Dog pro Martin Rütter: Sit, sit, out!
For example, Chihuahua male Norbert. Totally spoiled, do not even listen to his name. "Sheikh in the pond" is what Martin Rütter calls one. During the first shoot of the current "dog professional" relay team, the whole team laughed so much at Norbert that the cameraman's camera fell out of hand. Martin Rütter then explained the rules to the owners: daily training. A piece of food when the dog reacts to his name. First in the apartment, then outside. Pull through, no matter what the weather. But at the next shoot a few weeks later it was not a little better. And Rütter, otherwise no loud, had to speak plain language. Training - or you fly out of the program. "Right, I snapped those," he says. One might think that a stubborn dog and his incorrigible owners are a godsend for television. After all, it's about entertainment, the cornerstone of any TV coaching, whether animal, child or debtor. But that's exactly what Rütter does not want: "Anyone who was in my program should be able to go shopping after that." People are supposed to be clumsy, they should develop, but we will not deliver anybody to the camera. "
Martin Rütter, 41, is the ghost hovering over the dog meadows. On Saturday at 19.10 he coaches Vox problem dogs, but especially their owners. "If I can not get at people," he says, "all training has no purpose." He watches for the first time, his chin resting on his palm. One then sees how it works in it, all senses directed to dog and man. Mostly, after 30 seconds, he knows what's wrong. And how to remedy. Always. Rütter, that is the personified promise: every problem is solvable.
What happens in the "dog pro" is a topic on the freewheeling areas of the country. The Labrador who eats what he gets between his lips. The two Westies, all cluttering. Kurt, the bulldog who ruins the whole place, and Mum sits beside it and says to Martin Rütter: "Kurt just stays authentic." These are modern classics, not just among dog owners. 1.55 million viewers turn on, two-thirds of them have no dog. Dog training is Rütter's mastery therapy, and just like a good therapist, he goes behind his job, which is why a whole series of adjectives fit in with him, which are rarely used by people with sustained TV success. He is respectful, unpremeditated and normal in a relaxing way. That he landed on television - first as a consultant for dog issues, 2003, he got his own coaching show in WDR, since 2008, he turns for Vox the "dog pro" - and has built up a book, show, brand empire, is for He is an agreeable companion, but does not touch his true mission as he understands it. "I could not do without the dog on the job," he says. "I know where my passion is."
You meet Martin Rütter on the southern outskirts of Bonn, where he has leased the building of a former African representation. His office is the ambassador's room, red carpeting, two poster-sized photos of his four children on the walls, in front of the desk an oversized fabric dog; The whole thing looks like a big playroom, and a bit of that hits the mood in the house. His staff say Martin has issued the slogan that his company should be an "asshole zone".
He wears jeans and sneakers as usual, and because he is one who only needs 30 seconds, he immediately notices that his office is too heavy for an intense conversation, and seeks out a smaller space. And another 30 seconds later, he begins to tell, interrupted only by a colleague who knocks and says: "I'm going to the bakery - do you want something?" Rütter orders a croissant, which causes him to briefly touch on the subject of weight, which is a big thing for him, because he tends to yo-yo.
The other day he got the offer to moderate a daily talk show - without dogs. He refused indignantly
Rütters enthusiasm for dogs is surprisingly not based on their own early experiences. He wanted a dog, but the parents said no. "They had nothing left for animals," he says. So he read about dogs, what he found in the public library, even in class. The price: he flew half a dozen times from school. "School was a game for me," he says, "everything was too slow for me." His aunt Thea finally put him on the dog track. She had a foster home for dogs in the 1970s, but no knack for it. Visitors sat cross-legged on her chairs because Poodle Arko bit into each foot. Also because of Thea he thought that he wanted to explore that: what influence people have on dogs.
He took courses in animal psychology and started as a dog trainer at a time when there were only dog clubs with drill and spiked collar. At 25, he founded his own dog school. "When I train with a dog, it's incredibly easy," he says. "I was never at a loss." Mina, his first own dog, he selected among 400 puppies, he should accompany him at work and not let himself be rattled by rampaging dogs. He had to be a bit stupid for that, Rütter calls this "lying in the lower third of the cognitive intelligence". Only with a Golden Retriever bitch the spark jumped over.
Mina is on the covers of his textbooks and the novel he has written about his trainer's life, Mina runs with him in the opening credits to the "dog professional" on a meadow, he calls his companies after her: Mina Trading is a network of 50 dog schools, in which about 100 trainers teach according to his system. Mina TV produces his programs, Mina Entertainment his stage tour: a solo program, often sold out weeks in advance, with which he fills the Berlin O2 World and tells two funny hours a little about dogs and a lot about the weaknesses of their owners and the Mistakes that happen from too much forbearance.
He loves these performances. This evening he is backstage at the Gloria Theater in Cologne, without any excitement, in the morning jeans and with a bit of styling in his hair from a tube he always has in the car. He goes to the stage, hands in his pockets, asks the audience about the quirks of their dogs, and someone tells them that his dog only stops barking when he threatens him with a beer bottle, "with Selter, that does not work," and Rütter says "Dat is Cologne" and tells a few anecdotes about dogs that do not allow their people to get up from their couch after 5pm, and the owner says, "Is not that cute?" But by no means does Rütter want to be a comedy-type, and the stage show is also enlightening for him.
Nevertheless, the success makes him proud - the nomination for the Golden Camera 2010, the appearances at Raab and Lanz and "room free", and at the same time he has to talk down as the "many nonsense" he joins. His wife Bianca, a make-up artist specializing in body painting, says Rütter, is "more afraid of dogs", and she shuns the public because she "does not want to run as a player". When they go to a party together, she walks through the back door. The couple has four children, the sons are 12 and 8, the girls are 6 and 3, and his thirties spent Martin Rütter "with a screaming baby in his arms, a cell phone on his ear and on the left a dog on the collar". "There was no stop for me then," he says.
Until four years ago, when he was 37, he had a heart attack. "I gave 100 lectures and 45 weekend seminars in one year, it was fun, it just bubbled." He was in a hotel in Switzerland, got a feeling in his throat, as if he had swallowed a candy, then pain in his chest, in his arms. He took two paracetamol, thought it would. Later, in the hospital, he lay there and thought: If the children now grow up without a father, it's my own fault. In retrospect, the infarction was his salvation. He is now more attentive. Mina accompanied him for the last 16 years. His co-workers tell how touching it was when she got older and Martin and his dog took a similar, slightly waddling walk.
In July he had Mina euthanized by the vet. "There was no acute condition," he says, and you notice his grief because his eyes are reddening and sometimes he does not say "Mina", but "the mutt" to keep his feelings a little bit off. "She was just old, we were all sitting in the garden with her the last day, which for the family was the worst moment yet." They fed Mina again, then he carried her to the car, and she fell asleep on his arm. For four days he has canceled all appointments, worked in the house, which he never does. Staring at Minas bowl in the garden.
From his ashes he wants to have a diamond made for a ring. The other day came an offer for a daily talk show, and Rütter asked the broadcaster: You seriously want to talk about dogs every day? And when it turned out that the format should have nothing to do with dog coaching, Rütter, outraged, immediately refused.
