainer for On-Command Canine Training, in this heartwarming episode of Delaware County's Good Neighbor Podcast with host Bob Blaisse. From the start, Bob digs into the delightful world of specialized dog training and behavior modification programs this Delco original Good Neighbor Business offers pet owners now across the southeastern PA tri-state area. You'll hear how the tender bonds between dogs and their owners is the reason Ross Lindy began his journey from dog training intern to a dog whisperer. This isn't just another tale of entrepreneurial spirit; it's a deeper look into the relationships that shape our community and the four-legged friends that make our houses homes.

Prepare for an enlightening chat that brings to light the complexities of dog behavior, the impact a well-trained pooch has on a family, and the greater good of our neighborhoods. Hear the founder of On-Command Canine Training explain the pressing issues many dogs face, such as separation anxiety, particularly after the COVID-19 pandemic had many dog owners being home all day to the delight of their pups, only to return to the office in time. Ross provides invaluable insights to understand and train each dog, utilizing each dog's unique personality as the starting point. Whether you're a dedicated dog lover, a new dog owner or simply searching for that unmistakable Delco vibe that extends to our Delco pets and all suburban counties and communities outside of Philadelphia and beyond, this episode offers an engaging blend of Good Neighbor Business Owner Ross Lindy's On-Command Canine Training expertise with his passion for training happy and obedient canine companions.

Website: OnCommandCanineTraining.com
Call: 484-424-9364

--- About The Show--- Good Neighbor Podcast is a spotlight on local businesses in and around Delaware County, PA (“Delco” ) and Beyond...  The executive producer and host, Bob Blaisse, is a community sponsorship advocate, business branding specialist, and publisher of several hometown magazines, including: Newtown Square Friends & Neighbors, Marple Friends & Neighbors and Newtown Edgmont Friends & Neighbors, mailed monthly to more than 12,000 homes in Western Delaware County, PA, and also available for reading online.
 

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:00

Hello, delco. This is Michael Barkan, welcoming you to the Good Neighbor podcast, where fans of local businesses and their neighbors come together. It's my pleasure once again to introduce my friend and neighbor, our host Bob Lacey.

Speaker 2 0:18

Well, thank you, michael Barkan, for that introduction and everybody, welcome again to this new episode of the Good Neighbor podcast and those of you who are regular listeners. You know we come out of Delaware County, pennsylvania, in the southeast corner of Pennsylvania. We lovingly refer to this area as Delco Short for Delaware County, and it's a real vibe and I'm finding over the weeks that more and more people are aware of Delco. We get some calls from people who are not even in Delco anymore but they found it and they're just glad to hear businesses that they're familiar with. And Today we're very happy to have a business that kind of grew up around our area here in Delaware County but then expanded because of the nature of what they do. This is a dog training company and the owner is with us here today, ross Lindy.

Speaker 2 1:12

But before I bring Ross to the stage, I just want to mention that when we analyze these Good Neighbor podcast nominations, you know they go right to the front of the line if their service or product is something that almost everybody Loves, uses or appreciates. And who doesn't like a well-trained dog, who doesn't love dogs? Let me bring to the stage here the owner, founder, the head trainer of on-command canine training Ross Lindy, hello Ross, hi Bob, thank you for having me. Sure, welcome to the program, ross. And, and, as I mentioned, your company kind of originated in its earlier years in Delaware County and Now it's gone beyond, as we like to say. But from a perspective of beginning, what was the earliest Reason, need, purpose, why you Started a dog training company? Did you have a dog that needed training, or was it something else?

Speaker 3 2:08

Yeah, it wasn't. I didn't have a dog that needed training, but I've been around dogs my whole life and I understand the need for training. So I just kind of I to be honest with you I sort of fell into it. I Was doing some other work at the time and I had started. I started interning with some local dog trainers just because I was interested in it and that kind of became more and more interesting to me. So I decided to go to school for it and Eventually started a business. That was kind of it started off as a side business, but eventually that side business grew to the point where I had to stop the other things that I was doing and Just took off from there.

Speaker 2 2:51

That's great, ross. I have to ask for those of us who have had dogs and we've had dogs that needed training and other ones, and maybe we're just so perfect, but we always see people who have dogs that Need training and we we pine for them a bit because they love their dog. Help us understand a little bit from a perspective of of Is every dog trainable?

