Peak Confidence Dog Training

02/15/2025

Just this one single change in your thinking, habits, actions can have a massive impact on your dog’s indoor behavior… and your sanity.

Dogs develop associations with events or environments (and time — see below) which predict consistent outcomes, and respond accordingly.

The doorbell predicts visitors/intruders and that repeated association creates the wild and crazy response that most of us are all too familiar with.

Same goes for environments. If an environment predicts play, romping, and nonsense (because that’s what’s been trained/allowed/encouraged), you should expect dogs to behave that way when in said environment. And if an environment predicts calm, relaxed, lowkey behavior (because that’s what’s been trained/allowed/encouraged), you should expect dogs to behave accordingly.

People who have trained/conditioned their dogs to have these associations with the inside/outside environments have dogs who will happily go bananas in the yard (or wherever the designated play area is) and then walk in the house and immediately shift gears and chill — typically with little to no effort from the owner to make it so.

I’m sure many of you will be saying, “But how do I create this?” Firstly, by simply following the indoor/outdoor behavior rule — consistently. Secondly, work on a solid place command (it must be proofed and reliable to the point that the dog will hold it even when interesting things are occurring — if the dog breaks whenever it desires, you have trained a trick not a command and you won’t receive any of the benefits), and build a good amount of duration into it (your dog should be able to hold place for multiple hours if you really want a solid “Off-Switch” association with the command).

But what about when the dog is inside and not in command (they’re free/at liberty), and they get too jazzed up and crazy? Here comes the part no one likes — correct the unwanted excitement. Yep. Your dog won’t hate you or be brokenhearted, it will just have clear information that indoor behavior is different than outdoor behavior. Once corrected, simply go about life and let them do their thing.

It’s really that simple, and boy does it make living with dogs much more enjoyable

PS, I can hear the folks complaining that they don’t have yards or that the weather is too nasty and so they have no choice — or they don’t want to create this contrasting behavior. (F-U Sean! 😂) If you don’t have a choice, I get it. My 3 big dogs lived with me for the first 10 years of their lives in a one bedroom apartment, and we had no yard or other area to play in. So we romped like crazy indoors (and I DO mean crazy!!!). But, we had very clear “romping times” — every morning after our 90 minute walk we would cut loose and go nuts. The end of the walk and the time of day became the association. (We didn’t romp after evening walks.) And after “romping time” the indoors was for chill behavior, period. Any over-the-top nonsense after that was addressed appropriately — and that meant that even small apartment living with 3 very big dogs was actually really easy, super comfortable, and fun.

And for all the F-U Sean folks, this post wasn’t for you! Carry on. 😘

01/22/2025

Such a good watch! You will always hear my day in class neutral no’s are a MUST. Emotional correction or direction is not helpful. Leave it at the door when you come in.

01/22/2025

Imagine being dropped into a foreign country without a map, a guide, or even a clue about the local customs. It would give you giant anxiety and 'wtf am I supposed to do' feelings. At least for the vast majority of us.

That’s how your dog feels without structure. When you get a dog and just kinda go 'you can do whatever, wherever, whenever' dogs often also feel stress or uncertainty. They don’t just want leadership, they need it to thrive.

By providing consistent rules and calm guidance, you’re not being mean; you’re giving your dog the clarity they crave. Leadership, structure and boundaries doesn’t make your dog love you less.

It makes them love you more because they know you’ve got their back.

01/17/2025

👀

Let’s go one by one.

1/ On leash meetings with other dogs. By now most have seen video clips of owners attempting to create a positive social interaction with their dogs, only to watch it all go terribly wrong. Why? Leashes create restraint and cause unnatural interactions, fraught with tense, friction-filled, possibly guarding, possibly overwhelmed, possibly bullying behavior. It’s the perfect setup for pushy dogs to push softer dogs and for softer dogs to become overwhelmed and defensive… and middle of the road dogs to leave the middle of the road.

2/ Poorly supervised doggy daycare. Once again the hopes are that healthy, comfortable, and “happy” social interactions occur. The reality in many daycares? Just like with on leash meetings, pushy, bratty, dominant dogs apply unwanted and unhealthy pressure to soft, timid, and even fearful dogs. And without proper human supervision, these dynamics play out over and over — and do so in environments which the overwhelmed dog cannot escape, and the pushy dog can push over and over.

3/ Dog parks. I’m sure we’ve also seen and heard countless horror stories of dogs bullied, attacked, and even killed in dog parks. Once again we have the restricted, “I’m stuck with you, you’re stuck with me” environment. And once again the overly aroused, pushy, bullying dogs clash with the soft, timid, fearful dogs — which encourages the bullies and traumatizes the soft ones.

