Q&A with Al Holzer

By Jennifer Anderson

The Portland Tribune, Jan 26, 2007, Updated Oct 30, 2009

Al Holzer, who runs Bark Busters with his wife, Lisa, takes their standard poodle, Oscar, out for a stroll. You can be sure it’s a walk that never gets out of hand.

JIM CLARK / PORTLAND TRIBUNE

Every Friday, the Portland Tribune puts questions to a prominent – or not so prominent – local person.

If anyone knows what dogs are thinking, it’s Al Holzer.

The 56-year-old West Linn man and his wife, Lisa, know how to reach a canine’s psyche in ways the rest of us don’t. Over the past three years, they’ve trained at least 700 dogs in the Portland area through their franchise business, Bark Busters, which claims the title as the “world’s largest, most trusted dog training company.”

You probably think you know all of the dog-training tricks in the book: “Sit, boy” (give treat), “Good boy.” That’s not Holzer’s way. No treats are allowed, and it’s the owners he’s training, not the dogs.

Sit, reader, sit. Read this. Good reader.

Portland Tribune: Why do most dog owners seek your service?

Al Holzer: Mostly we get called because their neighbors complain of hearing barking. Dogs, lot of times, go crazy with the doorbell – they jump up.

Tribune: Is that an easy fix?

Holzer: It is. We usually spend about two hours with a customer at their home, giving a presentation on Canine 101: how dogs behave, work in a pack, gain dominance in a home.

We set up situations, show them how to communicate with them in a canine way. The challenge is to train owners to do that.

What we’re really doing is training the owners. Dogs are usually the easy part of the equation.

Tribune: Just how do you communicate in a canine way? Get down on all fours?

Holzer: No, it involves understanding how dogs communicate with each other. They use body language and tone of voice.

We teach the owners to do the same thing. We actually have the owners growling a little bit. It’s based on canine communication. That’s why the dogs get it really fast.

Tribune: So since you speak canine, do you know what the dogs at the park are saying?

Holzer: We might get a good sense of why they’re barking – protection of owners, they think they’re on alert and have to be leader of the pack. Or they’re bored, need attention. It depends on what’s going on and what the situation is.

Tribune: Ever see a bark worse than a bite?

Holzer: The dogs are barking a lot of times as a defense mechanism. They’re actually the sweetest dogs in the world.

It’s rare that dogs are biters. They’re usually making noise for their own canine reasons. Once you get them relaxed, you don’t have to take on that role.

Tribune: I’m sure you get your share of tough customers. What’s one of the craziest sessions you’ve had?

Holzer: About three years ago we went to a home in Tigard. They had seven very large pit bulls. When you rang the front doorbell, their guests were mauled.

They (the dogs) were friendly, but they jumped on everyone. One of the owners was a petite lady, and the dogs would get on her shoulders, lick her, cover her with saliva. The owners couldn’t control their dogs at all.

At the end of the session, when we rang the doorbell, the dogs were lined up, sitting in the living room.

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