Dog trainer Li Daming, Li Daming

Shenzhen Xiang Peng Pet Training School is located in the suburb of this city, and dusty palm trees can be seen everywhere on the monotonous road. The entrance is hidden on the right side of Nantou checkpoint, next to a shabby gas station. The school has a dark gray metal gate, surrounded by barbed wire, and from time to time, trains whistle slowly from the outside.

At the office door next to the gate, I carefully bypassed a sleeping German black shell.

Maybe it's because of living with animals for a long time. Dog trainer seldom talks to each other, but communicates through gestures and expressions. Walking into a cabin next to the training ground, I met Li Daming, who is one of the best dog trainer in China at present.

Puppy modeng

Li Daming took off his baseball cap and rubbed his messy hair. This cabin has only one single bed, a 2 1 inch TV and four dog cages. He settled in the small world he built, as if living on a lonely and distant planet.

1953 February, Li Daming was born in Chongqing, where he experienced the Cultural Revolution, love, marriage, divorce and unemployment. 1999, after he was laid off from Chongqing baxian textile machinery factory, he dressed himself as a clown in a circus and performed vagrancy all over the country with four puppies to please the audience.

He has loved dogs since he was a child, and dogs have been his most loyal companions for many years. He invented a set of methods to train dogs. For example, he can let the dog open the door, get the newspaper, take medicine for the patient, and even withdraw money from the ATM.

"I never left Chongqing before I was 45 years old," Li Daming put on his baseball cap again. "After I was 45 years old, I walked through many cities in China." His eyes were fixed on the window, and the whistle of the train swept across the school training ground, like a memory across the muddy sea, leaving a white wave.

"That was a long time ago," Li Daming said with a smile. "My concept of time has always been vague." He is talking about his opportunity to enter the dog training industry.

It was the spring of 1999, and the noisy factory suddenly quieted down. After several cold rains, green grass grew on the roads in the factory area, and the machine tools that used to fly around were covered with cobwebs and rust spots.

Bang! -Hey! -Hey! -Hey! The flowerpot that fell quickly from the window was smashed under the window. The noise, broken doors and windows, bitter resentment and curses, as well as footsteps leaving in a hurry, gradually became sparse and silent.

This 5 1 room dormitory for single workers used to have four workers in each room, but now there are only seven homeless workers in their forties and fifties. Li Daming is one of them. In early spring and March, the hills that have survived the cold winter are struggling with a little green. Shortly after Li Daming's birthday, one night, someone knocked at the door and a little girl came in. Because she was going out to look for a job, she begged Li Daming to take care of a black and white puppy in her arms for a while.

Li Daming went downstairs silently, cleaned an empty house, put a cardboard box in the corner, spread two old clothes, put a vegetable bowl and a water bowl, and the dog stayed. The next step is to feed, change water and walk the dog every day ... A month has passed and neither of them has looked at each other. Li Daming said that he only vaguely felt that the puppy was a little thin, and there was sadness in his indifferent eyes.

It has been raining in Mao Mao for a whole week, and the night is getting darker. Li Daming, who was too lazy to eat all day, was lying in a damp quilt, filled with unemployment and loneliness. The door opened gently, and the puppy ran briskly to the bed, jumped on the bed, buried his head and trembled, and climbed onto his face, shivering with cold. Li Daming gently stroked the dog's cold and emaciated body and gently covered it with a quilt.

Li Daming named the puppy Modern. Modern has a sycophantic and elegant butterfly face, slightly drooping ears, oily nose, dark eyes shining with shrewd light, and two dark butterfly spots embedded in the snow-white back and buttocks. Whenever it runs, it seems that there are lovely black butterflies flying and frolicking on the snow-white body.

The girl who went out to look for a job never came back. Li Daming gradually regarded modernity as his family. No matter whether it rains or blows, he brings modernity to the eaves of roadside shops every day and carries out happy and hard training courses by dim street lamps. Modern is a smart and tough girl. At the end of summer, she learned many original and funny modern dog sketch programs: modern housekeeper, flower girl, cool dog basketball, dog's fire savior, I'm a happy skateboard dog, Christmas deer pulling a cart, two patrol soldiers, fake leg playing dead and so on. , deeply loved by the residents near her residence.

roam about

In September 2000, Chongqing Youth Daily published the news that the first dog show in Chongqing would be held on National Day. Encouraged by friends, Li Daming came to the newspaper to sign up for the competition. He hesitated to tell the staff at the registration office that his family has a dog named Modern, which can play basketball, dance, push a stroller, jump in circles, pretend to be lame, play dead, get slippers for his owner, take medicine for his owner, send an alarm clock to wake him up, and so on. But it's not a thoroughbred, and it can't afford the registration fee of 200 yuan. The staff were very excited and said to him, we don't charge your registration fee, please invite your puppy to perform for the contest, and you can bring your puppy to perform tomorrow so that we can take pictures of it and register it.

