Dart showing off his skills with picking up dropped items!
Max is progressing nicely so far! What you’re seeing in this video is a very early stage of teaching the “emergency down”. This is a task taught for autism assistance service dogs to slow down or stop an autistic child from running away or wandering off. Eventually, we will increase the difficulty of these exercises to the handler running away from me, pulling on the dog, and yelling/screaming. Right now, we are laying a firm foundation and confidence in his fast downs, even in distracting environments or when he’s far away from me.
Yay Max! ❤️🐕🦺
We had a blast today! Soon Beka will be giving me a run for my money for being the favorite trainer! She’s already won over some of the dogs and they love playing with her! 🐕❤️
We had a blast getting to work with Vader yesterday for some refresher training!
We are often asked what a morning looks like for us! Here is a super sped up version of yesterday morning. In this video, I am doing “lightning sessions”. This sets the motivation and excitement for the day, as well as burns off a little of the crazies before we go for our morning walks. These sessions are under five minutes per dog and focus on lightning fast, fun repetitions of obedience. This helps me bond with the dog, encourages obedience as a fun thing, and is an easy way to make sure each dog feels “noticed” before I start walks. Since my morning walks with each dog are at least 30 minutes or so long, it would be easy for the dogs that walk last to get frustrated or whine/bark, so lightning sessions before I start walks reduces that and gives each dog “something” in the meantime.
Marlow has some hops! Enjoy this slow-mo video from our trip to the park today!
Before and after one lesson with Teddy!
Teddy was medicated for severe anxiety, a bite risk to strangers, and as his family said, would “foam at the mouth” when he was lunging and aggressing at people or dogs. The three clips we have edited together here were taken before our lesson, 30 minutes into our lesson, and 40 minutes into our lesson! We even added a new person (a stranger to the dog) at the 30 minute mark and Teddy handled it really well! We still have a lot of work to do to fully “fix” this behavior, but we made some amazing progress in our first lesson and we are looking forward to working more with Teddy and his family!
Here’s another video from our most recent pack-play time! While play is fun and exciting, there always needs to be a balance. During group play time, we surprise the dogs with down stays randomly so that they are always ready to stop and lay down when asked, regardless of what they’re doing. This is great practice for impulse control! It also allows for the dogs to take a breather and a break from play.
Can you pick out which dogs are client dogs in this video? 👀
Can your dogs wait their turn at doorways? For our pack (a mix of client dogs and personal dogs), dogs don’t get to join the group until they understand two things:
1. Their name! This helps when needing to call them away, release from a stay, or giving praise.
2. How to stay in one place (down stay/door manners/place/etc)! This creates a safe environment when passing through narrow doorways, prevents dogs from trampling me or each other, and keeps the dog sharp on impulse control.
Here, we have Betty, Bass, Chess, Crypto, Crickett, Riley, Reno, Blackjack, and Dart waiting at the gate to be let in. Can you catch the couple of mistakes that were made? Comment below with which dogs messed up and why you think it happened!
Little update for Denver (left) and Juneau (right). We had a really fun session in Lowes today with the pups, working on luring and being okay with another dog as a distraction. We tried out a little bit of synchronized food-luring with the pups. 🥹❤️
These two are available to service dog homes and will be paired only with their best match! Reach out if you are interested in meeting one and being matched when they are done with their training! Still a long ways to go, but the sooner you reach out, the sooner we can start individualized tasks! They will go home with OFA joint testing, health testing, and a thorough vet check to ensure a good working life and solid joints.
Betty has found her perfect match! Betty is one of our service dog prospects and she has officially been paired with her handler! Today was their first lesson today to work on bonding and learn leash handling and obedience. Betty still has a few months left of training before she goes home, but we are so excited for all the things this team is going to do! ❤️🐕
We took two service dogs in training to go explore in the Dallas area. Service dogs need to be socialized with a huge array of different experiences! Our two herding prospects joined in after training. Always busy, busy, busy! #servicedog #servicedogtraining #servicedogintraining #herdingdog
Aggression? We can help. Puppy problems? Easy. Obedience? Check! Need a service dog? We can do that! No matter what you need, we can help.
