https://linktr.ee/modernk9_carolinas, https://youtube.com/@ModernK9_Carolinas

Modern K9, Indian Land, SC (2025)

01/07/2025

Saylor girl is still available for adoption!🩵 115 lbs and growing, Saylor is a big teddy bear full of love and life.

View her story highlights over on our Instagram to see how far she has come with training thanks to , and follow the link in our bio to visit Saylor’s profile on our website.
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12/25/2024

🎄Merry Christmas Everyone🎄

I have so much to be thankful for. I am beyond blessed.
God has blessed me with the “dog knowledge” I have so I can share it with you all. I am thankful you allow me to share it with you!

But most of all I am so thankful our Lord and Savior was born to fulfill God’s plan.

Merry Christmas ✝️

07/13/2024

Show me the last photo you took of your dog (or one of them). Here…I’ll go first.

05/02/2024

This is a pretty controversial topic. For me the answer is yes, but not in the way you may think.

It’s not that your dog being able to hold a sit or lay down on command is going to help change their response to certain stimuli. Obedience skills won’t change the way your dog feels.

It’s the relationship you build when working through training obedience that ultimately helps your dog through behavior issues.

It’s the predictability that training obedience provides that allows our dogs to be willing to work through these issues. The predictability that what you’re asking them to do is fair, safe, & in their best interest. It’s about creating a relationship built on trust, fairness, clarity, and predictability.

This is why, with most of my clients, I never start with their goals on day one because if they do not have this type of relationship established, we will ultimately have to use more force than is actually necessary.

A dog owner may have a goal of working on loose leash walking or reactivity, maybe even off leash training, but on day one we will likely work on a sit stay, recall drills and using a marker word.

Both human and dog need to become comfortable with this relationship where the human asks something of the dog and the dog complies without conflict. This is not the type of relationship that builds overnight, so it’s important to take our time and be consistent. And through this relationship building, the human also learns the dog’s limits & uses that to drive their training.

Currently on my YouTube channel, I have a variety of obedience videos that can help you through many skills such as:
Standard Stay
Sit stay
Down stay
Place stay
Impulse control
Doorway manners
Leave it
Drop it
Loose leash walking
Recall
With me
Check-ins
Look Game

If you would like to view any of these videos, tell me in the comments and I will send you the link to my YouTube channel.

01/15/2024

Happy Birthday to Lincoln & Murphy.
Believe it or not, their adoption papers both have the exact same birthdate listed as January 15-just a year apart.
We cannot be 100% certain of Lincoln’s birthdate but we celebrate it every year on this date.

12/09/2023

When working on impulse control, a super challenge is one in which you know your dog will immediately break position the moment the challenge is introduced-usually it’s a conditioned behavior your dog has already developed towards a specific stimulant or a routine.

Some examples are :
-Getting a dog’s leash or toy
-Rustling a treat/food
-Running past your dog
-Playing with another dog in front of your dog
-Opening the front/back door
-Throwing toys past the dog
-Sudden Noises

Let’s say that normally your dog gets super excited every time you grab his leash and he comes running to you because he knows that it’s time to go for a walk. It’s not really a problem, your dog doesn’t cause any issues, so we’re not looking to correct this behavior – we just want your dog to understand that if I put you on place & I go to grab your leash, you cannot follow through with your normal routine of running to me until you’ve been released because place means place and it overrides any other behaviors.

But because this is a conditioned behavior or response your dog has already developed, we have to slow down the process to help them be successful. It is likely that the first time you go through this, your dog will break and we don’t actually want that.

Many people might see grabbing the leash as one single step, but we can actually break it down into tinier increments, reward after each step & repeat. Here is a template:
-Walk to where the leash is stored
-Touch the leash
-pick up the leash, put it back down
-pick up the Leash, hold it for a few seconds, put it back down
-Pick up the leash, walk one step towards the dog, put the leash back

Once you reach this part, you can start adding in one step closer to your dog.

This type of preparation helps the dog to see that even when something exciting, confusing, or different is happening, they can trust that what you’re asking them to do in that moment will lead them to success.

If you’d like an example, see the video link in the comments.

12/08/2023

I wholeheartedly believe every single dog can benefit from impulse control training. There are going to be times in your dog’s life where you will need your dog to follow through with what you’re asking them to do for their safety but if you don’t ask your dog to do these things on a daily basis, why would they do it or be capable of doing it during a stressful situation?

