The Nose Knows
Did you know that a dogs nose contains up to 3 million olfactory receptors!?! That’s powerful enough to detect a single drop of liquid in 20 Olympic sized swimming pools! Canine Scentwork, the sport equivalent of what police and military detection canines do, is a great enrichment and confidence building activity for dogs of all ages! This is the same skill set used to teach dogs to detect things such as blood sugar, food allergens, explosives, cancer, endangered species of animals/plants, and so much more!
Congratulations to our December 2023 “The Knows Nose” Scentwork/Detection Dog Training Graduates! 🎄
Next round of Trick Dog & Scentwork classes at NMBT in Concord begin on January 11th. Register using the link tagged in the comments below. 🐾
The Nose Knows - Odor Detection
Congratulations graduates!!! 🎓 Here’s a little clip featuring two of our most recent novice detection dog graduates. I am so very proud of these teams and all their hard work!! Scentwork is the sport equivalent of what police and military detection dogs do. This sport is accessible to dogs of all ages and abilities, including DINOS (dogs in need of space). In this clip the teams are searching rooms to locate their target odor (Birch). From our dogs perspective, finding the source of the target odor means they will locate their favorite reinforcer (typically food). Scentwork is an incredible opportunity to offer our dogs enrichment, build confidence navigating new spaces and novel objects, and strengthen our partnership. The skills built in this class translate to all areas of our training and, most importantly, it’s a great way to have fun.
Next round of detection classes starts this week at No Monkey Business Dog Training in Concord. If you’re interested in joining a Scentwork class with your dog please reach out via FB or email. The current class roster is almost full, but there is still room to add in additional classes if needed.
WDT will be continuing to offer classes at NMBT as well as our foundation obedience and reactive dog classes at our location in Chester NH. Send us a PM for more info on in-home services and group class programs!
Seren Maxwell - Owner & Trainer 🐶
🗺️: Chester N.H 03036
📱: (860) 800-3036
📧: [email protected]
🌎: www.wonderpupdogtraining.com
LLW
Check out this little clip of Miss Piper today during her day training session. Today we went for a walk around the neighborhood which also happens to be alongside a busy golf course. We passed lots of people and dogs along the way, and Piper was a rockstar. As you can see in this clip I’m utilizing a 16ft long line which creates the semblance of being off-leash while still maintaining safety. Long lines are an incredibly useful tool for many different reasons, but in this particular context it helps to ensure we are not using the leash to communicate/steer our dog while working on loose leash skills. Piper has the option to engage with the environment on this type of walk as sniffing is such an incredibly important enrichment and decompression activity for dogs. While she did get lots of opportunities to use her nose along the way, she most often chose to hang out at my side. Why? Simply because she knows good stuff happens when she is there. When asked to step away from an interesting spot she was investigating, Piper was happy to oblige, and often times I would follow up with giving her permission to go back and sniff again afterwards. This means in the future when I may have to redirect her away from something potentially unsafe, she is much less likely to be frustrated because she knows there will be other opportunities for her to satiate that need to sniff and explore.
If you’re feeling frustrated with your walks, I hope this post will remind you that giving your dog the opportunity to just “be a dog” doesn’t need to be at the expense of polite leash skills. Let them sniff, give them room to move, reward liberally for behaviors you like, and see how your walks transform.
Seren Maxwell - Owner & Trainer 🐶
🗺️: Chester N.H 03036
📱: (860) 800-3036
📧: [email protected]
🌎: www.wonderpupdogtraining.com
So yesterday a group of people came by to purchase/pick up the racecar we had for sale. Later that evening they reached out as the buyers brother had lost their weddding ring at some point while they were here. Jesse went out to search himself, unfortunately to no avail. I asked what material the ring was made out of, but unfortunately it wasn’t something I had here to introduce to Brembo prior to sending him out. I have never asked Brembo to detect any kind of jewelry/metal before, so I wasn’t sure how it would go, but I trusted my dog to bring me to the strongest human odor. If you watch closely you can see Brembo guide me around the area where the group spent the most time and then veer directly left down the driveway and pull a hard left up the street. I had no prior information to know that was the direction they had traveled. In less than 2.5 minutes Brembo had located the ring for me. While I didn’t need any more proof that he is in fact the best boy ever, in case anyone else forgot, here’s a video of him being totally amazing. ❤️
Seren Maxwell - Owner & Trainer 🐶
🗺️: Chester N.H 03036
📱: (860) 800-3036
📧: [email protected]
🌎: www.wonderpupdogtraining.com
The best helper. #brembothewonderpup
Mowgli Update: The first two clips are from our little field trip yesterday. Mowgli and Jude are developing a friendship which is really nice to see. We play little games like this daily together. The last clip is from today. It’s funny to think just a couple weeks ago Mowgli thought Jesse might be a big scary dog eating monster, and now he is one of his favorite humans. He has made so much progress already and I am so very proud of him.
