The Naughty Dogge

03/07/2025

Will your dog live for twelve years, or will he live one year twelve times?
Make sure you dog's life is varied, interesting, and full of fun experiences. Don't do the same ho-hum routine. They should go to new places, have new experiences, and enjoy their days, with every one being slightly different.
We are blessed to have them in our lives. Let's treat them as they deserve .

Monique Anstee
Author of As a Dog Thinketh, and Lift Your Leg - the podcast

03/06/2025

Do you have hard or soft hands when training your dog?
You need to aim for the softest possible. The more aroused your dog is, the softer you must go, and the calmer you must be. He will be that much more aware of what your hands are saying, so if you say too much, you will get an extreme reaction.
We tend to do the opposite. When we are aroused we get hard pokey fingers that hurt.
Be aware of your fingers, and your hands, and be aware of what effect your hands and fingers have on your dog.
When in doubt, less is more. Softer, gentler hands will find you the goal that you seek.

Monique Anstee,
Author of As a Dog Thinketh, and Lift Your Leg - the podcast
Victoria, BC

03/05/2025

When a dog raises his excitement, more often than not, we rise with him. However, we must know when to dial it way back down, which often is a fight against every fiber in our bodies. This requires discipline from us, not from the dog!

Sometimes we need to go into particular situations with a very deliberate mind, and energy, which will vary depending upon the dog, and the day. But, the key to success is not how you go in; It is knowing that split second of when to become totally and completely soft, in your mind, your muscles, your energy and your thoughts, as soon as the dog shows effort.

Great Dogmanship is about feel and timing, which is turning it on, then turning it off, by altering your own internal state. You should be able to control your own energy as quickly, deliberately and smoothly as you can flip a light-switch.

Great Dogmanship is really to have your emotions, energy, and muscles on cue. You can become whoever, at the push of a button, depending upon who you are working with. One mentor said it best - it is putting a mask on, becoming that person, for as long as your dog needs it, then knowing precisely when to take it off.

And please remember - it isn't the ability to put the mask on that counts. While useful and necessary, it is knowing when to take it off that will give you greatness.

Monique Anstee
Author of As a Dog Thinketh, and Lift Your Leg- the podcast

03/04/2025

A Dog Trainer, as I define it, has three key ingredients.

1) Feel, 2) Timing, and 3) Experience.

Feel is knowing how much pressure to apply, or how to remove it, (but not pressure as in corrections). This is about making your reward a reward, how to get the dog to do what you want, and how to stop them from doing something you don’t want.

You need to know how your body, your mind, and your hands are affecting the dog that you work with. In that split moment, you need to understand if you should apply more, or less pressure by adjusting your body, releasing with a reward, moving away from, or towards, a distraction. You might need to free their minds, let them move their bodies or in some moments keep their bodies still in order to remove pressure – and that split moment is called timing. You must have the ’feel’ of understanding what the dog needs, and the timing to be able to deliver or remove it in the split moment.

Some dogs require minimal feel and timing and make us look brilliant. Others require the utmost of feel and timing, (Yes, you Panda) to make us look almost adequate – and by the time that we have gotten good with those dogs, we have become masers!

These dogs, the ruthless teachers who won't forgive us any feel or timing errors, are the ones that we all need to work with. These are the dogs that count towards our experience.

Monique Anstee
Author of As a Dog Thinketh, and Lift Your Leg- the podcast

03/03/2025

Our latest podcast is up. We talked to Telah Garwacki from K9 Junction (that happens to be for sale- link in show notes) about their week in my shadow program.

Podcast Episode · Lift Your Leg - the art of training a dog · 2025-03-03 · 1h 1m

03/01/2025

Pavlov conditioned a dog to salivate at the ring of a bell. And I have been conditioned with full fear and adrenalin, to a simple phrase.

"My dog is Friendly."

I have been conditioned because every time I hear this phrase, I am presented with a giant problem. I have a rude dog approaching quickly towards me, with an owner in denial. Their rose-coloured glasses can't get any rosier, and I truly believe they have persuaded themselves that their dogs are friendly rather than facing the cold hard facts that they allow their dog to behave this way. Generally the encounter is followed with "He has never done that before".

