WagPoint, K9's for Veterans

10/25/2024

10/15/2024

10/15/2024

10/13/2024

10/13/2024

10/09/2024

This weekend, WagPoint said goodbye to our mascot, our dog that did all the promotional work. Cancer is a thief at only 6years old. Good bye pretty girl, rest easy.

10/01/2024

Meet the newest WagPoint protege! Twist!

09/16/2024

Do you need training, socializing or maybe just some grooming? Maybe you’re in search of a Service Dog at less cost.

Contact WagPoint today! Certified dog trainer and AKC evaluator, WagPoint can help you meet most all your dog needs! I’m a small start up business servicing the south Texas countryside! (Columbus, El Campo, Richmond, Sealy, Brookshire)

09/14/2024

Current SDiT’s; Huxley & Sable.
Huxley has been matched, Sable is still looking for her perfect match!
Huxley is Partnered with 3D Herders Training

09/08/2024

WagPoint would like to present our official opening. 🐕‍🦺
We are searching for a VETERAN of the US MILITARY ONLY 🇺🇸 to work with us and receive a FREE service dog. Terms and conditions apply. Send us a message or send an email to inquire further or fill out an application! 📝
[email protected]

We also offer other dog services, like training 🐕 and grooming ✂️ 🪮 at lower prices than other large companies. We want to help you with your dog in any way we can! Contact us today!

09/02/2024

Happy Labor Day!
In honor of that, WagPoint would like to present our official opening.
We are searching for a VETERAN of the US MILITARY ONLY to work with us and receive a FREE service dog.
Terms and conditions apply. Send us a message or send an email to inquire further or fill out an application!
[email protected]

At WagPoint, we can serve almost all your dog training needs. We love to help dog and handler make a deeper connection and live in harmony. Our primary goal is to place dogs in homes of service members, that fits their needs and to help them transition back to civilian life with a companion or servi...

08/31/2024

Happy 8th Birthday to WagPoint’s FIRST service dog. And Welcome to retirement, you earned it!

08/29/2024

Welcome a new SDIT, to WagPoint, “Sable”. Sable is a 6 month old Isabella Doberman.

08/05/2024

After much ado, WagPoint and 3D Herders brings you SDIT, “Huxley”. Huxley is 2 years old, off on an adventure for medical alert. Tag along for Huxley’s adventure

07/17/2024

Testing some potential dogs for service work. Who do you think was our pick?

07/13/2024

Dunkirk doing great!

07/08/2024

Heading out in an adventure!

06/25/2024

Dunkirk
2 year old Cocker Spaniel getting proper socialization and exposure to be able to be to take his CGC tests.
Dunkirk hopes to be a Therapy or Service Dog.

06/24/2024

Why does service dog training take so long? Because it’s more than a task. It’s a lifestyle!

*Borrowed from my cert group NADOI*

06/12/2024

Bella, the inspiration for WagPoint. The highlight and pride of my training.

Bella is a Belgian Malinois with 9 titles, working on her 10th. At 8, Bella is “retired” from her Service Dog duties but as a Malinois she continues to excel in all she does. Soon, she will be fully retired and as WagPoint is growing, we will be looking/building a new “face” of our small business! Stay tuned for candidates.

06/11/2024

We are up and running! Calling all Veterans and military families!
Accepting new clients and relatively open availability.
Check us out, in tandem with 3D Herders Dog Training!

At WagPoint, we can serve almost all your dog training needs. WE love to help dog and handler make a deeper connection and live in harmony. Our primary goal is to place dogs in homes of service members, that fits their needs and to help them transition back to civilian life with a companion or servi...

06/05/2024

Services (prices dependent on civilian vs military)

•In Home Training (you, your dog & trainer)
•Group Classes (must have a minimum of 4 students)
•Public Access (CGC)
• Select Service Dog
•Therapy Dogs
•Puppy Nanny
•Dog Selections

*We are open to the public. While we are still in the new stages, our service is meant to reach directly to Veterans and Enlisted at discounted rates. We will consider all applicants.

**WagPoint K9 partners with 3D Herders Dog Training and offers more training opportunities**

06/02/2024

Here. We. Gooooo…
An official name, trainers, a platform, a demo dog…. Thank you for everyone who’s been along since I began with Mal &Dal… Now open to the public; specializing in military members, WagPoint (WestPoint) K9 is here!!
Some things are still being developed, please be patient, but we are now officially open, trained/learned and certified. Inquire today!

