“Too Hot For Outside 🥵 🐾”
Our last video for this week as I edit from the airport awaiting my flight. Yesterday’s inside playtime with Lenny and Halo as it was so hot and humid outside!
They discovered frogs this week 🐸😳🤦♀️ and I have been rescuing all the frogs out of their pen before Halo decides they need to be carried around. They are leaving the salamanders 🦎 alone thank goodness. Omg 😳 🤦♀️🤦♀️
A reminder I will not be checking messages this week and will catch up on Saturday once I’m back home!
Dogs are in great hands with Andrew holding down the fort. 💪
www.elhartk9shepherds.com
“Nighttime Training”
Because we live in the country and the summer sunsets were so late, I haven’t worked Fonzie and Gracen after dark in the city.
Now with it dark at 9 pm, this allows me to get them out and expose them to shadows, people walking towards them in the dark, a nighttime essence that is different from the daytime hustle of the city life.
We worked on stay before leaving the crate which I cannot stress enough to teach your puppies and dogs. This is often how dogs run away and get hit by vehicles because they rush out of a vehicle without a leash and collar. This exercise can also transfer to your gate or front door where they learn out of habit and repetition not to breech the threshold without a release word.
Sit and stay with distance, these guys were also doing very well in a strange place in the evening!
It’s all of the little opportunities put together creating balance! 💪
www.elhartk9shepherds.com
“🐾👀 I’m Seeing Double 🐾👀 “
Lenny & Halo the last couple training sessions we worked at focus with their sibling and testing if they leave each others food alone and focus just on theirs. They both did really well! Lenny will be living with another dog so it’s important that he learns to respect other dogs food at a young age.
Now that they have a solid understanding of what to do, I am starting to name the commands.
www.elhartk9shepherds.com
My kids used to not like it when they were younger and I would comment that raising dogs is like raising kids! They grew up with multiple German Shepherds and were never without one by their side.
Now that they are adults, they have commented that it is true!
Kids and dogs need limitations, boundaries, love, and balance. Along with that, I always let my kids get dirty and have fun! Often we finished up the day in the summer having bath time in the wheelbarrow or a big Rubbermaid container outside on the patio when they were small with lots of bubbles and toys.
The same applies with my puppies. The plan was to bath them this evening but with this flowerbed in desperate need of edging, I decided they would love to “halp”.
Halo decided to go swimming in the pond before so she created a wake of mud and Lenny jumped in after this video too 🤦♀️🤣.
While it may have taken me longer to edge out the flowerbed, these guys had a blast. They lasted for about half of the job and then needed a nap. 💤
Lenny is such a buddy. Never far from where I am. Halo, well let’s say she is the mischievous one!
www.elhartk9shepherds.com
P.S. I have received many puppy applications over the last week and I am currently working my way through them so please be patient as I will be in touch with you all in the next few days!
“Our Something New Today!”
Lenny & Halo learning about what fire 🔥 is tonight for their evening working meal. Fonzie and Gracen also worked uneventfully for their meal !
**Always check for fire bans before lighting a fire and burn in approved fire pits**.
www.elhartk9shepherds.com
“Puppy Playtime!”
Social media shows many doggie daycare facilities that have puppy play groups and then as they get older, move up to different classes.
The problem I am seeing with these different levels is that it is only puppies playing together.
Why is this a problem??
Who is teaching them proper social interaction if they are puppies? Humans?
Our best teachers for puppies learning proper social interaction in my opinion, are balanced older dogs and their mum.
I see too many daycare videos with young puppies and young dogs running full on, rough play, jumping and hitting each other in a high level of excitement.
While playing together may be important for some people to have their puppy physically interact with other dogs, it is not recommended if:
- you can’t find a balanced play partner preferably older than the puppy
- proper introduction and corrections are not used at a daycare
- your puppy is interacting with unvaccinated dogs and hasn’t finished their booster shots
- you think dog parks are where you should socialize your puppy. (Please do not take your puppy to the dog park!!)
If you don’t have a balanced dog that you know of in your social circle or family, or place to go to socialize your dog, find a structured class where you are teaching your puppy in a controlled environment. This allows your puppy to be in close proximity to other dogs and socialize. Not everyone and every dog needs to touch your puppy physically to socialize.
