Tamar Geller unleashes love for the family dog
words JO PERRY

 

tamar Geller is best known as an inspiring and effective “life coach” for dogs and their human families. She’s also a visionary entrepreneur who launched the first cage-free dog day care facility in Los Angeles. Her nonprofit foundation, The Loved World, includes two programs, Another Chance for Love and Operation Heroes & Hounds, which rehabilitate shelter dogs by uniting them with at-risk youth and wounded soldiers. Geller is a tireless advocate for the humane treatment of animals through her work with rescue organizations, the Best Friends Animal Sanctuary, and as an advisor to the Humane Society of the United States.

Geller shared her sensible, affectionate and effective training methods in her pioneering 2007 book, The Loved Dog: The Playful Nonaggressive Way to Teach Your Dog Good Behavior” and her DVD, “The Loved Dog Way of Training.” Geller often appears on television, most memorably when she coached Oprah Winfrey and her three exuberant golden retriever puppies on “The Oprah Winfrey Show.” She’s also the resident dog expert on “The Today Show.” An in-demand private coach, Geller numbers Ben Affleck, Hillary Swank, Natalie Portman, Larry King, Nicollette Sheridan and Owen Wilson among her celebrity clients. Delicate, movie-star glamorous, warm and quick to laugh, Geller is not what you’d expect of a former intelligence officer in the Israeli army’s elite Special Forces, or of someone who got down and dirty observing wolves in the desert. But it was her time in the army observing cruel and abusive canine training that moved Geller to create a reward and game-based training method modeled on the affectionate and playful interaction she saw between wolves and their young.

Geller aims to help dogs become loved, understood and respected members of their “packs” or families, and to teach dogs and their people “good manners.” If you are considering bringing a dog into your family, Tamar Geller has a lot to tell you.

Ditch your fantasies and be willing to work: “The first thing to realize when you get a dog,” Geller asserts, “is that you are not going to find Lassie. It took five male dogs to create one Lassie.” Geller recommends thinking long and hard about what you’re willing to give. “Before you get a dog, ask yourself if you have it in you to raise another child. Ninety percent of problem behavior in dogs comes from lack of stimulation. You can’t raise a child by giving only 15 minutes each morning and each evening; the same is true of a dog. In addition to teaching, we must give a dog, as we would a toddler, constant feedback with words, with looks, with touches.”

Don’t think you already know dogs: Geller noted the three most disastrous misconceptions people have when bringing a dog into the family are “that the dog will be a toy or playmate for a child; that all dogs love children, and that a puppy will be the best choice.” Geller explained, “Sixty percent of all dogs brought to shelters are mature puppies relinquished by the owners who failed to teach them manners.” There was nothing wrong with these dogs except that the people who owned them misunderstood them and their needs. “It may be instinctual to be a parent, but it’s not instinctual to know how to raise a dog. A dog has the instinct of a wolf as well as the needs of a toddler.”