RooDog Training

12/11/2023

happy 4th birthday to the girl of my dreams 💕 Remy is truly a dream come true for me- the perfect golden girl I always wanted. The confidence she has helped me grow as a person and as a dog trainer is something I’ll never be able to repay her enough for. I feel lucky everyday that she’s mine. She’s the namesake of my business, my favorite dog to teach and learn with, and most of all, my very best friend. Here’s to four perfect years of you, Remy Roo ❤️

12/05/2023

Welcome 7 month old Bentley to one week of board & train! Bentley has been taking private lessons with me since he was around 3 months old. His owner had a to take a trip for work so Bentley came to board & train to continue practicing his good boy behaviors while his owner is out of town! :)

11/30/2023

Herbie is here for one week of board & train to practice some public manners and leash walking! Today he was a perfect gentleman while executing his “place” command in a busy new environment. I’ve known this boy for a while now- he came to me in June 2022 after he was rescued by from a horrible neglect situation. He was one of the first fear aggression cases I worked on my own. When I first met him, we had a long way to go until he was ready to be a “coffee shop” kind of dog. But just look at him now! He has truly taught me so much and seeing him blossom into the confident, silly boy that he was always meant to be and then finding his perfect forever family has been the greatest joy. Thank you a million for everything, Herbs. ❤️

10/19/2023

Introducing beautiful miss Charlie who arrived this afternoon for 2 week board & train 🐶💕

09/07/2023

Introducing sweet miss Daisy who arrived yesterday for 2 week board & train! 🐶

08/11/2023

Maisie goes home from board & train tomorrow! This sweet golden girl came to board & train while her parents were on a trip to work on neutrality and reactivity towards other dogs. Her problem is simple- she LOVES every dog she sees and wants to be their friend super badly- which isn’t always possible! We’ve spent the last two weeks working on calming her reactions by helping her work through those big feelings and remain confident in calm behavior. Positive reinforcement allowed me to reinforce Maisie’s decision to show desired behavior, which led to her choosing to show that behavior instead of exhibiting reactivity. She’s come a long way in the past two weeks and I’m so excited for her to be reunited with her parents again tomorrow as I know they’ve missed her and she’s missed them!! 💕 .peyton we’ll miss your girl around here!

08/08/2023

07/09/2023

week 6 of lady’s babies 🐶🐶🐶🐶🐶🩷 They love to wrestle with each other, chew up potty pads, and yap all day long. They’re the best.

07/01/2023

Welcome miss Ziva to board & train! Ziva is an Irish Setter & Golden Retriever mix who will be looking for her forever home after training! She will be available in a few weeks to foster/adopt through 💕 I can’t wait to continue learning more about this sweet, beautiful girl as time goes on!

06/26/2023

Week 4 of lady’s babies 🐶🐶🐶🐶🐶🩷 saying I’m obsessed feels like an understatement!!

06/25/2023

Teddy went home from board & train today! This little guy was so anxious and couldn’t enjoy most aspects of being a dog because of that anxiety. We worked a lot on confidence building and gradual socialization and truly, he blossomed. 🥺 Teddy gained so much confidence his owners said he seemed like a different dog today- he loves adventures, going out in public with his people, and even going to the lake! All of these things were activities his owners couldn’t take him to before because of his anxieties. I am sooo proud of the growth he was able to make! I miss you around here already, Teddy man! 🩷

06/18/2023

Lady’s babies turned 3 weeks old yesterday! They have started to walk a little (& stumble a lot), play with each other, take interest in stuffy toys, and yap yap yap all day long. I’m in love with them. This has been such a sweet experience for me that I’m so thankful for 🩷

06/12/2023

Meet Riley- my current board & train foster from Beautiful Together Animal Sanctuary! Riley has been with me about a week and has already changed SO much. She was kept in a crate with little to no interactions with people or other dogs everyday for the first two years of her life, and then was surrendered to the rescue by the only owners she’d ever known. She was scared, intimidated, and super defensive. In the past week I’ve gotten to watch her become more & more like a real dog everyday and learn to find joy & comfort in the presence of humans & other dogs. We definitely still have a lot of work to do, but this morning we had a great neutrality session in downtown Apex and I’m excited to see where this girl goes in the coming weeks ❤️❤️

05/30/2023

my board & train foster has officially gone to his PERFECT forever home! Lloyd is full of life, he loves to give kisses and he loves to create chaos. In his few weeks here, he excelled at manners & obedience training as well as working through serious separation anxiety. His new family loves him SO much- he is one lucky guy. 💕 Thanks for all the snuggles and all the laughs and all of the help really building my patience, sweet boy! 😂🩷

05/30/2023

boarding photo dump from a very busy Memorial Day weekend 🐶🐶🐶🐶🐶🐶

05/10/2023

Because of Remy’s hurt leg, she couldn’t go to the weekly CGCA class meetup, so I took my boy- and he did so good! The class is focused on advanced canine good citizen manners in busy urban situations. Gumbo’s first choice is usually to be lazy, so I’m thankful he was willing to take the afternoon from the couch off and come to class with me when his sister couldn’t! I am in love with this stinky, lazy, beautiful boy. 🐶 thank you a million to for teaching this class!!

