Weekly highlights!
This week was full of fun, adventure, and learning! 🐾
Enjoy this compilation of stories from the past week, showcasing the many faces of Courteous Canine pups and families!
www.courteouscaninetraining.ca
Lexi the GSD had one final reactivity session with us today as she finishes her boarding visit, and absolutely rocked it! 🔥🙌🏻
We used Lucy, a dog she doesn’t know and hasn’t been around before, as a distraction. So happy with how Lexi handled all of this!
Reactivity session with Lexi!
Lexi the GSD had one final reactivity session with us today as she finishes her boarding visit, and absolutely rocked it! 🔥🙌🏻
We used Lucy, a dog she doesn’t know and hasn’t been around before, as a distraction. So happy with how Lexi handled all of this!
Captions are on screen ⬇️⬇️
www.courteouscaninetraining.ca
Conley is here for boarding and continued work around his reactivity triggers. Conley originally came in for generalized dog reactivity, which has been reduced to very occasional now and seems to be contextual to German Shepherd types specifically. This video is from last week, before we started public outings!
In this video I am using Ari the Belgian Malinois who is very high drive, first approaching, then moving excitedly nearby, then barking, and finally playing some tug (she’s very vocal playing tug!).
I expected this to be really high challenge for Conley, but he blew that right out of the water! Was there some struggle for him? Yes! But that’s what we wanted to see. He was clearly amped up by her sass, but he made excellent choices and we were able to positively interrupt his focus as needed. No reactions, not even intense fixation or any other vocalizations. Lovely! 🔥
We needed to see him handle high challenge here in a controlled environment before we could fairly expect him to make good choices in a more uncontrolled one, and then we will be able to gradually increase the challenge in public spaces too.
So proud of this little dude and how far he’s come!
www.courteouscaninetraining.ca
What is coexistence? Why is it an important skill for our dogs? Where do we even start?!
Listen along for these answers and more ♥️
www.courteouscaninetraining.ca
Introducing Piper, a 3 year old Lab, who arrived earlier this week for a Leash & Lifestyle program! 🐾
Piper is a farm dog who has never learned leash skills, or much in the way of social manners. He’s a really fun, silly guy, who just needs a bit of polishing! This big pup is going to be looking for a new home at the end of his program, so if you know of anyone looking, send them our way! 👀♥️
So far we’ve been working on some basics with Piper of food luring, shaping better play with people, door manners, and starting into some prong collar conditioning for lighter leash communication. This video shows one of his most recent sessions, causally following Jesse as she was around the shop. Normally Piper is a bulldozer with zero handler awareness, so this is HUGE! 🙌🏻
Stay tuned for more on this happy dude as he continues to learn and experience new things!
www.courteouscaninetraining.ca
Ryder’s Training Update!
Checking in with Ryder the Rhodesian Ridgeback after his first week here! 🐾
We started off with some hand feeding and clicker conditioning, and moved on to food luring and shaping a follow position. From there we continued to work on confidence, getting Ryder more comfortable around obstacles and novel items (our chickens were SURELY monsters in disguise!), and finally we started working on a Place command.
Ryder is heading home today, a week early (more on that later!), but stay tuned to see how he makes out in his sessions at home with his family in the coming weeks!
www.courteouscaninetraining.ca
Checking in with Ember the young Goldendoodle, who just completed her second week with us out of her three week program!
We worked on confidence building and increasing the duration of her calm focused attention, while also building a foundation of movements and experiences that will carry over into higher challenge settings. We conditioned a prong collar for lighter leash communication, and began conditioning an ecollar for future leash-free fun 🐾🌳
Continuing from there, we’re now using the ecollar to cue Ember to come back to us for rewards, utilizing it both for recall as well as interrupting fixation and reminding her of the desired position. This is all done using low stimulation, because we’ve made the stimulus valuable!