The piece that is misunderstood is that your dog's social etiquette is irrelevant to me. It is none of my business; we are complete strangers. My dog is on leash, therefore take the cue, and keep yours away.

There are many reasons for a leash. Mine might be injured, under the weather, having a really bad day, or simply enjoying nature with me and has no care whether yours is friendly or not. It might not be my dog, or it might be a brand-new dog that I don't know how he will behave. However, we are total strangers to each other, and other than a polite 'Hello,' l do not owe you an explanation. Simply take my cue of my dog being on a leash, and keep yours away.

For every sweet, nice, well mannered dog that I have ever met - I have never been told they are friendly. I only hear this for the ones with their tails curled up high over their backs, with hackles up, standing as tall as they can (or stalking like a cat), rushing forward to their victims.

If you feel yourself wanting to call out "He is Friendly" as you see your dog's bum galloping away from you towards his victim, please do your soul searching.

Your adult dog should not be this interested in another adult dog. It is weird and is an insult to you; your dog thinks random strangers are more fun than you. Take this as motivation to really enjoy your dog on your walks.

Use this time to connect and enjoy watching them being dogs. And please put the time into training them, so that not only can you and your dog enjoy your off-leash time, but so can everyone else who might not want to engage with you.

Monique Anstee
Victoria, BC

Starving author of As a Dog Thinketh and Lift your Leg - the podcast

03/01/2025

Dog Reactivity: Are We Creating It?

I think our North American Dog Culture has set us up for dog issues.

We have been taught that dogs need friends, and to be 'socialized' (which has been misunderstood to greeting every random stranger). As the human takes their dog over to every dog, we are teaching them to be dog-obsessed. Walking is really just looking for dog after dog that you go say 'Hi' to.

If these dogs hit a quirk in the road, where they feel unsure, cheeky, or unaware of how they should act, because they have been taught to always move forwards to dogs, they only have one course of action: Aggression.

I believe that if we teach our dogs to be less dog-focused, most social issues would disappear, or be substantially reduced.

Dogs benefit from having dog friends. But having dog friends is very different than expecting them to hug every dog-stranger that they pass.

Try and make your dog less dog focused, ESPECIALLY if you are seeing social issues in them when they are young.

Monique Anstee
Author of As a Dog Thinketh, and Lift Your Leg- the podcast

02/28/2025

Learning the art of Dog Training can be likened to learning to speak a language. For those that can do it fluently, it is not a thought process; it is just something that you do. And when you are asked to define it, it can be rather a struggle trying to define the concept of feel and timing. Many dog trainers intrinsically know, but are not cognitively aware.

As any parent knows, no two children are alike. You cannot parent them the same, talk to them the same, reward them the same, or even have the same expectations for them. While you might need to be very serious and focused with one child, with another you might need to loosen them up and get them smiling. What you did to raise your first perfect child that never got into trouble might be a disastrous combination of failure for your second. You can’t raise two kids the same, and neither can you train two dogs the same.

In other words, there are no absolute rules, and it is a skill of feel and timing. Dog Training is a profession of reading owners, reading the dogs, and giving the solution for that person, for that dog, for that day. Once the dog has learned this lesson, it could no longer be relevant, but could also prevent the dog’s continued learning.

Training a dog is like peeling layers of an onion. What you desperately need on week one might be totally wrong in week two, because you are now dealing with a different layer. Once the lesson is learned, the dog changes. Now your new layer is presented, and must be worked with. Anything I say that I will never, ever do my next client walks in my doors and my Never-Solution is the perfect solution for this moment in time, even though it would have not been right for any of my client’s dogs in the past two years.

How can a newbie be expected to learn a training method with no rules? There are recipes to follow, but the ex*****on of every recipe needs to be adjusted for every single team that come to you for help. We are working with complex personalities and finding a way to motivate each one of them to give us their heart, soul, and 100% effort regardless of emotions or distractions. The ex*****on of the simple method can become complex depending upon prior history of the dog, prior history of the owner, breed of the dog, and relationship of the dog with his owner. Dog Trainers become masters at reading dogs and people.

