Kudos Canine

12/17/2024

🎉🐶 Last Minute Spot for Christmas! 🐾🎄

We had a cancelation, so we have an open spot for your furry friend to join our family this holiday season! Whether your pup needs a safe and fun place to stay while you’re away or some extra training and behavioral support while they are here, we’ve got you covered.

Don’t wait—reach out soon, as spaces are filling up fast! Let us make this Christmas pawsitively memorable for your dog! ❤️✨

11/20/2024

Tea and Kaladin wanted to let you know that Kudos Canine is booking now for the December holidays!

Come stay with us in our home for the holidays. Get some training in for your dog while you’re away with a KPA certified trainer and a combined of 30 years of training experience… Or just enjoy some peace of mind knowing that your family member is part of our family while you’re away.

Message us today to book before we fill up! Limited space available, so we can make sure we’re able to give each dog who stays with us plenty of one on one time.

09/10/2024

We are pleased to welcome Portia, an 11-month-old Rottweiler, to Camp Kudos for the next few weeks!

Portia's early life was marked by adversity, resulting in struggles with confidence, over arousal, and social skills. The difficulty in management of these have been compounded by her strength. However, Portia has been fortunate enough to find a dedicated family who have provided a safe and loving home, and who are committed to her growth and potential.

Throughout her time with us, we developed a personalized plan, concentrating on enhancing basic obedience and manners, impulse control, and socialization, along with providing her with strategies to channel excitement, address insecurities, and become more at ease with the world round her.

We eagerly anticipate sharing her journey with you and encourage you to contact us for support with your own dog's challenges.

09/08/2024

Are you feeling frustrated with your “teenage” dog or puppy? Do you feel like they just “aren’t getting it?” You’re not alone.

Adolescence is a difficult time for many people in their training journey with their dog. The good news is, it’s not you. There’s scientific reasoning behind the trouble we can have communicating effectively to our adolescent dogs. The better news is that there are ways to help your dog be more successful and alleviate the stress on both you and your pup during this time!

…The best news of all? We’re here to help you through it! Reach out to us today to get started with one of our puppy camp programs or lesson packages to get started!

“Adolescent dogs have a decreased ability to process information they are receiving from the environment including the presence of dogs, vehicles, people, or really anything around them. They behave in ways that might feel frustrating or upsetting for the dog’s person.

The connectivity between the frontal cortex (responsible for decision making) and amygdala (responsible for emotional processing) decreases, resulting in less behavioral control. We see increased risk taking and more sensitivity to fear.”

You’re not alone. Your puppy isn’t bad. This isn’t a struggle reserved just for you and your puppy. Breath. Be patient. Gather knowledge to help you both through this period.

09/07/2024

We have some openings for board and trains, puppy start right camp, and day training in the next few weeks!

Whether you need help with manners, puppy foundations, behavior modification, confidence building, impulse control, disc skills, general sports foundations and engagement, or something else- We are here to help.

Reach out today to get started on the road to a happier, healthier relationship with your dog.

07/29/2024

Do your research when selecting a dog trainer, whether for sports, classes, or individual training. Check and double check a trainer’s certifications, history, continuing education, experience, insurance, required state or local licenses, etc etc. Since there is no universal certification, you may also need to dig a little deeper. Which certification do they have and how long and in-depth was the course? Ask about their methods and toolbox. Compare their experience, skills, and type of education to the type of training your dog needs. Especially for things like behavior modification. Behavior modification by an individual without proper experience and training has the potential to be incredibly dangerous.

Dog training is not unlike any other profession, education and fundamentals matter. Can your trainer explain the actual proven science behind their methods? Do they have examples of past cases they’ve worked with? Have you seen their results? Do they tell you they gaurantee a certain result in a certain amount of time, no matter what? If so on that last one, walk away.

I was in a fortunate position to be able to afford my KPA program and certification when I did, as well as some other things I’m working on. I truly hope that we can figure out a way to make this education more broadly available to everyone with an interest in the career. It could save dog and human lives.

07/13/2024

Clients are often blown away when we talk about this. When they realize that they have accidentally been reinforcing their dog’s busy behavior, and start making lifestyle changes and focusing on helping their dog settle, it never fails that they express how much they wish they’d known this sooner/done this with past dogs.

01/27/2024

Not every dog is a dog park or patio with your friends’ pups type of dog. That’s okay. We can certainly help with reactivity and positive associations with other dogs, but we can’t force our dog to WANT to be friends with other dogs. Again, that’s okay. Your dog isn’t broken, and you didn’t do anything wrong.