Thank you to the person who gifted us the baby gates from Mowgli’s Amazon wish list, unfortunately it did not come with a note card so I’m not sure who sent it. We now have those installed which makes management so much easier for us at home and affords Mowgli more freedom around the house.
We would also like to thank Cherie and Sarah for the Venmo donations which helped pay for our Sniffspot rentals this week!! Mowgli loves going on Sniffspot adventures and they are a wonderful opportunity for him to decompress and play.
🖤🐾🖤🐾🖤🐾🖤🐾🖤🐾🖤🐾🖤🐾🖤🐾🖤
If you’d like to contribute to Mowgli’s rehabilitation and care, you can do so by purchasing items off of his Amazon Wish List or making a direct donation.
Matching Donations: I will be matching all $ monetary donations in the form of behavior services/training hours to the Greater Derry Humane Society for them to use for their foster/newly adopted/alumni dogs. This means your donations not only help the special needs dogs here like Mowgli, but also dogs in our community looking for homes or needing help to be successful in their new lives.
🧡🧡🧡 If you are unable to donate yourself, sharing this post helps too! On behalf of Mowgli and “The Paw Squad”, we appreciate you. 🧡🧡🧡
🐾”Saving one dog will not change the world, but surely for that one dog, the world will change forever.”🐾
❇️Amazon Wish List: https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/1LXHXD46A3XTL?ref_=wl_share
❇️Venmo: @wonderpupbehavi
Mowgli (November 10th, 2022): We just got back from a lovely walk on the rail trail with Ginger. The weather was perfect and Mowgli had a great time! He did very well with Ginger as well as passing other dogs/people, and a handful of people on bicycles too. He did get a little nervous after a dog barked at him from their yard as we passed by on the trail, but recovered well after he had a bit of time to process and sniff/decompress. He is very much looking forward to checking out what goodies arrived in the mail from our Amazon wish list later today once Jesse is home. 🐾
Mowgli (11/9/2022)
Yesterday Mowgli and I went over to one of our favorite Sniffspot locations again for a play date, he absolutely loves it there! Today he kept me company on the road from 11:00am to 7:30pm!!! We started off the day by meeting up with one of my closest friends and his dog, Ginger, at the local fields we visit often. Jude came along with us too and they each got a turn going for a sniff walk. Ginger is very neutral with other dogs and respectful of space which helped put Mowgli at ease right away. Mowgli did wonderfully with her! He was very curious and excited to see a new dog, but respectful of the boundary I asked of him and disengaged easily. After that we dropped off Jude at home and picked up Brembo before heading out for my afternoon training and behavior sessions. Mowgli did a great job relaxing in the car crate while I worked, and he even got to help out with one of my afternoon appointments too! We took little breaks between sessions to sniff/stretch our legs, and obviously we just HAD to stop at Dunkin Donuts 🍩 along the way for an old fashioned munchkin too (which he loved). Once we finished up sessions we spent another hour at the field complex to get some zoomies out before bed time. Mowgli has now figured out if he waits for me to get to the end of the 40ft long line ahead of him, he gets 80ft of space to run! 😂 We finished the day with 19,700 steps logged and he is currently laying politely at my feet (and struggling to stay awake) while I write this post. 🐾
Ps. I saw a new package arrived for us yesterday afternoon, he is very excited to open that up together tomorrow!!
If you’d like to contribute to Mowgli’s rehabilitation and care, you can do so by purchasing items off of his Amazon Wish List or making a direct donation.
