Houston DogWorks

04/22/2025

🌎Happy Earth Day🌍

04/16/2025

The day has arrived to wish Cooper, the OG, CEO, Boss Man, Patron Saint of Houston DogWorks a HAPPY 14th BIRTHDAY.

Join us tomorrow (Thursday) at 7pm at Cottonwood for a birthday edition of Patio Pups.

04/08/2025

‼️Cooper has been saying GO COOGS since 2011! Let’s get it done tonight ‼️

04/07/2025

April Group Class Schedule

4/10 @ 6:30 - Open Gym Maintenance Class
4/17 @ 7 - Patio Pups at Cottonwood
4/24 @ 6:30 - Large Group Social

Every Tuesday:
6:30 - Foundations Obedience
7:15 - Polishing & Off-Leash

04/02/2025

TL/DR - You and your dog will fall to your level of training, not rise to the occasion of the test. That applies in and out of the ring.

That said, read the whole piece. It’s good, and this golden is lovely.

03/27/2025

Yes, that building behind him looks familiar to you.

AliBeth is fostering this little dude and by all accounts he’s an easy happy go lucky dog… who is on the way back to four functional legs now.

Anything you can do to help is appreciated.

03/14/2025

As usual, auntie Linda should sound pretty familiar…

There is a difference between *training* and *management*.

Although management can exist without training, training is augmented by appropriate management.

After all, what we allow, will continue.

If your 3 month old puppy is allowed to run freely throughout your house, you cannot get angry at the pup for any property violations you may have stumbled across, or for the piles of poo and puddles of urine scattered throughout the home.

Those are management issues.

The species with opposable thumbs is supposed to be a little more... self aware, at least... and able to foresee these problems before they arise.

But that's not the case, is it? I have been dismissed by clients who could not comprehend how the liberty they allowed their dogs was in direct conflict with the problems they were still encountering.

But, confining a dog is cruel, right? Keeping the puppy on a leash is too, I suppose.

What's even more inhumane is the extraordinary damage to a puppy's digestive tract when it ingests an errant sock your kid forgot to put in the laundry and away from pup's mouth. That really cool gel pen your bestie gave you is now perforating your puppy's lower intestine.

If he lives, the surgery will cost between 5 and 8 k.

And you thought kids were expensive.

About kids- did you ever let your 4 year old home alone? No?

I wonder why.

Did you give your 11 year old access to the family car and the PIN number for your bank card?

Probably not.

So don't let the equivalent of the vacuous K9 Kardashian "influencers" tell you that crates are cruel and puppies should be allowed to roam without restraint throughout your home!

Much like children, JUST like children, puppies need boundaries, ground rules and guidance!

Almost 100 percent of dogs overdosing on your pot stash, choking on your favorite hair tie or causing hundreds, if not thousands of dollars in damage to your property, can be successfully avoided through mindful management so training can occur.

Don't want to create a thoughtful plan or put forth minimal effort to keep your dog safe from itself?

Don't get a dog.

If you do get a dog, have a dog or are the care provider for somebody else's dog, do yourself and the dog a favor and confine what you cannot supervise, restrain when you are mentally and physically present to teach, and the dog is prepared to learn.

I am happy to dispense more incendiary but practical advice! Just ask!

03/11/2025

Clarity and foundation win 100% of the time...

When training systematically and building brick by brick, including utilitarian obedience and a clear and intentional marker system, a multitude of benefits are brought to the table including efficiency of teaching new and complex behaviors. The dog wastes less energy and has a clearer head. We have a means to diagnose and course correct should something go in an unplanned way, and we can do so without risk of confusing or breaking the dog as well as quickly find your way back into success.

This is Ghost's first session with odor (decomp human remains) since introducing the scent wheel off of the wheel which you will see in the last rep of this session. In total, this is his 10th session over 7 days working starting 10 days ago. He will turn 1 year old this Friday, 3/14/2025.

Its not just puppies, pets, and problems around here...

Kennedy OBrien
Josh Wiggins
Wheatland Dog Center

03/09/2025

We heard you like puppies…

We do too!

