Shake A Paw Dog Training

06/13/2025

We love seeing our students having a BALL!! ..pun intended 😅🥰

06/13/2025

05/30/2025

🎉 Congratulations to our Agility Foundations grads! 🐾🏆

This crew has been learning the building blocks of agility—confidence on equipment, focus in motion, and working as a team. We’ve seen awesome progress, lots of laughs, and some seriously impressive moments from these pups and their handlers!

The best part? This is just the beginning. If you’re ready to keep the momentum going, the next step is Agility 2, where we start putting those skills into more sequences and challenges. We can’t wait to see what you all do next!

Great work, everyone! 👏🐶💪

05/30/2025

🎉 Another round of applause for our Basic Manners graduates! 🐶🎓

Over the past few weeks, this crew has been hard at work building better communication, stronger focus, and everyday skills that make life with a dog easier and more enjoyable. From sit-stays to recall and loose leash walking, we’ve seen so much growth—and a lot of wagging tails!

It’s been a fantastic group, and we’re excited to see where each of these teams goes next. Great work, everyone—you’ve laid a solid foundation!

05/30/2025

🎓 Congratulations to our Basic Manners graduates! 🎉

This group of dogs and their dedicated humans have put in the work—learning skills like polite greetings, loose leash walking, reliable recalls, and more. It’s been a joy to watch the progress, the teamwork, and the confidence grow week after week.

Basic Manners is just the beginning, and we’re so proud of everything this class has accomplished. Keep training, keep connecting, and most importantly—keep having fun together!

Well done, everyone! 🐾👏

05/27/2025

Every year, I have the pleasure of running the Canine Good Neighbour test at the The Ottawa Kennel Club show in Richmond—and this year was no exception!

🐾 Congratulations to all the participants! You and your dogs did an amazing job, and I’m so proud of the teamwork I saw in the ring.

If you weren’t successful this time—don’t worry. Keep up the great work, keep training, and plan to come back next year. Progress takes time, and every step forward counts.

📸 Here's a photo of me with one of our successful teams—well done!

05/26/2025

We have logo'd clothing for sale

⭐ T-shirts are $25 + HST
⭐ Hoodies are $45 + HST

There are shirts at the school for you to try on to get the right size.

When you are ready to order email [email protected]

Let us know

🐾 size
🐾 colour
🐾 T- shirt or Hoodie

comment below if you have any questions.

05/24/2025

Let’s talk about leash walking—the classic struggle.

You picture those peaceful strolls: leash loose, dog by your side, both of you enjoying the world. And then reality hits: pulling, zig-zagging, stopping for every squirrel and leaf. Sometimes it feels like a three-act drama just to get down the block.

I remember working with a dog in class who just could not walk in a straight line to save her life. Her person was doing everything right—stopping when she pulled, rewarding when she was close, using all the cues. Still, she’d get to the end of the leash and just… keep going. No amount of cookies or coaxing seemed to stick.

Here’s the thing: leash walking isn’t just about teaching a cue. It’s about helping a dog learn how to handle excitement, curiosity, and a world full of distractions. Most dogs aren’t pulling to annoy us—they’re just showing us what matters to them in that moment. New smells, sights, sounds—it’s overwhelming (in a good way) and their brains haven’t learned how to process it with us yet.

So, what do we do? We split the behavior into tiny, manageable steps.

Instead of expecting perfection from the start, we reward every effort toward walking together. Sometimes that means we practice in the quietest corner of the parking lot, or we play “find it” games to help the dog check in. Sometimes we even celebrate one good step—yes, just one—before the leash tightens again.

We also change up the environment. One week it’s indoors, next week it’s outside, then we add new distractions. Not because we want to make it harder, but because variety helps build real-world skills. We’re not looking for show-dog precision; we’re building habits that actually hold up when a rabbit darts across the sidewalk.

Progress can be slow. Sometimes it feels like you’re getting nowhere. But every tiny success adds up, and the wins often show up when you least expect them—like the first time your dog pauses and looks back at you before pulling ahead, or when they ignore a tempting smell for the first time.

There’s relief in realizing you’re not doing it wrong just because it’s hard. Most of us start here. Even seasoned trainers have leash walks that feel like wrangling a parade float some days.

The work isn’t flashy, and it’s definitely not perfect. But those little moments of teamwork—the shared glances, the pauses, the small wins—are what shape the dog you end up with. And honestly, they’re what make this whole journey worth it.

05/16/2025

Pudge the Jack Russell Terrier puppy made some adorable new friends at class this week!

Early socialization isn’t just about meeting other dogs—it’s about building confidence around all kinds of people, sights, and sounds.

These kinds of calm, positive experiences lay the foundation for a well-rounded adult dog—and they’re pretty heart-melting, too!

05/16/2025

What are you really trying to build?

Not the goal you tell people. Not the pretty version you post online along with the ribbon photo or recap video.

The real one.

Because most of us start this dog thing with a list of behaviors. That’s fair.

But the dogs who actually get there, the ones who feel easy to live with, the ones you can take anywhere, the ones who feel like they read your mind...

They didn’t just learn behaviors. They learned how to live with a human.

And that’s not something you get from a checklist.

It’s attention
and awareness
and repetition
and messing it up
and fixing it again
and again.

It’s learning how your dog recovers from stress.
It’s knowing what lights them up and what shuts them down.
It’s understanding their threshold, not just for distractions, but for being corrected, or confused, or overwhelmed.

And it’s also about you.

How you respond when they don’t get it.
How much clarity you give before you ask for something.
How often you adjust the environment instead of blaming the behavior.

This is the work that doesn’t go viral. This is the part that doesn’t fit into a 6-week class with a cute name and a certificate at the end.

But this is the part that changes everything.

The dog who doesn’t bolt out the door isn’t just “well-trained.”
They’ve practiced pause. They’ve learned to read your rhythm.
They’ve learned to care about your proximity.

The dog who doesn't bark at everything on walks
has practiced noticing and choosing
has been reinforced for their decisions
hasn’t just been told “no” a thousand times

The dog who doesn’t bite your hand taking food
has been shown how to handle arousal and wait and try again

The dog who doesn’t panic when you’re stressed
has been given a model of regulation
has been offered security instead of pressure

We like to think of dogs as naturally good or bad at this stuff.
But most of what you’re seeing?

It’s trained.

On purpose or by accident. It’s always being trained.

So Friday question for you... quietly, no need to answer unless you feel like it

What are you really building right now?

And is it leading toward the life you want with them or is it just getting through the day?

Do you have sport goals? Are you on the path ypu want to be on?

Because getting through the day adds up too
And some of us are carrying stuff we didn’t even realize we trained in
until the stakes got high
or the dog got older
or we finally had a moment to breathe and notice

Sometimes we don’t need to teach a new cue
or a fancier reward strategy
or even a better plan

Sometimes we just need someone to see what’s there
underneath the surface
and help us sort out what’s worth keeping
and what we’re ready to build instead.