MHT Legacy Dog Training, LLC

MHT Legacy Dog Training, LLC In-home private dog training for all breeds and ages. Helping you help your dog with a positive, fun

Mission
Our mission is to provide professional, quality humane education using proven science-based, force-free methods to problem solve; while offering flexible options to our clients. To, empower and educate dog owners and the public with knowledge of dog safety, how to bond and to strengthen their relationship with their dog companions. Description
Training our dogs helps to give them the menta

l stimulation they crave and need, builds confidence, trust and mutual respect that will become a beautiful bond between you and your dog. Call or email today to talk about your dog and find out if we can help, to learn about our training programs**, prices and availability!

**Customized programs are also available.

12/25/2024

ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS ….

Not just for Christmas, but every day of a dog’s life – these are some of the things I believe dogs would want -

Gifts of love, kindness, compassion, understanding and knowledge.

Gifts of helping them feel safe, secure and protected in their environment

Gifts of unconditional love, second chances and a forever home

Gifts of allowing appropriate choices

Gifts of mental and physical stimulation.

Gifts of proper nutrition and health care.

Gifts of never using punishment, force, fear, intimidation or tools that cause pain.

Gifts of acceptance for the dog that they are.

Wishing you and dog’s everywhere a very Happy Christmas filled with the gifts that really matter!

From ours to yours. May your day be blessed & full of love 🐾❤️
11/29/2024

From ours to yours. May your day be blessed & full of love 🐾❤️

08/23/2024

DOGS IN PAIN STILL RUN AND PLAY

This is Twig my yorkie, as many of you know she was born with deformed back legs. She has patella issues, cruciate issues, malformed hocks and also elbow disease.

Despite all of this, Twig would play all day. She is a young dog and would run non-stop, play with toys, play with my other dogs 24/7 if she could. She always wants to go for a walk- she never wants to turn to go home, she would walk all day if you let her.

She’s never grumpy, never shows any aggression even when she’s in pain. She partially ruptured a cruciate a few months ago and despite not being able to use her leg she was still desperate to go for a walk and kept dropping balls in my coffee (obvs I didn’t let her walk or play!) 😳

She has phases where her legs are really bad and she is in pain. It would be really easy for me to think she’s ‘fine’ and not in pain as she would still play all day if I let her. My only behavioural signs of pain with her are that she wakes in the night and takes a while to settle again and she barks a bit more than normal at outside noises.

I’ve also seen night-waking with my Dalmatian, Lucky, when he was in pain and my first sign of his back issues was that he would wake up and wander around in the middle of the night. He also still wanted to walk and play.

People often think that a dog who is in pain won’t want to go for a walk but dogs in pain are often still keen to go for a walk and they will want to chase a ball etc and play if you let them. Don’t ever assume they aren’t in pain because they want to run and play!

Signs of pain can be subtle and these are some that I commonly see in dogs I work with -

🛌 They may wake in the night or find it hard to settle in the evening, pacing or moving from bed to bed

🐕 They may vocalise more (whine or bark) and be more attention-seeking (nudging your hand to stroke them all the time or following you from room to room)

🛋️ Hesitating or unable to climb on/off the sofa, go up the stairs or get in and out of the car or needing a bigger run up to get in. Being slower to get up from resting.

😔 Being unhappy about being handled (groomed/dried etc) or unhappy about people sitting next to them on the sofa or walking past their bed

🐩 Changes in interactions with other dogs on walks- less keen on interacting or less keen on certain types of play etc

🏀. Lying down on walks or walking at a slower place but also conversely running excessively (‘runners high’ endorphins make them feel good temporarily)

You may also notice physical changes (the way your dog moves or the way their body looks.

💊 Please chat to your vet if you see any changes, dogs don’t suddenly change and start or stop doing things for no reason.

Pain is one of the primary causes of many aggression in dogs. Dogs also often don’t stop running and playing when they are in pain- signs of pain can be subtle and easy to miss so please, please seek advice from your vet if you see changes

Laura McAuliffe, Dog Communication 2024

06/01/2024

Today is Heat Awareness Day so we want to get a jumpstart on educating pet parents on heat risks for pets! Check out the graphic to find out how to keep your pets safe in warm weather, and then head over to our blog to learn more: https://aercmn.com/summer-heat-risks-for-pets/