Listen to your dog and love your dog for who they are, while working on finding ways to make you both more comfortable and confident in situations set with realistic expectations!

01/17/2024

Let’s talk about….

POISONED CUES!

What is a poisoned cue? Put simply, it is a cue (or a “command” that you give your dog) that has lost all meaning to the dog. Poisoning a cue often happens when a verbal cue (or sometimes a hand signal cue) is introduced, but then we do not fully reinforced the behavior we are asking for, or we do not have correct timing in introducing or marking the behavior. These things cause the dog to not understand clearly what behavior youre asking for. Poisoned cues can also happen if maybe you started out strong with your marking and reinforcing, but you, or others in your home, didn’t stay consistent with this. Over time the behavior often becomes sloppy or unclear. If you regularly find yourself repeating a cue before your dog actually responds, it’s likely your cue has been poisoned!

Here is a real life example: This little pug came to us knowing “sit.” However, what he really knew was “sit… sit, sit, siiiiit… SIT!.. Hey, SIT DOWN!” and even then, he only did it when he wanted to. So we’re beginning our “learning to learn” journey with something simple: Fixing the poisoned sit cue!

Here, I am waiting for him to offer the sit (which may require some luring initially,) marking the sit (there’s a clicker in my hand in my lap,) and rewarding. In our next sessions, if he is reliably offering the sit on his own, I will add in a hand signal for the behavior, since that’s a novel cue for him that has not yet “been poisoned.” Lastly, I’ll had back in the verbal “sit,” once he’s sitting reliably for the hand signal. (Disclaimer: For this guy, I have to stay lower energy at this point, or he gets a little to excited to brain, so excuse what looks like my lack of enthusiasm. You should praise your dog with as much enthusiasm as they can handle without getting too worked up!)

This dude is a smart boy and will do anything for kibbies, so this should only take a few sessions. (However, if I don’t maintain the reinforcement, he could backslide. Consistency in training here is important, as always with dog training!)

Does this all sound familiar to you? What is a cue you think may have unintentionally been poisoned for your dog?

We can help you fix poisoned cues for your dog, and help you learn how to keep them from happening in the future! Shoot us a message or visit our website to book with us now!

12/17/2023

The boys had an excellent UpDog Challenge weekend, and I’m so glad we decided to go!

My goals for a low key, stress free weekend were, first and foremost, for Neville was to repair his confidence in indoor disc and shake off the belief that I was intentionally trying to run him into walls using short, successful throws. And secondly for to keep improving our connection and game with Kudos Michael, with specific focus on outing his disc and limiting his giant outruns and disc shaking after a catch.

Well, we absolutely blew those goals out of the water! Neville never seemed to notice the difference in the indoor field, running down discs like there were no walls at all. He was so confident and on point that I felt good enough (and he felt good enough) to to actually push ourselves, go long, and play competitively, including a KILLER round of Time Warp with Benjamin Sykes on Sunday, and an almost perfect round of Pairs Toss and Fetch for our very first attempt. Kudos Michael’s catch rate continues to improve, he beat several personal bests, his outs were absolutely amazing, and his outruns, while occasionally still there, were much less frequent and much shorts, with no disc killing. He even managed his first (I think?) disc placement! Woot!

We walked away with:
🥉3rd Place Spaced Out(on a three way tie breaker for 1st)- Neville and I
🥉3rd Place Frizgility(with a new PB!)- Neville and I
🥈2nd Place Pairs Throw and Go(on a tie for 1st)- Nev, Ben and myself
🥈2nd Place 7 Up- Kudos(!) and I
🥇1st Place Boom- Neville and I(with a new PB!)
🥇1st Place 4 Way Play- Neville and I
🥇1st Place Timewarp- Neville and Ben

Such a successful weekend with my two best boys, some plastic slinging, and good people! 💜

12/16/2023

This is the phrase I say most to my clients. ♥️

🤍📈🤍

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12/10/2023

We’re back down to one spot left for in our home pet sitting for the holidays!

Add on training to their stay and make it a two-fer! Have a safe, fun place for your dog to stay while you’re away, and come home to a happy, tired pup with improved behavior. What’s not to like about that plan?!

We recently had a cancelation, so we have a few open spaces left for pet sitting in our home right outside of Greensboro, NC for the Holidays! Shoot over a message and let us spoil your pup(s) while you’re away. 🎄🎁🎊🕎

12/08/2023

We recently had a cancelation, so we have a few open spaces left for pet sitting in our home right outside of Greensboro, NC for the Holidays! Shoot over a message and let us spoil your pup(s) while you’re away. 🎄🎁🎊🕎