Pet Manners and basic obedience are the simplest class to teach out of all the ones that I offer. While I am indeed following a curriculum, I am training the dogs and the people. I am looking at temperament and personality, and combining them with genetics, to meet the individual needs of each dog. What is perfectly right for one dog in class could be devastating for another. This might be marking a moment in time with praise, feeding a cookie, or giving guidance, rules, or even telling them “No”. Each dog needs to get to the same place, but like me and my siblings, will get there in their own unique way. What works for dog A might be completely wrong for dog B.

Any of you who have had multiple dogs know exactly what I am talking about. Your first dog was an angel and easy, and you felt good about your dog-training abilities. Your second was even better. Then you got your third, did all of the same stuff, and you have a neurotic nutcase on your hands. Why? It is because you taught what you had previously taught, but didn’t pay attention to what your dog was telling you?

I think the thing that irritates me is when dog-trainers say that all breeds learn the same. While perhaps they learn the same, for each dog you have to meet their learning needs first so that they are able to hear your lesson.

A fearful little Labrador trying to cower at the back of class is not going to learn the same as the Labrador trying to eat through my pockets. The first is too scared to be able to process my request. The second hasn’t even heard me talk because his brain is processing how to get the cookie out of my pocket. Each dog has unique learning needs that must be addressed for the lesson to be able to be learned.

In this profession of no recipes and absolutes, successful trainers instead become masters of feel and timing. Training a dog, child, horse, or even spouse, is all about feel and timing. Sometimes I wonder if this concept can be taught? Can you be taught to pay apt attention and learn what a certain look means? Or learn what a certain response means? And then can you process this quickly enough to know the right solution when you are presented with this?

I know in my own relationships when I can push my friend’s and husband in their lives and give them an encouraging boot, or even a telling off, but I also know when I need to give them a hug and tell them it is okay to have a crap day. Our dogs are the same. Are you as a handler able to read when you can push your dog and demand for more effort, or to back off and reward for a teenie bit less?

Once you have developed your awareness of where your dog is at mentally, you then have new challenges to learn. Do you know which solutions to the scenarios below to pick, in a set moment, with your dog?

If he is bad, should you redirect, help, be compassionate, ignore it, show disapproval, or correct him?

If he is good, should you give moderate praise, mega praise, reward, continue on working, end the session on a positive note, ask for more, or ignore their goodness?

When in a given situation, do you push for better, call it a day, or count your losses?

Should your dog be on the couch, or on the floor? Crated sometimes, or never? Does he need time alone to clear his head, or is time alone for him detrimental, because he needs time with you to soften and bond?

Ultimately good trainers are expert readers of dogs, and their owners. They have exceptional feel and timing, and just by looking at a dog, know what he is capable of (both good and bad) and who he is as a dog. You have a toolbox full of 20 potential solutions for every problem, and know which ones to use and when. And more than anything else, you know how to build a relationship with all dogs, so that they are respectful of you, and motivated to work for you. This takes time, experience, and an open mind to learn, and makes the journey of becoming a dog-trainer a life-time quest.

Once you have learned it all, it is time for a new profession. If as a Dog Trainer you have all the answers it is because you are not aware of how little you know and you think the task is simple.

Maturity in this profession makes you humble and realize how little you know.

Happy Training Everyone,

Monique Anstee
Author of As a Dog Thinketh and Lift Your Leg- the podcast

02/27/2025

Being Practical Comes with Experience

When I was wet behind the ears, things were simple. Often my enthusiasm was stronger than my logic. I believed I could retrain every dog. Every situation. Every family. I thought it was all about my abilities:, my skill, my communication, my effort and diligence.

Time has taught me otherwise. I can’t train everything. Mostly it is the two-legged end of the leash where I fail. I struggle to communicate, motivate, create additional time in their day, and most often, create feel and timing, or discipline in them to do the work.

Some clients need help with impossible situations. Some are easily fixed with a non-training answer, like a fence. That is easy to filter out and guide, without meeting.