Proactively managing and training your dog from the start makes for a much more enjoyable companion… and we don’t have to chase down and fix problems that were never allowed to start.

03/04/2025

🍀🎷MARCH GROUP CLASSES🎺🍀

🟨Polishing & Off-Leash Group Class - Our next round (and only one until Fall) starts Tuesday 3/18 at 7:15 following Foundations Obedience class. This is a 12 week cycle that works your dog through both AKC Urban and Community Canine titles as well as builds socially reliable off-leash reliability. Class is capped at 16 students. Contact us to reserve your spot.

🟩Large Group Social - You can now register yourself for Large Group Social on 3/27 via your client portal under the "Group Class" section. Class does fill, so act fast. If you can't or need help DIYing your registration, reach out for assistance or so that we can register you and your dog. People are having a GREAT time.

🟪Please note, there is no class Thursday 3/20.

03/03/2025

WEEKEND ROMP!

One of the many perks of training with us are the other opportunities that extend beyond the training itself including a safe and predictable environment for social interactions with dogs who all speak the same language and live by the same rules and expectations.

We take a lot of pride in our community and all it provides.

02/25/2025

A few clips of Dixie’s pre go home outing.

She actually left the Board & Train portion of her program two weeks ago, , and her owners have already returned for two of their private lessons, included in the Foundations Obedience program.

They’re doing a great job improving their relationship via the training work.

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.

02/18/2025

See you tonight for the group part of Foundations Obedience curriculum at 6:30!

02/13/2025

Duke left Board & Train on Sunday and we’ve already received excellent feedback from Paige about how much more enjoyable and easier he is to manage on her property.

We train lots and lots of sporting group breeds, but Duke was particularly tough… glad we’ve all come through it. Everyone’s quality of life will be greatly improved.

02/13/2025

Dog after dog after dog after dog…

For years, fluoxetine (Prozac) has been pushed as the answer to behavioral problems in dogs. Veterinary behaviorists and force-free advocates love to cite “science-backed” studies to justify long-term medication use. But here’s a big problem, most of these studies are flawed, biased, and rely almost entirely on owner-reported data.
Take, for example, the 2009 study on fluoxetine for compulsive disorders in dogs (Irimajiri et al., J Am Vet Med Assoc). It claimed fluoxetine helped, yet the only improvement came from owners’ OPINIONS, not actual behavioral measurements. When researchers looked at objective data the dogs’ actual behavior logs they found NO SIGNIFICANT difference between the medicated and placebo groups. But guess which result gets cited?🤫
How about the 2007 study on fluoxetine for separation anxiety (Simpson et al., Veterinary Therapeutics). The conclusion? Fluoxetine was effective … but only when paired with a structured behavior modification plan. And yet, thousands of dogs are medicated without any meaningful training, as if a pill can replace actual learning.
Sad reality is that Dogs are being drugged, not rehabilitated.
Ask any serious trainer what happens when they get a dog that’s been on fluoxetine for years. They take the dog off the meds, implement a sound training plan, and SHOCKINGLY the dog improves.
Not because fluoxetine “worked,” but because the dog finally got what it needed: clarity and proper training.
Yet, the AVSAB keeps pushing these medications while dismissing legitimate training as “aversive” or “outdated.” They’d rather chemically suppress behavior than actually address it.
The real question isn’t whether fluoxetine has some effect but why so many dogs improve when you REMOVE the drug and train them properly?!!!
Behavioral change comes from learning, not sedation. It’s time to stop pretending otherwise.
I know I am not the only one noticing that dogs on fluoxetine don’t get better - they just get dull.
The dog isn’t learning or adapting, just becoming more passive.
This can actuallY DELAY proper rehabilitation, because the dog’s emotions and responses are chemically suppressed rather than modified through learning.
Thinking about making a solo podcast to talk about the dog I have in training right now, one of the many that end up euthanized after YEARS of being on SSRI’s and the pandemic of prescribing psychotropics like flea medication