Dogs go through hoops for Mountain View trainers
By Austin Bouffard
Rappahannock News 06/19/2003 

In between the Amissville Baptist Church and the post office, a driveway leads to Averill and Ken Ring's Mountain View Dog Training--Obedience and Agility.

On their property behind the church is a large outdoor training facility. It's filled with different courses including jumps, see-saws, hoops, tunnels and other obstacles for dogs to learn to conquer, given the right motivation.

"Dogs are very receptive and easy to train if you know what makes them tick," said Averill Ring.

For the past ten years, the Rings have been running Mountain View and finding out just what makes dogs tick.

"If you can motivate a dog you can teach them anything," said Ring. "But finding out what makes some dogs tick is a real challenge. It's not us. It's up to the owner. If the owner can't find what it is (that motivates their dog) then they say, 'Well, I love my dog as a couch potato.'"

Ring, 59, confesses that she owns 12 dogs: four Australian Shephards, one Border Collie and seven Saint Bernards. Even though some of them compete, they are all couch potatoes if the couch is big enough.

For 30 years, Ring said she bred and showed Saint Bernards and has a few she kept. She used to run a Saint Bernard rescue operation which is one of the reasons she has so many dogs. Some of them never found a home.

Somewhere along the line when she was training her Saint Bernards, she did a seminar with Ian Dunbar, a well known behaviorist, and he used positive reinforcement such as cookies and treats to train dogs.

"I thought," said Ring, "I can do that." She said she worked at a vet's office and conducted classes there, and eventually she began doing classes in Rappahannock. Since 1992, Mountain View has run obedience classes for dogs.

Dogs tend to have short attention spans, she said, and the shorter the training session, sometimes the better. By short, she means two minutes of training at a time. She said it helps to integrate training with their home life.

"I really enjoy dealing with dogs and people too and getting people to understand the relationship between them and their dogs. . . to see how much fun it can be. I like to see what happens when they start communicating because communicating with another species is rare and really special," she said.

In 1996, while attending an American Kennel Club show in Philadelphia the Rings saw agility for the first time. "That was the end," Ring paused to laugh, "and the beginning."

Ring said there are currently five freelance instructors training at her facility. Those instructors are Cathy Hughes, Holly Hammerle, Linda Vance, Verne Foster and Patty Lane. The general rule for classes is five dogs per instructor.

She said Mountain View sometimes has waiting lists for classes but they usually just try to find more instructors.

Mountain View has a wide range of dog training possibilities and levels depending on the dogs. They teach obedience, which Ring said is a prerequisite for a dog going into agility. This means that the dog must know the commands: sit, down, stay, come and stay with me.

The "Family Dog" class teaches basic obedience skills for seven weeks and costs $85. The "Puppy Kindergarten" class is also for seven weeks and costs $75. "Introduction to Agility" is an introduction to the concepts and equipment used in agility; it is a six week class and costs $65.

To find information on other classes available at Mountain View, go to: http://www.mountainviewdogs.com.

Ring conducts the introductory and intermediate agility classes and her husband does AKC agility.

One recent sunny day, Ring participated as one of Holly Hammerle's advanced agility students with two of her dogs, Jolt, a Border Collie, and Frenzy, one of her Australian Shephards.

"What I do is try to provide them with challenges that we're seeing in courses," said Hammerle.

Ring added, "You have to figure out the best way to get the dog there (to the end of the course) in the least amount of time without jumping bars or going off course or refusing stuff or going under stuff they couldn't handle."

Ring said with referrals from veterinarians, Mountain View customers not only come from Rappahannock, but Fauquier, Culpeper, Gainesville and Haymarket.

One of their customers, Karen Stinnett of Jeffersonton, said she has been bringing her Border Collie, "Grace-E" to Mountain View since she was rescued as a puppy. She started in puppy agility and in the beginning had tried to get her dog to follow her hand but she would end up jumping and kissing her instead. After a year of training almost every week, her dog has reached novice level.

"She's the best trained dog I've ever had. It's just so positive. They don't want you to say 'no'," said Stinnett. "The dogs are so happy being well behaved."

Ring explained that at Mountain View they don't train by making the dog do something and saying sit. "We wait for the dog to sit and then we reinforce it; we reward it," she said.

She explained that the concept of their training is similar to that of B.F. Skinner who would use reinforcements for rats who would go through mazes.

"Behaviors that are rewarded are repeated," she continued, "and it works for anything from a cockroach up to a human being. Pay me and I will go to work. It's positive reinforcement."

©Times Community Newspapers 2003
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