Capturing, Shaping and Marking The Double Down
The Double Down is a state of relaxation where the dog finally lays their head down to rest. When we capture / shape this behaviour and mark it, we are acknowledging that restful state and reinforcing the state of being. Dogs are smart and will learn to do what is the most fulfilling or them. If you pay well, they will lay well and will CHOOSE the calm over the chaos.
Parking lots are awesome places to work your dogs. It’s basically an all u can eat buffet for trigger training. There are cars, kids, people, motorbikes, other dogs. You name it- I bet you’ll find it there.
Here we are practicing waiting, being released on command, going to place and just basically taking it in and ignoring it.
We need more practice but as the saying goes, practice makes perfect. And being consistent about it gets rock solid results.
Next time you’re with your dog and you park somewhere, get out and train for while.
Have fun!
Looking to build focus on you?
Try an intermittent reward schedule. Give the dog the smell or the treat for short intervals of the achieved position.
Reduce over time.
Works great to teach the dog what matters most- and that’s you.
Start when they’re young and make sure they understand. Habits like this will create a strong foundation and set you up for success as you navigate out overly stimulating world.
Create the calm.
Have fun !
Don’t let your dog control the meeting
When left to their own devices dogs will behave impulsively. The response that is given is based on a number of things. Sometimes it’s happy. Sometimes it’s not.
Either way the dog is not under control and people can get knocked down and hurt.
Forget that… the dog is hurting itself- listen to that laboured breathing. This is a BERNESE MOUNTAIN DOG lunging its body weight on its trachea AND reinforcing bad behavior.
Ditch the retractable leash.
Take control and offer better alternatives. 🤯 Problem solved.
This literally took 5 minutes. Training isn’t that difficult and just think how much better it’ll get with consistent practice.
Hand Feeding: Get with the program!
Wanna develop focus in your dog? Stop scolding them and start marking the good stuff. Every piece is a missed learning opportunity.
This silly little thing was causing her mom some serious ruckus and going a little cray cray on the leash.
The value of the environment was greater than the value of her human, and her human lacked skills and strategies to disengage the dog from sniffing and dragging.
Sound familiar? Probably. Happens every day.
You need to build your value. And that’s precisely what we did.
Here’s what her mom said after our session.
“Goodest girl this morning after working a bit in the yard then doing the block and her actually paying attention to me 👌”
Keep it up, lil pup pup!
Don’t allow your dog to drag you. Don’t allow your dog who is barking at things to continue staring and barking them. Move away from the triggers and work in the “good zone.” Teach them how to walk properly. Usually that is done individually but here I am handling two. It is possible to do when you know what to do and when to act. Don’t give your power away. Use tools and techniques to regain control and reduce reactivity.
Mochi had an incredible session learning to recall with the e-collar.
One of his owners is in a wheelchair and has limited strength in her hands. She cannot hold the leash as easily as her husband, nor can she deliver timely corrections or hold pressure. But that certainly doesn’t mean that she can’t be involved in the training of her beloved pet.
The ecollar enables and empowers this family and enriches the life of their dog.
She has worked on a lot more great training with the dog and it has made pairing commands to the collar much faster and easier.
An ecollar is not a torture tool. And people who say that don’t understand how to use them. They use them only to punish. That’s NOT how to use them correctly AT ALL.
An ecollar actually replaces the leash and is just a different way of communicating with a subject- and when done properly, it is a highly effective tool that, as you can see, dogs don’t mind at all.
Excellent work today Mochi. I am already so proud of your progress can’t wait to see how much more you grow and learn now that I’m guiding you. ❤️🐾
Build Impulse Control in Your Puppy
Most puppies roam freely on flexis and pull impulsively at stuff or ingest things they find out on walks. It can then turn into a game where they grab it and people have to pry it out of their mouths to keep them safe.
That not only increases the value of the item (which can create resource guarding) but also creates frustration between a person and their pet-plus it’s dangerous.
