Talk To The Tail.

05/10/2025

Please stop saying pinch collars are safe, they are mentally babies, they deserve better.

05/10/2025

Surgery the other day, hundreds of stones in a little Shih tzu.

04/02/2025

listen up

Busting claims that positive reinforcement-based training fails, and what all dogs need for success!

03/24/2025

What is Frustration?

Frustration is a feeling our dogs get when they want something they cant get to, like a person, a dog, or even their favorite treat or toy. This is usually because they are behind a barrier, like a fence, door or even on lead. All of which are not in the natural world.
We've all seen the dog, on lead get upset because he sees another dog while out on a walk. Because he's on lead, he cant get to them, otherwise he would just go and greet the other dog.
Frustration is the root of many behavioral issues, and can lead to a very aggressive dog in time, if we don't address the frustration early on.
This constant feeling sometimes escalates into aggression, the dog associates the feeling (Frustration) with the object(person or dog) The aggression is the barking, lunging, snapping, biting or growling. This frustration is very much like a toddler throwing him or herself to the floor and having a tantrum.

Frustration Exercises and learning how to handle your puppy on lead around people and other dogs, is crucial.

03/24/2025

The Easy Walk Harness
The harness takes the pressure from the front of the neck, clips in front on the chest, if the dog does pull, he will get turned around and face you.

03/24/2025

Loose Leash Walking

For the first few months, loose leash walking be done only beside you.
Use small pea size treats, marking the walking beside you nicely. Reward for eye contact, and each foot taking a step forward.
If they stop walking, stop talking, do not scold, be patient, praise when they take steps again forward.

03/24/2025

Punishments
Dogs and Puppies do not have a moral sense of right and wrong, and they do not understand the complexities of a Punishment.
When Punishments are used they create fear, insecurity, frustration and confused animals.
"No" for example is used often, but dogs don't understand its meaning because they are a different species then us, they don't understand human words.
Dogs can connect human words with objects, or words connected to body postures like "Sit"
In some cases the wants for attention, will increase the behavior your punishing for, just to get that attention they crave.
Never use punishment.

03/24/2025

WATCH ME!!
This exercise rewards for eye contact, which in the dog world, can be threatening.
We get their attention on a food treat, bring the treat to our eyes, say the puppies name and "Watch me" and give them the treat when their gaze meets our eyes.
As the puppy becomes good at eye contact, we slowly move it farther and farther away from our head.
Say the command once, and wait for the puppy to follow through with the command and praise for eye contact, be patient, give them time to figure our what your asking of them.
Give them time to think about it.

12/05/2024

What is socialization?
Why is it important?
We ask dogs to live with us, then WE have to prepare them for our world.
The period of socialization is referred to as The Critical Period or imprinting stage.
This period is 7 weeks to 16 weeks.
During this time Habits are formed and relationships are developed.
The Habits critical stage is 7 to 11 weeks, and social (new relationships) critical stage, 11 to 16 weeks.
These are the most important stages of their development, miss this opportunity, and you will never get the chance again.

Examples of Habits are: Housetraining, walking on lead, food bowls, routines, independent behaviors, eye contact, body handling/ maintenance to name a few.
Social: Learning how to meet someone new, old, person or dog.
Men, Women, children of different nationalities.
These must be addressed during their critical stages, but also should be exercised all the way through the imprinting stage (to 16 weeks)
For example, Housetraining must be worked on during the 7 to 11 week stage for the training to stick, but it should be continued on indefinitely.
If you wait till after this period to start housetraining, training will will not be reliable.
Social skills should happen all the way through the imprinting stage, but is most important during the 11 to 16 week stage, puppies at this stage are naturally starting to want to be more social.
Puppies Should be greeting new people everyday, and at least 20 new people a week, and learning how to sit for a treat, building good associations.
Meeting a new person they already know is different then meeting a stranger, these are very important skills they must learn.
A complete lack of early positive exposure and experiences can have catastrophic results.
Studies show that puppies raised in extremely restricted environments, like the house and yard only, will show abnormal behaviors in new situations when their imprinting stage ends, for example freezing, or lashing out in fear when put in unfamiliar situations or when handled.
This can slowly build into fear aggressive behaviors towards new people and other dogs. They simply do not have the skills to handle new people and encounters.
Isolated puppies also tend to grow to be hyperactive, difficult to train, antisocial and fearful.
Which is the biggest reason for surrenders and euthanasia's in dogs under a year (or any age) is because of behavioral problems.
These could have been prevented in the first place with proper positive handling, training and social skills, at an early age.

Spread the word, lets make dogs lives better
Lets build better Future Companions

12/05/2024

Greetings and Socialization

Greetings and Socialization go hand in hand, lets first start with greetings, how to walk up to someone, and sit for a greeting.
Sounds simple, but to a dog, he needs to go through the motions so its a habit to walk up to someone and know how to handle the greeting.
In the wild, they would only get to know the animals in their pack, but in our world, they need to have skills to greet new people everyday.
Starting at 7 weeks, greetings can be practiced with family members to start, walk up, put them into a sit, give a treat for the proper greeting, maybe pet their head, repeat this several times till it becomes automatic. If the puppy jumps up on you say nothing, look away and wait for them to sit.
Pat your leg, like you want them to jump on you, wait for them to sit, or if they stay sitting, give them a treat.
If the signal of patting your leg, signals to them to sit instead of jumping up, it will lessen the chances of jumping up on people, being an issue later.
Your changing the meaning of patting the leg.
Ask people to not touch your puppy if they jump up on them.
When your puppy becomes good at greetings, start going out in public to practice on strangers, ask permission, give them a treat, and explain that you want your puppy to greet strangers in a polite way, ask them to reward for a sit, pat their leg, and if sitting, give rewardIf they do jump up, say nothing, don't touch them, just wait for the sit.
Puppies starting 11 weeks, should start going out into public meeting new people, strive for 20 new people a week.

08/16/2021

This is another cutie

08/16/2021

Someones temperature was very low