THE MEANING OF LEE’S LOGO REVEALED!

AUGUST 21, 2017

Did you ever wonder why my logo features back-to-back dogs? It didn’t occur to me that the majority of my clients might be clueless as to what my logo actually represents.

The logo is simple… it’s my dogs! Remy is my Dalmatian (“Dal” for short) and Meeko is a Shiba Inu (or just “Shiba” for short). Just about everyone knows what a Dalmatian is. They are known as the fun loving and intelligent breed of the hit Disney series “101 Dalmatians”. They are incredibly intelligent but they aren’t as easy to train as most people might assume. The movies do a really good job of editing and making the dogs look perfect. In reality, they use between 5-10 different dogs to portray a single dog, because they aren’t trained well enough to do everything in the movie. But that will also be a topic for another article I’m writing. Dals are known to be incredibly bull-headed. In fact, any time a new “101 Dalmatians” movie comes out, Dalmatian sales skyrocket throughout the world. However, the number of Dals surrendered to shelters also skyrockets. Families watch the movie and think they want a Dal, but then they realize that dals can be stubborn and very difficult to train for the novice. They are super high energy and have the endurance 5 times as good as an olympic marathon runner (I’m guessing based on experience, there’s no data to back that up.). But generally, dals are super “touchy feely”. They are known as velcro dogs, if that gives you any idea as to how clingy they can be. But Dals also have a relatively bad reputation when it comes to aggression. Many people I’ve talked to often say, “Dalmatian eh? Those are pretty aggressive, right?” And the short answer is – no, they are no more aggressive than any other breed. Aggression is linked to leadership. The more stubborn a dog is, the more likely they will want to be the leader. If they have a stronger desire to be the leader, they are more likely to become aggressive. Aggression isn’t so much a “breed” trait as it is a leadership trait. Any breed of dog is capable of becoming aggressive if they view themselves as the leader. I would say Dals are more likely to become aggressive due to their strong desire to lead, but only if the wrong training methods are used. Now, let’s talk about my dog Meeko. Not many people know what a Shiba is. A Shiba is a Japanese brush dog, similar to an Akita. They get to be about 20-30 lbs and they are known to be very stubborn. Many people “give up” training their Shibas, because they can be so hard-headed. They can be very independent when they view themselves as the leader. My Meeko was very independent and didn’t seem to care about us as a family prior to training. After I showed him that I was the leader, he became much more loving towards us. They also have whats called a ‘Shiba Scream’. It’s a super high pitched squeal they let out when things aren’t going their way. This is actually what I call a “protest”. It can actually make it very difficult to discipline them, because they will shreak quite often when they don’t want to comply. But as you can see from my videos, that never stopped me from training Meeko to be perfect!

The truth is, Lee’s Dog Training only exists because I was forced to train my dogs. If you read my blog about how Lee’s Dog Training started, you can see that I was completely desperate for training help. No one was able to provide the help I needed. It was sad to feel like I had been a failure as a dog owner. I always felt like people were looking at me… judging me. They looked at me like, why didn’t this guy do some research before he got a dog! And the reality is, I did! I did as much research as anyone. The problem is, the information available online is almost all wrong. There are very few things you can find online that I agree with or promote.

When I was creating a logo, I always knew I wanted to include my two dogs somehow. They are the real reason Lee’s Dog Training exists. So if I’ve ever helped you with dog training, you might say thank you to my dogs if you see them!