Example if your dog likes to chase prey and you are walking past a cat and you need your dog to continue walking past, how can we expect our dogs to do something that goes against their genetics when we’ve never prepared them?

Or perhaps you just want your dog to not go crazy when guests come through your door? But how can we ask our dogs to remain calm if they can’t even sit for longer than two seconds when no guests are around?

So we must prepare them by adding “chaos” into their training, but like everything else, we have to do it gradually and go at the dog’s pace. Not only does it keep our dog safe, but teaching your dog to have impulse control is for our sanity as well. But note that this isn’t something we would fully add into a puppy’s training until around 6 months of age.

There are a lot of ways you can incorporate impulse control training into your dog’s daily routine, but here is one example:

Teach your dog a place stay and proof it using some challenges-meaning-see if your dog is still able to hold place while you do the following:

-stand right in front of him
-walk around him
-take backwards steps away from him
-turn your back and walk away
-disappear out of sight, no longer than 60 seconds
-walk around and pretend to do daily chores
-walk away and sit down
-add in super challneges

“Super challenges” is a whole other training all in its own. This is where your dog’s impulse control becomes advanced. Tomorrow we will discuss what super challenge are and how to add them into your training.

12/07/2023

We hear this term thrown around a lot in the dog training world, but what does it really mean?

Well, if a dog has good impulse control they essentially can control their impulses-they are able to resist certain urges. So what does that look like in training?

I like to describe it as the dog’s ability to focus on a given task no matter what chaos is going on around them.

I think many dog owners view impulse control as a dog’s ability to patiently wait for food as we place it on the ground. Or we see those cute challenges were we spell out words with the dog’s kibble while the dog waits for a cue to eat. These are great activities but impulse control is so much more than resisting food.

Incorporating this into your daily training will help your dog deal with the unexpected surprises that often occur in our human world such as:

-loud noises
-prey drive
-people/kids running
-fast moving objects
-guest arrival
-playin with other dogs
-not darting out the door
-jumping

And so much more.

Dogs were designed to be impulsive. They do not naturally think before they act, but they can be taught how to do so. Adding this into your dog’s training is a necessity for their safety as well as our sanity!

Tomorrow we will discuss some ways you can incorporate impulse control activities into your dog’s training!

12/06/2023

Most dogs that are scared of strangers have this perception that a human approaching means the human is going to interact with them in someway & this is what makes them uncomfortable. Even if the human had no intention of greeting, the dogs past experiences have conditioned him to think in this way.

Therefore, a counter-conditioning approach is necessary. Our approach has to focus on changing the dog’s perception of what it means for a human to be approaching. We want the dog to understand that a human approaching is not a guarantee of an interaction. But the only way we can get the dog to perceive this is for that to actually happen, repetitively, back to back.

This means that the human cannot approach the dog to talk, touch or give food.
Instead, we have to start back at the beginning and help the dog see the human approaching as something positive, but we need a stopping point where the dog still feels comfortable.

Let’s say that the fearful dog is comfortable with the stranger 20 feet away. The stranger will stop at that point, place a treat on the ground, walk away to his original position, & then the owner & fearful dog will walk up together to get the treat, & walk away.
There are two wonderful things happening in this process- Positive reinforcement: the human is leaving a treat. Negative reinforcement: the human (scary thing) is walking away.

So, not only is the dog obtaining a treat, the human is also walking away. But overtime the dog should start to recognize the pattern: “human approaching = food” creating a positive association to the human approaching and now the dog will likely get excited for the human to approach. When we start to see the dog getting excited for the human to approach, that’s when we know we can decrease the distance. But not too much. It should be an unnoticeable change- maybe just a couple of steps and then keep repeating this process. You may get pretty far in just one session but you will have to practice this often

Look in the comments for a reel demonstrating this activity.

12/05/2023

Many of us have experienced that moment when you ask somebody not to approach your dog or pet your dog, but they do it anyway and then they are surprised when your dog acts less than friendly.

Usually those people mean well – they truly love dogs and their thought is “If I can just approach the dog and pet it, the dog will see that I am nice and not going to hurt him.” Sounds fairly reasonable but let’s look at it from a dog’s point of view.

A human is approaching, and the dog gives a low growl and averts his gaze communicating, “Please stay away”, but the human continues to move forward, and does exactly what the dog was trying to avoid in the first place, and pets the dog.

How do you think that human is viewed by that dog? What that dog knows is that he gave signals that communicated he was uncomfortable with the human’s approach, but the human approached anyway, and paid no attention to the dog’s signal, therefore that human is not trustworthy. Unfortunately, many dogs that experience this tend to associate all humans in that way, creating a dog who then becomes defensive when any humans come around because he anticipates that every human will react the same.

