Diamond K9 Dog Training

11/30/2025

Guess who goes home soon?? Just a couple more days and Lotte will be showing off for her family. 🙂 In the mean time, we are getting her into the holiday spirit.

11/30/2025

Baker went home last week! He did phenomenal at his go home lesson. 🙂

11/30/2025

This is a clip from Frankie's first place lesson. 🙂

11/30/2025

Hope everybody had an amazing holiday!
Despite our quiet FB page, things have been busy here with our holiday boarders and trainees.

Here are a few shots of the boarders we have seen this week.

Atlas, Captain, Moose, Katie & Cooper

And of course Lotte and Frankie who are here for their training. We will have more video of them up soon!

11/25/2025

We are welcoming Frankie to the Diamond K9 family!

She's a 5 year old mini Aussie. She comes to us with a history of reactivity toward, well, pretty much everything. Her family started experiencing this arrive the time that she turned 2, so she's been practicing this for several years.

She barks. A lot. She barks out the window. She barks in the yard. She wants to chase bikes and run up to other dogs, ending up in squabbles, etc.

They have a 2 year old son that adores Frankie, but Frankie isn't his biggest fan as she seems to prefer some space, and unfortunately she has requested to using her teeth to say so. Her family has managed this as best they can, but ultimately management fails, and accidents happen.

Luckily injuries were superficial and he's fine, but this is exactly the kind of thing you don't want happening, and you certainly don't want it escalating. You're always a parent before a pet owner and things don't usually end well for the dog if you can't keep everybody safe.

Frankie also needs some help with the typical stuff like listening around distractions and better leash manners as she's a puller.

We are so excited to be working with Frankie and helping her become a better, more stable version of herself, and giving her all kinds of new skills that will enable her family to cultivate a more peaceful household as they also have another baby on the way!

Check back for Frankie updates!!

11/25/2025

Moose is here for boarding. And Niblet is trying really hard to get his attention. 🤣

11/25/2025

We just don't recognize dogs as being dogs anymore. To most people, something like this happening sounds outlandish. This could happen to you. This could happen to your child.

I won't go into a house with a loose dog that is barking or charging the door. Even if they are " friendly ". Here's one question you never think to ask when your child goes over to a friend's house for a sleepover. Do they have a dog? What kind of dog? What is that dog like?

And if you ask that question, especially to the owners, you should ignore the first couple minutes of how sweet and smart and friendly the dog is. Listen for the other stuff. After they get done telling you how great the dog is then they will give you the real story about the real risks with a remark like "he's a little scared of strangers". (The dog barks and growls at people) Or "sometimes he's a little anxious around kids".(The dog has displayed behavior indicating they are higher risk with kids) Or "the dogs love each other but sometimes dog a picks on dog b so we have to separate them".(They fight)

With services now like Rover where it's easy for people to get side hustles walking dogs and sitting dogs, there really needs to be more education around these things. We are far too cavalier about dogs in general. Yes most dogs are okay. But many are not. And a small (but very real) percentage are potentially extremely dangerous.

One thing that is often overlooked is how much more dangerous dogs can become when they are in multiples. Especially a power breed in a home with no structure, rules, and boundaries (tangible consequences). And it pays to remember that most human serial killers blend right into society. People think they are going to be able to spot a dangerous dog, but they can't most of the time because they don't look unhinged all the time.

I've heard one too many stories of college kids sitting dogs and getting mauled.

'She said that they hadn't always been that way. It was like a change in behavior.'

11/24/2025

A peek at Baker's trip to PetSmart. He goes home tomorrow!

We are so excited to show his owners everything he learned and for him to have lots of freedom (and safely) on the beach for the rest of his life!

11/23/2025

I've been doing some follow-up work with Dragon to make sure they are in a good place since they will be leaving the state soon.

I brought Lotte along since I know she and Dragon have a history together. They live in the same building, and right after they moved into the building Dragon actually had a run-in with Lotte and ended up nipping her. 😳

Shortly after that Dragon came for his training. And right after he went home Lotte came to see me for her training! I thought it would be a great challenge for both of them to work around each other.

Dragons really doing fantastic. He still has his challenges, but overall just an incredible improvement and his owners have put in so much work getting him over his rough patches. Today I genuinely saw a much more relaxed dog than he was a few weeks ago, even in a chaotic dog-filled environment.

Lotte did amazing considering I rarely even bring dogs on field trips like this at this stage of their training. She walked very nicely with a little bit of feedback from me, and drew, a lot of attention with her cute looks and good behavior.

11/22/2025

Working with Baker at the park. Lots of recalls and down-stays and asking him to drop his stick. 😊 We also did a lot of let's go which I love doing to tune dogs in when they are off leash. Baker is very responsive And as far as he could tell we were just having a good time.

11/21/2025

Charlotte learning the down command. 😊

Joyce starts by getting the behavior what a food lure and then once she is fairly reliable lying down to get the food, she starts saying 'down' before luring.

The association will begin to form that the word down precedes her lying down to get food at which point she will likely start lying down on her own at least some of the time when we say the word.

Then we will need to raise the bar a little and move away from that lure to reward only, and then lastly an intermittent reward system combined with accountability for non-compliance.

11/21/2025

Joyce, working with Lotte on the place command.

Lotte seems to like this game. Nobody tell her it's going to get harder. 😬