Samantha's Dog Training

06/11/2024

12/12/2023

Say hello to Teddy! He’ll be staying for a few weeks to work on leash walking.

07/23/2023

Oliver stayed the weekend with us! He’s such a good boy.

07/21/2023

Bear just started private training lessons to work on manners!

07/20/2023

Cooper is doing day trains & already working with some distractions!

Limited spots available for private and day train lessons! Don’t miss out!

12/10/2022

This is my favourite little trick for helping to get medication into our dogs.
Often they are thrown off by the texture change initially.
When they realise this is something tasty too, they get a bit less suspicious when it comes to the one containing the pill.

12/02/2022

Beginning 2023 - I will be available for a *limited* number of in person lessons. Depending on the situation, precautions may need to be taken such as masks, outdoors, etc. But I will be able to be hands on with your dogs!

I am fully expecting spots to book out quickly, so if you are wanting to treat yourself to training lessons, this is the time!

Board and trains are available as well, get your Christmas puppies started off on the right foot!

10/03/2022

Is mounting or hu***ng a sign of dominance in dogs?

Hu***ng or mounting is a fixed action pattern (FAP), which are innate behaviours. These are behaviours that are common to all members of a species and require no learning. A Fixed Action Pattern (FAP) is a predictable series and stereotypical sequences of complex actions triggered by a cue - www.simplypsychology.org. www.sciencedirect.com.

Hu***ng or mounting is NOT:
Dominance
Controlling you or another dog
Alpha behaviour
Only seen in unsterilised dogs
Only seen in males
Only seen in younger dogs
To cause you embarrassment
To get your attention or get back at you

Hu***ng or mounting by male or female dogs of any age CAN be due to:
Excitement
Sexual rehearsal
Burning off pent up energy
General stimulation...yippee, something’s happening!
Stress/Anxiety/Displacement behaviour
Play
Hyperarousal
A medical issue
Boredom
Frustration
Burning of excessive energy (like zoomies)
Ambivalence about a situation or a dog
Unease
Tiredness

If you are worried:
Make a note of how many times a day this is happening.
Take your dog for a medical check up.
Contact a up to date science-based behaviour consultant to identify the triggers and the emotions to be able to develope a modification plan to improve the emotional state and hence the behaviour.
What to do in the moment - if the dog underneath seems uncomfortable and stressed then please interrupt. It may mean that the 'top dog' is unable to read the body language of the other one. Rather redirect that energy to a toy or chew as opposed to saying off. Give him something mentally stimulating to do instead. If they are having turns and alternating this behaviour with other behaviours like chasing, tumbling, play bows, etc., then leave them be.
Be careful of your dog doing it to random dogs in a park that he does not know. The unknown dog could become aggressive due to not wanting the behaviour.

Note - many Google searches for this behaviour will bring up the word dominance. The behaviour is not due to such a simplistic, misunderstood term. Dogs do it to pillows, toys or furniture - do you think that they are trying to dominate those inanimate objects? Every dog is an individual with unique emotions. The feelings and motivations for the behaviour will differ from dog to dog but it is certainly not about dominance. Don't believe everything you read on Google and check your trainer's/behaviourist's credentials. Let's not label every behaviour beyond our understanding as dominant 🙂

Most guardians rush to sterilize their dogs when this happens...it may not make a difference.

06/22/2022

06/09/2022

DON’T FORCE ME TO BE SOCIAL!
We expect that dogs should naturally like all other dogs and want to be friends, after all they’re the same species! Many owners have the expectation of their dog happily interacting and befriending other dogs at parks or when out walking, thoroughly enjoying the chance to engage with the same species, but the reality is often very different, leaving owners feeling frustrated and irritated and wondering what’s wrong with their dog.
Dogs are not that different from us when it comes to social preferences. As people, do we like every person we meet? Do we want to be friends with everyone with meet? Are we all social beings who love to be surrounded by people? The answer is no, but somehow, we assume that our dogs should be.
The sociability scale of dogs is influenced by early socialization and experiences, genetics, environmental factors, what they have learned through life experience and their own individual circumstances. Certain breeds are naturally more reserved than others.
Early socialization, habituation and positive experiences are vitally important and should not just stop after puppy hood, but ideally continue throughout life. A dog’s social tolerance can be improved or may even change through careful behaviour modification and management, but sometimes, we just need to accept that our dog is just not that into other dogs and that’s ok. Every dog is an individual and once we have done all we can to improve their social abilities we need to just accept and love them for who they are and never force them to be something that they’re not.

05/24/2022

We're taught when we're very little that a dog's growl is an aggressive action, but it's not! A growl is how a dog says "I'm uncomfortable with what's happening right now, and if it doesn't stop, I'll need to take steps to defend myself." Except, you know, shorter.

If you hear a dog growl, don't think of it as aggressive, think of it as necessary warning - and then take action, STAT.



[image description: a menacing looking cartoon dog faces a startled cartoon boy. Text reads "when you hear 'grrrr' take action: Stop what you're doing, Thank the dog for warning, not biting, Assess - does this have to happen now? Take steps to make the dog more comfortable. Respect the growl!"]

03/22/2022

Sweet Winston is halfway through his 2 week board and train. He’s been doing excellent with potty training and basic obedience!