If you truly want a dog to know that you are safe, the best thing to do is pay attention to their signals and respect that. For a lot of fearful dogs, this simple act of ignoring them helps them to feel comfortable within minutes and they just may approach you. However, there are also dogs that need more specific training.

In tomorrow’s post, I will introduce a training activity I like to use to help dogs feel comfortable with people approaching.

12/04/2023

Many fearful dogs do just fine in their home environments but once they get outside, they’re a mess.

In our last post, we discussed how breaking our training down into small increments is the best way for a fearful dog to gain confidence; this still applies to the outside environment. That means we should not be taking our fearful dogs for a full on walk in brand new environments.

For some of us, this might be our front yard & if you live in an apartment; then right out the main lobby or parking lot…. and that’s it. Don’t go any further until your dog is comfortable with that area.

Many people have this idea that if we just take a walk and nothing bad happens, the dog will see that it’s safe. But that’s not how a dog’s mind works. What the dog remembers is how he was feeling during that entire walk-stressed. And then they attach that emotion to that activity.

So, if we want them to feel like being in new environments is safe, the only way they will attach that feeling to that activity is if they are actually feeling that way when they are doing it. And we can do this by repeating the same small areas over and over, back to back. This helps the dog to see the end result quickly and they never go over threshold.

It is very possible that if you take a nervous dog on a full on walk, and nothing negative happens after a year or two they “may” eventually calm down, but you will progress faster and help the dog to feel safer if you do the back to back repetitions.

This is a hard concept for many because they feel like they are not giving the dog the exercise or mental stimulation that he needs but here are some points to take into consideration:
-Was the walk really fulfilling him in the first place?
-The dog is still walking for the amount of time you normally provide, it’s just in one area.
-How do you think your dog views you if you’re always putting him in stressful situations? How do you think his perception of you will change if you are the one that helps him overcome his fears?

You will notice through each repetition, your dog will become calmer & calmer- when that happens, start adding in more distance gradually.

12/02/2023

We need to have a mind shift from wanting to stop a dog’s behavior to helping the dog feel comfortable enough so they no longer exhibit a specific behavior.

Therefore the majority of our training should focus on helping the dog gain confidence either in his own body, in new environments or around stimuli. But it’s not a race & we must go at the dog’s pace.

So what does the training look like?

Let’s use noises as an example. My foster, Reid, is scared of grocery bags so during training I will bring out some bags, but remember he’s scared of them, just the sight of them makes him want to run so my end goal cannot be my starting goal.
My end goal would be to walk towards him with a bag in my hand without him running away. So I have to break that into very tiny increments where I gradually approach him with a bag one step at a time.
The starting template for this training would be (modifications may be necessary)
-Walk to the cabinet the bags are in
-Open the cabinet
-Open the cabinet, touch a bag
-Open the cabinet pick up a bag
-Open the cabinet, pick up a bag, shut the cabinet, open the cabinet, put it back
-Repeat the above, but take one step towards the dog, put the bag away
-Repeat the above, and keep adding an additional step until you’ve made it all the way to the dog.

Seems pretty simple, right?
But you will need many repetitions of each one of those steps and you’ll want to reward your dog after every step.
And the most important piece is you would not move to the next step until your dog is happily taking treats from you, and he’s more excited for the reward, and not concerned with the trigger.
There is no set amount of repetitions that anyone could tell you to do. It’s all about the dog and how they are feeling in that moment. That is what should guide your training.

When training around triggers, it can be very difficult to know how to break down the steps of something that may seem like a single step to us but for a dog there are many steps.

Check out the story highlights labeled Fearful dog for more examples!

Tomorrow’s post- working in a new environment

12/01/2023

Dogs use body language to communicate how they are feeling. Knowing your dog’s stress signals is super important because it allows your dog to feel heard.

Here’s an example of how I watch my dogs for any sign of stress and then intervene.

One of my daughter’s loves to snuggle the dogs, but she’s still learning and doesn’t understand completely that they are not just giant teddy bears, so I always supervise when she decides she wants to go in and smother them with affection. I allow it but the moment my dogs give me a signal such as a head turn (away from her), lip licking, yawning, I immediately tell her to stop, that they don’t want to be hugged right now, and to respect what the dogs are telling her.

