Took Kyro to the park to throw his ball today. The dog barking is across the road behind its fence. If you look closely, you’ll also see three little dogs walking past the fence (they’re what the other dog is barking at) Kyro could see all of these dogs. Six months ago, the barking and the dogs in sight would have been a massive trigger for Kyro to bark. The fact he was comfortable enough to lie down and play with his ball, knowing that the dogs were behind him is a massive deal for us 😍😍. Consistency is key with any training. No quick fixes or shortcuts here 👌🏻
This was week 1 of working with Pippa. I have since done another session with her and she’s improved lots! Pippa’s owner just wants Pippa to walk with some manners instead of pulling. She’s pretty good in this video. The second session we worked on that rushing ahead you see her do at the beginning of the video. This first session (this video) was more teaching her about leash pressure. This dog is a lot of fun to work with 😍
Had friends from Auckland pass through Nelson today with their pack. Kyro was soooo happy to get out for a run with a pack again 😍. We had a lot of fun. Cassie and Hayden are @the_fluffy_pack_ on instagram if you want to give them a follow. Look at all these good dogs.
A video from a bit of training in town last week. One of my favourite things to do with a dog is taking them to a busy(ish) environment and getting them to relax. I’ve been doing this with Kyro for quite some time now and he’s pretty good at it. He knows he needs to just chill and take it all in without getting wound up or excited.
I think it’s really important to teach dogs how to do this. If they can relax it makes it so much easier to have them around and involve them in day to day life.
Ky was more tired after this than he is after a run 😂. All that mental stimulation is tiring for them.
Lead Work
As promised, a video of some leash training.
Kyro knows how to walk on a leash nicely so this isn't so much teaching him, it's just showing some things that I incorporate into teaching it.
You'll notice I don't use treats in this video. My main tools when teaching this to a dog are my body language, my energy ( I know that sounds a bit hippie, but dogs really do feed off and respond to your energy) and my leash when needed. I do use treats with some dogs, it's dependant on their temperament and circumstances.
I make a point of never holding my leash tightly or wrapping it around my wrist. With Kyro, it generally just rests on my finger. WIth a stronger dog, I would clip the leash to my body when first teaching leash walking. This makes sure the dog is safe and I don't have to hold the leash in a death grip.
This is just a quick summary of some body language stuff mainly. Also showing you that when your dog knows this, they should follow you and your pace - not the other way around. A calm dog is a lot easier to work with in this scenario which is why I get Kyro as calm as possible.
Some of the words on this video flick by a bit quickly so you may want to pause it to read 😊
Aw Hunter 🥰.
Hunter was one of the dogs I took out on pack walks in Auckland (if you scroll down a bit, there’s a video of me walking his yellow lab brother, Lui too). Hunter was a big puller for his owners so it was really cool to get him walking like this to make their lives a bit easier!
Would anyone be interested if I posted a video about loose leash walking and a quick explanation on how to teach it?
I’ve decided to start crating Kyro at night again. He sleeps in my room and is moving from his bed to my spare pillows to my bed in a loop and it’s getting annoying! He seems to do this every couple of years 🤷🏼♀️.
He hasn’t been in a crate since we moved to Nelson, I didn’t pack his one to bring so I haven’t had one. Today I bit the bullet and bought one.
Kyro was crate trained as a puppy and slept in one until he was about 10 months old. He was crated when we went out during the day until he was about 18 months. So because of that, he takes pretty easily to a crate when I reintroduce it to him. This is him, about 10 minutes after I set it up. Keep in mind he hasn’t seen one in over a year. This is because of all the work I did when he was a puppy. He’s pretty happy in there.
I set it up today and got him going in it and lying down. When he did, I rewarded him. Then I closed the door and rewarded him - you get the idea. Within minutes he was happy to just chill in there (while I played crash bandicoot 😂). I’m so stoked with him 😍.
The point of this is to show how handy proper crate training can be through a dogs life. It’s so good to know that if I need to crate him, I can.
Thought we’d give this wee challenge a go! He managed to clear it at two rows higher than I thought he would be able to 😳. Maybe we should try agility 😂
Finally got this on video!
This is Kyro seeing a man and his dog walking on the other side of the road (you’ll notice his walk turn into more of a trot when he sees them). His reaction used to be barking. Now his reaction is looking up at me (most of the time) 🙌🏻🙌🏻. When the camera goes all weird. I’m tossing him a treat 😂.
So proud!
Just playing around with Kyro and his tricks. A quick wee video of some recall, stays and some fun tricks he knows. This is purely just for fun and to get his brain working. Enjoy 😊
Kyro’s ‘off lead’ walks are generally done with a long line at the moment. This is our reality at the moment. And that’s totally okay!
Ky naturally doesn’t go too far from me and his recall is pretty good. So the longline isn’t really used to train recall with him.