Other times the dog is a liability on a leash. This requires some careful questions. When a liability is paired with ‘clueless in denial’, I won’t touch it. The emotional burden and burnout in cases like this is extreme, as the poor people start to realize the severity of their situation.

I’ve learned to be careful of the money I accept. I appreciate how hard we all work for it. If a $500 dog-pen is your solution, I won’t let you pay me to tell you that.

I’m one of many people in my profession who are this way. I think we are the majority. But there are still many that are not!

If you hire a trainer that can ‘fix’ everything, proceed with caution. They are probably wet behind the ears, but there is a chance they are unethical.

Monique Anstee
Author of Lift Your Leg and As a Dog Thinketh

02/26/2025

The Sensory Dogs

My niche has always been working with the weirdo dogs; the mexican street dogs, herding breeds, reactive dogs and all that take on angst living in our modern world. Jill and I, through our Podcast Lift your Leg, have been talking about this.

To train any dog correctly we must understand the emotion behind the behaviour. For instance, if I am working with a dog bothered by loud traffic that gets tense, then sees a dog in the distance, its a fairly certain bet he will release his pressure on the incoming dog in the form of a lunge. He is ultimately feeling overwhelmed from the traffic, and as I walk closer to the incoming dog, if my response in any way adds to his feeling of being overwhelmed. that will be enough to make him lose it.

However, knowing this, my job is to make him feel LESS overwhelmed. In some way I need to relieve his angst. To do this, you need to know that dogs's personality a bit. Does this dog have a sense of humour so that I can lighten him up that way? Or if I talk very calmly. can I then use my voice to help him relax and let it go? If I give him more freedom in the leash, will that be enough for him to let it go?

I train a lot through latent learning and will demo the correct response for a situation. If they are feeling totally overwhelmed because of all the sensory noise ' and movement from the traffic, they begin to feel like Chicken Little and believe the sky is falling. At this point the tiniest added stress is much more than they can cope with.

If through my own response I show me relaxed, with calm, normal handling, and a relaxed voice that shows no adrenalin or alarm, they will probably let it go. If however, I show any speed in my reaction, showing that I too am adrenalized, I confirm their darkest fear that the sky is indeed falling. This is one example of how sensory dogs see the world. An outside stimuli bothers them, they take it in, then explode on something else. More often than not the way to retraining these dogs is to teach them to lighten up. Not only do they need to lighten up, but we must demonstrate through our own responses that the sky is not falling, show them that we understand their struggle + coach them out of it.

Sometimes neither of these will be possible until other training is done, but ultimately, there is no permanent fix for the situation until you change the original emotion behind the behaviour.
In conjunction to this, once we have a relationship with them and they believe what we say, we must start increasing their tolerance to outside stimuli, which is my building bravery class. In a weekly class of madness + chaos, these dogs learn to laugh and lighten up rather than always being suspicious and offended.

I do believe that this group of dogs are the most misunderstood and failed the most. More rules and structure makes them even less free in their brains, making them even more aware and mentally tortured by noises, movement, tight spaces or touch. They need to learn to walk on a loose leash, come when called, be handled, and to lie down, and that is it. Don't harp on these dogs and try and control their every move or you will turn them into pressure cookers.

These dogs need mental freedom and for us to teach them to lighten up. It sounds so simple, and it really is once you understand them.

Monique Anstee
Victoria, B. C.
Author of As a Dog Thinketh and Lift Your Leg, the podcast.

02/25/2025

Today birthday girl gets whatever she wants, which isn’t very different from every other day. Happy Birthday to the best dog in the world.

02/25/2025

Somehow we human's have become obsessed with play dates for our puppies. I don't understand this mentality. But, try as I might, I cannot communicate to my clients the harm in what they are doing to their tiny vulnerable puppies. It doesn't matter how many times I state it, or how many different ways I pose it, my words fall on deaf ears.

Puppies need friends. All dogs need friends. But they do not need to play with every random stranger they meet. And, neither will they benefit by having set play-dates at someone's house with dogs that are bigger, stronger, and will bully them and squelch their self-esteem into the ground.

They probably won't benefit from play-dates period.

