While I mostly work with dogs, I catsit too! 🐈⬛
🐶 Nothing profound here, I’ll just interrupt your day with this video of an adorable puppy being pushed around the pet store in a shopping cart.
🛒 She was too overwhelmed to walk, but did enjoy the sights, smells, and sounds from the cart (and maybe a little taste testing too).
This will be the last time she fits in this shopping cart. 😅
🚨 Get your puppies used to grooming and nail trims early! (This works for dogs too but the process is way slower.)
Teach your dog a “start/stop button” behavior. Put something super tasty on a licky mat or plate and grab your grooming tools, the rules are simple: If they are eating, you are grooming. If they stop, you stop.
This process gives your puppy a voice to say, “please stop, I’m uncomfortable and need a minute”. When they continue, you continue so they learn that if they want it to stop all they need to do is lift their head.
This puppy is exceptionally invested in this process and loves what I had to offer but this is a testament to how important it is to do this with your puppies in their socialization period. She is enrolled in my Puppy Camp program so this is something we work on daily although this video was taken on Day One!
✂️ DO NOT WAIT until your puppies first grooming appt to get your puppies used to the grooming process!
To see a more detailed video of this process with clippers and more visit: https://goodnightpup.com/puppy-training
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#puppytraining #fearfreehappyhomes #cooperativecare #forcefreedogtraining #puppyraisingtips
🐾 This is my buddy Teddy. Despite how it looks because of his large size, Teddy is actually a 6-month-old puppy. His family has done a wonderful job of socializing him thus far and calling in the help of force-free trainers from some of his first days at home.
🦮Teddy just completed his second training class but is still struggling with loose leash walking and impulse control when he’s excited (which is completely normal for an adolescent puppy) so we are training together one-on-one, twice a week for the next 3 weeks. By working on these important skills now, Teddy’s family will be set up for success later when he grows to his (very large) full size.
The first step to training any skill is to start slow in the least distracting environment possible and set your dog up for some easy wins in the beginning to get their engagement. As they start to get the hang of what you’re wanting them to do, you can gradually increase the difficulty of the environment you’re reinforcing the skill in and then add distractions too! If at any point you move onto the next step and they forget what you’ve been working on, you’ve moved on too soon! Practice and patience is key here, especially with an adolescent pup, with the goal being that they are polite walkers and greeters by adulthood, even without treats available.
💡 DISCLAIMER: We (humans) have literally bred dogs to be our companions but they’re still animals. No living, breathing thing is perfect and some situations will always be too much for some dogs. But by and large, our dogs desperately want to get it “right” and please us, so we owe it to them to meet their needs too—nutritional, health, social, enrichment, and so on. Training is a tool that helps us communicate and bond with our dogs but it is only ever going to be a piece of the puzzle, not the whole pie!
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#looseleashwalking #forcefreedogtraining #fearfreehappyhomes #teenagedogs #goldendoodle #leashtraining #puppytrainingtips #do
Trying to teach your dog to walk politely on a loose leash but struggle with fumbling with treats? Give the spoon trick a try! A little squeeze cheese on a long kitchen spoon can be an easy way to deliver high-value reinforcement to your dog during an outdoor training session! 🧀 🥄
A question I get a lot is, “will I have to walk around with treats in my pockets forever?” No! When appropriately trained, behavior sticks and works both with and without the reward every single time but it takes time and repetition before behavior can be modified so take pride in your cookie pushing and just have fun watching your dog learn! 🤗
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#positivereinforcement #indydogtrainer #positivereinforcementdogtraining #fearfreehappyhomes #looseleashwalking #trainhumane #forcefreedogtraining
Let’s talk training for reactive dogs. First of all, what does “reactive” mean?
Basically if your dog has big feelings about a trigger of some kind: the doorbell, seeing other dogs, a houseguest, the vacuum, it can all be defined as reactivity. Often it looks like barking and lunging towards the trigger. One of the most common cases trainers see is reactivity specific to being on leash, directed at other dogs. Sometimes dogs who even enjoy other dogs off leash will develop leash reactivity as a result of the frustration and lack of impulse control.
So how do we train for it?
There are many techniques to try but the foundation for any technique is engagement and trust between the dog and the handler. Then, we often train the dog to perform an alternative behavior to the barking/lunging by marking and rewarding the precise second the dog sees the other dog but doesn’t bark. By catching them in that quiet moment, we reinforce it, keep our dogs under their stress threshold by recapturing their attention, and start to teach them that they can see a dog but not make a scene about it.
Featured in the video is Zoey. Zoey is a 1-2 year old rescued mixed breed dog who has extra large feelings about other dogs especially but also other things like bikes, strollers, and kids running, especially when she’s on leash. Sometimes this stems from an insecurity in a dogs environment and the feeling of being trapped by the leash and unable to get away.
**Loose leash walking skills come first, and Zoey has already learned those prior.**
This is our second formal session, but Zoeys mom has been working on rewarding her for engage/disengage for about a month prior to this exercise.
