John enlightens us with some frustrations and rewards of dog training from his Air Force days:

Back in the beginning of my dog training career, back in the "Green Dog" days, the Army was first introducing itself into our world and we Airmen were tasked with helping to train the newly assigned Army guys to be dog handlers. Problem was, the Army sent us Sergeants and Staff Sergeants who outranked us Airmen by 2 or 3 rankings. Therefore, we had to temper ourselves when dealing with them. We had to walk the fine line between getting their dogs to work for them and appearing as if we were not abusing our position.

For the most part, the Army guys were initially assigned somewhat easy dogs to train. They were given dogs who, on first glance, looked like ready learners and were neither too timid nor too headstrong. The idea was to let them learn slowly as they went along. Occasionally, a dog would start to show troublesome signs such as being a handler eater - a dog who would attack his trainer instead of following a command. One such an instance happened with a Sgt. Gartner, a brand new assignee who was working with his first canine. I was tasked with being his 'helper'.

All was going well until we started the DOWN command. His dog just plain out would not go down. We tried the standard leash/collar tug down to no avail. The dog would freeze up and stay in the SIT. We tried Down from end of leash a few times until the dog jumped Gartner and sent him to the hospital with a few puncture wounds. I and our supervisor talked about re-assigning the dog but Gartner, much to my surprise, refused such a move and vowed to continue on with the dog. I suggested trying the DOWN by threading the leash through a chain link fence - NO GOOD. We tried using two leashes - NO GOOD.

We tried being very hard, being very soft, being very loud, and being very soothing - same results. We tried treats, tried food depping him, and tried over feeding - nope. I even had Sgt. Gartner run miles in the hot Texas sun trying to tire the animal out. Much to my total respect, Gartner tried his best - but nothing was working ! I began to feel I was failing him.

After discussing this with my fellow Airmen dog trainers, I was determined to try one more thing before admitting defeat. The next day, I and Gartner went to the drill pad and drilled. And drilled. And drilled. We did SIT after SIT after SIT. STAY after STAY after STAY. COME after COME after COME. I had him run the dog all over the place. We allowed the animal no rest. Finally, I had Gartner place the dog into a SIT in the middle of the pad. WE positioned the dog so that its back faced the sun. I had Gartner go out to end of leash and stand there and wait. And wait. And wait. Until at last the dog got so fatigued, it started to lay down. IT STARTED TO LAY DOWN! Gartner was instructed to give the hand and voice command slowly and smoothly as the dog was already doing it. We only had to do this routine 5 or 6 times over the next few days, before the dog was DOWNing perfectly enough to be certified and sent to the field as a Military Working Dog.

The moral to this story is: do not be too concerned over HOW you get a dog to do something for you, but rather focus in on WHAT you want the dog to do. Each and every dog is unique. What works well with one dog might not be appropriate for another. Good dog trainers know when to modify and adapt their techniques depending on how the dog is reacting.