Recall
Eddy is making wonderful progress with his off leash ecollar recall training! In the past, Eddy’s owners struggled with getting him to come when called so we’re working hard to build a reliable recall so that Eddy will have the skills to come swiftly and happily every time they recall him 💙. So well done, Eddy!
Our ultimate goal for dog reactive and/or aggressive dogs is coexistence when in the presence of other dogs.
Not fixation, not loading, not interaction, but calm and neutral coexistence paired with safety protocols and a consistent handler. We can do this during our passive training like place command and also during our active training like the structured leash walk.
During training I teach these types of dogs that reactive and aggressive choices are not acceptable. Then I follow this work up by showing the dog what he should be doing instead by giving him lots of great experiences coexisting calmly and politely with my work dogs and helping him make the right choices . Just as wonderful doggies should be 💙.
Eddy showing off his calm mindset and polite manners on leash while we walk and search out those great opportunities to ignore barking dogs! 🤫
Another great field trip in the books this morning with Eddy the formerly dog reactive heeler. Eddy has made awesome progress in training so far learning how to defer to his handler’s leadership rather than taking over with the reactive choices he’s made in the past. My favourite moment in this little array of clips is when Eddy chooses to make more space away from an oncoming dog by stepping off the path rather than going after it reactively as he’s done in the past. So very proud of you, my boy! 💙🐾
Eddy
Eddy and I had a great week covering all the basics including the place command. One of the most valuable skills Eddy has learned this week through our work is how to tune into me and seek information/direction from me just because he wants to! You’ll see in the video that Eddy is attentive and following my instructions without food bribes or over excitement but rather choosing to give me his attention and great effort because he really likes this kind of work. This is the type of mutual communication and connection that is so incredibly rewarding to have with our dogs 💙. So well done Eddy!
This is a neat little clip showing one of the many ways I share guidance with a dog when they don’t quite understand something. In the video, I’m recalling Lucy during our hike and my intention is to have her recall to a sit facing me but Lucy turns around in her sit facing away from me so that she can watch the other dogs. It’s super common for a dog to get a little distracted or miss the mark or even get confused about known commands in a new place or around changing distractions so I always like to take advantage of these opportunities and help the dog generalize her knowledge and commands in yet another environment/distraction. So well done Lucy! 🩷
Lucy has been doing some great work with her off leash skills! In the video, you’ll see how the lovely Lucy has learned to prioritize her handler and her commands over real world distractions (even her favourite… other dogs!) and recall reliably every time she’s called! Lucy was the distraction queen before training and she couldn’t be safely off leash because she’d always run off trying to investigate or play with something or someone 🤣. How great does our superstar look now… can you tell how proud I am of her?! 🥹🩷
Lucy and I enjoyed a perfect start to our Monday with some beautiful compliments on her polite leash manners during our outing to walk on the busy bike/dog walking trails 🩷. So proud of this girlie!! 🥰
Lucy and I, on our third field trip this morning, encountered dogs, walkers, bikers, runners, dirt bikes, atvs and this neat contraption that looked like an elliptical machine from a gym but on wheels! I lost track of Lucy’s well deserved compliments from the folks we passed but I did happen to catch one on the video 🥰. In the video, you’ll also see a really cool moment from Lucy where she thinks hard about excitedly lunging at the gal talking to her but then Lucy chooses to hold her heel with me instead (this is with lots of previous patterning but no prompting from me yet in this moment but I was ready to help out by correcting the lunge and then guidance back to the heel if Lucy made the overexcited choice). This is exactly what I mean by a dog learning to ‘make great choices’. We handlers need to correct poor choices, reward great choices and then pattern pattern pattern it all into a strong habit so that the dog can then take all that information and use it to make choices. And with lots of consistent work, dogs can learn to make the right great choices instead of the wrong ones in a lot of situations. There will always be situations tho that are just too tempting for a dog which is why she also needs her handler at her side too guiding and correcting when she needs a little extra help to stay the polite and well mannered course! 🥰 So well done, Lucy 🩷
Motivating Royce
The thing about Royce is that if you don’t know how to motivate him properly, then you might as well try hauling Nova Scotia into New Brunswick cuz he ain’t moving! One might call this ‘stubborn’ or ‘resistant’ maybe ‘lazy’ 🤣 but I think of it as simply ‘unmotivated’. Without the right motivation to do this thing (get into the tub) or to not do the that thing (don’t push on the crate), Royce just did… well, Royce things! 🤣So, over the past three weeks, Royce and I have been working on his motivation within our daily routine and training exercises to complete tasks, practice polite manners and to follow commands. One of the first examples of this that I shared with you was Royce’s grooming routine in the tub and trimming his nails. As you’ll see in the video, Royce is now very nicely motivated to jump into the tub on command and stay put while I wash and dry him and he’s also nicely motivated to relax on the cot while I trim his nails without pulling away. I gotta say, the grooming routine along with everything else we do with this handsome giant is a tremendous amount of fun when he’s on board! 😍
Accountability
Skillful consistent practice AND accountability makes incredible progress! But wait, what is accountability and when does it end? Accountability is a fair leader (the handler) who ensures their dog does what is asked of him every time. And as responsible leaders, it’s our job to make certain that the things we are asking the dog to do are fair and reasonable and that we’ve trained him to understand and do them. Accountability never ends, it’s a life long need! We all need someone helping us back on track when we go astray and luckily for our dogs who need accountability daily that someone is YOU, the handler who helps him succeed in all things 💙.