Why not turn it around on them and make it a “game” where ignoring things on the ground is rewarding and fun?
Here is my client Karine and her sweet puppy, Finn, working on his impulse control.
Teach Heel & Leave It to your puppy to keep them safe and engaged
#LeaveIt #puppytraining #puppysafety #dogtrainingtips #impulsecontroldogtraining
Brave Buddy Boy
Buddy was rehomed to these lovely people and he apparently spent quite a bit of his life confined and was not socialized very well.
He is such a sweet dog and it’s taken us quite a few sessions to get him to walk well for his owners. He lives in the country and we worked all his commands on his home turf, and this is our first field testing, “taking Buddy out on the town.”
We worked a bit and played a bit and the best thing of all is he had a 100% reaction free walk- he did look at stuff but had no episodes and there was no lunging whatsoever. He was just happy. And that gave his owner so much more confidence that she now feels brave enough to go again on her own.
Looks like the bravery is wearing off…Here he is being a brave boy trying new things and doing a great job.
🫶🐾❤️
Max The Mastiff’s Intro to Nail Clipping
It may be a long video but I think it’s a good one to show since this dog had no previous knowledge or experience with nail clipping.
It goes to show that if conditioning is done properly, the dog won’t mind it.
It’s all about incrementally building the dog’s engagement with the tool and being very clear through marking (“good” / “click”) that whenever the tool touches him, good things come.
You can add in lick mats, kongs, bones etc to help busy the mouth.
Respect the dog’s cues and take your time. You can do or over a week if you have to.
NBD No big deal.
Good luck & Have fu
#mastiffpuppy #mastiffdog #mastifftraining#masstiffnailclipping #nailclippingdog #dogtrainingadvice #dogtrainingtips #clickertraining
Clicker training is a very easy way to train a dog. While it can be awkward to handle so much different gear, just like anything, practice makes perfect. There’s something about that “click.” It’s crisp and can often garner the attention of the dog easier than the human voice since we talk to them so much. When we do this, the value of our voice can degrade and can get blocked out like white noise. That click gets registered by the ears a little differently via the sound orienting reflex, and will often make the dog turn toward the sound to investigate. You can further condition the dog to hear the sound of the click and feed them their meals piece by piece in the beginning. This not only build value on the human but can also construct a very solid way of communicating and capturing their own behaviours just simply by watching them and marking what you like. By being attentive we can nurture the good and thereby shape the dog’s state of being. #mastiffpuppy #mastiffdog #clickertraining #conditioning #capturingdogtraining #dogtrainingtips #dogtrainingadvice
Socializing Max, the Mastiff
Have you ever seen a dog become fearful of the sewer grates?? I have. They can PULL their owner away to escape their fear and it can be very dangerous. That’s with any dog…but with a dog who will grow eventually to be over 100 pounds, we ESPECIALLY cannot have this happen. We must prevent fear by socializing the puppy very early on to all sorts of textures, sounds and situations. Loss of control with dogs is all preventable through proper training #mastiffpuppy #puppysocializing #dogtrainingtips #trainyourpuppy #mastiff #puppysocializing #socializingdoesNOTmeanplaying
What does the feeling of pressure on the leash mean to your dog? Does it mean pull? Pay attention? Come back to me? Or do yo even know? Most people expect that popping the leash repeatedly is enough to make a dog stop pulling. Problem is, the closer they get to the target, the more overstimulated they become therefore you “need” to “use more force” to “get the job done.” This is very incorrect. It is OUR job to teach the dog that when THEY pull, WE understand that WE must act by creating space for them. Every time we practice this and have them turn away from the trigger, they “come down a level.” Through repetition they learn better habits of not pulling and checking in with us - “hey, look at me! I’m doin it! Where’s my treat!?” This is Theo’s first session walking. He had previously been a disaster - as many Frenchies without training are unfortunately. We’ve got lots of room to grow but this is a great start. I suggest you all try it too! ❤️🐾👊