I just use it as a back up so I can give him space from what might trigger his barking. I generally don’t have to touch the lead now as he has made soooo much progress and I’m so happy with him! The majority of the time he can walk past dogs with no issue. I feel like he is ready to be completely off lead again but when I feel like that I always wait about a month longer. If I let him off too early and he barks, it’ll set us back in our training. He generally walks beside me with the longline dragging and when he sees something that used to cause him to bark he will look up at me (it’s taken a lot of work to get to this point) but sometimes if a dog is high energy or quite big (what Kyro struggles with the most) I will grab the lead and walk Kyro off to the side to give him some space. I’m able to work him a lot closer to his triggers now without him reacting which is amazing 🙌🏻. But having that lead means I know I can get Ky away from a dog who he may bark at. If I didn’t have the lead, Kyro could get himself so worked up barking that I can’t get through to him - that hasn’t happened for a looong time but it was our reality for a while - and would have to try and grab his collar and pull him away. The lead gives me heaps of time to get Kyro away.
The longline is an amazing tool and Kyro still gets a whole heap of freedom but it just gives me that little bit more control when I need it.
I’m so stoked with him 😍
Got to go and hang out with the pack from Paws Up! today 😍. I’m in Auckland so getting to catch up with lots of my fave people/dogs.
5 things to teach before you teach “sit”:
When people bring their new puppy home they generally rip straight into teaching sit, down, stay etc. the basic obedience commands. Of course I teach those commands, they’re just not my first priority. I like to start with the life skills they’re going to need - not so much the things I want them to be able to do on command.
Crate training - I crate train my dogs. It just makes life so much easier, especially when they’re puppies. When I brought Kyro home at 8-9 weeks old the first thing I did was start getting him used to his crate because I needed him to sleep in there that night. I was lucky with him as he took to it pretty quickly and slept through the night in it that first night. Night two he was a bit more vocal as he’d got familiar with us and his new environment. But it wasn’t anything too bad.
Teaching them to be alone - the second day I had Kyro I started working on leaving him alone. I’d pop him in his crate with something to chew or play with and just leave. The first time I just went outside where he couldn’t see me for five minutes. I didn’t go back inside until he was quiet. Then I did it for ten minutes and so on. Once I could do that I started taking the car too.
Getting used to the collar/leash - the first few days of having Kyro I spent a lot of time putting on and taking off his collar. Just to get him used to the sensation. I also started clipping a leash on and letting it trail around behind him in the house to get him used to that. Once he wasn’t that interested in it, I’d pick it up and walk him around the house.
The car - your dog is going to have to go in the car at some point! Even if you’re not big on taking your dog out in the car for adventures, they will have to go to the vet, groomer etc which usually involves a car ride. Pop their crate in the back, give them a bully stick to chew or just something to keep them occupied and just start with short drives. 5 mi
Aw Lui! This video is a couple of years old now. It’s from when I was running my pack walking business, Ty&Ky.
Lui was a young (I think about 10 months old here), very excited, very big yellow lab. When I say big I mean it, he was about 40kg. He was also a big puller which was quite the work out for his owner because of how big and strong he was. This was my second walk with him and I had got him to a point where he was in a much calmer state of mind and able to focus on walking a lot nicer and a lot more calmly.
Teaching leash walking is one of my favourite things when it’s just me and a dog. The main thing I have to do is project calm energy. If I get excited and start jumping around and speaking to the dog in an excited way they will reflect that and become excited which makes it a lot harder for them to walk nicely. Same as if I get tense, the dog will reflect that. I use a combination of calm energy and body language to teach a dog to walk like this. Not much else.
When you get a dog walking in sync with you, it’s pretty magic 🐶✌🏻
RECALL
Recall is something that a lot of dog owners struggle with. The biggest thing is to keep it positive. I’d almost run out of treats here so Kyro wasn’t getting rewarded as often as I would usually reward a dog for this. You want them to want to come to you. If they don’t get anything for coming back, they’re probably not going to come back.
Ky thinks it’s a game. You’ll notice I call him and then release him again. He stops and waits for me to call him back because he’s learnt that it’s worth it to him to come back. He gets something for it. This has been so heavily reinforced with him that even if I don’t have treats (like in this video) his recall is pretty solid. I also make sure I call him often and release him. I don’t want him to think I just call him when I want to leave the park. If I do that, “come” will mean “we’re leaving this awesome place” to him.
I also use his ball to work his recall (we still work on it because training is forever) because it’s his favourite thing and he will do anything for it. He comes to me, he gets his ball thrown. Think about what your dog likes and use it to your advantage.
Don’t have unrealistic expectations. If your dog doesn’t come back to you, start training them in a low distraction environment like your backyard. If you start trying to teach it at the dog park, you’re setting your dog up to fail.
Finally, a long line is your best friend. Kyro’s on one at the moment. If your recall isn’t 100%, keep them on a long line so you can get them back to you if they don’t respond to the come command. With a long line you can physically reel them back to you so they don’t reinforce ignoring the come command.
