Play with your dog!
Casual reminder to GO PLAY WITH YOUR DOG(s)! Even if the neighbors look at you a little funny. 🤣Daisy the young GSD is here for a 4wk board and train to help build up her confidence and learn some on and off leash obedience skills. Play is one of the best ways to build confidence and relationship with a dog. It’s day 3 of her being with me and we now have a game with food, toys, and personal play. Loving this lop-eared puppy!
Basic Manners week 2
Here is just a small snippet from week two of our Basic Manners class. This particular class is our Shelter Dog class with Homeward Bound Waggin, Inc, but it’s the same information! Miss Noel who was helping me demo is adoptable through Homeward Bound!
At the Quincy Town Center the kids have the playground and the dogs have the Homeward Bound Waggin, inc- Training Center! If you want to join in on the fun with your dog like and follow this page so you know when our next classes start!
What a perfect week for Adventure Days!
Adventure Dogs Hazel and Bea Bea had a great day exploring, swimming, and training while their people were getting married!
Then for Memorial Day I took my personal dog Waffles for an adventure with family (your dogs can’t have all the fun 😉). I think it’s safe to say ALL the dogs had a blast and ended their days exhausted.
If you are interested in Adventure Days with your dog, fill out the form below. It’s like doggy daycare, but better!
https://www.cognitoforms.com/NerdyDogTraining1/AdventureDayForm
Proofing middle and testing out our new dancing crab for puppy class! I think this little guy needs a name 🤔
This little crab will have the importance job of helping puppies grow into confident and optimistic dogs by being one of the many socialization/exposure opportunities during the class!
Sign up for Puppy or Basic Manners class here!
https://www.cognitoforms.com/nerdydogtraining1/classregistrationform
Want to learn more about the importance of early socialization for puppies? The AVSAB has a great article about it!
https://avsab.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Puppy_Socialization_Position_Statement_Download_-_10-3-14.pdf
One of the most common questions I get from people is “can old dogs learn new tricks?”
And the answer is ABSOLUTELY!!
Snoopy is a 10 year old beagle mix who loves to follow his nose, which often leads him to trouble. Last weekend he learned about the off leash life and loved every second of it! It was so much fun seeing him run around and play.
Also he still has it in him to run off and chase bunnies if he wanted to, old age hasn’t stopped him from being a hound. So if you have an older dog who needs to work on behavioral issues or never learned the basics, I encourage you to find a trainer or do some online classes!
I think it’s safe to say Marek and Luna enjoyed their adventure day last week!
If your dog has gone through training with me in the past they are eligible for adventure days, which I will be offering until I move. If you are interested in doing an adventure day send me a message.
Yesterday we took Prince and Glacier to Sodalis Nature Preserve for a long hike. Prince mainly focused on improving his leash skills and working on engagement and Glacier worked on being handled by someone other than me. They both did great for where they are at in their training.
This video was from about half way through our walk. Prince started out completely disengaged from me, but slowly gained more focus throughout. You can see he’s somewhere in the middle here, but part of that is the fact I was no longer as engaging for him since I was taking a video. It’s hard for dogs to want to engage and focus on a person who isn’t engaging, especially a young dog who doesn’t know me all that well yet.
Keep an eye out as I’m hoping to post more videos of us working on his engagement throughout this week.
Socializing/Desensitizing when your stuck at home.
Now My dogs aren’t puppies anymore, but that doesn’t mean we don’t work on desensitizing around weird objects from time to time. A couple of days ago while on our bedtime walk we found a car with balloons attached the trunk. Dogtor was a bit freaked out at first, but Luna was totally unnerved by it. We used the opportunity to work through the fear and becoming neutral around the scary object. You can see with Dogtor it’s a game, whenever we run into something he is unsure about we take some time to hang and play the “go say hi” game with it. He figures out that if he makes any attempt to calmly investigate or just exist around the object he gets rewards, when he touches it he gets even more good stuff and sometimes even butt scratches (his favorite thing ever 😂). Luna doesn’t learn the same way as Dogtor and isn’t motivated by food like he is, so I let her hang out and just watch Dogtor play his game. Once she realized he was enjoying himself and he wasn’t getting hurt she came over and investigated herself. For her I used lots of verbal praise for the interaction because that’s what she enjoys. We hung around until they were both fine with the balloons and capable of relaxing around them.
The next morning on Luna’s walk we walked pasted the balloons again and tested to see how she would react. She did exactly what I wanted, she acknowledged them but didn’t freak out, remained neutral to them, and stayed focused on me.
Socializing your puppy (or dog) doesn’t have to, nor should it be, going to say hi to ever person and dog in the world. Focus on teaching your dog that other people and dogs are boring, that if there is something scary you will help them through it and, that your the coolest person around! Get creative and use the environment around you to help your dogs succeed.