Dog Body Language cues… do you know them? Can you read them? People with a keen eye can see the signs a mile away. This is the lip lick. It is a signal that the dog is loading or is stressed. It can be accompanied by other signals like a change in posturing and tail carriage (usually rapid and high with a tight sweep) as well focused eyes and a tall, leaning forward stance. If you see it, it might be a good time to decompress the dog by place distance between them and their trigger. In this case, I was standing there with a dog. Murphy’s reactivity was so intense he has pulled his owner down several times and even redirected onto her and bitten her. This is our third session. As you can see he’s doing well since his owner, pictured in the video, now knows how and when to create space for him. Great work guys #dogbodyindicators #dogreactivitytraining #rescuedogtraining #dogtrainingtips #dogtrainingadvice #dogbodylanguage
Do you think Griselda wants the treat!? 😂🤭❤️
Hey, we’ve all heard the saying “Less is More,” and it couldn’t be truer in dog training. Doting constantly on the dog and giving it unearned affection will send your value down the drain. The less you say the more valuable you are. Build your value. #dogtraining #buildvalue #dogtrainingadvice #dogtrainingtips #leadership #wedontbegthedog
Leash skills. Do you have them? Consider your hand position and take into account general laws of physics. If your hand is closer to the dog, the corrections are administered via minute manipulations to the leash and are very gentle. If your hand is further, a greater force must be used to travel across the distance fast enough for the animal to receive the correction at the right time. Intensity builds the greater the distance therefore more force is given than is required. If you take that concept and move with it, and keep the leash under a very small amount of tension- I like to call it “prepared,” then you are able to also correct the engagements with the environment immediately when the dog is still under threshold. This promotes a controlled walk and makes it much much easier for the handler. The dog definitely won’t mind receiving less force. It’s not necessary.
I call this game Doggy in the Middle. We put a dog in “Place” on a designated target and have the other dogs circulate around. Every time the dog on Place orients to the moving dogs in the outer circle who are Heeling past, we apply the Leave It command and pay the dog for returning focus to handler. It’s an excellent exercise for all dogs involved. #dogtrainingdrill #LeaveItCommand #heelcommand #heelthewalk #dogsocializing #packwalk #dogtrainingtips #dogtraining
Ms Millie the Misfit - previous misfit that is
I want to talk today about picking a dog up as a way to force cooperation.
It’s like lifting up your toddler when they don’t listen. Does your toddler like that?
No. They don’t.
They hate it. It is very disempowering.
Sure we have to do it sometimes in a pinch…I know I’ve been guilty of it.
Proud?
Perhaps not, but at least after the incident(s) occur with human we have the opportunity to explain our actions and try to develop new cooperative coping strategies for future incidences where we may encounter similar problems.
Your dog is like a 4 year old. But they have sharper teeth and they can’t be rationalized with. They just learn you’re gonna pick them up when you want to force them to cooperate (like come inside, etc) and they become defensive.
Then they can become aggressive.
First they may indicate distress and discomfort only when you physically lift then up to remove them.
Then they associate that feeling to you in general and any time you go near your dog the stress indicators begin to show.
Maybe they tighten their muzzle, let out a low grumble or possibly bear teeth when you just walk by. Before you know it, they try to show signs of aggression as soon as you enter the room.
Thus is all an attempt to protect themselves from being picked up.
You try to pick them up less but sometimes you have to and they bite you.
What do you do?
Get help.
This exact situation happened to here. She wouldn’t come in the house so they would pick her up. It started off when she was a puppy but it got out of hand when she got bigger It was only the man of the house who did it.
And she only ever showed signs of aggression to him as a result.
There is no judgement here at all. Please try to sympathize or empathize even and use it as a learning opportunity.
Please try your best to understand that there are many ways to get a dog to cooperate and even if its easier in the moment to do one thing - in this case pick them up- it is n
