Happy Hounds Training Instructor:
The Pet Teacher

Oakland Press - November 23, 2004

Positive attitude goes farther than punishment, trainer finds

By MARK TERRY
Special to The Daily Oakland Press

Lloyd and Riely are staring at Denise Lukacs with absolutely rapt attention.  Lukacs, 52, whose business name is The Pet Teacher, is a dog trainer whose philosophy is to use only positive reinforcement techniques.

Lloyd, a wirehaired fox terrier, is almost stone deaf, requiring a different approach from verbal commands. Lloyd's buddy, Riely, is a long-haired Lhasa apso. Riely prefers lying on tabletops to sitting at command, but today he's all attention.

Part of this is Lukacs' approach and demeanor; part of it is the bits of hot dog she's using as incentive.

She does a lot of work helping out with animals who have behavior problems at the Oakland County Animal Shelter.

"Denise has been coming here quite some time and helping us with adoptability," says Larry Obrecht, the Division Manager of the Oakland County Animal Shelter. "Our objective with Denise is to improve the adoptability of the animals in the shelter."

A lot of the animals at the shelter are there because of social problems.

"Most animals end up in animal shelters because of some behavioral issue," Lukacs says. "They may have run away because of people not being able to control them, so consequently they escaped, and the owners say, 'Let them go; I just don't care anymore.' Or out of frustration the owners turn them over to the animal shelter just because they can't figure out how to teach them."

The Oakland County Animal Shelter handles more than 9,000 animals a year, most of them strays. Lloyd and Riely were abandoned, but Obrecht adopted them.

Lukacs see it as her job to instill a set of basic social skills that will make the dogs more likely to have successful adoptions. It's a classic win-win situation: the dogs win and the new owners win.

"We want to adopt out as many animals as we can," Obrecht says. "Those issue that are relatively easy for Denise to fix, like sit and stay, we'd like her to. For more complicated issues, like separation anxiety, we can work with her to help."

Lukacs came to this career in a roundabout way. She spent more than 25 years in the corporate training world, peddling her skills to companies including General Motors, Ford, Chrysler, Parke-Davis and Warner-Lambert.

"I did any number of things," Lukacs says, "from being a project manager to a producer, to a writer and stand-up trainer and facilitator."

But she always wanted to work with dogs. About 20 years ago, she studied to become a dog trainer.

"But it was in the traditional methods - yanking, spanking, choke chains - and I could not do it," she says. "So I stopped."

Years later, she came across the world of positive-reinforcement training.

"Positive reinforcement allows you to communicate with the dog by using your body language," Lukacs says, "combined with simple words, by using, generally, a lure method and a reward."

The lure can be a food treat or a toy, but whatever it is, it's a motivation for the dog.

She's working with Riely, who really, really wants that bit of hot dog. The dog quivers with excitement, but remains sitting. Denise stands in front of him, left hand flat in a signal indicating "sit." Her right hand hides the bit of hot dog.

Dogs, Lukacs says, "are much more sophisticated in using body language than humans."

By working with what motivates a dog and by rewarding good behavior rather than by negative reinforcement - punishing misbehavior - Lukacs has had remarkable success training dogs.

"I think they learn much quicker," she says, "and it's happier because they want to repeat it."

Aside from her work with the Oakland County Animal Shelter, Lukacs runs a dog training business. In addition to group classes, Lukacs provides one-on-one sessions at home with the dog and its owner. Her goal is, "not just to build a business, but to make home training affordable," she says.

"And what I'm finding is that after doing six sessions, people re-up. They're enjoying the training and want to learn more."

"A lot of what she does is pretty amazing, and I'm not easily amazed," says Bob Capudean, who worked with Lukacs on a number of projects and had her train his dog, Jessie.

"Denise is like a terrier," he adds. "She kind of digs in and doesn't let go."

Source: The Daily Oakland Press

Click here to see the article in The Daily Oakland Press