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One boarder at a Valley Center facility has symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder from his time in Iraq. Another is having difficulty adjusting to life after retiring from a career in search and rescue.
But they’re not retired Marines or police officers. They’re dogs, both under the care of a behaviorist at Doggy Hydeaway in Valley Center.
“It takes a lot of patience,” said Nick Martinez, as he cautiously stood near Yogi, a black and white Canaan dog, a breed used as a guard dog at an American base in Iraq. “There’s so many triggers that can set him off.”
Martinez, 22, is earning a certificate from Animal Behavior College and trains dogs with techniques similar to those used by Cesar Millan, known on television as “The Dog Whisperer.”
“It’s bringing a dog back just to being a dog,” said Martinez’s mother, Lori Martinez, owner of Doggy Hydeaway. The name comes from Martinez’s grandparents, the Hydes, who were animal lovers.
Lori was a massage therapist for 15 years and opened Doggy Hydeaway on 10 acres off a dirt road in Valley Center about a year ago.
There are no kennels, so dogs stay behind fences in large outdoor areas or inside the Martinez home. A limit of 20 dogs can stay at one time.
Nick said he realized he had a knack for working with dogs after adopting a pit bull, Murphy, three years ago.
“He still to this day is one of the hardest dogs I ever had to work with,” he said. “He taught me a lot about myself.”
Nick works with aggressive dogs that might not be allowed at other boarding facilities. Many are rescues, and one of their own dogs, Baby Girl, is a pit bull bred to fight.
“Her original owner was an arms dealer,” his mother said. “They arrested him and rescued all his dogs.”
One of the dogs being boarded, a German shepherd named Rusty, was trained for search-and-rescue missions with a police officer. Now retired, the dog misses the mental stimulation of his work, Lori said.
“He whines,” she said. “You can see it in his eyes. We’re the only place they’ll leave the dog, because we can handle him.”
Yogi, an aggressive dog who does not like eye contact, may take a little more time to rehabilitate than other dogs at the center. Nick is teaching him to socialize with other dogs by taking him on walks, and he puts him on a treadmill for about 30 minutes a day for exercise.
Nick said Yogi was trained to be on high alert for all sounds while in Iraq, and the treadmill has a calming effect by letting him focus on a single thing.
Yogi’s owner, San Diego resident Lauren Garcia, said she already has seen a difference since turning him over about a month ago.
“He’s definitely a lot more calmer,” she said. “I can see it in his face. He seems more relaxed. He definitely doesn’t bark as much.”
A petty officer second class in the Coast Guard, she said Yogi was brought back from Iraq by her husband, Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Daniel Garcia.
Yogi’s mother was killed in Iraq when he was just 2 or 3 weeks old, and troops took him in and trained him as a base force protection dog, she said. He was trained to kill rodents and bark at anyone approaching the base, she said.
Yogi is a Canaan dog, the national breed of Israel, a medium-size canine considered to be a good watchdog with quick responses and territorial instincts.
Garcia’s husband began caring for Yogi when the pup was about a month old. Once when he was on leave, however, Yogi was beaten by some troops, leaving him with a fear of people, she said.
With the help of the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and its Operation Baghdad Pups, the Garcias brought home Yogi and another dog, Bella.
Garcia said she cannot care for the unruly Yogi with two children at home while her husband is overseas, and that she looked as far as New York for a place to board Yogi before finding Doggy Hydeaway.
With such shows as “The Dog Whisperer,” “It’s Me or the Dog” and “Dogs in the City” on television, dog owners today have a greater understanding about the difference between a behaviorist and a traditional dog trainer.
As Nick and Lori Martinez explained, owners must understand that they are the pack leaders in their dogs’ view.
“It’s almost like having a 3-year-old,” Lori said. “They need boundaries and they need limitations, and they need a calm, assertive pack leader.”
Besides trying to change a dog’s behavior, Nick also trains owners about how they should behave around their dogs.
Owners should not let their dogs lead them on walks, he said, because it makes them feel they are the pack leaders, which could result in the dog feeling overly protective and lunging at other dogs or people.
Nick said he hopes their business some day may work with shelters that have dogs considered too aggressive to be safe. Other than dogs with neurological disorders, he said, he believes they all can learn to behave.
“There’s a lot of dogs that get put down,” he said. “I would love, in the near future, to have our facility bring in more dogs on a list to be euthanized so we can rehabilitate them.”
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