Carrie's Calming Canine Coaching

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!!

12/09/2023

Thank you Denise Fenzi

1395 likes, 220 comments. “pet dog trainer, Dog Sports Trainer ,and Dog behavior Trainer are not the same. Make sure you get what you want. They are all valuable, and they are all different.”

12/07/2023

This makes me so happy!!

Tonight I met Zeus in where he has had a rough start at life. He has been rescued by a family that absolutely adores him but because of his past he has some issues.

Tonight we are literally giving him a second chance at life and mom and dad are all in.

Business first!!

Those prongs have got to go as they are just painful tools that force a dog into complying.

2 less prongs in this world is just a better world!!

I'm excited for Zeuss new journey to heal and to learn

11/28/2023

Meet Duke. Duke is a rescue where we think he was dumped. When his dad got him, he was very very skinny so he was alone for a while. But his temperament is really great. I do believe he definitely had a home at one point.

Duke did not come with knowing how to walk nicely on leash.

I wanted to post this to show that there are many tools in the tool box.

We tried using marking and treating. We tried engagement games, we tried a lot of things which weren't helping at all.

So I had to first of all change the reinforcement.
Threw away the treats. He got too excited with the treats so it was backfiring on us.

We simplified everything. You pull, we stop. When you relax we keep moving and as long as you walk nicely we keep going.

Moving is the reinforcement.

He has a very short leash here for a reason. I directed him to have it short but no tension.

The reason is that if we gave him more leash, he'd take a mile. So we start short but loose and gradually give more leash.

This is the method that is working for this dog.
No corrections...just Thorndikes law

You give me what I want and I will give you what you want.

We had plenty of breaks where Duke can go sniff.

He has had his whole life where pulling worked for him. Now we are changing the game on him.

11/22/2023

Meet Chase!!

Chase us very fear based reactive shepherd mix. So much so that he hasn't been out of his back yard in a very long time

I think it all becomes too common that when we have a dog that is reactive and we don't know what to do, we do everything we can to avoid all situations at all cost
Now this may give temporary relief but can have a really bad effect on the dog.
Chase ended up being too scared to leave
He would literally buck and try to get out of his collar not to go past that back yard.

Now going without enrichment, exercise and outlets for your breed will bring out a very very difficulty dog to handle. We now have breed specific behaviors, malaptive behaviors, severe anxiety, and severe fear based reactivity.

Our plan is start to properly socialize this dog to environments, to add enrichment and add outlets to try to calm down some of that brain activity in this working dog

Today is session 2.

Today we brought him out in the front yard where he has never been because they couldn't get him past the front balcony.

Mom has changed how she reacts to him and is now being patient with his struggles.

We went at his place and allowed him just to observe, then we moved on just half a block and back at his pace. We then gave him a break and took him to the front yard again. There I threw a bunch of treats in the grass and allowed him to forage for food if he could calm down enough to do that.

Which he did! His whole posture changed and he relaxed. He foraged for food then started to explore a bigger area with his sniffer!

This is a big win and I'm so excited to help introduce the world to him again!!

11/21/2023

I stayed quiet through the whole fireworks and dog debate that was heated in the past week.

But we all know I have an opinion on it.

First...here would be my wish!

I wish fireworks were not a thing as it pertains to scaring animals. Not just dogs, but all animals in the vicinity of the fireworks. We are literally invading and driving animals out of their home.

I hate the fact that so many dogs suffer with severe anxiety when they go off.

Having said all that...

Referencing the dog debate

We can't control what people do and there are going to be many things in this world that are going to scare our beautiful fur babies.

It is our job to help them cope with these scary things. Wether its properly conditioning and socializing them when they're young, or start now if you haven't, to having medication, to turning white music on , to ear muffs, etc: and it is also your responsibility to make sure your animals are always secured so they cant escape your home in fear.

It is not the job of everyone else to stop what they are doing in the chance it is going to scare a dog in the vicinity.

Its life.... and it is our responsibility to help our pets cope in our human world.

It's better use of your energy to research how to help your dog in the future then to battle something you can't win ever.

09/22/2023

I just seen an 8 year old walking a dog almost as big as her, and I have to say.didn't have a lot of control of this dog

I know it seems super cute and teaches responsibility but......

You have to stop allowing this.

Reason 1. What if am off leash dog came running up and a dog fight ensued. You now have an 8 year old that has thr high probability of being bitten.

Reason 2. If a dog fight did happen, your child now has watched either their dog rip apart another dog, or has to watch your dog get ripped apart. Extremely traumatizing.

3. What if your dog sees a rabbit and decides to chase after it? Your 8 year old can't hold back your golden doodle on the best of leashes, let a lone a stupid retractable leash. Now your dog is missing and possibly your child.

Please go with your child on these walks. Animals are an adult responsibility...not a child's!!!

09/10/2023

Finishing up our 4th session with Blueberry today and it was absolutely beautiful.

Blueberry is leash reactive to cars and dogs. We have been building in good associations through counter conditioning abd pattern games to get to this point right here.

This is where we are really just allowing her to look at the triggers without interfering. We have created a lot of great associations with these things already so mpw we are showing her thar we can look at these things and shes still safe and we don't need to run away.

There is still a differential reinforcement schedule but it's not continuous unless the dog needs it.

We give Blueberry distance to relieve some of the spacial pressure once she disengages by walking in a circle, but we go right back to observe again.

I keep him moving the leash so there is no quick tug or tension put on it to avoid an unintentionally cue and not invade spacial pressure.

Great job Blueberry!

09/08/2023

And the winner is....

Sarah Jane Cox

Carrie's Calming Canine Coaching!!

Thank you everyone for your input!!

I know it needs an s after Carrie which I will update

09/07/2023

I'd like to have a little contest.

I would like to change my business name and clearly I have no creativity.

Winner will win 1 free training or dog walking session

09/03/2023

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10160213916734143&id=518114142&mibextid=ZbWKwL

08/31/2023

One thing that I never have to say with my training methods is

" if used properly, it doesn't hurt!"

Think about that for a moment

Isn't that like.... a red flag? If used properly, it doesn't hurt.

If you look at operant conditioning, those tools only work if they hurt.

If there was a way you could train your dog without hurting them, would you?

Positive reinforcement gives you the opportunity to train your dog without using the consequence of something painful or scary. Instead it uses a reward system. Much like how we get paid to work.

08/11/2023

https://www.facebook.com/100063858287838/posts/737010581770878/?mibextid=aE13LE

08/05/2023

I always incorporate the relaxation protocol from Karen Overall in my reactivity training.

This is why..

1. When you reinforce the hell out of a behavior, we call that a high rate of reinforcement. This protocol is dependent on a really high rate of reinforcement.
2. When a behavior has a high rate of reinforcement, that behavior becomes offered a lot and will probably turn into a default behavior. Especially if it's been more reinforced then any other behavior.
3. While the dog is in the highly reinforced behavior , which in this case..is a down, we start to build in distractions while the dog stays in the down.
4. This behavior is not cued, its offered. As long as they stay in the down while all the distractions happen, they get the reinforcement.
5. Now we have built in a default behavior that the dog is now able to handle distractions and triggers.

Flip offered the down in a very difficult environment today where he had about 5 different triggers at him.

This is why I say.. do the protocol....the protocol helps the dog to be able to handle stress.