TLC Grooming by Sonora

02/03/2023

02/03/2023

It would be a rare client visit that there isn't some type of mixed messages given....and often.

We often don't realise just how many mixed messages and signals we can actually give.....and how often we give them.
Mixed messages will work against everything you want to achieve.

Let's look at this from your dogs or puppies point of view....

They may be given an old shoe to chew.....so shoes are now ok to chew?
You may tell your dog "down" over and over when you want them out of the car....but they ARE down (lying down).
They are not allowed on the furniture.....but occasionally when a movie is on...they are allowed ?

If you can start to become aware of mixed messages you give.....you may just start to see how many times signals are just unclear.
A muddle of different words by everyone... yet an expectation that they are understood and that your dog is just ignoring what you asked.
Are they ignoring or have we just asked them something that has a totally different meaning to the last time you said those words?
Yet we expect a different result?

Have a talk with the family and work out the SAME words and clear "rules" going forward.

Your dog will thank you and they WILL start to show you more wanted behaviour and less unwanted behaviour simply because they now understand exactly what you are trying to communicate.

Different rules.
Different words.
Different expectations
They will always give you far different results than you may want.

01/10/2023

✨Sometimes your customers need reminding✨

Tag a friend to share this.....

12/14/2022

Best group obedience classes

Welcome to the Kanawha Obedience Training Club Website. KOTC is a non-profit, licensed AKC club made up of a dedicated group of dog-loving people who volunteer their time and knowledge to other dog owners and interested people in the Kanawha Valley area. The club offers 8-week class sessions twice a...

12/09/2022

12/02/2022

FYI

Even "short haired" dogs need grooming! Don't miss out on the skin and coat benefits of professional grooming.

11/07/2022

If you have trained dogs for a while you probably heard “Dogs are bad at generalizing”.
I explain this concept at least once a day to an online student …
But how “bad” are dogs at it really? Or do we all struggle with generalizing?
Teaching dog training really means to teach humans how to train dogs.
Just this past week, a student approached me asking why her dog seemed to completely “forget” his Stay cue at a local park.
We discussed the impact of distractions, how to advance them gradually and why it takes a while for dogs to understand that the same concept applies in different situations.
The next day she said “So … but why is my dog coming when called at home and ignoring my recall at the park?”
Dogs are not the only ones “bad” at generalizing … in fact, humans are so bad at generalizing that they cannot even generalize how dogs struggle with generalizing :D
If you think about it, generalizing is a high level cognitive skill.
It means being able to extract the “core” of a concept regardless of accompanying circumstances and applying it to any other situation.
This is HARD both for humans and dogs.
When I started dog training, so often students would come to me with questions and I thought “But I told you this.”
I had shown them how to teach a Sit Stay and now they were asking how to teach a Down Stay. It confused me - I had explained the concept and now they should be able to apply it to any duration behavior, right?
No, not right. Just like the dog who can Sit Stay at home cannot automatically Sit Stay anywhere, the brand-new student who had learned how to teach one duration behavior cannot automatically apply it to any.
Both dog and student need to be shown the skill in more situations so they *can learn* how to extract the “core” of it.
My goal is not to have any one student forever, but to teach them how to work through training puzzles on their own eventually.
The longer I am teaching dog training, the more I think that what this actually means is teaching them how to generalize training concepts.
“Break the behavior down into small steps” sounds obvious - but it takes hundreds of training sessions to be able to actually do this skillfully and effectively.
“Adjust the criteria based on your dog’s success rate” - sure that seems easy … but it is so hard to always do correctly.
“Use great timing” - well, as long as we don’t have instant reaction times we will always be working on improving this one …
We are all students of generalization.
Nobody is inherently great at it.
So next time you're irritated by your dog’s lack of generalization skills … Remember that we are JUST THE SAME.

09/05/2022

September is Animal Pain Awareness Month ⭐️

08/29/2022