Matching Donations: I will be matching all $ monetary donations in the form of behavior services/training hours to the Greater Derry Humane Society for them to use for their foster/newly adopted/
Day 5 & 6: We have been very busy the last two days so I didn’t have a chance to update yesterday. We have been doing lots of work with the crate and Mowgli now goes in and out of the crate in my car on cue! We have also been doing short sessions of crating inside the house as well which is going well. Still continuing our 60/40 and encouraging him to spend more time separated from me and hanging out with Jesse instead. This little video clip is from yesterday and also shows a small clip from our first session with working around triggers, he was a rockstar! Today we did another session at the field and worked on attention/recall/disengaging from triggers and, of course, lots of opportunities to sniff. Afterwards he helped me with one of my training sessions and was an absolute gem!! I’m so very proud of his progress already and I can’t wait to see where we are in a few weeks.
I did see a couple Amazon packages showed up so we are excited to open those tomorrow! Thank you for the continued support, we appreciate it!!! 🐾
Day 4: Yesterday afternoon we visited a local field that I bring the dogs to often. Mowgli is now jumping into the crate in my car on his own and settling in the crate during car rides as well, which is huge progress. Previously he would pant, drool, and whine in the crate. He was also able to relax in the crate while I worked the other dogs until it was his turn which is a critical skill for my dogs to have. We kept this visit very short (about ten minutes of time in the field for a Mowgli) to prevent any trigger stacking. There were two children playing at the playground when we arrived, which you can see/hear in the distance. Mowgli is also wary of kids, and so we set ourselves up at a distance where he was comfortable. If the field had been busy, we would have left and gone to another location. I felt this was an achievable goal for him and his body language during our time confirmed that. He checked the playground out once when we first arrived and was able to disengage easily (shown in video), and for the remainder of our visit we focused on play and a decompression sniff walk at the far end of the field away from everything. The children playing were just background noise and associated with the fun activities we did yesterday. We are not doing any formal work with these triggers at the moment, but this was a perfect soft exposure with good associations to build off of later. We are also working on Mowgli’s anxiety about being left alone. He is very attached to me already so now that he’s comfortable with Jesse I’m working on the “60/40 protocol” and having him spend more time separated from me with Jesse for company. Each small period of separation (a few minutes) has been getting much better, and by the end of the day he wasn’t getting up to follow when I left the room. I have also been doing small bursts of separation from me where he is alone and I am out of sight or just separated by a barrier but still in sight, and he is starting to settle
Day 2: Mowgli is getting more comfortable around the house. He treated me to some real snuggles today for the first time which was wonderful. We went back to the Sniffspot today, and had lots of fun running, sniffing, and playing tug. He’s getting much more comfortable with Jesse as well which is great. He’s also starting to figure out the “magic crate” in my car isn’t so bad, as it brings us to fun places. He even jumped into the crate on his own and was content and quiet on the car ride. We are slowly doing small bursts of separation which he is adjusting to, like being on the opposite side of a gate with me in sight. Such a sweet little man! 🖤
Day 1: Mowgli and I visited one of my favorite Sniffspot locations this afternoon. This was my first real opportunity to see his personality as he has been a bit shutdown, understandably. To see him solicit attention, play, and touch, made my heart so incredibly full.
He is quickly becoming my little shadow, and while I’m thrilled, we definitely need to work on building his independence so he isn’t so stressed by separation. All in good time, of course.
He is currently snuggled up to me on the couch with his head resting on my lap, what a compliment.
Aside from encouraging and creating a routine together and building our relationship, I’m not introducing any formal training right now (or anytime soon). It is so imperative for newly arrived dogs to have time to decompress and adjust to their new lives. His only job right now is to just be a dog, as it should be. We are avoiding adding any unnecessary novel things to his world which is such a critical component to long term success. His body and brain needs time to recover so he will be capabale of processing and learning. Stress compromises our ability to pull up previously learned information, appropriately process what is happening in our environment, make decisions, and learn new information.
For the next few days he will not see the other dogs in our home, there’s no need to rush that process. Over the next few weeks we will slowly “meet” the other dogs through protected contact using two layers of safety at all times. The goal will be to get to a place where the dogs are unbothered/neutral towards each other. “Oh, it’s you again, carry on.” Ultimately how much interaction they have with each other will be decided by them. I have the privledge of being able to set up our space in such a way that direct contact is not necessary between dogs, I only ask for neutrality through barriers. We will also be working on building his relationship with Jesse and getting comfortable with being around
Jude (AKA: Buddy The Derry Dog Park Dog) Update:
As many of you know, in my free time I race cars (autocross primarily, but also a little bit of rallycross, drag racing, and ice racing over the years as well).
