Westchester K-9 - Stacy Hirsch

Who won the hot dog eating contest?

Happy happy birthday to Bud. We hope you had a great day celebrating with your bestie Amethyst!

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Our handsome friend Bud who is going to be one of the absolute best trained dogs in Westchester!

Follow us at our new TikTok @westchesterk.9

Follow our new TikTok @westchesterk.9

Training, playing and making new friends 🐶🐾

Snow cone day on this snowy day ❄️🐾

Puppuccinos on this cold day!

Looking forward to the Holidays!

Will it work? A board and train program will not magically make your dog a perfectly obedient animal. When we met Samuel Jackson, the Border-Doodle from NYC, he had no idea how to walk on a leash among other issues. His owner did not enjoy her walks and it made her stressed out to even think about going outside with him. Sam attended our board and train program in October 2022, when he was 1 year old. In our hands, this dog was pretty perfect and learned very quickly. After the board and train, Sam still pulled with his owner. As I mentioned, there’s no magical trick to this. At home, he pulled, lunged, and was extremely reactive towards other dogs. Not only was this stressful for him and mom, it was also super embarrassing. Sams owner was a very determined lady and wanted to learn how to get better at handling him. She utilized all of her aftercare portion of our program and added additional education as well. We broke things down for her regarding the behavior, introduced new tools and taught proper handling skills. Look at them now! Sam’s owner could not get anywhere near this park without lunging and pulling a couple of months ago. This is only 6 months since he’s been home. In these moments, we can absolutely say YES! It worked. But what exactly worked? Not that we trained the dog. We know we can pretty much train any dog. The tricky part is teaching the owner how to handle her dog in a way they both understand. She did all the work and we are very proud!! Having your dog stay with a professional trainer in a small setting, allows us to learn exactly what motivates them to behave and what motivates them to misbehave. Once your dog is home, we can provide you with the right tools and the right education in order to “make it work”. Beyond that, it’s completely up to you to apply and continue learning. Looking to learn how to do that? Shoot us a message or email and we will be in touch!

“This training was a game changer. Dare I say, she is perfect now?!” Phoebe, a 1 year old Shiba Inu from Brooklyn, had a huge transformation during her board and train. She was extremely demanding of mom and dad, jumping and nipping at them, destructive in the house, pulled on the leash, and ate things off the ground. Phoebe was very shy when meeting new people, to the point of hiding out. When Phoebe arrived, she was standoffish, as Shiba’s commonly are and didn’t really care about making friends. She had absolutely no eye contact with us and was a little difficult to enjoy. We simply needed to provide her with structure a dog needs, and begin the training process. The rest generally comes naturally if you do this correctly. In this case, she warmed up pretty quickly and she became great friends with our entire staff, offering a lot of eye contact. We are incredibly proud of Phoebe and her parents for reinforcing all that she has learned. I believe they are enjoying her much more, now that she is confident and understands their communication. Thank you to our other canine helpers; Goose, Frankie and Mack! #wk9 #balancedtraining #proudtrainer #boardandtrain #dogtrainingsuccess

This is amazing! Not only is she walking beautifully on the leash, Light is now working towards off leash freedom using E-Collar Technologies Wait till you hear this story! Light had been to a “positive only” board and train with another trainer and had 20 in home sessions. Then they hired another trainer for 3 additional lessons because they were still struggling with excessive leash pulling and high energy. Thankfully, they made their way to us here at Westchester K-9. Mom was not giving up on Light and enrolled in our advanced coaching and board and train program. The determination and hard work has paid off. Walking casually to Central Park is a joy, and allowing off leash freedom is a goal they weren’t sure they would achieve. I’m happy to say, this family will never have to go to another trainer again. #wk9 #balancedtraining #ecollarfreedom #boardandtrain

How can you prevent leash reactivity from happening in the first place? Most dogs we work with, do not walk well on the leash. They pull, lunge, whine, and bark. Their owners are frustrated and never enjoy a walk around the block. If you want to enjoy your walks, it is important to put in some hard work. First you want to teach your dog how to focus on you and walk by your side. While teaching proper manners, it is also important to teach your dog what you do not want them to do. Pulling and leading through doorways, and towards other dogs should be corrected. It is okay to tell your dog no. The little puppy pulling towards people and running at their dog friends may be cute until they are 50 lbs and dragging you down. In this training session, we are taking turns walking one dog, while the other pups sit aside and practice impulse control. This allows us to work on great walking skills, and teach all our students to be patient and wait. In the background, we have construction happening, trucks coming and going, nail guns popping, dogs getting dropped off and lacrosse practice. Exposing your dogs to all of these things is called socializing. These are the best times to apply training. Working hard and practice makes progress! #nerothelab #chewiethegoldendoodle #portothepwd #auggiethelab #goosetheaussie

1 and 1/2 year old Blixen happily working on his off leash e-collar work, while his friends Lad and Scooby sit and watch. Blixen is one of our star students from NYC, who has the best mom. She reinforces all that we teach and is providing Blixen with an amazing education. Christina Blaustein Blixen loves his off leash freedom, thanks to E-Collar Technologies #offleashtraining #WK9

Simon is a big strong labradoodle, so it can be scary when he wants to pull and jump on people out of excitement. His family has been working really hard on his training at home, and they want him to be a great companion for their family. They’ve already done a basic board and train with us, and now he is finishing up his 2 week refresher. We have fine tuned his skills which will in turn make it easier for his family to take over from here. Tomorrow he goes home to his family and we know he will be great! Families who are willing to put in the hard work will always have success 🐶🐾 Proud of you Simon! See you soon.

“Oscar Madison”, a 1 year old goldendoodle from Larchmont was almost too good at his board and train go home lesson. I mean, that is what we want, right? Yes, but we also want to show his owners what to do when we are not there, when his old habits start to creep back in. Equipping the owners with the right knowledge and tools is the most important part of any training plan. Oscar is a big, strong dog and he LOVES to say hi to people. It’s not only about his training, but also asking people not to rush towards him to say hi. It’s way too hard for your dog to behave nicely when his friend is coming towards him excitedly and speaking in a high pitched voice. If people can learn to stand back, and wait for the dog to be calmer, they would have a better chance at success. Luckily, one of Oscars friends did come over during his lesson. Simply asking her to wait back until the owners communicated to Oscar how to behave made a huge difference. It took them about 30 seconds to make the greeting nicer and calmer. All in all, training is simple. When it comes to breaking habits, all you have to do is communicate the behavior you would like and enforce it. Once that becomes the new habit, the old ones fade away (if you are consistent). Of course that sounds easier said than done! If you want to learn how to communicate better with your pup, reach out for help.