Take the Lead Dog Training

02/12/2025

Animals a sentinel beings. You know it’s true!

https://www.facebook.com/100064442901881/posts/1295237289301022/?mibextid=rS40aB7S9Ucbxw6v

A new petition has been submitted to the Government of Canada to finally recognize animals as sentient beings, and it needs our support.

Despite everything we know through decades of research, Canada still classifies animals as property.

Our law is out of step with modern science, ethics, and global standards. It’s embarrassing, but we have an opportunity to change that.

The New York Declaration on Animal Consciousness, now signed by hundreds of scientists, legal scholars, and animal cognition experts, affirms what the evidence has shown for years: vertebrates, including the species we work to protect, are sentient.

We know that animals, including grizzlies, wolves and cougars, grieve losses, defend family members, learn from elders, respond to stress and form long-term social bonds.

Canada’s own veterinary community agrees, with the Canadian Veterinary Medical Association calling for the legal recognition of animal sentience nationwide.

More than 30 countries have already updated their laws to reflect this science, including the UK,, New Zealand, Chile and Australia. Canada has not.

Recognizing animals as sentient strengthens our laws, creating the foundation for better wildlife protection, improved coexistence policy and a more honest relationship with the species who share these landscapes with us.

If we want policy that reflects reality rather than convenient and outdated assumptions that forgive our treatment of wildlife, we need to support this movement.

Please sign the petition urging the Government of Canada to recognize animals as sentient beings, not property.

Add your name here: www.ourcommons.ca/petitions/en/Petition/Details?Petition=e-6955

30/11/2025

Willow!

Photo shoots are unpredictable with dogs. ‘Squirrel’ can be a real issue. 😆. But I managed to get 1!

24/11/2025

Blue the Samoyed

20/11/2025

Life Skills wrapped up on Monday

✅ Ben and Eddie ( Doodle brothers who were lucky enough to be adopted together at the age of 3)
✅ Maple the Golden Ret.
✅ Bentley the Doberman.

Thank you for being a great group.

13/11/2025

This.

The Dogs We Unmade by Anneka Svenska

Once, I was built for something.
The old centuries still breathe inside my ribs.

I am a Malinois — a body tuned to flight and flame.
Shaped to leap, to guard, to search, to save.
Now I am told, “be easy,” lie still on a sofa that feels like a cage.
My muscles hum for orders that never come.

I am an Akita Inu.
My ancestors stood between their people and the bear;
courage ran hot as iron in their veins.
Now I am asked to be soft, compliant, small—
and punished when my inheritance answers back.

I am a Beagle.
I once sang the world’s map with my nose,
a bell that rang for life itself.
Now a silent shock tightens my throat,
and I am called with fingers that never learned my music.

I am a Yorkshire Terrier.
Down in the dark I was lightning—
a whistle of paws through rat-run stone.
Now I am glass on a cushion, legs unused,
lifted like an ornament, set down like a worry.

I am a Labrador Retriever.
Joy was a cold pond and a clean splash—
a bird carried home, soft-mouthed, radiant.
Now I grow heavy by the radiator,
a babysitter with a broken compass.

I am a Jack Russell.
I was bred to square my chest to fear,
to face down the hole that bit back.
Now my spark is called “naughty,”
and they file me into the shape of a quiet room.

I am a Siberian Husky.
I knew the long white hush and the drum of snow,
a horizon that kept its promises.
Now the world is four walls and a sour lawn.
I dig to bury the ache in my bones.

I am a Border Collie.
Made to waltz with a shepherd, to pour order out of chaos,
to work until the stars came out in my eyes.
Now, for want of sheep, I gather bicycles and children—
and am scolded for being faithful to the blueprint in my blood.

I am all of these.
I am a dog of the 21st century—
pretty, packaged, compliant on paper—
and also a someone, hammered and honed by purpose.

Eight or ten hours alone is not comfort.
It is a clock with no hands.
I bark, I dig, I shred, I break—
or I sink, go silent, thin into a shadow.
This is not mischief. This is despair.

You give me a soft bed and a full bowl—
and wonder why I look away.
It’s because the road I was forged to run
doesn’t fit inside your living room.

If you love me—if my blue eyes or sleek coat called to you—
but your life cannot hold the work my breed still begs for,
do not buy me. Do not adopt me.

If you want my look but not my fire,
if you think love alone can rewrite a lineage,
do not buy me. Do not adopt me.

Yes, I am modern.
But my pulse still drums with fighter, hunter, puller, protector, guide.
History moves in my marrow.
Please, choose with the weight of that in your hands.

And if you must leave me, think of two instead of one—
so the hours won’t gnaw so deep.
Your workday is my winter.

I am a dog of now,
and every dog that stood before me.
I ask only for the life I was meant to live.

— Anneka Svenska

09/11/2025

Hmm...who woulda thought?

03/11/2025

Last Life Skills of the year! November 24th.
Registration Open!
https://llovedogs.as.me/?appointmentType=85247836

For more information - https://taketheleaddogtraining.ca/group-training-classes/life-skills-dog-training-class/

22/10/2025

Blue the Samoyed puppy is learning walking skills while on the leash.

Hallways are the perfect place to learn. Few distractions so more focus on the task at hand.

Watch the leash work. Listen to the marker timing. (Clicker). Eye contact. Food placement is always the same so it’s predictable thus less confusion for Blue.

Building all these skills takes time and repetition then we take it outside.
This is nice to watch …for behaviour geeks! 🤪

15/10/2025

Me! Anyone else???