All 3 of these share certain dynamics. 1/ forcing incompatible dogs to interact. 2/ the dogs have no way to escape the pressure. 3/ the pushy, bratty, bullies are encouraged (by allowance and payoff) to become even more problematic, and the timid are repeatedly overwhelmed and freaked out. 4/ this translates to the pushy ones being even more pushy/bratty and thus when on walks they become reactive because it feels good to do so and they’re used to doing what they want — and the timid ones become even more fearful and defensive, and thus reactive on walks because they’re so scared, and are used to not being able to keep themselves safe.

The upshot? These environments encourage the bullies to become bigger bullies, and the fearful to become more fearful. So you create a vicious cycle where one kind of dog learns to enjoy bullying and the other loses their trust in other dogs. And just to be clear, you can have less pushy dogs who will become more so simply by experiencing the thrill of doing so. And you can have dogs who aren’t timid but are more sensitive who become fearful simply because they’ve experienced nasty, traumatic interactions repeatedly.

It doesn’t take a genius to see how if we encourage and allow these negative interactions repeatedly, building bullies and creating defensive softer dogs, that this behavior is inevitably going to surface on walks.

4/ You. You can have a dog who’s never had any on leash meetings, never been to daycare, and never been to a dog park, and absolutely still have serious reactivity issues. How? Through a permissive, unaccountable, leadership-free overall lifestyle and walk. Just by allowing dogs to behave in a fashion which is chaotic, pushy, bratty, disrespectful — or chaotic, nervous, worried, fearful — this leadership gap we create invites all manner of poor choices. Without the proper guidance, many dogs will slide into serious reactivity problems simply because no one has taught them how to properly respond to seeing other dogs. And a proper response, regardless of your dog’s personality (pushy and confident, or soft and insecure) should be a neutral one. But that only comes when owners step up, take the lead, and show their dog’s how to properly respond.

PS, even if you’ve done 1-3 and have unwittingly created reactivity issues, you absolutely can reverse these problems by tackling number 4 properly — by properly leading your dog. We do it all the time. But it’s far easier if you skip 1-3 and just do number 4 correctly.

01/13/2025

Favorite part of privates is the field trips! Teaching obedience in different environments is super important for the dog understanding of your expectations when out in public. It’s not always perfect at first but with clear communication and consistency it ALWAYS gets better.

01/13/2025

Say hello to Boo!

She isn’t very scary but her recall was when she first started! Her handler put in the work and followed up with ecollar training to ensure an off leash recall.

I loved every second of training Boo!🫶🏼

01/13/2025

Little Luna showing off her obedience in public. Isn’t she the cutest? 🫶🏼

10/28/2024

Meet Bo!

This guy is just a pup! He is learning quickly and is currently in group classes working on proper socialization. He is also learning how to be neutral in an overwhelming environment. Super excited for him and his owners journey!

10/28/2024

This handsome guy is working on his obedience, he’s so dang smart and has the BEST attitude while doing it. He sure is a happy little guy 💕

10/28/2024

Sadie has her big girl smile on because she loves learning!

•This girl was found wandering the desert and needed some guidance and obedience to help her adjust to her new life. Her handler is awesome and has given Sadie the best home she could ask for. She is a great dog and I’m excited for their journey with me. 🫶🏼 Sadie and her handler and doing 6wk of Privates, then following another 6 wks of private for ecollar.

Message me today to get your furry friend started!

10/18/2024

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10/04/2024

10/04/2024

🙌🏼🙌🏼🙌🏼

09/24/2024

Putting a dog down and condemning them to death because you refuse to use any method that isn't "positive only" isn't very positive...

Sedating a dog into a zombie because you don't like other training tools isn't very positive...

Restricting a dog to a confined life without the chance to thrive isn't very positive...

Telling someone to put down their 8 month old working line dog for having lots of energy and acting like an 8-month-old working dog isn't very positive...

Guilting a young family that lives in an apartment into adopting a large dog with behavior issues isn't very positive...

Telling an older lady their dog would be better off dead then using a prong collar that helps her walk and control her dog isn't very positive....

Bashing other trainers because they don't train dogs using only one method isn't very positive...

Having an owner put a 5 month old puppy on 400mg of trazadone isn't very positive...

Harming dogs because of your own ego isn't very positive...

All of the things I just listed are REAL things that owners have dealt with by "certified positive only trainers and behaviorists."

Anyone can be certified online for $50. It means nothing.

Dogs and their humans deserve real trainers who care and emphasize for both ends of the leash. Trainers who will tailor training to each dog in front of them. Don't be fooled by the "positive" sounding approach. That's just fancy marketing from people who care more about their ego and lining their pockets rather than helping the dog community.

I've chosen to speak out on this because I care and hate seeing dogs harmed. The positive only cult is doing more harm than good to dogs. Dogs and owners that are already having a difficult time. Enough is enough.