05/08/2024

CRY IT OUT
Cry It Out – Why What We Learned from Children Applies to Puppies.
There has since at least 1913, been a school of thought that suggests allowing tiny babies to ‘cry it out’, ie, cry until they give up crying, with the parent no longer responding to cries for attention, comfort or contact, is beneficial or indeed, necessary in raising children.
Somewhere along the line this also became the advice applied to puppies, with the warnings that if you did respond to a pups cries for attention, you would as with the child oriented version of this advice, create a needy individual who was insecure and lacking in confidence.
We now know the opposite is true, unfortunately from a dog perspective very few studies are done on dogs, simply because there isn’t the money in it to do them.
So we are left to extrapolate from studies done on children, but that’s actually ok, because a dogs brain is very comparable to the brain of a child under 2 years of age. They have similar needs for comfort, warmth, food, physical contact, social support. They have similar difficulties in communicating orally, in lacking impulse control and lacking fine motor skills.
So here’s the grim truth.
Young mammals left to ‘cry it out’ do not ‘self soothe’. In fact what they learn (Bowlby J. 1960’s) is that after going through a cycle of protestation, then despair, they reach a third phase of detachment – in effect they give up trying to get a response, get comfort or contact and become apathetic. Their distress is still present, they simply have learned it will not be alleviated as a result of their behaviour, they have shut down.
Whilst the theory ran that if you provide attention constantly so that the young mammal in question does not need to cry, or you respond promptly to their cries, they will cry more, seek attention more… in fact the opposite is true.
A study in 1986 demonstrated that the more the mother holds and carries her baby, the less that baby will cry and fuss. Other studies (cross cultural but still human, not dog) showed that those parents who responded quicker to crying babies also have babies who cry far less often!
Going back to puppies – we have taken them from their mothers, their litter mates and their familiar environment.
If we compare our domestic dog to feral and wild dog populations we see that our domestic puppies experience this separation from their primary care giver and litter mates at (on average) between 6 and 12 weeks of age.
Their wild/feral counter parts are in the constant company of litter mates and the near constant company of their parent until weaning. Beyond weaning, they are still in the constant company of littermates, parent and other relatives unless they choose to be alone, which is unlikely to happen before adolescence and the hormonal changes that are related to adolescence.
It is true that domestic dogs and wild or feral canids are not the same, but the difference is that domestic dogs actively want to be with humans rather than with other canids.
That being so, they are in no way equipped to be isolated and alone, any more than the feral or wild dogs would be.
So what are the risks of subjecting a puppy to isolation from a social group or new primary caregiver,and ignoring cries for company, comfort or contact?
* The increased cortisol levels can actually damage or kill off neurons and the neuronal interconnections – this can affect how well your dog copes with stress, anxiety and fear in future, predisposing them to be more reactive and fearful.
*Stress hormones go up faster than they come back down – so that stressful experience is affecting the dog for much longer than you might think. Possibly days.
*Repeatedly putting stress hormones up will inhibit learning, affect sleep, affect bonding and attachment.
*Repeated stressful experiences that the subject cannot escape from leads to PTSD in humans – we have no evidence to suggest that this does not also happen in dogs. Given the similarities between the human and canine brain, it is reasonable to assume dogs can also experience something similar to PTSD.
The short version of all this is – there is no benefit to leaving a dog to cry it out, separation anxiety is normal for puppies, they need to be with someone most of the time!
Separation anxiety as an abnormal behavioural issue comes about as a result of an insecure dog, who has not been taught how to cope by themselves, not as a result of creating a secure, confident dog who is given what they need as a puppy.
Emma Judson

To get free dog training advice, please visit our group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/dogtrainingadviceandsupport/

01/22/2024

Prevent Pet Suffocation is excited to launch our latest Infographic with the data from our Pet Suffocation Survey!

Please share this important infographic with your family, friends, pet sitters, and dog walkers. Ask your vets, rescue groups, and pet shelters to post it on their social media sites and in their offices, etc.

To save the infographic, click on it, then right click, and choose "Save Image As". The infographic will be available to print off from our website soon. Sharing spreads awareness! Thank you!
www.preventpetsuffocation.com

Tis the season for a little pup enrichment!! Enrichment for dogs can look like many different things such as toys, sniff...
12/11/2023

Tis the season for a little pup enrichment!!
Enrichment for dogs can look like many different things such as toys, sniffaris, snuffle activities, play, enjoying the outdoors in a variety ways, the list goes on. But what is all the same no matter the activity, is how much the dog enjoys the activity.
Tadi LOVES looking at Christmas lights and tonight we took the boys out for Christmas lights drive around town. Here are just a few of his favorites 🤩🌟🎄🐶
He especially likes the blow up deco, the musical one and the deer lights. We drove slow & made sure we stopped at each of these houses & waited until he let us know he was ready to move on.
He was one happy boy!!
Bodhi enjoyed some of the lights but it's not really his thing, he would rather go for a ride to a destination, like a drive thru 🤣 but this ride was more for Tadi this time 🥰