Speaker 3 3:14

That's a good question. So the short answer is, yes, every dog is able to be trained. But keep in mind, every dog is an individual, so they're gonna learn at different paces. They're gonna learn differently. It's not just one thing fits all. So every time we see a dog, you know sit, stay. All of that stuff is very, is very similar. But you also have to realize it's not just training the basic commands, it's also Dogs have, you know, thoughts and feelings, just like we do. They. A lot of dogs have anxiety, especially coming off of COVID. We're dealing with a lot of separation anxiety, people that have been staying home With their dogs 24 hours a day and then suddenly they're just leaving. So you know, every dog's trainable, but you're gonna get different degrees of of Progress.

Speaker 2 4:07

So when you, when you are asked to train a dog, you're taking a kind of an inventory of where the dogs at already and how capable the dog is of moving forward with training. Now, those of us who don't know anything about training would think that the primary Toolset there is this kind of Pavlovian reward system or repetitive actions. How much of it is voice, how much of it is treats, how much of his hand signals when you try to and praise, I guess how much, how much really do you use and in what order? Where is it? Again? By dog and by dog personality.

Speaker 3 4:43

It does have a lot to do with the individual dog, but the basis of what you're asking. We start off with treats. Well, you know we're lowering the dogs. So what people don't understand is a lot of times they'll think the dog just understands language and if I repeat a word enough times, eventually the dog's gonna do what I ask him to do. So let's take sit, for example. Dogs guess when you're trying to get them to do something. A lot of times They'll guess. The number one thing they're gonna guess is sit. So people think I yelled sit at my dog 15 times and he sat. So I taught him to sit, made it and he just guessed. When you, when you take a treat and you lure him with your hand, you're creating a hand signal. It's almost like sign language. So dogs, dogs communicate through body language, so they're really gonna listen to your hand signals. Adding words to it is just kind of like a Secondary and it just makes it a little bit stronger.

Speaker 2 5:40

Nice. Well, that means, then, that someone like yourself, who's gone through some training and understanding of animals and then repetitive Pet clients to train your knowledge just keeps increasing. We're talking here today with Ross Lindy, who is the head trainer at on command canine training. They serve the whole Philadelphia area. Now, having come out of Delco Delroy County, ross Lindy's Got a company now that's expanded to the point where. How many trainers do you have now, ross, that are part of the company?

Speaker 3 6:13

Not including myself. I have three. Two of them are in Pots Town, ones in Boyer Town, and then I'm in Lansdale, like Montgomeryville area.

Speaker 2 6:21

And and your trainers will travel to the location that people are in need of having some training done. I don't know enough about the cost of training and I don't really want to get too much into the cost here on this Short time that we have, but I would like to say, does the training happen primarily Come to you? Is there classes where multiple dog owners are, or is it more private, where the your trainer will go to the dog's home and give training at private lessons? Give me a little summary on what the packages are, if you will.

Speaker 3 6:52

So basically at the moment we've got two, two basic types of packages. We have our board and train program. The trainers work out of their homes. So on the board and train program, the dog comes to the trainer for one to two weeks. He gets intensive training. We talk about it being like going away to summer camp.

Speaker 1 7:10

They're there.

Speaker 3 7:11

They're working, they're having a great time when they're not working, they're tired, they're sleeping. They come out of that with a lot of really strong knowledge. And then we also have our private lessons packages, which are super important. Because even if we do, if we do all that training for you, it doesn't mean that that dog is just going to listen to you. So it's important that you, as the owner, follow up with the training, continue where we leave off. You have to still work with them, because just because that dog listens to me doesn't mean he's going to listen to you just like that. They're going to listen differently and you've got to set that example for them. One thing to note so those are our main packages now, but we're actually getting ready to close. On a building in Telford, ba, we're opening up a new facility and in that facility we're going to have a doggy daycare. We're hoping to do group classes in there as well, so we can get a lot more training for people in socialization for their dogs.