Lucy’s first week!
Lucy and I had a busy week building her place command, implied down and sit stays, impulse control and of course a much needed off leash recall! This incredibly sweet and clever little labby is doing an amazing job learning her Ecollar obedience and more importantly she’s adopting a more calm and self controlled mindset through our work. What I love most about the progression of clips that I’ve included in this video, is that you can actually see Lucy deliberately thinking about her movements and what we’re doing and choosing to prioritize our work instead of frantically blasting around nilly willy the way she used to 🤣. So VERY proud of this gal!! 🩷 Well done Lucy!!! 👏
Lucy before and after structured walk training
The lovely labby girl Lucy is smashing goals in just 24 hours! When Lucy arrived for training she was a pulling, jumping, barking hurricane to walk as you’ll see in the first half of the video. So, I got to work straight away showing her how to do all the calm and polite stuff instead of the wild stuff. Lucy and I have a lot of work to do over the next few weeks in creating these calmer/politer behaviour patterns but you’ll see her beautiful beginnings in the second half of the video. So well done Lucy! 🩷
Bath time!
How do you move a big dog when he doesn’t want to? Well, unless you have some way of communicating your expectations and then motivating him for effort, you don’t! Royce is a guy that needs a good bath to stay fresh and looking his best which means there is a lot of tub time in his future. But one small problem, the first time I tried to bath Royce he absolutely would not get into the tub. So we went to work breaking it down to show him step by step how to get his big body over the side and into the tub using our Ecollar communication training and check out the results!! This is the concept/process I’m applying to all of Royce’s ‘put on the breaks moments’ to get him motivated and build his confidence. The big man can now get his tub time without his handler breaking their back trying to lift him 🙌. It seems like such a small moment for me to be so excited about but I really wanted to share it because this refusal by Royce to make effort in the face of something new or uncertain has potential to really limit his experiences and inclusion and we want this amazing gentle sweetheart of a dog to be included in everything! ❤️
The puppy waiting for food exercise is another great way to build impulse control with our youngsters and to show them how to look to us the handler and offer calm polite behaviour at otherwise exciting times… like meals! 😋 How adorable is Sunny’s little face when he’s waiting so politely for his snackies?! 🥹
The kennel up exercise is such a valuable way to teach puppies about impulse control and calm behaviour. We want to teach our puppies early on how to enter and exit the crate (and other thresholds too!) calmly on command and make sure that we handlers always practice and pattern these steps every time. We have such a terrific opportunity to cultivate a calm mindset with our eager learning little puppies by approaching our daily routine in a structured way which will serve us lifelong as we pattern him to be calm and courteous. Such great work Sunny! ☀️💙
Working on some follow command with Royce as we meander around the yard and the dogs. Royce often lags behind or gets distracted by an interesting smell so I’m using our ecollar communication to speed him and keep him by my side when he needs some help to stay focused and on track. As handlers, it’s our job to guide our dogs into success and correct mistakes and having great communication thanks to our ecollar training makes it all possible! 💙
Havii loves being a role model for the training dogs and one of his favourite jobs is heeling next to the dogs who need to learn how to walk tandem. Sometimes this means a little chaos as we show the uncoordinated newbie how to just walk in a straight line next to another dog lol 😂 but in Royce’s case it meant fielding a few big slobbery smooches 😘.
Puppy recalls are by no means reliable but they are an important beginning. Puppies have an inherent instinct to stay close to the family unit so they usually don’t go too far before running back to familiar safety💙. We can leverage this instinct during puppy training to get puppies used to the simple recall exercise and hearing the words which we will build upon later in life when Sunny comes back for Ecollar training and we add that super important reliability into his commands ☀️💙.
Confidence building! Sunny was worries about stepping on the creaky wobbly cot so we leveraged his great little food drive to overcome his concerns and conquer the cot! ☀️💙
