Canine - Human Relationship Institute

Canine - Human Relationship Institute If you want to learn to talk to your dog; shut your mouth.-Nelson Hodges

Working with Kate. Tonight. Just finished our nightly leash work. As Kate is a SDiT and will continue to work toward bei...
01/05/2026

Working with Kate. Tonight. Just finished our nightly leash work.

As Kate is a SDiT and will continue to work toward being a full, real, Service Dog. I will continue to describe some basic aspects of her training for that purpose.

Tonight, what we worked on was something besides the outward aspect of leash work in positioning, movement, speed, etc. That is the obvious physical “look” of what we are doing.

What we worked, and continue to do so, is as follows:

Heel left
Heel right
Heel center (while moving)
Position static left
Position static right
Postition static center
Position static left, right, center - sit
Movement speed, slow, normal pace, fast walk pace, easy run
Turn left, right, left around (180), right around
Turn from left heel, right heel, center heel
Stop
Stop/auto sit
Stop back up
Head - nose up: nose down (almot tracking position)
Head planted against my leg as we are moving.
Sit - me complete walk around without her moving. Also sit and me moving then asking her to position herself right, left or center wherever I stop
And more.

You might wonder, why all of these aspects and positions? Because we will need all of these aspects working in the real world of a Service Dog. Positioning in crowded locations requires all of these aspects. And more.

But there are two more important aspects than just these: while working these: 1: Are you enjoying it (that is, how do YOU present it)? 2: how well do you transition and recover from position, movement, environment change, etc.? That is the key. Does this dog enjoy doing it, does this dog want more of it, and how well does this recover from a novel event?

Resilience is talked about in terms of several aspects, but working in resilience, novel recovery, novel challenge enjoyment is the goal.

Katherine the Great (Kate) is 10 months old today. In honor of that, she was weighed her weekly weigh-in (usually on Tue...
01/02/2026

Katherine the Great (Kate) is 10 months old today. In honor of that, she was weighed her weekly weigh-in (usually on Tuesdays) today. She is at a healthy 68.4 pounds. Her rate of growth has slowed to an appropriate level. I have cut back volume of feeding over the past two weeks, and have focused on turning her weight into better toned muscle, instead of “puppy” weight. Her rate of size increase has also gotten past the “spurt” level. She is continuing to mature mentally and is still learning at a fast rate.

I am happy with her development, overall.

Her focus and human orientation for attention/input continues to increase as I would like. Still very much a “puppy brain”, but doing well. She has areas of excellent focus and almost perfect behaviors when “working” (in training). There are two areas I will need to work on, more, with her over the next few months.

I was acclimating her to seeing, hearing and feeling the Dremel for nail/claw trimming. She was doing well, learning by watching all of my other dogs lay down and let me do each toe. I had worked with her, early on, for touch and handling paws, toes, etc. She was still having issues with the vibrations once touching. So I decided to try just clipping them. Yep, zero issue. Didn’t even bother noticing when clipping. As a puppy, she still has uncertainties and is learning about “dangers and manipulation”. This is another area I will be continuing to get her to accept without trepidation.

12/27/2025

Well, my wife captured another video of us in play/work mode. I take opportunities, that are disguised as play, capture moments to teach. What looks like happenstance is capturing teaching and training moments. The engagement timing is critical. By being engaged and asking for physical/mental engagement, identifying what I am “happy for them” about, and to what level of happy excitement, gives them scale and value. It turns into a training session that the dogs learn, without repetitions of performance.

What happens is the brain associates good things happening with what I ask and agree with. You learn when you are “safe”. That is how the brain works. To be safe in enjoying the moment, with the engagement of others, the “repetitions” become events that the dog wants to repeat because they are enjoying it.

It can be the smallest thing. As a matter of fact, it should include all of the smallest things. That requires you to be engaged and aware of the dog, the environment, and the timing that goes along with all factors involved.

Layering individual elements creates the most complex behaviors that the dog is capable of performing. That “performance” becomes its standard behavior.

12/26/2025

The day after Christmas. We came out to the center. All the dogs with us.

I caught a small segment of working with Bosch and Kate together in the agility yard.

One of the most important aspects you can learn is timing and what that actually means. Where does it come from? What el...
12/22/2025

One of the most important aspects you can learn is timing and what that actually means. Where does it come from? What elements are involved? How do you achieve better and better timing? How does it change your understanding? How does it change outcome? Why does it take so much less effort when you are correct in timing? How does proper communication depend upon proper timing? And on and on.

Timing. Because everything that you learn, what you focus on, how you comprehend, what your intent becomes, who you become is the what, how and why of timing.

I have lectured, taught, worked with more than a thousand trainers over the years. I see everything about who they are in their timing.