TRICK OR TREAT!!! 🎃🍬🍭🍪🎃LOTS of treats please!! 🧡🐶🧡
10/31/2023

TRICK OR TREAT!!! 🎃🍬🍭🍪🎃

LOTS of treats please!! 🧡🐶🧡

Thank you to The American College of Veterinary Behaviorists for this statement!! ❤️❤️Training/Learning should never hur...
09/13/2023

Thank you to The American College of Veterinary Behaviorists for this statement!! ❤️❤️
Training/Learning should never hurt, cause fear or compromise the welfare of an animal. Training should be enjoyable, humane, ethical and fun for the learner

08/02/2023
Great article! When walking our dogs, the walk should always be about them, giving them choices and having their needs m...
07/09/2023

Great article! When walking our dogs, the walk should always be about them, giving them choices and having their needs met.
My dogs aren't walked regularly but when we walk our dogs, they are always allowed to sniff as much and how long as they want and be a dog. Tadi loves to browse & literally sniff everything and enjoy everthing that the grass, trees, poles, rocks, are offering up and take his time; while Bodhi is just an occasional sniffer, he likes to visually observe and enjoy a quick casual walk.
This is their time to get caught up on the latest dog "gossip", browse shopping or messages left, etc. Not only are they sniffing p*e mail from other dogs but also so many other scents left behind by us humans, other animals & mother nature.
It's enriching for their mental & physical health.

New research shows that allowing dogs to exercise their noses is good for them.

Now is the time to start preparing! Don't wait until the storms or fireworks have already started, it makes it much hard...
05/30/2023

Now is the time to start preparing! Don't wait until the storms or fireworks have already started, it makes it much harder on both you & your pup.

🌩️ Thunderstorm season is upon us, and firework season is fast approaching. Keep an eye on this page to learn how to help your pets stay safe and comfortable during this noisy time of year.

📅 Remember, if you want to speak with a veterinarian, many have long wait lists, and you will want to make an appointment as soon as possible.

🏠 Giving your dog a special place to call their own will help them feel as comfortable as possible.

🔍 Check local listings for displays and events that may impact your pet.

🐾 Ensure all microchips and tags are up to date and consider investing in GPS collars or geolocation tags.

🎆 On July 4, many animals become startled or frightened by the noise of fireworks. This may cause them to flee from familiar environments and people, and sadly become lost.

05/26/2023

Foxtail plants can be risky for your dog. The barbed seed heads of the foxtail plant can work their way into any part of your dog or cat, from the nose to between the toes and inside the ears, eyes, and mouth. They can even simply dig themselves directly into a patch of skin.

The foxtail plant is a grass-like w**d. It is mostly found in the Western half of the U.S.

The danger of foxtails goes beyond simple irritation. Because these tough seeds don't break down inside the body, an embedded foxtail can lead to serious infection for your dog. It can even lead to death if left untreated. The seeds can be hard to find in your dog's fur.

So how can you tell if your pooch has a foxtail that’s causing problems? If you find a foxtail should you extract it? And when is it time to call a vet?

Stay tuned for a couple more posts at this time over the next couple day for more info about these potentially dangerous threat to your pets.

05/22/2023

It’s summertime, so be mindful of your fur babies when you take them outside. Burns from hot surfaces like pavement and Asphalt can be very serious. .

05/15/2023

Happy Mother's Day!!

05/10/2023

BRIBES OR REWARDS?

A bribe is something that is offered before a behaviour, while a reward is something that is offered after a behaviour. It’s all about the timing.

Using rewards as a way to communicate with our dogs what we want them to do should no longer even be debated.

Rewarding the behaviour we want is an invaluable, effective, scientifically proven way to build communication and maintain a wanted behaviour.

Using rewards is not what this post is about. This post is about the belief that using rewards is just about bribing our dogs to do something. It’s about the all-too-common problem that many people have – “but my dog will only do something if I show him a treat first”.

In these cases, the reward has become a bribe because it has to be offered before a behaviour is performed. The reward prompts, influences and encourages a behaviour and without it, the dog will not “perform”.

To use rewards effectively and avoid this issue, the reward needs to be presented after the behaviour has been performed. It then becomes a way of communicating – “Well done, I really liked your behaviour!”

There are times when bribes or luring are necessary. Teaching a new behaviour, helping a dog that is fearful, unsure, establishing trust and building relationship, bribing a dog to drop something by trading it for a yummy treat or at times when you temporarily need to address a potentially dangerous or frustrating situation.

When correctly timed, rewards are not bribes. Rewards are an effective tool in helping our dogs understand what to do. Keep on rewarding a behaviour well done.

Address

PO Box 274
Fort Atkinson, WI
53538

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