THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, June 18, 1995 TAG: 9506140077
SECTION: REAL LIFE PAGE: K1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MICHELE SNIPE, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 112 lines
P.J. REILLY may be the runt of the litter, standing 4 feet 10 inches and weighing 95 pounds. But she is the leader of this pack.
On a recent night, the pack was a group of eight dogs and their owners all obediently following her commands.
``Leave your dogs on a `wait.' Lead off,'' the stout woman hollered during one of her classes at Canine Training Unlimited, where she is co-owner.
Reilly not only trains dogs. She works like a dog, too, often putting in 12-hour days.
``I've taught five classes and eight privates,'' she said, taking off her glasses after her last class. ``Privates'' are solo sessions that cost anywhere from $35 to $275.
At 49, Reilly has been training dogs for 30 years.
She first became interested in becoming a trainer when she brought her dog Clancy, ``who weighed 100 pounds more than I did,'' to a class.
``The trainer suggested that I became a trainer when she saw how well I did with Clancy,'' Reilly said.
She traveled around the country, and even to Canada, attending seminars and learning every method she could, she said.
Reilly opened her Virginia Beach training center 13 years ago. Since then, her techniques have become so popular that she opened a second location in Chesapeake three years ago.
About 100 dogs come for training on any given day. The center serves 650 to 750 dogs a week, she said.
Reilly gets satisfaction, not from numbers, but from training dogs whose owners are at their wits' end.
The owners come in, said Reilly, saying they can't take their dog one minute longer. ``And after training say, `Oh, we wouldn't give them up for the world.' ''
She remembered one such case. Flannigan, a soft-coated Wheaton terrier who had already bitten someone, came in for training.
The owner left him with Reilly three days in a row. The instructor sat on the floor with him, put him in her lap and shared her lunch with him through a muzzle.
``I had to make him feel as if he wasn't being challenged,'' she said.
When she felt more comfortable, Reilly said she took the muzzle off for short periods. One day, Flannigan came in and wagged his tail when he saw her.
``That's when I took the muzzle off,'' she said. ``Now, he's delighted to see everybody.''
Unless a dog has some medical problem, she said, it's trainable. In addition to obedience training, Reilly has also trained dogs for the hearing impaired, show dogs, police dogs and television dogs.
Reilly is concerned because, she said, dogs have gotten much tougher. ``In the last five years, we've had more biters than there were 25 years ago,'' she said.
``Sometimes you're dealing with some very naughty animals,'' she said, looking at a scar on her arm where she got 45 stitches from a bite.
Even so, ``I wouldn't like anyone to think that I didn't give every dog a chance,'' she said. She's been bitten 20 to 30 times.
Dogs that are bred to do something in particular, such as Huskies, are sometimes more challenging to train than others, she said.
It's hard to undo their inherent training, Reilly said. Working breeds like Doberman pinschers and collies are easier.
If she had one wish, the instructor said she would get every dog into training at 8 weeks old. Reilly charges $60 for a six-week kindergarten class, and $75 for an 8-week beginners' program.
``If you wait longer, they get attitudes and some start biting,'' she said.
But even if dogs are naughty, the trick is to be kind because being mean makes it worse, Reilly said.
``Patience is a top priority, with people and dogs,'' she said.
Instructors have to train dogs while encouraging owners not to get frustrated if their dog does something wrong.
``We used to have a graduation, but some owners would leave here in tears if their dog didn't do something right,'' Reilly said. ``That's why both the owner and the dog need lots of encourage-ment.''
Dog owner Tammy Bures, who is in her second year with Canine Training, said Reilly is patient and understanding.
``She realizes that it takes different things to make different dogs work,'' she said.
Reilly's success results from enjoyment and dedication to her work, said Lisa-Marie Janotka, Reilly's daughter and co-owner of the business.
``You can watch her and you know,'' she said.
Although Reilly is a confessed dog lover, she only has one ``little old girl'' at home, a Great Dane.
``I used to have 15 when I was breeding, but now I have all the dogs in my classes,'' she said, ``and that's all I need.''
Despite her history with Great Danes, Reilly's favorite dog is a Doberman because ``they are in tuned to their owners and they pick up signals others don't,'' she said.
Reilly has never owned one because, ``I've always had somebody else's dog,'' she said with a deep-throated laugh.
But she doesn't complain because any dog's love is unconditional, she said.
``They don't care where you live or how much money you have,'' Reilly said. ``And they're happy to see you when you get home.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo
RICHARD L. DUNSTON/Staff
P.J. Reilly works with Ruger, an English wolfhound owned by Cindy
Soldal of Chesapeake.
by CNB