What they will benefit from is a hike, or a walk. Take them somewhere, then let them go off together, while you move forwards. This way, neither dog is trapped in a tight space, and they can both escape each other when they want to.

I've struggled with baby Johnny around other dogs. He didn't like them. Johnny has since gone walking with so many nice adult dogs now, that he has become mildly curious towards them. But If I had done playdates, all I would have done was put dogs in an enclosed space together, with no forward momentum thus removing escape routes. And because of this lack of forward momentum, I would have taught Johnny how to be a strong fighter.

When Johnny was young we had a parvo outbreak where I live. All the puppies in that puppy class presented as fearful of other dogs, or aggressive to other dogs because they just had not seen enough. I don't think there was a single impartial puppy in that first week of class. Most turned around fast, but not all.

The ones that didn’t were the ones with owners who were obsessed with making them social. If they saw a dog in class, they allowed their puppy to drag them over so that she can say "hi". Or when walking every single cell in their body wasfocused on what their puppy was doing, rather than having forward momentum which would tell the puppies where they should go next.

If something I have said here reminds you of yourself, write a list of three suitable dog friends that you can create for your own. Focus on weekly meet-ups so that you can let them run and be dogs together. Then from now on, gently discourage your dog from greeting any others. When they want to, focus your own body and energy forwards on your walking path, and walk straight past, tossing a cookie forwards for your puppy to go and get.

It is often the human's that have an obsessive need for their dogs to go and play that end up with dogs that cannot play nicely in the sandbox with their own species, or also become dog obsessed just like their owners. If you want a well balanced dog, first adjust your own way of thinking and then you can get it.

Monique Anstee
Victoria, BC
Author of As A Dog Thinketh, and Lift Your Leg- the podcast

02/23/2025

You've got to believe in the dog and believe that he can do it for you. If you don't believe in him, he cannot find it within himself to deliver to you.
But belief doesn't mean pray. Belief means 'know' that he can, and then school him so that he is able.
Though nothing is this simple. Sometimes the task is easy, however, today they choose not. You must be more tenacious than he is, and not leave without it.

Monique Anstee
Author of As a Dog Thinketh, and Lift Your Leg - the podcast

02/23/2025

I’m a genius and published two days early. So be it! Our topic…. If you want it bad enough, you will find a way. If you don't, you will make an excuse.

This is my mantra for life, and we discuss our challenges in this podcast. We do get off topic and discuss an awful new learning about what some trainers are doing with Place.
In this episode we discuss the fantastic Michaela Bouzkova, from Ontario Canada. https://www.instagram.com/expat_obedience/

https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/lift-your-leg-the-art-of-training-a-dog/id1725750088

How To Podcast · 45 Episodes · Updated Weekly

02/22/2025

When Did Respect Become a Dirty Word?

I recently posted about respect, and got a response that I was not anticipating. I quickly realized respect has become a dirty word...

In my own life, I would never ask a person for advise if I did not respect them. I would never take guidance from a person if I did not respect them, and would be cynical is any unsolicited guidance was given. If I do not respect a person, their opinion means nothing to me. All that are close to me in my life, not only do I value them greatly, but I also respect them.

Respect is a beautiful word. You cannot value a person, and hold them near and dear to you, if you have no respect for them. I love my husband dearly, but equally as important, I respect him.
And I love my dogs, and respect them. I respect who they are as dogs, I respect their genetics, their potential, and most of their personality traits. Likewise, they do the same for me.

I respect them enough to talk to them like the powerful adults that they are, rather than singing to them like they are infants. I allow them to be dogs, and to do dog-things, such as follow their noses in the forests, without me harping at them. And they get to use their athletic bodies in wind, rain, sleet, snow, or even better, sunshine because they need to move. I respect them enough not to nag at them. Or ride their asses.

And my dogs respect me enough to know that if I ask a request, it must be important, because I don't nag and harp on them all day long.

I work with many people who do not respect their dogs, and many dogs who do not respect their people.

Until their is respect, and the mutual flow of trust, that relationship has no value....

At least that is the way it is in my world, and my own personal relationships with both animals, and people.

Monique Anstee
Author of As a Dog Thinketh, and Lift Your Leg - the podcast