My other half/partner Jesse, and I, actually met at an automotive event a little over a decade ago, and my dog Brembo was named after the brakes on my racecar! Yesterday was my first time back out racing in far too long, my primary racecar is still in the process of being rebuilt so we took out Jesse’s car just for fun. It was a great day and I got to develop my driving skills with a new platform which was exciting. However, my biggest victory yesterday had very little to do with the actual cars or racing themselves. A little over a year ago Jude was terrified of the world, and especially of humans. When we met was being held at Animal Control, he was so shut down he would not let anyone get close enough to touch him to even scan for a microchip and he very nearly ran out of time. It took me a while to build up trust between us, and we have worked tremendously hard over this last year to build up his confidence. We regularly go out to parks, business parking lots, and anywhere he can safely observe new things and people without the pressure of having to interact directly. This has fostered a new confidence for him to feel safe in unknown environments. He knows I have his back, and when he is unsure of things, he now knows he can look to me to ask what to do. Yesterday he came with me to Canaan Motor Club, which is the busiest venue we have attended together to date. He saw lots of people as we walked around the entire paddock area and he was able to check out lots of new things like tents, groups of people, strange dogs, and tow rigs/racecars. I set him up with the space he needed, and he truly shined yesterday. My heart couldn’t possible fit another drop of pride/joy at watching this baby dog flourish into the dog he has and is becoming. From being afr
Recall Off Of Prey 🐇
Not too long ago there was a trend on social media regarding recalls taught using reinforcement specifically around prey. The premise, was that it couldn’t be done. While every dog is different and may require different degrees of management based on a number of factors, it is absolutely possible to accomplish this. This little clip shows Brembo hot on the heels of an eastern cottontail in our yard, and without hesitation he calls off. I backed up the recall with our emergency word which is “Now”. I teach this one using a “panic” voice from the get-go so it’s normal to my dogs if they hear any stress or urgency in my voice. I couldn’t see from my angle at the door, but he was already recalling before I used it. 10/10 best boy.
Why would he leave an exciting rabbit chase to come back to me? Because we have spent our entire journey together focusing on building a relationship founded on fun/trust/mutual respect. My dog thinks I’m a good time, obedience follows.
Oh, and in case you’re wondering, yes he got cookies and a party for this because of all my job titles, my favorite is “snack dealer”. 😉
“Training is everything and everything is training.” #wonderpupdogtraining 🐾
Seren Maxwell - Owner & Trainer 🐶
📱: (603)361-5719
📧: [email protected]
🌎: www.wonderpupdogtraining.com
Let’s talk about….
Grumble-Growl-Snap-Bite
Why should you thank a dog for growling? 🐾
“Training is everything and everything is training.” #wonderpupdogtraining 🐾
Seren Maxwell - Owner & Trainer 🐶
📱: (603)361-5719
📧: [email protected]
🌎: www.wonderpupdogtraining.com
Thank a dog for growling?
Do you know what to do if a dog is growling? Let’s talk about it. 🐾
“Training is everything and everything is training.” #wonderpupdogtraining 🐾
Seren Maxwell - Owner & Trainer 🐶
📱: (603)361-5719
📧: [email protected]
🌎: www.wonderpupdogtraining.com
“Small dogs are evil.”
“All chihuahuas are aggressive.”
“Little dogs have Napoleon syndrome.”
“Watch out for the little ones, they tend to bite.”
If you’ve heard these things, or believe them to be true, please consider this….
#heyjude
Training Notes:
For those of you who have heard me talk about Premack Principle (first eat your veggies, then you can have dessert), these videos are a great example of that principle in action. In the first video he recalled off of prey/prey odor to return for a touch, something that he was not able to do just a couple months ago, and was rewarded with both food and permission to re-engage in the activity he wanted to do. This strengthens my recall cue far beyond what would be possible with food reinforcers alone. Notice also the long-line for errorless learning and, of course, safety.
“Training is everything and everything is training.” #wonderpupdogtraining 🐾
Seren Maxwell CPDT-KA - Owner & Trainer 🐶
📱: (603)361-5719
📧: [email protected]
🌎: www.wonderpupdogtraining.com