Envy My Dog: Obedience And Behavior Solutions

11/15/2025

Friendly reminder that dogs often don't make good Christmas presents for children.

If you're going to add a dog to your family for Christmas, I hope you've been planning this move all year and have money set aside for the expenses that come in the year after.

I hope you choose a dog whose needs line up closely with your current lifestyle as it is now. If you deviate too much, you force yourself to dramatically change your life to accomodate the dog. Realistically, the average person is incapable of accomodating drastic lifestyle changes so do yourself a favor. If you pick a dog that must be taken for runs regularly to be semi manageable but you've never exercised a day in your life, you very well might be setting yourself up for failure. Just be mindful.

I hope you understand the dog is YOURS, not your child's. That a dog is not a subject to test your child's level of responsibility. If you leave it all up to them, they will disappoint you. Choose a dog that is known for being suitable with children - not just yours, but others as well. Breeds that are known to "be protective" may give you grief when guests and other kids come to play. Its a double edged sword so again, be mindful.

I hope you plan to choose a dog that suits your needs even when on his worst behavior - because that is where the crossroads of pet rehome and shelter surrender appears.

The excitement will subside for all of you. Dogs are only fun when they're being "good" or "cute" or "funny". They are not fun when they eat your favorite pair of shoes, chew up your furniture, p*e on your bed, bark at nothing in the middle of the night, or get loose in the rain forcing you to chase them when you're already running late for work. Dogs can be a joy that uplifts you when you're down. But they can also be a pain in the butt.

Know which vet, groomer, and trainer you'll use and familiarize yourself with their prices just in case. You very well might need them. Consider even asking them to help you prepare or start on the right foot rather than waiting until you're desperate with a problem.

Puppies will drain your bank accounts, put a damper on social/ travel plans, and cause you heartache from time to time. I hope you have a plan in place to mitigate that because your child will not.

I hope you've been budgeting your time wisely, because a dog will need that time for you to teach him how to live in your world.

Lastly, I hope that you commit. A dog is a product of his breeding as well as his environment and handler. We very much want people to commit for life, but understand that sometimes life doesn't work out how we planned. If you must rehome, dont let it be for something you should have planned for, but didn't. "He's too hyper", " We dont have time for him", "We dont have a yard", "We cant afford him", or "My landlord wont let me have a dog" indicates you didn't plan very well, particularly speaking if you've had the dog less than a year. If that is the case, take that as a lesson learned and either be the person your dog needs you to be so you can keep him or give yourself a long break in time and make better/different decisions the next go around.

If you must rehome, choose a new home wisely - get to know them, spend time with them, and ensure they will assume that commitment. Follow up with that family. Offer assistance and help network resources should they ever need it. This is what it means to commit to a dog for life, even if you rehome.

Everyone in the pet community can make a difference in solving our problem with overpopulated shelters. It starts with good decisions that prevent dogs from ending up in the shelter to begin with. It continues with good decisions so if that's where they came from, they don't have to go back.

Be mindful for Christmas time. If the only reason you last-minute got a dog was to surprise your children for the holiday, reconsider. Take sufficient time to solidify your plan, prepare your life, and surprise the kids only when you're actually ready to add a dog to your life - I promise they can wait a little while longer.

11/15/2025

Pet parents, did you know trusted establishments have a limit to how many animals they can house at a certain time in order to stay in county and state compliance?

Did you know businesses could lose said license if they are consistently or egregiously out of compliance?

Please do consider that $20-35 per night is not enough revenue for a business to risk their whole operation. In fact, no amount of money, begging, or pleading, negative reviews is enough for businesses to risk their reputation.

Please consider that more dogs equals more time it takes to get dogs out to potty, clean their kennels, feed them, etc. Many facilities keep a number of dogs that are not dog friendly. This means each dog goes out to potty by himself and ALL the other dogs in the kennel must wait their turn to go out. More dogs means longer wait times.

Please also consider that businesses have the staff that they have. The distribution of work is a certain amount of dogs per staff member. An overbooking of dogs puts a strain on how effectively staff can care for each animal.

Please consider the safety of your animal. Boarding facilities offer spacious and secure kennels to keep dogs clean from their neighbor's accidents and safe from potentially aggressive neighbors. If overbooked, you're asking the facility to utilize containment that is easy to put up and take down. Some of you will even suggest providing a wire crate from home in an attempt to squeeze your dog onto the books. Most dogs can and do escape wire crates in a boarding environment. This is not safe for your dog, the staff, or other client dogs. No, they will not set up a wire crate in the hallway when the permanent kennels are full.

Overbooking is stressful for the staff and the dogs. Overcrowded kennels full of crying and barking dogs puts unecessary stress on all the dogs boarding. Your dog deserves an environment where stress is reasonable and managed.

Lastly, during holiday boarding, staff are missing out on major holidays to take care of client dogs. Many are happy to provide this service, but the sacrifice doesn't come without cost. Kennel techs aren't high paid employees and it's not uncommon for business owners to incentivize staff to work holidays by paying them a bonus. For big companies, this is costly so be prepared to pay additional holiday fees.

Book early for major holidays - I mean 60 days before Thansgiving and Christmas, not the week prior. Have multiple backup plans. Tip your sitters and boarders for the holiday. There's no shortage of boarding facilities and pet sitters who can accomodate you, you just have to plan accordingly.

11/15/2025

Did you know?

Some dogs offer appeasement behaviors that strangely look a lot like requests from affection. Have you ever had a dog approach you, look really sweet and pleading, then when you pet them they hit you with the "boo-woo-woo-woo"?? This leaves many dog lovers confused, but the answer to this issue is quite simple!

This is Mia doing a "leave the party" exercise.

