Houston DogWorks

09/13/2025

Toast making final preparations for our next shadow program student to arrive tomorrow!

09/09/2025

🏈September Group Activities & Testing🏈

🏈 Every Tuesday @ 6:30 - Foundations Obedience

🏈 Thursdays:

🏈🏈9/11 @ 6:30 - Open Gym Maintenance Class

🏈🏈9/18 @ 7 - Patio Pups & CGC A/U Testing, Location TBD

🏈🏈9/25 @ 6:30 - Large Group Social

If you have taken the Polishing & Off-Leash class, next opportunity to test for your Advanced CGC and AKC Community Canine is next Thursday during Patio Pups.

Sign up for Group Social is up in the client portal in the "Group Classes" section.

09/08/2025

MONDAY MOTIVATION & CLIENT HIGHLIGHT

HUGE congratulations to team Oscar for earning the AKC Canine Good Citizen title!

After buying more than a few different programs elsewhere, Anna and Rotem made their way to us. Oscar had quite a few well rehearsed and habituated behaviors that were unsavory that hadn't been properly addressed and remedied. Simply, Oscar was a liability to himself and his owners, not an asset.

Long story short, we got lifestyle and management practices installed and they got to work, and work it was. Oscar was a slow burn given all the previous attempts, but they got it done all while Rotem is earning advanced degrees and Anna is pregnant.

Very proud of the perseverance, commitment, resolve, and trust in the bigger picture and through the process.

09/05/2025

In response to a trainer in the Austin area about their very reasonable frustrations with the patterns of behavior they see from the public and prospective clients on a post about burnout in the industry.

08/28/2025

Some perfect examples… of how NOT to allow your dog to behave in public.

❌Pulling on leash leading the human.
❌Invading other people’s personal space.
❌Jumping up on furniture and seating.
❌Licking children.

Having your dog in public is a privilege, and taking your untrained dog and allowing it to act like this, and worse, ruins it for responsible pet owners.

08/27/2025

Some truths we regularly deliver... All Too Well.

08/26/2025

LETS SEE THOSE DOGS! Pop them in the comments!

08/26/2025

“So is the dog-anxiety crisis real, or is it a product of owners’ anxiety-riddled psyches…”

Yes, combined with poor genetics, and inappropriate lifestyle choices that benefit the human’s feelings, not what dogs NEED, and bad advice from every “professional” that taught a dog to sit once in their kitchen.

Read more here: https://theatln.tc/7OklVWaz

“The rise in anxiety among American humans has been exhaustively documented,” Rose Horowitch wrote in 2024. “With much less fanfare, we also seem to have entered the age of the anxious canine.”⁠ https://theatln.tc/7OklVWaz
⁠
Many of America’s 85 veterinary behaviorists are booked months in advance. Several whom Horowitch spoke with said that the number of people seeking pet mental-health care has exploded in the past few years. But there is no consensus as to why. One theory is that dogs today are more anxious. More Americans are choosing to adopt pets, which saves lives but can leave traumatized pets with inexperienced owners. We’ve also altered the way pets live in ways that may make them anxious or aggressive toward people and other dogs. But it could also be that anxious adults are projecting their own issues onto their furry companions. What people classify as a behavioral issue reflects human expectations as much as a dog’s nature, according to a bioethicist. ⁠
⁠
“So is the dog-anxiety crisis real, or is it a product of owners’ anxiety-riddled psyches? Dogs can’t tell us how they’re feeling, so we’ll probably never know,” Horowitch continues. “But both explanations are depressing. Either humans are stressing dogs out so much that they truly need prescription meds, or owners are putting their dogs on unnecessary psychoactive drugs to address annoying but normal dog habits. It might be time, in other words, to reevaluate the way we approach dog ownership. ⁠
⁠
“Many Americans don’t have the time, energy, or green space their pets need to thrive,” Horowitch continues. “If the choice is to medicate our dogs or to make them, and ourselves, miserable, pet ownership starts to seem ethically murky.”⁠

Read more here: https://theatln.tc/7OklVWaz
⁠
🎨: Paul Spella / The Atlantic. Source: Getty.

08/24/2025

It’s not just in retrievers 🤣

https://www.facebook.com/share/r/1CYdJQ5RjB/?mibextid=wwXIfr

08/12/2025

👩‍🏫BACK TO SCHOOL!

👨‍🏫 August 2025 Group Classes
🍎 Tuesdays @ 6:30 - Foundations Obedience
✏️ Thursday 14th - Open Gym
🎒 Thursday 28th - Large Group Social

You can register yourself for Group Social in the client portal or send us a message!
Haven't gotten started yet? Reach out!
832.267.1188
[email protected]

08/12/2025

02/20/2025

Two Labradors and a chessie walk into a bar…

Just kidding! Worked some delivery positions for the field… fronts and finishes for the ring, with the retriever gang this morning.