Carrie's Calming Canine Coaching

12/03/2024

Predation substitution training.

Blue's mom hired me on to work on Blues prey drive. What we have learned is that Blue likes to chase and catch.

So we give him the opportunity to watch the prey, then be able to run after something and catch it. We are using treats today but you can also use a ball, a toy, a bag...whatever.

We allow Blue to watch the prey instead of dragging him away then once he disengage, we thriw that treat or toy to give him the ability to chase then ofcourse catch.

The 3rd video I felt we were just a bit too close but it worked out in the end anyways

No animals were hurt including Blue, and we have him an outlet for his instinctual behavior

06/25/2024

🚨🚨 WE ARE FULL!
We need your help! Please share so as many people as possible see this post.

All of our dog kennels are full and we are at a standstill to help any other dogs who need our help, and our waitlist is getting very long 😭

In order to help some of our animals find their forever homes we are doing HALF OFF adoption fees for all current adoptable animals
(Kitties too!!)

In addition to the half off adoption fee we will include a FREE consultation with positive reinforcement trainer The Travelling Trainer.
Carrie's Calming Canine Coaching
Additionally, if you love your consult with her she is offering HALF OFF her private one on one training packages for adopted dogs who are adopted during this adoption special.

Consider one of our shelter animals for your new best friend ❤️
Visit our photo album here on our page called Adoptable Animals to see everyone and their information.
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04/18/2024

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/eX775W98kJ8eRJGN/?mibextid=qi2Omg

04/12/2024

I am so happy with Miss Khloe !

She was soooo fun train. Mom and dad did a phenomenal job.

We ofcouse introduced shaping because she is incredibly intelligent.

Watch her back up to "go to mat"!! Love it!

She graduated today from puppy but we are going to continue with training and I am so excited to be part of her growing up into an amazing well trained dog

04/10/2024

The importance of tethering your dog to.you sometimes.

I preach it quite a bit with certain scenarios.

Tether your dog to you so they can't practice certain behaviors like jumping on people, charging the door.

In my case I have tethered Cookie to me so she cant chase the cat. I reinforce calm Behaviors while the cat runs around.

Tonight Cookie is relaxing on her own chewing her bone not caring about the cat.

Its beautiful. We are all hanging out in the same room in peace.

It has been a lot of small exposures, counter conditioning, rotation schedules and now we are able to all watch TV together.

Sometime when I tell you do to something and it seems silly or inconvenient... I tell you to do it because it works.

But you have to work at it

03/06/2024

I have been thinking about rebranding myself again.

I know...ridiculous to do it again.

However I haven't quite found exactly what I want to be going for.

Carrie's Calming Canine Coaching is a cute play on words, but it does not roll off the tongue easily , and is difficult to remember.

Since I have been traveling a lot for training lately, it came to me that I am "The Traveling Trainer"

I said that to myself one day when I went from sherwood Park, the North End, back to Leduc , and then to Stony Plain.

The light bulb went off and I thought... that's a great name!

What do you think?

03/02/2024

Meet Miss Rascal!

We are working on basic manners which is much needed as she has hit teenage years and hasn't had any training thus far.

She is a super sweet bully with a lot of crazy emotions that she expresses through jumping, hu***ng, and nipping..

Lesson plan is learning all the basics.

Sit
Down
Stay
Touch
Heel.

Management, relaxation protocol, go to mat, go to mat with door bell, counter conditioning to exciting stimulus, a lot of enrichment and asking for alternate behaviors.

This girl is super smart and it is so much fun to watch her learn as she is so eager.

It is a really great idea to start training puppies at a young age and continue through these teenage years.

Rascal is right dead center in what would be equivalent to a junior high student who just started menstruation.

You can imagine the challenge that can come with that....lol... but luckily..
She is also brilliant!

02/10/2024

If any of my dog trainer friends want to add to this, or if you have a question about dog behavior, please add to this post!

Your dog is likely not protecting you when it reacts.
Your dog is either resource guarding, fearful, have anxiety, bad associations, and is protecting him or herself.

Yelling at the dog "No!" Is not a training tool and your dog does not understand what it means. It is only an interruptor and does NOT give the dog direction in what to do. If it worked, you wouldn't have to keep repeating it.

Having whole conversations with your dog explaining to them how their behavior is bad makes you look like a crazy person as dogs do not understand English or any human language.
They only understand tones or cues that you have trained them to understand.

Sending them outside to p*e after they p*ed in the house will not teach them to p*e outside.

Punishing a dog while it's p*eing in the house will only ensure that it's safe to p*e inside the house when you are not around.

Asking a dog to sit...then saying "good sit" afterwards can confuse the dog. Again...dogs don't understand human language. All they will hear is the cue sit again while they are already sitting and get confused.. because they are already sitting.

Pet dogs do not need to be in a perfect heel going for a walk. Dogs should be allowed to sniff the world.

Dog parks are the worst place you can bring your dog. Its a breeding ground for reactivity and disease and is never a proper place to go to socialize a dog.

Socialization does not mean to bring them around a bunch of dogs. It means that you should expose your dog to people, places, things, sounds, textures, and dogs at a safe distance at the pace your dog feels comfortable.

Parvo is a super super contagious gastrointestinal illness that will kill your puppy if they catch it unless you have thousands of dollars in vet care to help save them. So vaccinate your dog!!! And don't take them anywhere where other dogs may have been unless everyone is vaccinated.

Keep it going... let's help people under dogs a bit better.

01/11/2024

"HE HAS LITTLE MAN SYNDROME!!"

If I had a dime for every time I have heard that phrase when it comes to someone's little dog.

This in fact can't be further from the truth. The fact of the matter is that these little ones are more then likely reacting out of fear. Fear of the big bad world that has man handled and their fears being dismissed in a lot of situations that created this need to protect themselves!

Can you imagine being that small in this big human world?

This is a real struggle for these little guys mentally. All they are doing is trying to tell everything to go away because it is scary to them and they are doing it in the best way they know how.... barking, lunging, snapping, and snarling !

People tend to laugh this off and look at this as bad behavior and then punish their dog.
Unfortunately for the most part, people don't look into getting a trainer because.. "They're so small..who are they going to hurt anyways?"

This is something I would like to change the more I spread awareness.

Luna here fell under the same category and is pretty much reactive to everything.

Mom and dad would have friends hold her when they came over to stop her from reacting.

The reason why that worked in the moment is because it flooded the dog and it turned into what we call "learned helplessness" .

The reason why she still reacted every time people came over is because flooding a dog will create a worse emotional response. Nothing about these people made them trustworthy.

We have been working on a lot of decompression, and trust building exercises along with relaxation protocols. Our first session, she barked at me 90 % of the time.

Second session she remembered I didn't cross her boundaries the first time and I came with treats. She certainly barked for 25% of the time because it is such an engrained learned behavior...but she settled and started to trust me.

She even laid beside me to have a nap. Now we can progress to all the other things with not only her parents now having her back, but myself as well. I'm excited for this family and our journey to peace.

Please reach out to myself at [email protected] if you are struggling with a small reactive dog, or another force free trainer.

Please share the hell out of this!

12/31/2023

We all know it's going to happen wether we like it or not.

Make sure your pets are secure! Dogs will jump over fences they never have before when scared. Put some music on...put some ear muffs on. Use the medications if prescribed. Keep your cats inside!

Drop treats or play with your pet to create some good associations

Let's make sure we don't have anymore lost pets starting 2024!

Happy New Year!

12/27/2023

12/24/2023

I would like to wish everyone a Very Merry Christmas!!