ABC Dog Training Caroline Bird Cpdt - Ka

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ABC Dog Training Caroline Bird Cpdt - Ka

Caroline Bird CPDT-KA Certified trainer with 16 years of class teaching experience with dogs and owners. offering classes in obedience, puppy and agility.

Private sessions both in home and at my boarding kennels near st martins.

10/08/2025

JUST A FEW SIMPLE TRAINING TIPS if you have a dog that avoids having their collar touched by you. This is Lottie who is in for board and train and it looks like she has spent a lot of time evading her owner when she needs to be caught after one of her runaway adventurers. She does the runaways after she has pulled her owner of her feet, resulting in her owner letting go of her leash. She is such a nice natured dog, but she has developed some unwanted habits.

10/07/2025

NEW CLASSES FOR FALL AND WINTERTIME

NEW CLASS
WEDNESDAY 7th JANUARY 2026, PRE-AGILITY SKILLS @ 6.30pm
A set of 8 classes for any dog aged from 8 months upwards. It is an introduction to many foundation skills that will be needed before the dogs start on the agility equipment. Packed full of so much learning, some obedience, dog body awareness, crate games, building drive, toy play and retrieves, teaching dogs to understand your body signals and so much more. Following this will be a six-week course for introduction to the equipment. Cost is $150.00 plus hst

NEW CLASS
SUNDAY 28TH SEPTEMBER @ 5.30pm. PUPPY CLASS.
A set of 7 classes for pups aged 3-5 months old who have had at least 2 sets of shots. Class includes a theory class, introduction to basic skills, plus many other puppy related games and supervised social playtime with the other pups. Cost is $140.00 plus hst.

NEW CLASS
SUNDAY 19TH OCTOBER @ 4PM. BASIC OBEDIENCE.
This a set of 10 classes that include a theory class and then 9 classes of skills training for everyday life skills such as focus, loose leash walking, sits, downs, stays and recalls. All stays and recalls are trained for long, short and duration using games to ensure that both owners and their dogs really do understand what we are teaching. Cost is $180.00 plus hst.

NEW CLASS
THURSDAY 6TH NOVEMBER@ 6.30PM. CANINE GOOD NEIGBOUR.
This is a set of 6 classes that will cover all the elements that would be needed to enable a dog to understand and improve upon everything included in the test. Cost is $130.00 plus hst.

All classes , except the uptown manners will be held at 1250 Latimore Lake Road. Saint John. This is a large purpose made building with cushioned flooring, heated and has lots of free parking.
TO REGISTER for the classes, go to the website www.abcdogtraining.org

The small dog social playtime will restart in late December.
Other classes will restart in January and include the movement puzzles . This will be held on a Saturday afternoon. Details will be posted nearer the date.

10/06/2025

Saturday afternoon uptown manners class as we moved into the loyalist city burial grounds with the dogs and made the most of the all the new distractions. Not shown is the video is the group of people sitting on the benches close to this area. l think they enjoyed seeing so many dogs training all at the same time.

10/05/2025

I just wanted to give a huge thank you to everyone who took the time to respond to my post a few days. Whether it was by a comment, share, review on my page or google business account. It was deeply appreciated. I never expected such a big response and reading through the comments it brought back a lot of memories from people, and their dogs l have not seen in a long time.
I never did get any feedback from the anonymous post referring to me so l will never get to the bottom of it.

10/04/2025

Introducing the DOWN skill. This is Lottie who is in for board and train at my kennels. She definitely knows the word sit but down seems to be very a word that l gets no response from her, so it seems l need to teach it right from the beginning.
The method l used here took a lot of repeats until she got the idea that she needs to stretch those front legs out to be able to reach the treat in my hand. After that she naturally started to go into the down position as it was a lot more comfortable for her. For this simple action of the down command l reinforced how rewarding it was to stay in that position by giving her lots of treats in rapid repeats and paired it up with praise.
I will continue to repeat this exercise and when its more reliable l will add the word DOWN as she goes into position.
But after watching this video l started to think about how we used to teach the down, one way l remember is when we were told to sweep the two front paws from under the dog so gravity would make their body fall into a down, a book l was looking at from the late 90s read .... with your right hand , gently lift the chin or pull upwards on the collar, as you gently squeeze his waist with your left thumb and forefinger .
I am sure there were a lot more things we were told to do, so if anyone can think of any of them add a comment and lam sure many memories will return to me.
But the good news is the methods l use now are definitely here to stay, they make take a little longer than previous methods but they work.

