Canine Capers Dog Training

03/19/2025

A lot of dogs want you to know this -

Instead of a fancy collar and bed? They’d rather have a fenced in yard - even if it has to be small and home made - so they can have off leash time to dog and dig.

Instead of daily neighborhood walks? They’d rather you drive to a dirt road and put them on a 30ft line and let them zig zag and smell as long as they like

Instead of twice daily meals in a bowl? They’d rather have food through enrichment activities that stimulates their brain and their nose.

Instead of basic obedience training? They’d rather have purpose driven training that feeds their genetic make up and needs AND helps them survive and thrive in todays world.

Instead of a human wanting something from them? They’d love a human wanting to understand them better.

Instead of focusing on perfect “heels” and “stays”? They’d love to learn how to be resilient and less stressed and cope with the outside world and our expectations.

Instead of harsh punishments and corrections? They’d prefer proactive management and rewards for good decisions.

We can’t change everything about the lives our dogs are forced to live with us in, but we can make these kinds of changes and see a huge improvement in their quality of life and wellbeing.

-Helen St. Pierre

03/11/2025

Due to popular demand we have added another beginner dock diving workshop!! We have 2 out of 6 spots already filled. This will be the last workshop until fall so don’t miss out. Pm or email us to sign up for a great day with K9 FUN Centre

03/07/2025

Fun fact: Dogs are rarely deciding to be "Stubborn" by being disobedient.

They either:
1) are not in a mental state to process information
2) do not have a clear understanding of their boundaries, communication or training
3) do not have the motivation to participate with their human versus external motivation. AKA: they are simply choosing a more desirable -to them- option.

Option 1: We wouldn't say a child excited about heading to Disneyland was stubborn -we'd say they were excited.

Or we wouldn't say a man pacing the hospital hallways waiting for news of his wife's surgery was stubborn -when the more polite version would be sitting in a chair-. We'd say he was anxious.

Option 2: We wouldn't say a tourist was being stubborn when they said "bread" instead of "bathroom" -we would say they had a gap in their language comprehension.

Or we wouldn't say a gymnast trying to nail a flip was being stubborn when she was failing to land the landing. We'd say she was still training that skill. (She would however be stubborn for continuing to train through failure -but the failure itself isn't being stubborn.)

Option C. We wouldn't label someone who would rather play outside than play the piano stubborn -we'd say they would much rather play outside than play piano. Same with the person who would rather play piano than go outside!

We wouldn't say the person playing on their phone instead of listening to a lecture was stubborn -they were distracted! Or bored of their lecture.

Excited, Anxious, Language Barriers, Still Training, Reward or Activity Preferences, Distracted, Bored -those are all things we can effectively train against!

That doesn't mean Stubborn doesn't exist -you can see it existed in one of the above examples, just not how we first envisioned it-, it just means the vast majority of the time, it's not stubbornness at all.

Some dogs are harder to train, motivate or place boundaries on than others, (and so are a lot of people!).

So next time you look at your dog as stubborn, look at the list above -what's your real problem?

02/28/2025

02/26/2025

DO LESS, SOONER

It’s amazing how HUNGRY most dogs are for input, communication, and guidance. They rarely need forceful correction, or much food reward. They will ping off of very slight hand signals. Most only need repetition, consistency, and a great deal less flutter and drama from their humans.

The point legendary horse trainer Ray Hunt is making here is not lost on those who trim and shape plants. A very small clipper and a very thin wire can shape any tree to perfection if started soon.

02/19/2025

The next set of "Good Boy" classes start next week Weds 26th at 6pm. Please register at Gas City Dog Club or with me.

In my Good Boy class we learn with fun games.

Good Boy Games:

Whiplash
Scatter
Hi
There You Are
2 Step
1.2.3.
Open Bar/Close Bar
Teapot
Lily Pads
Look At That
2 Cookie
Give Me A Break
Need to Move or Need To Stop
Take A Breath
I've Got This
Get It
Let’s Go

Getting a leave it or stay before we can name it. (NO yelling a cue to “teach” it)
These games give us Calmness when:
- entering a building
- exiting the vehicle
- exiting the house
- walking on leash
- a stranger approaching
- seeing dogs, bikes, people etc,
You get a happy recall!
And engaged owner and dog!

01/26/2025

Upcoming workshop
Sat 8th 1-4
Gas City Dog Club

Shy Dog

Often our attempts to help these precious dogs are actually causing more stress and shutdown. Learn how to help the dog and be it's advocate

We will also explore some confidence games

01/20/2025

Lauren the Physio who specializes In Canine Rehab
She visits us every month for appts and has helped so many dogs
She will also be doing a strength building workshop in March
We are very fortunate to have this service available to us

01/19/2025

In my Good Boy class we learn with fun games

Good Boy Games

Whiplash
Scatter
Hi
There You Are
2 Step
1.2.3.
Open Bar/Close Bar
Teapot
Lily Pads
Look At That
2 Cookie
Give Me A Break
Need to Move or Need To Stop
Take A Breath
I've Got This
Get It
Let’s Go

Getting a leave it or stay before we can name it. (NO yelling a cue to “teach” it)
These games give us Calmness entering a building
exiting the vehicle
exiting the house
walking on leash
stranger approaching
seeing dogs bikes people etc
a happy recall
an engaged owner and dog

01/18/2025

Let’s go one by one.