05/04/2023

What a day it has been for my sweet girl.. a morning trip to our favorite lake spot resulted in her getting a deep laceration on her paw that caused her to lose a lot of blood really fast. Thankfully, we were able to get to the vet within 20 minutes of the injury happening. After sedation, laceration repair, IV fluids & antibiotics, Remy is on the mend! We’d like to shoutout our vets at Harmony Animal Hospital for taking such good care of her. They took her in as soon as we got there, gave us plenty of updates, gave Remy amazing medical care, and treated us with sensitivity and kindness during a very stressful time for us. Sweet Remy spent the day there and was able to come home this evening. I’m so thankful for the team at Harmony for the care they gave my girl today- knowing you have a good vet is a peace of mind that’s worth it’s weight in gold. ❤️ snuggles all night long for Remy Roo!!

04/14/2023

6 month old Cedar Ridge had a such a good public access training session today!! So excited to see all the good this sweet girl will do 😍

04/12/2023

had a good session this morning practicing stay and recall with sweet miss Cheyenne 🐾

04/06/2023

Love the dog you have, not the dog you want

This is advice I often find myself saying at consults for behavioral management issues with new clients. Many times I will get calls for “Well he just doesn’t like other dogs, we want to be able to take him to the dog park and play on the beach with other dogs but he doesn’t like to play. He’s uncomfortable and always growling or hiding behind us. He snaps at other dogs if they get too close. We want to take him to friends’ houses with dogs and hang out, or to the local dog bar, but he’s just horrible the whole time. How do we fix this?” My answer to them is usually the same thing every time: “Stop trying.”

A lot of people have a vision for their dog before they even bring their puppy home- he is going to be the Greatest Frisbee Player Ever™ or lounge about in the sand next to a crackling fire on the beach, cool as a cucumber. We’re going to compete in dog shows, or hang out all day in dog parks playing fetch with other dogs. We’re going to go on long leisurely walks with friends with other dogs and take our dog hiking and boating with us.

What do you do then, when you find that despite your best efforts your dog doesn’t have an interest in chasing flying discs or retrieving thrown balls and toys? Or hates the water? Or is uncomfortable, nervous or even aggressive towards other dogs? What do you do when your show dog is an anxious mess at shows and slinks around at the end of the leash panting and stressed? I get several calls along these lines a month. Frustrated owners who have a dog who just doesn’t fit into the picture they painted in their heads.

Dogs are individuals too. Just like people; just like you. Dogs have individual personalities and are motivated and driven by different desires. We can shape these desires, to an extent, by building drive with conditioned motivators, but you can’t completely change a dog’s personality. And frankly, it’s incredibly selfish to try. We can, and should, use training and management to give your dog the skills to navigate their normal world without being a danger to themselves, you or others… but why should we ask our dog to enter situations that are extremely uncomfortable for them if they are not necessary? I can empathize with owners in this predicament (I too had competition dreams for one of my own dogs, only to discover later that he was horribly uncomfortable at trials and much preferred being a couch potato that got to patrol the yard and bark at squirrels) it’s important for us to put our own desires and dreams aside and look objectively at the situation from our dog’s point of view. Yes, we could put a hundred or more hours of training into counter conditioning dog parks and possibly get your dog to tolerate the presence of other dogs in most situations (if other dogs keep their distance and respect your dog’s communication). Or you could just…not take your dog to the dog park. Try taking a nice stroll through the park on leash instead. Sure, we could probably teach your pet dog who has zero interest in retrieving how to fetch a ball thrown for them. We could put a few dozen training sessions into building drive and focus for holds and retrieves. Or… we could try a spring pole. Or lure coursing. Puzzle games or scent work. Something that might interest your dog a little more than that tennis ball you had your heart set on.