07/12/2023

THE DARK SIDE OF POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT…
‘FAUX COUNTERCONDITIONING’

Over the years, I’ve had several different horses come in for training, who, in spite of extensive positive reinforcement training, were still struggling with a lot of anxiety in their day-to-day lives.

By no means was this due to a lack of quality training.
These horses were ‘performing well’ within the context of a formal session, some with very experienced and educated trainers.

But outside of that context, they were reverting to almost feral behavior, and highly reactive, even with the same stimuli.

After years of training, they were plateaued in their ability to navigate the domestic world safely and be handled safely.

The assumption would be that their reactivity was a response to being ‘over threshold,’ or not generalizing, but in my search for answers for these horses, and in visiting with other trainers, including the dog training community, I became familiar with the idea of ‘overshadowing.’

The animal isn’t merely over threshold, or not generalizing, they were never OK with things in the first place.

Zoos are often used as the poster child for the implementation of successful positive reinforcement, but it’s Barbara Heidenreich’s work in particular, with ‘positive reinforcement gone wrong’ in zoological settings, that really opened my eyes.

Sometimes what we think is counterconditioning, is actually overshadowing, meaning the food reinforcer and associated behavior are masking the animal’s true feelings and behavior around a stimulus.

If the context changes, or the food reinforcer isn’t present, the animal shows us how they really feel about that stimulus.

A good example is counterconditioning haltering.

I use this all the time, and it works great, and I know it’s working if I can halter without the food reinforcer present, because it means the horse actually has a neutral or positive association with the halter.

If the food reinforcer isn’t present, and the horse shows a fear response, I know that I was merely overshadowing/masking their true feelings about the haltering process.

There’s a lot of discussion about learned helplessness in relation to coercive training and pressure and release, but overshadowing is just as prevalent.

Make no mistake, this happens even with top R+ trainers in the industry, but there’s a stigma about discussing it openly, and admitting that positive reinforcement can go wrong.

Positive reinforcement is just as vulnerable to human error as any other form of training.

There is a learning curve, and novices and even accomplished trainers can make mistakes that are dangerous to animal and handler.

What’s frustrating is that the pro trainers and amateurs who’ve reached out to me about the accidents and injuries they’ve had due to overshadowing, they don’t feel safe having a public discussion about.

I think there’s a fear that admitting to these accidents and injuries will somehow hurt the acceptance of positive reinforcement in the mainstream, or that they’ll be attacked by their peers.

This lack of transparency is not just hypocritical, but dangerous.

The truth is, the only way positive reinforcement is going to go mainstream is if we can be transparent about it.

Like any approach, checking in with our animals, and making sure our training is cognitive and emotional, and not just behavioral, is incredibly important.

I think this article does a great job of explaining some of the things myself and others have observed with overshadowing, as well as how to address it…

https://thecognitivecanine.com/when-well-executed-counterconditioning-plans-fail/

“Talk to ten qualified trainers about their experiences using counterconditioning and desensitization (CC/D) in the field and you’ll likely get ten different responses.

But what might surprise you is how many of them will somewhat bashfully admit that these protocols fail just about as often as they succeed–if not more so.

Less-experienced but well-read trainers will scoff and assume the protocol wasn’t carried out well; that pieces were missing, steps were skipped, etc.

Certainly this is the case some of the time, but what about when a well-designed expertly-executed CC/D protocol fails? Why is this happening?

Something *is* flawed. It may not the plan in the traditional sense, or the ex*****on.

It might be that our currently held information about CC/D is what is slightly off, and it might be that traditional CC/D protocols are less-capable than we thought…”

By the way, that’s me in the picture, shaping forward movement off a hand target with a ‘reverse round pen.’

I love training with positive reinforcement!
I’m NOT anti-positive reinforcement, and I spent several years using positive reinforcement exclusively, no pressure and release at all.

Every behavior I train now, I know I can train with positive reinforcement, but I choose to mix to best adapt to each individual and situation.

NOTE: If you plan on a reverse round pen setup like this, make sure you use rails from cone to cone that tip over and NOT rope as it’s a drag hazard.

07/06/2023

👌🏼👌🏼