Bon,
Rex is no different then any other dog trainer these days. He trained dogs for his clients and they came out and learned. Day trainers came out and threw birds and ran their dogs in the rotation.
Rex wasn't or isn't special in that regard.
Wow...Angie, gal, this whole post of yours has me rather surprised. Talk about some blanket statements... First of all, Rex was very different from many other dog trainers, even in this first regard you mention. He had a special insight to both dogs and people that not every dog trainer these days has...simply put. To say they are all about the same would not be an accurate statement.
He did have a new progressive training program that was intriguing....
Intriguing? I do hope you were trying to be coy... Since virtually every dog trainer in the country today uses at least portions of his training program and methods.
From what I understand from friends who had dogs with Rex, that training with Rex was pretty rough. He was very hard on his clients mentally and was pretty abusive verbally. Especially if you were a woman. Who nowadays would put up with that? Nor should they. People pay a lot of money to get their dogs trained, they want to learn. Not pay to be condescended to or belittled...
Really a blanket statement now. By the way, I am a woman, last time I checked, and thus from that standpoint alone your statement is inaccurate.
Rex didn't get up every morning and decide before he ever went out the door to be "very hard on his clients mentally" and to be "pretty abusive verbally" at all. Some folks never saw where he was coming from when he took a hard line...others did. If you're interested, please read what Pat Burns had to say regarding Rex...in the book, when it's done...or, I'd be glad to send that passage to you at that time if you're interested. Just one immediate thought that comes to mind. Did he take a hard line all the time, daily, hourly? For crying out loud. No. With every client, every day? No.
However, I do remember lots of mornings when he instructed me to meet him at daybreak at CL-2 so that we could train a few dogs before everyone else got there...one on one. Really a mean, heartless, cruel, abusive man, to be sure.
Not.
I know you have Lanse, Judy and Rex on a pedistal and that's all well and good. But they are a rather odd bunch in many respects....
Angie, I think that most of us in this dog game are rather odd in at least a few respects...and that includes you and me...
By the way, Rex spent and invested and poured all kinds of quality time into trainers that wanted to learn how to train. Which I believe was the subject of this thread.
Thanks for reading...hope you are doing well.