The best is yet to come; next week we’re taking things up a notch, working Ember in more challenging public environments and getting into targeted, less controlled outdoor off-leash at home. And finally, we’ll be bringing the family in to learn about all of this, starting to shape a happier, healthier lifestyle for them together! ♥️
www.courteouscaninetraining.ca
#doodlepuppy #goldendoodle #goldendoodlepuppy #balanceddogtraining #positivereinforcement #rewardbasedbalanced #dog #ontariocanada #ontariodogtrainer #calmdog #puppy #puppytraining #confidencebuilding #behaviourmodification #rescuedog
Highlights of Frank the Mini Aussie!
Frank the Mini Aussie went home this past weekend, but here’s a quick highlight video from his time with us ♥️
When Frank arrived he was very nervous, had never boarded before, was timid and didn’t know how to socialize with other dogs, and hadn’t been handled by anyone other than his family. Frank has a history of fear based reactivity including a few moderate bites, so we were prepared to take it as slow as he needed, with goals of comfort first and hopefully getting him more comfortable around dogs and brushing up his leash manners.
I think it’s safe to say Frank absolutely exceeded our expectations! 🙌🏻 This sassy guy truly opened up, meeting many new people, playing with various dogs, going for packwalks, and working on his leash manners and obedience commands. It was such a pleasure to see him soak it all in ♥️
We were sad to see him go, but so happy he enjoyed his time here with us! 🐾
www.courteouscaninetraining.ca
Checking in with Dev the Springer Spaniel!
Dev has been with a bit over a week now, and while here we’ve been working on sharpening his leash manners. We started with low distraction, shop doors shut and no one else in the area. Now we’re working on adding to the challenge with doors open, and people and dogs present!
We’ve also been working on recall in the shop and on the trails, and turning up Dev’s place command, increasing duration, distance, and distraction 🐾
We’re so excited to show Dev’s family his skills when they pick him up!
www.courteouscaninetraining.ca
Join us for a Pack Walk!
Yesterday we had a great group of dogs out for a hike together! It was a fantastic blend of trained dogs and dogs in training, and outings like this can help sooo much with the learning process. Dogs learn incredibly fast from other dogs, so it’s important that the ratio of trained versus training in progress is kept appropriate. We also have two trainers on this hike helping to keep everyone on track and making sure things run smoothly! 🐾
On hikes like this we encourage the dogs to sniff and explore, and add in periodic recalls and asking the dogs to change direction unexpectedly. This is real life training, keeping in line with what we encounter and expect from daily life!
www.courtoeuscaninetraining.ca
Check out what Ember the young Goldendoodle got up to on her first day with us! 🐾
We started with the lowest challenge activity; just getting to know each other in the yard, hand feeding to build a verbal marker, playing, and sharing affection. Ember is very sweet and socially confident, and we were quickly able to move on to a more formal working session. We still kept it basic; come to me and follow me with minimal distractions in a controlled environment! You can never do too much foundation work, and we take that to heart ♥️
Stay tuned to see what Ember gets up to next!
www.courteouscaninetraining.ca
Introducing Ember!
Welcome Ember, a 9 month old Goldendoodle, to our Board+Train program! 💕
Ember arrived today to begin a 3 week Intro to Off Leash program. While here we’ll be working on her leash skills, handler focus, social manners with people and dogs, confidence building, and introducing a remote collar for off leash communication 🐾
Stay tuned for updates as she progresses! 👀
www.courteouscaninetraining.ca
Longline Practice with Riley
Riley the young Chocolate Lab has been working on his longline recall, and this video is from earlier this week when we started working outside around more distractions! 🐾
We started by conditioning an ecollar with Riley, having the stimulus be a cue to look to us for something good. We gradually added distance and distraction inside on the longline, building up to a more formal recall on top of a non-verbal recall using just the stimulus alone, before moving outside. Riley is now fairly reliable even outside on the trails at returning using only a vocal cue, with occassional help from the ecollar to remind him that coming back when we ask is awesome!