Before dawn the next day, Li Daming boarded the first bus to downtown with a lot of props and Hyundai cars and came to the newspaper office. On that day, many rare foreign dogs came to the registration office, noble, elegant and beautiful ... no one paid attention to modernity. However, when "Modern" broadcast one funny program after another that surprised people, office workers and onlookers crowded the aisle, exclaiming, laughing and admiring.

Li Daming said that at that moment, he felt as if there was a holy light in heaven that lit up his life and made him see the hope of life: at the age of 47, he was still homeless and had no job, and started his dog training career like a circus.

Li Daming said frankly that the most anxious thing about vagrant performances in recent years is to travel with the puppy every time. In the truck compartment, the air is heavy and depressing, and the goods are piled up like mountains. He doesn't feel at ease after leaving the dog for more than ten hours. For him, every trip is tantamount to a mental suffering.

His dog has increased from one to nearly ten. In order to take care of the dog on the train, he had to spend money. Every time, we should chip in to buy two good cigarettes and put them around to give cigarettes to the stevedores and train attendants, so that the dog cage can be placed in a more ventilated position at the door of the warehouse.

One summer, Li Daming was invited to give a performance in Wuhan. As soon as he got into the van, he saw his dog, Moden, lying on the ground, panting with his tongue out, next to a pool of vomiting marks. Li Daming knew that Modern had suffered from heatstroke. In the narrow carriage, Li Daming sweated and moved the modern cage to a slightly ventilated place, but in the wet cage, the effect was just a drop in the bucket. As night fell slowly, the night wind finally seeped in through the gap in the carriage. Li Daming fed the dog food and water and sat by the kennel until dawn.

He gradually became famous and began to be invited to perform. But most of the time, it's good and not hawking. "The scene was very enthusiastic, but after one day's performance, the money earned was almost not enough to buy dog food." Year after year, he lived a happy and hard life as a wandering artist.

Dog trainer

Although there are more and more friends who keep pets around, Li Daming seldom thought that dog training would become his future career. "At that time, the domestic pet domestication industry had not yet arisen," Li Daming said. "How can I have this concept in my heart?"

The turning point appeared in 2003, which was the initial year of the pet domestication industry in China. At that time, more than a dozen pet training schools appeared in Beijing, Shanghai, Wuhan and Shenzhen. In that year, Li Daming went south to Shenzhen and came to Xiang Peng Pet Training School to become a professional dog trainer.

Now, life in Li Daming has gradually stabilized. In addition to training his own 10 dog, he also helps the school train customers' dogs.

At four o'clock in the afternoon, the sun was scattered on the training ground like broken silver. Li Daming led a border collie named Danny to the center of the field. Danny's owner sent him to a pet training school to learn how to hold a frisbee, and Li Daming trained him. Li Daming said Danny was a lonely little guy. When he came, he weighed less than 50 Jin and lacked enthusiasm for food and games. The little guy always hides in the dog cage and looks at the world around him with a pair of distrustful eyes. Previously, Danny was trained in another pet training school. This puppy, which is less than one year old, is so timid and self-abased, that Li Daming suspects that it was treated unhappily in her previous school.

Traditional pet training techniques often come from the method of training police dogs in the army. This is a compulsory and punitive training method, but in Li Daming's view, dogs are like their own children, and love and encouragement are the most important. Under the guidance of Li Daming, Danny has become a lot more lively. In jumping training, Li Daming constantly encouraged Danny with body language, and Danny jumped harder and harder, completing beautiful flying movements again and again. Li Daming kept shouting "Yes". Every time Danny completes an action, Li Daming will throw him a dog food mixed with milk as a reward.

"When you meet a person with low self-esteem, you know what he needs is love and encouragement," Li Daming said frankly with a baseball cap. "Many times, dogs and people are the same."

Li Daming is a person with special feelings. For him, dogs are both companions and children. He had a short marriage before 17. He tried his best to his wife, but he still couldn't keep her. When he is in a bad mood, he often takes his dog to see the train. "Watching them go away, I feel that I am moving towards a better future."

After three years in Xiang Peng, Li Daming seldom left school. 10 square meter small room, the only thing that can communicate with the outside world is that 2 1 inch color TV. When he entered the room, the wind chime on the door woke up Modern who was lying in bed and resting. In the past few years, he has been following Li Daming and became his bosom friend. Modern ran to rub against its owner, while he stroked its head. Li Daming said that with the company of these dogs, he seldom felt lonely and desperate. But he still hopes that a woman will come into his life in the near future. "I want to buy a house with her in Shenzhen and settle down." He looks forward to the future with a smile, but he doesn't seem to know that the housing price in Shenzhen has already exceeded his imagination.

Li Daming took off his hat and told me that the school might move farther away. The rent here is too expensive. He pointed to the training ground surrounded by barbed wire outside and said, "But I still think this industry will become bigger and bigger and more standardized. Especially in a big city like Shenzhen, people need the company of pets, and their hearts are too lonely. "