Part of the teachings that we talk about and implement during class is to have the dogs near each other, controlled, calm and watchful.
There is so much more to socialization but you can see in this video that these puppies are learning to interact with this pack in a calm and relaxed and happy manner.
We have:
three 12 week old puppies
Two 5 month old puppies
One 2 year old female
One 3 year old female
One 3 year old male
One 5 year old female.
www.elhartk9shepherds.com
“Long Down by Bruno!”
Class today with Katelyn and Bruno working on the long down with distance. They are rockin’ it with other dogs and distractions. She already had him down for a while and waited for me to dig out my phone to video 🤦♀️🤣.
Great work!
Halo & Lenny from the last couple days. We had some really big thunderstorms and these guys didn’t seem to care. They don’t mind the rain and we have leash work underway! HH Litter ~ 12 weeks old
“It’s An 8 Pack!”
We have:
Yahzi, Xena, Anja, Fonzie, Piper, Gracen, Nala, & our lovely Portos walking together yesterday.
This was the largest pack walk that the three five month old puppies have been on and they were so good 😊.
Skye had to sit this one out as she was spayed last week and still healing. ❤️🩹
Our walk was almost 2 miles and a huge thank you to my son Luke for his videography skills and all the backwards walking 🤣🎥
“What A Day!!”
This will be one of two last videos of Piper ( I have a surprise video coming later!) as she heads back to her family Monday to continue working with them on what she has learned this week.
During this week, I have instilled building blocks towards future training with her family, to continue and help Piper have balance.
Piper lives with another puppy and there was some littermate syndrome happening. However, as you can see, especially with the trough clip, she is ignoring the other dogs and watching me. This is a very important part of what she learned this week. Even though she did pack walks with her own actual littermate Fonzie and half sister Gracen, it was well established that I was their leader, which this breed will cleave to. She holds her own within the pack but is always ready and watchful as to where I am.
During her stay, she learned how to be independent, watchful, confident and playful.
When dogs live and coexist with each other, pairing them with the right playmate is extremely important. If a more submissive dog lives with a dominant dog, often times the submissive one is always watchful of the dominant dog. They will not be able to be themselves, as they are not learning how to make decisions without watching what the dominant dog does first. This needs to be addressed or that dog will never truly relax and be confident on their own.
Having a leader direct and teach the dogs how to be respectful to each other is how you achieve balance. Instead of the dogs feeding off each other, they turn to their human to guide them.
We had a wonderful time at The Home Depot and hung out at the entrance for over 20 mins with customers and staff while the girls met strangers, sniffed and sat respectfully as well as suckered some cuddles from them too♥️🤣.
They showed exceptional balance with curiosity and respect for strangers in a new environment.
I let the video run at the traffic light and I felt this was a huge milestone to be in the traffic a
“The Weekend Is Here!”
Piper and I hit the water right after work today and out of all the puppies and dogs I’ve conditioned for this exercise, she is the first one to jump back into the boat after we finished! 🤣🤣 I think it’s safe to say she enjoyed herself!
Training clip at the end of the video but as her sister Fonzie trained, Piper was just as easy although she was so excited!
I let the video roll to show how she responded to the boat scraping on the road as that can be a problem for some dogs with the sound. She did really well. Lifting her into the boat wearing a life jacket for the first time she also did so well!
This was another exercise to boost her confidence and gain experiences and most of all, have fun!
www.elhartk9shepherds.com
“What??? Heeling around the cat??”
So I got some flack in the last video that…
“I’m going to make the dog fat”
“The dog will end up with a broken neck”
amongst other comments because I was feeding kibble during a 7 min training once a day for two days because…Piper was pulling while walking with the other dogs. The video showed her watching me while being rewarded with her evening meal.
However!!! The proof is here because after only two 7 min training sessions with me and one being off leash with the cat “snoopervising”, check out the heeling Piper offered me tonight with the cat still following and the other two puppies with her!
We walked a mile and she stayed steady with her placement beside me. The video from a few days ago she didn’t want to be beside and was happy at the middle of the pack walk with some pulling. I let them choose their positions and tonight she choose to be right at my left side, which Fonzie was not impressed but let her have it! 🤣
Amazing work and shows what a small lesson can do to strengthen a dog’s understanding for what is expected of them! Those mini sessions with reward will be continued as needed in order to cement the foundations for her leashwork.