Riley is now able to be reliably off leash on our property, with and without dog friends, so our next steps this week are heading out to more challenging spaces to continue proofing these skills in various environments.
www.courteouscaninetraining.ca
Training Update with Storm! 🌩️
Storm the GSD is here for boarding, and his family added on daily training sessions to refresh his skills as it’s been a couple of years!
Storm was fairly anxious the first week, but has been slowly building more and more focus and relationship with us. Today he made a huge leap, and gave us some awesome and consistent voluntary check-ins 🙌🏻
What we’re looking for with Storm is a mindset shift, where he WANTS to work for us, and isn’t just doing it because he has to. Storm knows many commands, but if he does them while being in an anxious or stressed mindset then at best we’re just managing his behaviour, and not improving his quality of life. In the beginning, yes, there’s a lot of transactional rewards going on! But we need to build ourselves up as valuable to the dog, and we aim to do so as quickly as possible. There’s certainly a time and place for just “making it happen”, but in almost all cases it’s unnecessary (especially in the beginning, barring safety concerns!), puts a LOT of pressure on the dog, and can even cause some relational backlash or reduction of the dog’s confidence. We want to avoid that as much as possible 🐾
Jesse has done a fantastic job helping this sweet guy along while I’m away, and I’m so excited to see how far she can take him while he’s here!
www.courteouscaninetraining.ca
Rivy the GSD is continuing to work on her focused heel, and tightening up some of her other movements! 🐾
This spicy lady is available for adoption! 😍
Rivy’s ideal family will love being active and spending time with her outdoors, and be looking to form a lasting partnership with this smart, enthusiastic girl! Contact us for details, or to arrange a meet and greet ♥️
[email protected]
Happy Canada Day! 🇨🇦🎉
As the celebrations progress into the night, PLEASE take precautions with your pets! Even the best, most bombproof, calmest dog in the world, can still be startled by fireworks. make sure to feed and bathroom your dogs early tonight, keeping in mind that some fireworks start before it is completely dark!
Do not take the risk of losing your beloved pet. It happens year after year; July 2 comes around with a rash of “lost pet” posts… These can be prevented! Take your pets out early, keep them inside, contained, while the celebrations are ongoing. If your pet needs medication to get through the stress of the night, that’s OK! Do what is right for you and your pet, and don’t let anyone else’s opinion sway your decision. If you MUST take them outside, make sure you are in a fenced area, your dog is on a leash and a collar or harness that they cannot get out of, and make it as short as possible.
Trust me, taking the extra precautions now will go a long way to preventing future heartbreak 💔🐾
Now that that is taken care of, Happy Canada Day! 🇨🇦
Please enjoy yourself responsibly ♥️
Tag along as we work on a loose leash walk and confidence building with Mya, one of our daycare clients!
In this video you see one of our shadow students working with Mya, practicing the loose leash walk as well as beginning to build her confidence working around and on the raised cot. This is the foundation for the place command, but we’re not naming it at this point! We’re strictly working on state of mind, getting Mya as comfortable as possibly moving around and on the raised cot. This is also the first time this student has handled Mya, so we have some contextual challenges going on too!
https://linktr.ee/courteouscanine
#pitbulls #bullybreed #bullymix #balanceddogtraining #positivereinforcement #rewardbasedbalanced #dog #ontariocanada #wainfleetontario #hamiltonontario #wellandontario #niagaraontario #ontariodogtrainer #calmdog #puppy #puppytraining #confidencebuilding #behaviourmodification #rescuedog
Join us for a high challenge reactivity session with Miller the GSD/Husky!
In this video you will see Miller working around a major trigger; an excited and barking dog. We start at distance with minimal distraction, and gradually bring him closer to the trigger (Ari the Belgian Malinois). Next we have Ari in motion, and then get closer again. We step things up even more by having Ari bark and play tug, as well as retrieve the tug 🐾
This video is narrated, so you don’t need to read the captions to follow along if you turn the volume up! 🔊
https://linktr.ee/courteouscanine