She *does* enjoy affection from people she trusts, but if she doesn't fully trust someone, she will offer appeasement behavior that looks a lot like affection seeking behavior. Then when she is overwhelmed by the uncomfortable interaction, she may snap to create distance.

This exercise teaches her that she can leave if she doesnt want to be touched or when she's had enough. We respect the retreat, reinforce with food, give her a moment, then do another rep. When she starts to offer confused behaviors (like recalling to the wrong person or failing to make a jump onto the couch), we end the exercise as this indicates she's nearing her threshold.

After training, Mia will go home to her dedicated and loving foster family and cheerleaders. We'd all love for her to find a forever adoptive home. Envy My Dog is committed to providing follow up guidance, training, boarding, and grooming for Miss Mia after her board and train is over. Follow us and cheer her on!

11/03/2025

A lengthy post about trainer recommendations came up in my personal Facebook memories and it reminded me of the very real problem I see in local community groups. When folks ask for dog trainer recommendations, too often I see wildly irrelevant claims to support their recommendations. This leads to inquiring pet owners either becoming overwhelmed by their search of an oversaturated industry or pet owners seeking trainers for traits that don't produce results.

"His/her dog is really well trained"

"He/she was in the military"

"He/she has cheap prices"

Doesn't make that trainer the right trainer for the pet dog client seeking a trainer.

1. Our dogs live with us. We raised them. I should expect they know what sit, stay, walk nicely on leash means. Now if you said that we compete with not only our dogs but also with other people's dogs, that could speak to skill and aptitude across different breeds and clients. Not every trainer competes with dogs and that's okay. My point is aside from what the trainer can do with their personal dog, how can they quantify their success with their client dogs?

2. The service member who does pet dog training probably didn't train military working dogs so our service is not relevant to our dog training skills. Even if they did, the behaviors we encourage in working dogs to get the job done are often the very behaviors clients want to extinguish in their pet dog at home.

3. Cost isn't an indicator of skill. Cost often times, but not always, is a reflection of the trainers investment into their own program. If they've paid tens of thousands of dollars over the years in behavior studies, seminars, learning from other guru dog trainers... they just might want a return on that in their program. It may be a reflection of their perception of their worth. Newer trainers often fall into the trap of "I'm not good enough yet, so I wont charge that much". Even seasoned dog trainers struggle with "I won't make sales if I charge more" or "People deserve cheap dog training. If I want to make enough to pay my bills, I'm just gonna run myself into the ground to make those cheap programs pay off". It may be a reflection of the demographic they want to attract. But cost is NOT a direct reflection of how good a trainer they are.

If you're a dog training client, and you're recommending your dog trainer to others who may need them, please consider using relevant descriptions that are helpful to us getting new clients.

"They invested in their education in an industry where that isn't required."

10/21/2025

Our [retired] mascot is still cancer-free! I'll never forget all the people who donated to Envy's lung cancer surgery last year and I'm so incredibly grateful that she can still hustle through her senior years 💪

10/07/2025

09/20/2025

What a huge turnout! Always happy to volunteer our time to support our community and their pets. See you all next time!

Huge shout out to all of our helpers today at the Paws on the Lawn Vaccine Clinic! It was our busiest one yet, and we're excited to see our community taking it's pets health seriously.

🐾💉🐕‍🦺

09/10/2025

Most of yall know who I am, but I figured I'd formally introduce myself since there are new followers every day and we've launched new services this year.

I'm Chelsea McKamey, owner and lead dog trainer at Envy My Dog. My special focus is extreme behavior probemsets, particularly aggression. This program helps dogs develop skills to cope with fear, anxiety, and aggressive outbursts. When we aren't assisting clients with extreme cases, we provide boarding services for our training clients, grooming for challenging dogs, basic obedience, dog show preparation, and pet photography.

We believe that training should be practical and consist of real-life scenarios so it is applicable for families, effective, and safe. That clients should be able to call their trainer anytime they need guidance, an accountability mentor, and zero judgement. That dog trainers benefit more from industry alliances, mentorship, and fellowship than we do competition.

When I'm not training dogs for pet clients, I'm educating other pet professionals on understanding aggressive behavior so their grooming, veterinary, daycare, boarding, shelter, rescue, and animal control programs are safer. I volunteer on the board of Douglas County Humane Society, am active in various pet rescue efforts, am active in educating what ethical breed preservation looks like, and am 17 years strong in the Army National Guard.

I love the neighbors, clients, friends, and new family I've made through this industry over the years. Here's to another season of community and dogs!

09/02/2025

Sky is the limit! Nearly always, our puppy clients call us for basic puppy foundations. They aren't interested in competitive show/sporting events - just a well-trained family companion. They come out and train with us, see their dog's potential, see how much fun shows can be.... then BAM, they're at a dog show and their dog is collecting ribbons and rosettes 😂

This little guy is 9 months old and really put in the work with his mama. He's well on his way to a career in service work, conformation, and dog sports.

Doooo you wanna train your puppy or no? CAUSE LET'S GOOO

So proud of this boy at his first weekend of showing- Reserve Winners Dog at the Specialty

08/14/2025

Don't miss out on some good immersive socialization before your puppy matures.

Puppies under a year should ideally be enabled to practice habits that will be expected of them in adulthood.

This includes:
+ calmly greeting or ignoring dogs and people
+ having confidence riding in the car and existing in public spaces
+ allowing a vet or groomer to engage with them
+ come when called
+ willingly relinquish posessed items without conflict
+ walk nicely on leash
+ potty outside and sleep through the night
+ mind their manners around the house

They'll learn all these things with us and have fun doing so! The EMD perma-pack has two young puppy friends and safe adults as awesome role models. So let's get to it!