Go Piper!!
www.elhartk9shepherds.com
“Recalls!”
10 weeks old and Halo and Lenny are being rewarded for following and focusing on me their handler for tonight’s training! This breed naturally loves to herd but teaching focus at this age, helps tremendously with future training!
www.elhartk9shepherds.com
A long video but today we are working on “proofing” Piper’s heel position.
You can see at the beginning of the video she is wanting to cross over in front so the point of tonight’s training was to teach her to keep her head parallel with my hip rather than her shoulder. She needed some help with reward and leash handling but by the end of the exercise she had a good idea of what I was asking of her. Total training time over 7 mins edited to show the difference from start to finish.
We also had a fun day with her “halping” with pressure washing the kennel and a trip to the dump. She is off leash with me and my shadow wherever I go regardless of the other dogs and no fence. Piper has made herself right at home here and is showing some excellent responses to adapting and doing so happily!
www.elhartk9shepherds.com
“Lenny!”
What is a 10 week old puppy learning?
Lenny’s routine and about 8 different commands in this video all worked into one as he works for one meal a day. Party was working on these before she left and Halo is also working on these commands.
This video shows the heavy rewards compared to the video with Fonzie where I already dropped many of the rewards and she was working a few steps before being rewarded!
www.elhartk9shepherds.com
“How Are You Doing Piper?”
This is Day 2 with Piper, just 5 months old now.
I put her through the paces in town separately without the other two pups to get a baseline of her reactions and temperament around strangers, objects and other animals. She showed curiosity, really drawn to the little humans. She did well on the leash and no hiding behind me or pulling.
If you can imagine one of the exercise areas in the park with different machines and several families old and young on the equipment, we circled around giving distance and let her take it all in. There was a wonderful mom there with several kids so well behaved and loved animals. They understood I was training her and the opportunity presented to have the kids come meet her and give her a few of her kibbles. Whenever I do this exercise I am very selective. Not just anyone gets to meet the dogs I work with. If I get a wrong vibe off them they don’t come close. These kids were old enough to explain that they give the food and no touch then walk away. In doing this, Piper became drawn to them and went over by herself to sniff them and gave a few licks. This is perfect! We walked away while Piper was still curious, leaving her wanting to explore more but she will remember this exercise as only positive and fun!
The lab puppy she did wonderful and he was such a good puppy they sniffed noses, were curious, walked near each other then we left. I’m not at all okay with meeting just any dog and because I’m able to read the dog’s energy, was the only reason she was allowed this opportunity. While we were walking as a pack, there was an older lab already pulling and showing way too much excitement. We gave distance and these three were very well behaved as we passed him.
Overall, Piper showed more excitement when she was with the other two puppies and heeled poorly compared to working by herself. This tells me that the other dogs cause her to loose focus and she needs to be proofed so she can work around her fellow dog at home and ot
Piper from our FF litter is hanging out this week to learn more about dog behaviour/playing and some leash work.
She shows some unsure behaviour with a couple jumps up on me but this is ignored so she can learn to handle it on her own. She is safe with my pack and by the end of the playtime, she was playing with Gracen and relaxing.
Gracen really put in the effort to make Piper feel welcome. Fonzie gave her space with a little play. They all did really well together!
www.elhartk9shepherds.com
“Antique Car Show”
Our city has an antique car show once a month in the summer and tonight the show stretched for five city blocks in downtown Brandon.
This was a great opportunity to test the skills that I have been working on with Fonzie and Gracen. With the temps still pretty warm it wasn’t possible to leave one in the vehicle and work the other so they both came with.
They saw: wheelchairs, scooters, crutches, electric bikes, hats, sunglasses, beards, strollers, wagons, people walking with an uneven gait, big, small, old and young humans, dogs of all shapes and sizes, the sound of some pretty deep exhaust systems on these vehicles and all the different smells that come with them.
Fonzie and Grscen did the breed proud.
My videography skills lacking as I was focused on the pups more than the camera. However, it’s clear these guys rocked it and did such a great job. They did get a few pets from people that stared me down because they couldn’t stand themselves with how cute these two were. So they did a bit of socializing as well. I do prefer new environments to ignore the dogs and let them take it all in however they didn’t seem to care!
www.elhartk9shepherds.com