12/16/2021

Can we, please, for the sake of dogs everywhere, and their people, normalize doing NOTHING with your dog?

No, I don’t mean leaving them alone all day or not training them or enriching their life at home. I mean not feeling like we have to DO something with them or have them BE something or a certain way. I’m not talking about neglecting dogs, I’m talking about taking pressure off them.

The majority of dogs are totally, 100% fine doing nothing. They truly don’t care about going with you to uncle Tim’s graduation bbq, or going to the dog park to make “friends” or any of the other stuff that WE, their people want for our own enjoyment and what the idea of having a dog has meant to us. Then, when we push these things on dogs, we are upset and disappointed that they don’t enjoy them, or behave a certain way, without looking at the big picture.

You have my full permission to do nothing with your dog. To train them for as much as you need, to enrich their lives as much as they desire, but if that means they stay home and snuggle on the couch with you instead of competing in a sport or going out in public, that is OKAY.

It’s also okay to teach your dog who does enjoy activities to DO NOTHING. And I can’t stress this enough. My dogs have days where they don’t get anything but some playtime in the yard and bones to chew. I don’t have them assume they get everything all day long. I see so many dogs that just don’t know how to do nothing because they are always doing SOMETHING.

The pressure dog people feel nowadays is directly correlated I believe to the increasing behavior issues dogs are having. The idea of dogs being able to do all these things we want them to and go all these places is just setting a standard and expectation that is completely unfair and setting both people and dogs up for failure.

Teach your dog to do nothing. Be okay doing nothing with your dog. Be okay leaving them home, not letting them say hi to everyone, not having to make friends with other dogs, not getting this or that title or certificate or whatever it is.

The four hooligans went on a walk, a long one this morning, and now will spend the rest of the day doing nothing, and that’s okay.

PLEASE IF YOU SHARE- GIVE CREDIT TO THE AUTHOR - Helen st. Pierre

11/16/2021

Sam and Dash are here for potty training! They’re super sweet and doing great!

11/02/2021

We're celebrating TCAP's 19th birthday by extending our Free Feline Spay & Neuter special! Free cat spays and neuters the entire month of November. 🎉

Learn more about this special at https://conta.cc/3nbCeSr.

UPDATE: All locations are completely booked for this special.

10/30/2021

10/26/2021

Over the next few days we are going to talk about the six most common mistakes we see advocates making when posting on social media. Please see Wednesday's post for the full background, and yesterdays post on inflammatory and defensive responses.

Today we are examining a statement we see a lot: “it’s all how you raise them”.

Here are some actual comments we read online in response to a recent dog bite fatality:

"It's all how you raise them 100% we have 5 pit bulls and they are big babies but if provoked like any animal they could do damage yes!!"

"Dogs are 80-90% how their human owners treat them and train them. The humans responsible for that dog should be held fully accountable for that attack."

"It's all about how they're raised, my dog is a rescue and has bad traits due to this. A dog is a product of their environment."

This seems to be an appealing sentiment, because it allows us to believe that we have full control over our dog’s behaviour. Unfortunately, it’s simply not true.

A dog is a product of both nature (genes and heredity) and nurture (environmental and external factors). Both factors play a significant role in all beings, not just dogs. Scientists have been unable to give a percentage as to how much influence both nature and nurture play. This is a very complex issue that is specific to the individual.

A dog can be raised in a home environment that has done everything possible to ensure a happy, healthy, and well-mannered dog. But despite these efforts they still end up with a fearful, anxious, unstable or even aggressive dog.

Why? Because genetics are real. A predisposition towards anxiety and fear can develop at the time of conception and can imprint a puppy from this moment. The mental and physical state of the momma dog during pregnancy has also been shown to affect the puppies for life.

On the flip side a dog could be raised in an environment that does everything wrong, and once removed from that environment that dog can flourish. You would expect this particular dog to never recover from the way it was raised but some of them certainly do.

We don’t know the exact balance of nature/nurture in any creature, but we know that temperament is ALWAYS a combination of both. That goes for good temperaments as well!

Some dogs have naturally stable and resilient personalities. These are the ones you see rescued from abusive or puppy mill seizures but go on to make fantastic family pets, even therapy or service dogs. If it was “all how you raise them” there would be no hope for these dogs, but there are a ton of these examples.

By denying the reality that a dog’s behaviour (like ours) is dictated by a combination of genetics, brain chemistry, environment – and probably a number of factors we don’t even know about yet – we aren’t giving them the respect they deserve. They are not blank slates or robots. They are complex, sentient, emotional animals. And that’s why we love them.

We suggest that we stop using “it’s all how you raise them” and refer instead to proven risk factors for behaviour. You could also talk about the responsibility of an owner to use behaviour modification and responsible management if their dog does show concerning behaviour. You can find information on both topics on our website.

10/05/2021

Training isn’t just about obedience - sometimes it’s about helping a dog learn some confidence.

Sydney came here absolutely terrified of everything, she wasn’t able to be touched, and mom had warned us that she doesn’t eat or drink around people.

In just a short period of time she’s initiating play, initiating pets (for the first time ever!), and is comfortably eating and drinking.

Training is about improving the quality of life between you and your dog!