Speaker 2 8:11

That'll be great for the people in that side of Philadelphia. It's a metro area For the listeners around the country. You hear about Philadelphia and you know there's a river there between us and New Jersey. But on the west side, what they would call the suburban part of Philadelphia, for the most part south east, in the west and northern suburbs, delaware County, as we've been talking about, chester County to the west, montgomery County a little bit to the north and Bucks County All of those counties and Philadelphia County itself make up the Philadelphia Metro region and throughout that region, as there are everywhere, there's dogs and there's good dogs and dogs that will become good dogs with trainers Trainers like Ross Lindy, who's joining us here today from the On Command K9 Training Center.

Speaker 2 8:58

Really On Command for short. Ross is a trained dog trainer. I guess you have to be licensed to be able to do this as a business too, to be able to take people's pets and board them and such perhaps. But, ross, I do want to say this If you have a dog, if someone has a dog out there, and the dog is almost hopeless even from the owner's point of view, is it still fixable?

Speaker 3 9:26

So the better way to answer that question, instead of asking if the dog is fixable, sometimes you have to look at the situation that the dog is in. Not every dog is a perfect fit for every family. So whether you can get this dog into a better place or not which we can usually get them somewhere, get them some progress the question becomes is he a good fit for this family or does he need to be at this family? You talk like when you're a kid and you've got that dog your parents are getting rid of and they say, oh, he's going off to the farm and he's not really going to a farm. Well, the reality is sometimes the farm is the best place for that dog to be. So that's one of the hardest parts of my job is to be honest with people and tell them sometimes this dog just might not be a good fit for your family.

Speaker 2 10:15

And you've mentioned it in light of that particular family or that particular home or the stress in that home. How about age Ross? Is there any truth to that saying that you cannot teach an old dog new tricks?

Speaker 3 10:26

Absolutely not. I've worked with dogs as old as 12, and I've been able to teach them new tricks. The reality becomes this the longer a dog does something a certain way, the harder it is to fix it. So the harder it is to change that action that he's got what he's used to doing. So being older makes it a little more difficult, a little more challenging, but it doesn't make it impossible.

Speaker 2 10:51

That's great the training goes on for the pet but also for the house and for the family. I would imagine, Ross, that as the dog gets certain hand signals down and certain training techniques, that you're transferring those styles and skill sets and signals not just to the owner of the dog but maybe to everyone in the family, in the household. Are those commands and that kind of training easily transferred, or does the dog prefer to see that master tell them what to do? Can a child end up using hand signals to be able to make sure the dog doesn't get up on people and that?

Speaker 3 11:25

Absolutely. We encourage families to come to the training together. It's important for everyone in the family to be consistent with everything that they're doing. One of the things I really like is so when you're working with younger kids. They have short attention spans, they get bored easily. They're not always going to pay attention, sometimes they become a distraction. But the great thing is, no matter how old they are unless they're like infants, you know you can always teach them something that's easy for them to do and it makes it more exciting.

Speaker 2 11:56

It sounds exciting. It sounds like an exciting career. Everybody loves animals, I think, and I think people love dogs generally. But they want to make sure that their dogs are well-behaved around children that they have in the house, around neighbors that they have outside the house, and they want the dog to be happy too. And a happier dog is going to come through knowing where its rewards come from and where its limits are set. And that's what I think is important and I think that Ross Lindy knows that. And the company On Command Canine Training is available to all of our families in Delaware County and beyond, montgomery County, chester County, bucks County. If you're a family in need of some help, if your dog needs some training, or if you even have a puppy that you want to start off on the right four feet, reach out to On Command Canine Training. You can reach them at that same name website, oncommandcaninetrainingcom. The number is 484-424-9364. And, ross, if they call that number, will they be able to speak with you personally?

Speaker 3 13:01

That is my personal cell phone number.

Speaker 2 13:03

yes, Great Ross Lindy, thank you for being a dog trainer and a good neighbor. You are performing a service really, not just to the owners of dogs but to those of us who love dogs but helping good dogs become better. Thank you for your service today. Thank you for being a good neighbor. Business here on the Good Neighbor Podcast.

Speaker 3 13:25

It's my pleasure. Thank you for having me.

Speaker 1 13:27

Thank you for listening to the Good Neighbor Podcast hosted by Bob Lacey. This is Michael Barkan inviting everyone to get on the Good Neighbor team. Nominate your favorite local business to be featured on an upcoming episode by going to gntdelcocom or by calling Bob at 610-557-3745.