By KEITH UPCHURCH : The Herald-Sun
kupchurch@heraldsun.com Mar 31, 2009

DURHAM -- One of the world's top dog trainers is in the Triangle this month, helping law enforcement officers who handle police dogs and offering his expertise to civilians who want to get their pooches under better control.

Marco van Hoof of The Netherlands has brought his 34 years of dog-training experience to the area for about two weeks, and is working with Mike Baker, who supervises the Durham Police Department's K9 dog unit, in a private venture to offer their dog-training advice to the public. On Saturday, they offer a fee-based seminar which helps dog owners prevent and even reverse bad behavior like biting and general aggressiveness.
Another seminar probably will be held in the Triangle next month or in May, Baker said. "What I've seen here in North Carolina is that a lot of civilians with dogs have not a clue what is going on with obedience and problem-solving,' van Hoof said. "In Holland, we have a business that has trained about 12,000 [dogs] already.' "If a dog is not well-behaved and he goes to the vet, for example, he will bite the veterinarian,' van Hoof said. His seminars "show people what we're doing in Holland, and keep problems away.'

Baker said the seminars will show dog owners "how to get these dogs into a structured life. Most of it is the structure -- Marco is excellent in foundation work. And I think where we miss a lot of it is when people get these young dogs and there's no foundation, so when the dog gets older, it just has no clue.

"If you don't give a dog guidance, it's going to make its own. And so we want to give them somewhere to head with the dog. Obviously, we aren't going to solve everyone's problem in one three-hour seminar, but we can give them the foundation to start heading in this way.' Van Hoof said he offers praise, not punishment, to motivate dogs during training.

"His training is calm techniques,' Baker said. "You don't hear any screaming coming from him. And the dogs respond. There's praise involved in it. It's positive training. It's fun for the dog.' "We've got some excellent dog trainers in the United States, but the problem is we're pretty much treating the symptoms,' Baker said. "We need to go a little bit further into the foundation part of it.' Baker said it's important to remember that dogs are not humans. "There's still the imprint of the wolf in the dog, and you kind of have to understand that,' he said. "We put human values on dog, and we can't do that. You have to have an understanding of the dog's mind -- why it does what it does

"' The biggest mistake people make is leaving their dog alone too long, van Hoof said. "That's why there are a lot of frustrated dogs right now walking around. You must see them as a child,' and give them the attention they need, he said. He said the animal pounds are overloaded with dogs because, in many cases, they haven't been trained properly. "Most dogs are biting out of fear, not meanness,' he said. Van Hoof said bad behavior can be reversed. "I think you have no bad dogs,' he said. "You have only bad influences of people.'

His Holland business trains dogs for law enforcement and private customers all over the world. 'We bring [the dogs] to our center,' he said. "We are putting the first foundations of police work in them, and when they are ready, we ship them to our customers all over the world.'

Van Hoof has been working with the Orange County Sheriff's Office and the Carrboro Police Department this month to help traintheir police-dog handlers. And he's prepared to help civilians who want their questions answered about problems dogs.

Their Web site is Trianglecanine.com "People can send us an e-mail about their dogs,' Baker said. "I've been to Holland and seen Marco's operation. It's expanding on his end, and hopefully it will start expanding on my end as well.'