Balanced Living Through Dog Training

08/22/2021

Meet Milo! He's an 8 week old Bernese Mountain Dog we're working with

08/22/2021

Soren stayed with us over the weekend and had a blast with our doggies. Here he is with Reaper waiting for the ball to be thrown 🥰

04/19/2021

Diego is getting the hang of heeling

04/19/2021

Meet Diego. A 1 yo viszla we are working with on some obedience training.

02/20/2021

Boarding Stevie this weekend and introducing the prong collar. This way her owner can start working on leash manners and walking nicely on leash. Here's her first time on a prong about half way through our walk.

01/17/2021

Working on some free stacks with Reaper. Today I added the leash to add more back pressure through opposition reflex. This results in the puppy leaning into the pressure and results in a better stack. It also helps have better control.

13 weeks old so still a long way to go but he's learning!

01/02/2021

One of the worst things that can happen. We always tell parents/pet owners to never leave dogs alone with babies/young kids. Even stable dogs can result in something bad.

Dogs should never have access to babies.

https://people.com/crime/4-month-old-girl-dies-after-shes-found-with-dog-lying-on-top-of-her/

A man reportedly called police to say he'd found the baby unconscious and not breathing beneath the dog

11/24/2020

Here's a review from somebody that recently bought an Ecollar technology system from us and is self training their dog. They're doing awesome work and learning a lot! Super proud of them.

10/06/2020

Petco recently came out with a statement regarding their position on "shock collars" or e-collars.

They stated they will no longer sell their e-collars and that's a GREAT thing. Their collars are lower quality collars that are unreliable, over stim, and cheaply made. These collars can cause issues.

The problem we have with their statement is they say E-collars cause pain and training with them is training with pain. This is misleading and makes the reader think you can't use e-collars without causing pain and shutting dogs down. They even have a petition against e-collars, which is ridiculous.

My response to this is:
1. Good, don't sell cheap collars.

2. Good collars like Ecollar technologies (we sell these), dogtra, and others are well made, reliable stim, a big range of stim (usually 100 levels) so you can use low to high levels based on the need, great customer service, and more modern/advanced technology. All of this makes these brands a safer and better option.

3. It takes a specific SKILL to train with ecollars. Many dogs are different and require different training methods. Not every dog needs an ecollar but an ecollar can be used on every dog. Knowing how and when to use these collars is a skill that most trainers don't have. It takes even MORE skill to train with ecollars and not shut the dog down. Putting an ecollar on and pressing a button is NOT ecollar training.

4. 99.9% of people I've encountered that are against ecollar use have NEVER used one and don't know how they work.

5. Petco is doing this as a PR stunt. The issue is they are trying to change laws and banning ecollars for EVERYBODY, including those of us with the skills to use them properly.

Here are my dogs/my brother's dog with ecollars doing dog things. I also have many clients who opted to use ecollars with great results.
I've met with a few people who said they'd NEVER use an ecollar or their dog/breed is too soft for an ecollar and I showed them how it can be used with their dogs. These people were open minded and found a new way to train.

09/26/2020

Before and after nails for Rhea🤩

09/23/2020

Rhea and Sadie are hanging out with us for the week :)

09/17/2020

Before and after nails for rocky😍

09/12/2020

Lulu and cashew are staying with us this weekend 😍

09/12/2020

Some behavior mod work this morning with Milo and his owner.

We're working on leaving resources he really wants, working on potential resource gaurding issues, basic obedience, and frustration

09/05/2020

Tala and Remi playing in our back yard this morning 😍

08/30/2020

Chico kisses

08/30/2020

Grace enjoying some flirt pole action🤩

08/30/2020

Chico on his walk earlier!

08/25/2020

Lulu and cashew going on a walk this rainy morning

08/21/2020

Lulu and cashew playing around this morning after their first night staying with us.

They'll be boarding with us and we'll start working on leash reactivity lulu has.

08/04/2020

Can always tell when long line work is rushed

08/03/2020

Words of wisdom 🤣

08/01/2020

Ellie playing fetch in the back yard😍⚾️

07/31/2020

Ellie is staying with us this weekend!

07/12/2020

The face of joy when you get your tug toy as a reward for recalling! Grace had a great session today focusing on recalling mid run from distractions.

07/07/2020

A post about dog food since a lot of my friends ask, which is always welcomed, but here's something:

Disclaimer: any animal with health condition should be discussing nutrition with their vet. This post is only for healthy dogs.

1. Every dog is different, so just because your dog does well/badly on a food doesn't mean that's the result every dog will have, nor does it mean that food is good/bad.

2. Puppies, especially large breed puppies, need puppy food or all life stage food. NOT adult food. This should be obvious but here we are.

3. Feed your dog based on BODY CONDITION. There's a scale I'm sure you've seen called the Body Condition Score (BCS). Keep your dog in the 4-5 out of 9 range.

4. % on the bag (guaranteed analysis) can be deceiving. If you have a question about this ask in the comments and I'll explain.

5. Feeding trials using AAFCO minimum requirements are almost useless. The population size is too small, there are uncontrolled variables, and the duration is typically too small.

6. Corn is not evil. Unless your dog doesn't do well on it, you can feed corn. They've studied it and it's actually one of the most digestible ingredients they use.

7. Raw can be good if done well, but just feeding raw without balancing every nutrient is dangerous, especially for puppies. Balanced raw to NRC/AAFCO/FEDIAF requirements is what should be done. Feeding the cheapest kibble ever is better than unbalanced/incomplete raw.

8. Dogs don't need their food to be 99% meat based. Some dogs do really well on foods that have less meat in it. Meat content is NOT an indicator of quality OR how well your dog will do.

9. Ingredients ARE important, but not the only important thing. Formulation, digestibility, availability, price, how your dog does on it, and more are all just as important.

10. Don't worry about Nutritional-DCM (N-DCM) just yet.

Any questions or additions you may have, comment them.

Pic of Freyja soaking up the sun🤩

06/26/2020

Kudzu and mowgli having fun in the back yard😂

06/24/2020

Rolly Great Dane😂

This dog is so silly

06/20/2020

Meet Kudzu our new boarding buddy for the week.

06/16/2020

Everybody meet Grace! She is an 8 month old pup we got to meet and work with on Sunday. We're going to start obedience training with her 😍