1/ On leash meetings with other dogs. By now most have seen video clips of owners attempting to create a positive social interaction with their dogs, only to watch it all go terribly wrong. Why? Leashes create restraint and cause unnatural interactions, fraught with tense, friction-filled, possibly guarding, possibly overwhelmed, possibly bullying behavior. It’s the perfect setup for pushy dogs to push softer dogs and for softer dogs to become overwhelmed and defensive… and middle of the road dogs to leave the middle of the road.

2/ Poorly supervised doggy daycare. Once again the hopes are that healthy, comfortable, and “happy” social interactions occur. The reality in many daycares? Just like with on leash meetings, pushy, bratty, dominant dogs apply unwanted and unhealthy pressure to soft, timid, and even fearful dogs. And without proper human supervision, these dynamics play out over and over — and do so in environments which the overwhelmed dog cannot escape, and the pushy dog can push over and over.

3/ Dog parks. I’m sure we’ve also seen and heard countless horror stories of dogs bullied, attacked, and even killed in dog parks. Once again we have the restricted, “I’m stuck with you, you’re stuck with me” environment. And once again the overly aroused, pushy, bullying dogs clash with the soft, timid, fearful dogs — which encourages the bullies and traumatizes the soft ones.

All 3 of these share certain dynamics. 1/ forcing incompatible dogs to interact. 2/ the dogs have no way to escape the pressure. 3/ the pushy, bratty, bullies are encouraged (by allowance and payoff) to become even more problematic, and the timid are repeatedly overwhelmed and freaked out. 4/ this translates to the pushy ones being even more pushy/bratty and thus when on walks they become reactive because it feels good to do so and they’re used to doing what they want — and the timid ones become even more fearful and defensive, and thus reactive on walks because they’re so scared, and are used to not being able to keep themselves safe.

The upshot? These environments encourage the bullies to become bigger bullies, and the fearful to become more fearful. So you create a vicious cycle where one kind of dog learns to enjoy bullying and the other loses their trust in other dogs. And just to be clear, you can have less pushy dogs who will become more so simply by experiencing the thrill of doing so. And you can have dogs who aren’t timid but are more sensitive who become fearful simply because they’ve experienced nasty, traumatic interactions repeatedly.

It doesn’t take a genius to see how if we encourage and allow these negative interactions repeatedly, building bullies and creating defensive softer dogs, that this behavior is inevitably going to surface on walks.

4/ You. You can have a dog who’s never had any on leash meetings, never been to daycare, and never been to a dog park, and absolutely still have serious reactivity issues. How? Through a permissive, unaccountable, leadership-free overall lifestyle and walk. Just by allowing dogs to behave in a fashion which is chaotic, pushy, bratty, disrespectful — or chaotic, nervous, worried, fearful — this leadership gap we create invites all manner of poor choices. Without the proper guidance, many dogs will slide into serious reactivity problems simply because no one has taught them how to properly respond to seeing other dogs. And a proper response, regardless of your dog’s personality (pushy and confident, or soft and insecure) should be a neutral one. But that only comes when owners step up, take the lead, and show their dog’s how to properly respond.

PS, even if you’ve done 1-3 and have unwittingly created reactivity issues, you absolutely can reverse these problems by tackling number 4 properly — by properly leading your dog. We do it all the time. But it’s far easier if you skip 1-3 and just do number 4 correctly.

01/14/2025

For all those owners who allow their dogs to meet people and other dogs when they’re out and about and don’t know why their dogs go bananas when they see a person or dog, I hope this helps.

Dogs are amazing pattern readers, and easily become conditioned that something occurring predicts another thing occurring if it happens often enough. It’s why picking up your car keys, or walking towards the cupboard where their food is, or picking up their leash, or packing your suitcase, or answering the door after the doorbell goes off — causes an intense reaction.

It could be excitement, it could be anxiety, it could be sadness, it could be anything depending on what the “signal” predicts, and how your dog feels about it.

Same goes for your dog who is allowed to meet random people and dogs — and who takes great pleasure in it. If this sequence occurs often enough, it will begin to condition your dog to view people as a visual signal that predicts a party/arousal/intense emotional escalation.

You end up turning people and dogs into “doorbells”.

This is why you’ll hear almost all experienced trainers not engaging in this activity. (Of course there’s other considerations like creating negative outcomes from these interactions, but that’s a post for another day.) Most trainers, and astute owners are keenly aware that if this meet and greet activity is practiced enough, you’re going to have a dog who is struggling to hold it together when they see people and dogs — because you’ve conditioned your dog that the appearance of people or dogs predicts craziness.

Of course there are exceptions. (There are always exceptions.) There are chilled out, lowkey dogs who enjoy these interactions but who don’t lose it. And there are owners who only do this on rare occasions — and so the reactions are far less intense. But if you do this on the regular, and you have a dog who loses its sh*t when it occurs, you’re almost certainly setting you and your dog up for a lifetime of overly-aroused, reactive nuttiness when people and dogs come into the picture.

And if you don’t enjoy the behavior this creates in your dog, then I’d highly advise you change your approach, or at the very least, minimize it greatly. A doorbell that only predicts someone at the door 5-10% of the time is a far less insanity-inducing doorbell, so perhaps you can adjust your dog’s predictive powers by making things far less predictable. :)

01/03/2025

If you are interested in the amazing game of scent detection with your dog
Think narcotics dogs (but we train the dogs on a different odour 😁)

I have a workshop
Intro to Scent Detection
Sat 11th January

You MUST register with myself or Gas City Dog Club as there are limited spots

The workshop is a prerequisite to Scent Detection Classes

The classes are for fun or competition.
I use the SDDA odours
I also run DSDL league