The why behind what I teach is for you to become smoother, “softer”, have composure under fire: timing. Everything comes to together or falls apart around your ability to absorb the “whole”. Everything. Timing is the tell.

Look up the courses that help you to understand. All of them. It doesn’t really matter where you start. Only when.

www.chrinstitute.com

I wanted to explain something about CHRI and my posts here, and shared information. 1. Mission: the purpose of all comm...
12/20/2025

I wanted to explain something about CHRI and my posts here, and shared information.

1. Mission: the purpose of all communications efforts is to provide perspective, education, information.

2. While everyone reads and looks at the information given through the lense of their own knowledge and perspectives, the intent behind this platform is to help.

3. Over the past few years, I have shared my journey with Bosch, and now starting to share a similar journey with Kate.

What I wanted to say is this:

I am always amazed when anything “works”. I have never gotten to a point where I assume that I am “in charge” of how a dog or human “turns out”. I am always humbled by any other dog, human, duck, cat, cow, that interacts and gives me trust, understanding, and makes an effort to trust.

I have to say, I believe the true key to reaching another living being is humility.

Confidence is built over long, long periods of time. A lifetime. But confidence has nothing to do with arrogance. Arrogance is a self view. Being humble is a self view.

You will be grounded properly if you hold amazement in every success and failure.

Sharing the stories about Bosch, Kate, Toffee, Callie, Bella, all of my dogs, is not to impress you. It is to show the process, and to provide real time growth of communicative clarity, trust building and the joy of becoming closer to this amazing species of animals that we share our lives with.

I am always surprised and amazed with what potential is realized. That is why I share.

CHRI is making some “discounts” available to students for certain groups, classes and methods of payment. From this time...
12/19/2025

CHRI is making some “discounts” available to students for certain groups, classes and methods of payment. From this time, moving forward, through 2026.

Students for Courses II, III, IV and V have a 10% discount if paying by Check, Cash, Zelle or International Bank Transfer.

First Responders, Active Duty Military, Veterans, LE, Federal Agency Officers receive a 25% Discount on all classes (except for the monthly subscription).

There are also “Gift Cards” available to purchase for the Monthly Classes, and for amounts that can be applied to all other classes.

We are trying to give our students the opportunity to save money by not having to pay a service process fee to some third party. I would rather the students get the benefit rather than some large service.

All of them are listed in the website.

www.chrinstitute.com

Kate and I spent a lot of time out together today. She went with me for several hours. Lots of places, shopping with mad...
12/19/2025

Kate and I spent a lot of time out together today. She went with me for several hours. Lots of places, shopping with mad house level of people, noise, activity, etc. She did incredibly well. Studying everything and everyone. Quiet. Cooperative. Unfazed.

I am very happy with her continuing improvements and intelligence. Absorbing all of it.

The photos were where we started this morning. At the Vet office. A scheduled visit. No big deal. She weighed in at 68.4 # with a lot more to grow. She is developing well physically, mentally and behaviorally. Her physical attributes are showing well against Bosch an Toffee with similar capabilities in strength, balance and speed. Her mind has all of the right focuses and is always enjoying what we do together. We both enjoy working together. That is as critical a factor as having the knowledge to guide to an end purpose and partnership. Another great dog. Another great GSD. And our third GSD from Good Shepherd Rescue of Texas.

It is possible to select a great dog, from the beginning. Even if it is from a rescue. Having knowledgeable and capable people who are willing partners in learning is also critical for those dogs. There is a reason I have tried to assist this rescue for several years. They have become partners in providing subject dogs, subject clients and their dogs, and other support elements to the Institute and our mission to teach, educate and help clients and dogs.

12/18/2025

We had a great Monthly Class tonight.

Individual training/behavior cases presented by subscribers. They presented the problems, we discussed things and problem solved. The purpose was to teach how to problem solve. What questions to ask and why they were important to solving the issues.

I don’t usually post emotional things. I just had to. I just took Kate out with me to the grocery store and then to the ...
12/17/2025

I don’t usually post emotional things. I just had to. I just took Kate out with me to the grocery store and then to the Quik Trip. She did about as perfectly as an 18 month old would, except she is only 9 months old! As a new SDiT, working in real world conditions, I cannot ask a 9 month old to behave as well as an adult. Not just well behaved, but great placement, attention, focus, responses, a true partnership. Zero concern. From her or me.

At this age, I had Bosch with me too. I asked Valerie Erwin to hold Bosch for a minute, when one of my classes was meeting the night before at a nice restaurant. Asked Bosch to sit and left for about 10 minutes. Came back, Bosch still in position and watching for me. I approached and said “pretty good dog, huh?”. Valerie responded, “no, he’s exceptional”. She wasn’t wrong.

Kate, the past couple of days, and especially tonight, was exceptional. I might say, even more than Bosch at this stage. I know it’s early, but this was really special.

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