10/01/2025

This post is more personal rather than dog information related so if you are only looking for dog news please pass by,
It is related to a Facebook comment that some anonymous person with a false name posted about me yesterday that l personally found to be very offensive and 100 percent untrue.
It was posted in a facebook group in the Rothesay area that has a lot of followers and is community based. I only saw it because someone has made a recommendation about me when someone was asking about possible names of trainers who could help with a leash reactive dog so it popped up in my notices.
Anyone who knows me from the last 19 years that l have been working with people and dogs is very aware of my style of training and how L interact with people so l could not believe it when this anonymous person said she had been to me and that L had told her that her dog was awful and that she was stupid!!!!!
I have been racking my brains all yesterday trying to think who i might have possibly said that to, but l cannot think of one person. Again anyone who knows me my motto is to always set any dog or person up for success and by saying something like that to anyone would have the opposite effect and l would be sabotaging my business reputation that l have worked very hard to build up over many years.
I am not saying l am perfect, like everyone l do make occasional mistakes and have learnt from them. When l started training 19 years it was still the old dominance and alpha methods, but those days are long gone, and my methods now are the exact opposite and l am personally a lot more comfortable with the reward-based training that l do.
I did reach out to this person in reply to her post to try and get her to contact me to see if l could find out why she said this but so far have heard nothing from her.
It is frustrating for me because if anyone on that page reads her comments l am going to be labeled as a trainer never to go to because of my attitude to people.
So what l am going to do is ask if anyone who knows me could possibly leave a review for me, either on this page or on my google business page. The review section on this page is towards the top of this page in the bar that gives choices to view such as photos, albums, reviews etc. You can post with a photo of your dog and comments.
l cannot undo what some wrote about me yesterday but l can at least feel better if people who do know me do appreciate my personality and teaching skills by posting . Its always appreciated.
many thanks in advance from Caroline Bird CPDT-KA

09/30/2025

Forgot about this video on my phone, it is from the one of the uptown manners class when we moved onto the new distractions in Kings Square on Saturday afternoon. Not to many pigeons that day, but plenty of other typical city distractions!

09/29/2025

It week 3 of the uptown manners class and this is the first time l have managed to get some photos posted on the page.
My bad, and l will try harder to get some more done very soon!
Until then enjoy the set of new students all enjoying the awesome fall weather in both Queens and kings' square

09/28/2025

part 3 and 4 video from Gus who was in for board and train for the last two weeks, part 1 and 2 are further down the page. This is just the foundation part for this behavior, if he would have been staying longer with me l would have started the same process in lots of new places so that he would generalize the behavior applies anywhere. But in new places l would start with always having a long line attached to him. Plus i would have been combing it with other learned skills as the recall is just one of many new foundation skills that he would need to learn to create the full learning experience.

09/26/2025

One of things that i did not take into account when we adopted Pepper is that despite all my best intentions to get her trained using my own experience, it seems that is not as easy as l thought as l have to concentrate on all my students in class time
Luckily for me pepper LOVES people, and luckily for me l have very willing class helpers who love to work with her.
So, it looks like all her training is going to be a team effort, here she is in the pre-agility class doing the fun exercise where she is learning how to move her back-end legs independently of her front legs.
thanks Karie, and Pepper loved all the extra training treats.

09/24/2025

the BASIC OBEDIENCE CLASS that l scheduled to begin on Sunday 12th October will be DELAYED until the following Sunday starting at 4pm as l forgot to take into account that the weekend of the 12th is the thanksgiving weekend.
Anyone who has already registered will receive a email with this notification.
For anyone who is interested in joining this class you can register via the website www.abcdogtraining.org
This is a set of 10 classes for dogs of any age. It covers all the basic skills that a typical dog will benefit from and includes, focus, loose leash walking, sit, downs, stays and recalls
Cost is $180.00 plus hst
held at 1250 Latimore Lake Road. Saint John

Address

1250 LATIMORE LAKE Road
Saint John, NB
E2N1Y8

Website

http://www.abcdogtraining.org/

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About my dog training services

Caroline Bird CPDT-KA is certified dog trainer who has been teaching classes in the Saint John area for the past 13 years. She is also the owner and operator of Saint Martins dog boarding and training kennels. Her classes that are held in Saint John include puppy class, basic obedience, advanced obedience, pre agility and advanced agility. her website for classes is www.abcdogtraining.org or for the kennels www.stmartinsdogkennels.com