Merry Christmas!
🎄✨ Merry Christmas from the Freedom K9 family! ✝️ May your day be filled with love, laughter, and the warmth of cherished moments. Thank you for being a part of our journey this year. Wishing you and your loved ones a joyous holiday season! 🌟🎅 #MerryChristmas #CelebrateJoy #Grateful
“You can’t always get what you want But if you try sometimes You get what you need “
Trash Run / Duration Sit 🤩
Is it really for the dog or is it for you?
Rather than coming in hot with unbalanced, overly excited energy, spatial pressure, high pitched squeaking and pawing at them to “ build a relationship” - build that trust by being a source of calm in the storm.
Whether a dog knows you or has been with you before it is still stressful to leave their owners and be in a place that is not consistently theirs.
We use a structured walk, to start their stay with clarity, consistency and reliability - the things that really builds trust and a good relationship.
"Great things are done by a series of small things brought together."
- Vincent Van Gogh
Fireworks are a-comin!!
Now is the time to start working on helping your dog develop coping skills that they can call on when those scary booms begin!
⛈ Also great for storms/ gunfire!
Proactively practice calming exercises and help them face their fears - no resisting or fleeing allowed - before you need it!
Teach a non-negotiable down/stay or Place
Throw everything (plus the kitchen sink!) at them while holding them accountable to staying in command
📀 Loud Noises (Youtube!!)
📀 Bang on things (pots and pans and buckets Oh My!)
📀 Stomp around, throw things (Be the elephant!)
📀 Anything else that your dog normally would run from
Teach a heel/structured walk - follow me, migrate with me, connect with me
Stay Safe! and Add more challenging distractions
⚡️Loud noises/ machinery / motorcycles etc.
⚡️Before a storm/ fireworks, Inside during the storm, Outside during the fireworks
Then pop them on Place or in their crate to further decompress
Lastly - this is super hard but super important! - DO NOT CODDLE FEAR
Touch is a reinforcer, it will reinforce (make stronger) the behavior, mindset or energy your dog has at that moment
Touching and cooing "It's okaayyyy" actually adds more anxious energy to your already stressed out dog.
The best way to say "I got you dog" is to work your dog through that scary situation with the calming exercises that you've been practicing!
When it's over, play a favorite game like tug, or chasing the ball!
If it doesn’t bother me, it shouldn’t bother you.
Gypsy working on not worrying about the mower.

If your dog struggles with lawn equipment, or the common household vacuum demon, help them gain coping skills by practicing being calm around them.
Place is a great exercise to utilize when building these skills!
Offswitch in action!
Even with all of the structure, calming exercises, corrections and tools dogs will always know how to turn on!
Harley gets the zoomies and we have a great time playing keep away with my feet!
But there is a time and place and when I need her to stop, if she’s getting too excited or tries to bite my feet then I remind her that’s inappropriate and she needs to chill.
8 month old Harley goes home Saturday and I’m so excited at how far she has come!!
An ambassador for young dogs and Pomskis, she has excelled in her training program!
Fully ecollar trained with high level obedience -both on and off leash- she now has all the amazing skills and tools on board for her to be included in her family no matter where they go and to stop any young dog shenanigans (her personal favorites were jumping on everyone and biting hands!) or any that may pop up in the future.
Great job Harley!!
Adding new challenges? New experience (or experiment!)??
Bring back safety protocols and prior success cultivating tools!
*possible duplicate – some of my videos are not posting*
Here's the video that didn't post!!
Short clip of our morning walk!
New default behaviors💛
When there’s nothing to do, go to Place, turn off and relax.
Practice and feedback.
At this stage of training we are adding as much distraction and duration as we possibly can to further strengthen Harley‘s understanding of self control, and staying in command even in the face of all the exciting things or if our attention is pulled elsewhere!
If she struggles or makes a mistake we have all the communication tools that we’ve built in place - relationship, body language, verbal commands, leash pressure and Ecollar pressure to get her back on track and into the work groove.
There are many others but here are 3 reasons I like to keep my leash short - especially in public!!
⭐️ Early warning system that your dog needs your attention
⭐️ Immediate information for your dog that they need to reconnect with you via leash pressure
⭐️ Helps keep you relaxed with your arm down
While I train off leash reliability, the safety of your dog in public is most important, so I will always advocate having that extra layer of control especially in the early days of training!
Harley started nose work today!
There are many ways/games to start nose or scent work with your dog.
Today I used a pillbox and immediately paired the scent with food (breakfast) & reward immediately.
Harley loves to play just about everything - ball, tug, you name it! - but we'll continue to grow Harley's search skills to give her and her owners another healthy outlet & game they can do together!
Structure is super important, but just like us, our dogs need an outlet, a pressure release, and fun scent games are a great way to engage with your dog (and inside when it's stupid hot like today🥵!)
Enjoying calm company as I made dinner last night.
I talk about Place a lot because it has so much value for both your dog and you!
It’s the command/ default behavior I go to for re patterning dog and people interactions and giving them inclusion in your life without chaos and poor behavior choices.
Having a calm dog, one less source of stress is also a huge gift to give yourself in this crazy, human world of ours💚
Harley off leash in the super distractioning back yard🤩🤩

