Hood River is a great place for dogs and dog owners, with plenty of hiking and recreation opportunities and a wonderful dog-friendly attitude exhibited by many local businesses.
Some dogs, however, need some work to curb their bad behaviors when they’re in public (or at home) and oftentimes, their masters need some training as well. The dogs may chew too much, are aggressive, or run away despite being called. Others have puppies that just need to start off on the right paw with some proper obedience training, or dogs that just need someone to take them on an adventure while their owners are cooped up at work.
Since last fall, many of those people have been taking their four-legged canine friends to Matt Luchsinger, who is the founder and owner of NW Balanced Dog Training in Hood River. As the business’ name suggests, Luchsinger takes a balanced approach in his training, focusing on both the mental and physical training of the animals in an approach, that, judging by the testimonials on the business’ page, have proven highly successful. From puppy training to dealing with aggressive dogs, Luchsinger states on NW Balanced Dog Training’s website: “There’s no dog that we can’t handle,” but reminds owners that, “…it’s up to you to make the change!”
Luchsinger hasn’t been a full-time dog trainer for long, but he’s owned and been around since he was a kid growing up in the hilly region of Central New York. His wife, Sarah Breeze, also works with animals as a certified vet technician at the All Animal Care Clinic in Hood River and the Tanasbourne Veterinary Emergency clinic in Beaverton.
“I grew up on a large farm in Tully, (N.Y.) so we always had a dog, if not two, and horses and cows, so I kind of grew up with them,” he says.
After graduating Tully High School in 2003, Luchsinger moved out to Hood River to ski, although he grew up playing lacrosse and passed up opportunities to play at the collegiate level. Lacrosse, he notes, is a lifestyle back east, where “kids are literally raised with a stick in their hand.” (Side note: while dog training is his full-time job, Luchsinger also serves as the head coach for the Hood River Valley High School boys lacrosse team, who saw success this year with the team’s first-ever Cascade Cup championship win.)
Luchsinger spent his time skiing and working at various board shops around town such as Second Wind and Big Winds. His path to dog training began, however, in 2010, when he went to the Hukari Animal Shelter and adopted Buck, a 7-month-old pit bull/American bulldog mix.
“I started getting into training with him right away because I wanted him to be a good ambassador for the breed and I knew with that breed being so powerful that I had to train him,” he says.
But Luchsinger needed help, as he says Buck “missed a prime age in his socialization,” and had issues with aggression and getting along with other dogs. Luchsinger went through multiple trainers and while their instruction helped some, Luchsinger felt he “never got the results I wanted,” and didn’t agree with their methods. Instead, Luchsinger did his own research, reviewing trainers from all different parts of the country, found trainers he liked, and took classes from them to help learn how to train Buck.
For Luchsinger, he felt the problem was the improper focus on treats.
“A lot of trainers, they want to use treats to get the dogs really excited and away from the situation, where I focus on a state of mind,” he explains. “Especially when a dog is aggressive or dog-reactive, we want to get that dog to get calmed down, we don’t want to get that dog jacked up. I felt like a lot of the training was, ‘Oh, we have to give them treats! Give them treats! Give them treats!’ And what I found was that every time we were doing that, we were rewarding a bad behavior, even if that dog turned away from that other dog, we’re still rewarding that state of mind where they’re excited and adrenalized, where I wanted him to be calm and relaxed.”
Luchsinger found success with Buck, able to resolve or ameliorate many of his issues, and began helping friends with their dogs as well. Eventually, he felt like he could train dogs full time and “took a leap” by deciding to open his own business, noting that he felt like “there were enough people who wanted help… and there were certainly enough dogs” in the Gorge. The business has grown by leaps and bounds, with clients coming from as far away as Eugene, he says.
Luchsinger employs a variety of methods to train his animals — far too many to go into here — but notes that you “have to find what motivates the dog to be successful,” whether its toys or food or something else. He only has to teach a few styles of commands (down, sit, place, recall) and stresses the importance of leaving emotion out of training, noting that a “calm dog is a great dog.” When teaching a new command, Luchsinger says he doesn’t use his voice at all, but rather body language or pressure, appealing to dogs’ natural communication methods. When a dog begins to learn a command, Luchsinger will then gradually add more and more distractions, simulating real-world scenarios, and teaching the dog to stay calm amidst chaos. Oftentimes, you can see Luchsinger around town, doing his training right in public areas so that the dogs can get used to the distractions.
Most of his classes are boot-camp style, where the animals live with Luchsinger 24/7 from anywhere from two weeks to five weeks if it’s a special case. And when the dog is reunited with its owner (after the owner gets some instruction from Luchsinger as well), and both animal and human are able to have a happy life together… well, for Luchsinger, it doesn’t get much better than that.
“Being able to transform their dog from wanting to take off and run away nervous, fearful, to walking great on a leash and improving not just the dog’s life, but the human’s life — the reward out of that is just amazing,” he says. “It’s an awesome, awesome feeling.”
Check out videos of Luchsinger’s training in action on NW Balanced Dog Training’s Facebook page: www.facebook.com/nwdogtraining.
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