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#reactivedogtraining #engagedisengage #positivereinforcementdogtraining #fearfreehappyhomes
👋 “Hi everyone, Charlotte here to tell you that small dogs benefit from training too!
I am now 8 months old but my friend Cass has been teaching me fun stuff that helps my parents manage my puppy excitement since I was about 12 weeks old. Cass is one of my favorite people!!
Cass has taught me all sorts of what my parents call “manners”, like how to go to my special mat when people come over instead of jumping all over them and going crazy!! I love my mat! She also taught me to go to my mat when the front door is open and how to wait in doorways too (for safety).
Cass also taught my mama how to help me love brushing when I was really little and my daily brushing is something I really look forward to now.
I’m still very much a puppy and sometimes I make mistakes but gosh it’s helpful knowing what my parents want me to do. I don’t like being in trouble very much and I love my parents a whole lot! I love to do silly stuff like this and make them laugh.
Anyways, just wanted to pop by and say, don’t forget to train your small dogs too!”
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#smalldogtraining #fearfreehappyhomes #fearfreetrainer #certifiedprofessionaldogtrainer
Meet Murphy, a humongous boy who has a wonderful temperament but really “packs a punch” with his excitement for guests! Today we started working on an alternative to jumping on guests—going to a mat.
This is a skill I love to teach dogs (large and small) as the more it’s practiced and built upon it can become a really highly reinforced cue dogs understand very quickly. This is 3 minutes into our FIRST session. I gesture towards the mat, say “mat” and click as Murphy does what I want him to. The click acts as a ”marker” that tells Murphy, “yes! That’s what I wanted! Good job!” Then he gets a treat. We repeat this several times. “Free dog” is an informational cue that will help us later when we ask Murphy to stay on the mat and wait for attention from guests. His family will practice asking Murphy (and his brother Cooper who was initially taught this skill separately then together with Murphy) to go to mat near the door then next week we will work on stay, then putting the mat in different places, and so on until it’s a strong learned behavior.
Again, our goal is that Murphy runs to his mat for attention and reinforcement when guests come in instead of pummeling them! #politegreetings #forcefreetraining
Meet Bailey! Bailey is a young puppy with boundless energy at home. She’s been training with me for ~8 weeks and is growing into a very sweet, confident gal! During our last training session, Bailey broke off from playing with her group of puppy friends and dug the entire bowl of water out onto the floor with her feet!
How would you react if this were your dog? Become frustrated? Reprimand her? As her trainer, I did neither, but it gave me an idea! I filled our small dog pool with just a couple of inches of water and introduced her to it, along with a step so she could easily climb out if she felt uncomfortable. Instead she happily splashed around, staring longingly at her friends wishing they would come join her!
Now we have a new, fun, and enriching activity for Bailey to burn puppy energy and experience her environment in a whole new way. What would have happened if she got punished for the water bowl incident? Would that have given her the confidence to go from water bowl to big pool? 🤔
#positivedogtraining
#canineenrichment
#puppysocialization
#meettheirneeds
I am hosting an 8-week summer camp for puppies every Thursday. Specifically these are small breed puppies who are often undersocialized due to lack of opportunities for them to interact, play, and meet other dogs their size and energy level.
Each week we work on some foundational training skills as well and common behavior challenges for small breeds such as grooming, veterinary care, potty training, and enrichment.
We are in week 4 and these puppies have become best friends. Today they got the opportunity to meet 2 adult dogs. Dog play can look a little intimidating if you don’t know what to look for, especially in a small breed where pet parents are less likely to tolerate wrestling and that normal rough play.
Here is a short video describing what we typically look for in appropriate puppy play. Active, loose bodies are key!
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#smalldogtraining #smallbreedpuppy #positivereinforcementtraining #puppysummercamp #fearfreehappyhomes
Our number one mistake as dog owners when teaching our dogs a skill or conditioning them to liking something is moving too fast!
Tips for training success:
✔️Go slow & at your dog’s pace, only advance to the next step when they show they are ready for it
✔️Keep sessions short—1 or 2 minutes at a time once or twice a day is better than 5-10 minutes once or twice a week, consider their attention span
✔️Work on small steps towards the final behavior versus starting with the final behavior (i.e. start with the ecollar going on then off vs. putting the ecollar on and keeping it on)
✔️Raise “criteria” for what gets a treat slowly over time to increase duration (like leaving the ecollar on a second or two longer each time before treating then longer and longer each session as long as the dog doesn’t pull away)
Here is an example of a dog I am working with to wear an ecollar. She is getting spayed soon and her mom wants to make sure she is okay with wearing one during her recovery as her past dog found them very frightening.
By the end of this first session Lucy was looking for the ecollar, eager to play the “snack portal” game again!
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#positivedogtrainer #puppytraining #ecollartraining #fearfreehappyhomes #slowandsteadywinstherace