We tend to treat dogs that don’t enjoy socializing with other dogs as broken, that there is something innately wrong with them or they weren’t raised correctly. But some dogs are just not particularly social creatures. Some dogs don’t enjoy rough and rowdy dog play. It doesn’t mean they wouldn’t enjoy many other different activities with their people. Pay attention to the things your dog does enjoy, and explore activities and sports that fit in with your dog’s natural abilities. Be strong enough to say “my dog doesn’t enjoy this” and stop forcing them to take part in something you desperately want them to excel in. You’ll be amazed at the increase in the quality of life for both of you!

03/25/2023

Brody boy is getting bigger and smarter every day! 🐶💕 these pictures are from yesterday’s engagement + agility session 😊

03/07/2023

Had the best time today with my best girl trying our new favorite activity: dock diving! I’m so proud of my confident, adventurous girl 💕

02/24/2023

Pippin graduated board & train this week! Sweet silly boy used to have a hard time leaving socks, paper towels, and unattended food… now he makes better decisions and gets rewarded for them! I’m so proud of Pips and we miss him around here already! ❤️

02/23/2023

the sun has been out this week so the tongues have been out too 🐶 ☀️ here are some pretty pups I worked with this week!

02/17/2023

Bear & Brew’s owners are on vacation this week! Lucky for these pups, their owners scheduled enrichment walks for both pups to make sure their mental & physical stimulation needs are being met while their owners are out of town! Happy boys 🐶 🐶

02/16/2023

Please. For the love of dogs everywhere, stop taking everything out of your puppies mouth. You’re often creating more problems than you’re solving.

Puppies put everything in their mouths the way newly crawling or walking babies do. It’s the age of exploration and discovery and inquisitive little minds with teething little mouths means everything must be tasted. This is 100% normal developmental behavior. It shouldn’t be punished or discouraged.

When we sn**ch things out of their mouths, or chase them or grab it away from them, we run the risk of several issues, the top two being -

1. We teach our puppy that anything they have could be lost the second a human comes near, and that can very quickly snowball into resource guarding - which is already a natural behavior - but we are actually just encouraging it by validating to our puppy that they lose things when we are around. This is especially true in homes with children and toys out all the time. Then this spirals into all kinds of relationship issues down the road.

2. We can teach our puppy the best thing they can do is INHALE the item so they don’t lose it. This gets dangerous and ugly very quickly. It can also create puppies and dogs to then not even think but just grab consume.

Leaves, sticks, grass, mud, dust bunnies, socks (depending on your puppies size), shoes, all the things within reach are fair game for mouthing and chewing on. And yes, I let my puppies explore them all. Their teeth and jaws at this infantile stage aren’t going to do extreme harm to an item right now, so go head and feel what a shoe sole feels like, get it out of your system. If I don’t want certain things explored, I keep those things out of reach, end of story. Management and supervision is key to safety at this age. Baby gates, playpens, even only pottying in areas of the yard where there’s no gravel. The ONLY things I will readily tackle my puppy over is medicine and/or broken glass. Everything else, even if it’s something I truly don’t want them to have, like a pair of underwear or a doll, I take my time in retrieving it, but more often than not, the puppy will spit it out anyway and move on to graze on the next thing they can find, especially if I toss something more interesting nearby. (Drop that stick to come chase this leaf on the ground)

The majority of puppies will explore the item with their mouth, shred it if they can, then move on to something else to repeat this process with. IF they consume any of it, it’s usually very minor and they will p**p it out later. We have to remember dogs have been existing for 18,000 years, 80% of them still living the way they always have, and going through this stage just fine, our human interventions are not always needed, even though we mean well and are trying to help.

Of course there are exceptions to this, and in those cases we have other solutions, but the majority of puppies I see exploring with their mouths DONT a need hands constantly grabbing them and removing it out of their jaws. If you find yourself doing that all the time, it may be on YOU to manage the environment better!

This process combines with the work we teach in all our puppy classes of having a puppy HAPPY to have you approach them when they are enjoying something in their mouth. We call it the “exchange game” where we teach how to trade. But we also teach the puppy we don’t always take it away either. This helps puppies feel safe in letting you take something from them by learning they won’t ALWAYS lose it.

So, long story short, let your puppy - puppy. Grab a leaf, lay in the grass and shred it. Then find a stick to chew on. We have to get better at picking our battles with dogs if we are both as a species going to enjoy our time together.

Editing this post to add - I’d hope it would be obvious but apparently it’s not, so please know in no way shape or form am I encouraging or saying it’s okay to let your puppy chew or mouth dangerous objects or to leave them unsupervised in places that may have serious objects in them. Environments have to be managed just the same way they are for babies, as I mentioned above, and puppies/dogs need to be supervised. I am however, stating that we have to stop helicoptering around puppies that are just being puppies in order to help alieviate some of the behavior problems that develop from not the managing itself; but the micro managing.