Dogs are allowed to feel uncomfortable with things just as we do as humans. The only difference is they cannot speak our language, they cannot shove a person away or yell “stop”, so they other subtle signals. If these signals do not work they will resort to harsher signals, which is what we want to avoid.

Unfortunately the first time a dog feels that his signals are not working and decides to go with a different way to communicate, the dog now has a picture in his mind as to what works and this will most likely be his method of choice in the future.

He will also feel that he has to take care of things himself, that he cannot look to his owner in a moment such as this and on the next occasion he may skip all of the other subtle signals and go straight to the harsher signal. For many dogs, it only takes one time for them to choose this harsher signal as their go to method.

So really pay attention to your dog, look at his head, his eyes, his face, his body, check for any signs of stress and find ways to intervene at the first signal to let your dog know he has been heard.

11/30/2023

Some owners may pick up on the more obvious signs such as barking, growling or biting but many times those were not the first signs of stress that were given. This is when we hear most owners say, “it happened out of nowhere”. To the untrained eye, it may seem that way but to the more experienced owner, there were so many other signals given. Knowing these signals is important because it can help you prevent your dog from choosing biting as his go-to reaction.

Here are some other, often overlooked, signals:
-heavy breathing
-whining
-pacing
-whale eye
-shake off
-pinned back ears
-tucked tail
-raised hackles
-stiff tail
-lip licking
-drooling
-dilated pupils
-blinking
-yawning
-avoidance of eye contact
-stiff body
-refusal of food

A lot of these signals are not always in isolation, they can be a combination of anyone of these. And every dog has a different sequence, just depends on their personality as well as past experiences.

Tomorrow we will further discuss the importance of recognizing these stress cues.

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11/29/2023

When we hear a dog growl it gets our attention pretty quickly. Many of us get nervous because we think it is the dog warning us that he is going to bite, but a dog growling does not always mean a bite is inevitable. Sometimes it’s just a growl; a noise your dog is making to communicate because he can not speak words. It’s a way he knows he can be heard.

Don’t get me wrong, if a dog is growling and the situation continues, then yes, it can definitely lead to a bite. But a growl isn’t necessarily the dog warning you he is going to bite, it’s quite the opposite, he is trying to avoid conflict but if conflict continues, well…..

Often we get so worried when we see the way dogs communicate. Some of the things we may see that are completely normal are:

-A dog snarls when an unfamiliar person approaches
-A dog barks when another dog walks past the fence of their home
-A dog growls when the groomer touches their previously injured leg.
-A dog snaps at another dog for jumping on her

In all of these scenarios, some dog owners would punish their dogs because they think the dog wants to do harm but in reality, all of these methods of communicating are to avoid conflict, not create it. “In the wild, there are no veterinary hospitals waiting to provide stitches and antibiotics after a fight.” (From the book “Meet Your Dog” by Kim Brophey)
Instead, animals are born with this ritualized communication but if we constantly prohibit them from sharing their voice, it is we, who are creating conflict.

11/28/2023

Lately, I have been seeing a lot of posts with people rehoming their dogs due to not being able to keep up with the dog’s physical needs. Many state that they cannot seem to fulfill the dog to the point of exhaustion so it made me wonder if other owners are aware that dogs may not need as much exercise as we think.

I’m not saying to not exercise your dog. Exercise is extremely important for your dogs’s overall health. Every dog deserves time to sniff, explore, walk or run BUT a 30-45 minute daily walk should be sufficient for the majority of dogs. This can vary, but typically a 45 minute walk should be enough.

You might be thinking:
“Nope. Not my dog. He still has a ton of energy after a 3-mile hike”.

Most of the time this is because we are missing a very important component into the dog’s routine…..mental stimulation.

Mentally stimulating activities are ones in which require the dog to use their mind/senses to figure things out.

Some examples are, but are not limited to:
-15 minute training session running through tricks or commands your dog already knows
-Practicing any position stay with some super challenges at home
-Teaching your dog a new trick
-Structured play
-Sniffari
-Food puzzles
-Food scattering
-Find it games
-Hide and seek
-Puppy Ping Pong
-Hiking
-Body Confidence Building

When you pair mentally stimulating activities with physical exercise every day, you will have a dog that is more fulfilled and capable of following through with a healthy routine when at home. It is also possible to combine the two activities to one if you are limited on time. For example, I bring my dogs to an open field often to allow them time to run at their pace, explore, and play, but during that time we have there, I may also practice some obedience skills with them to make the most of my time.

So before you decide to block out three hours of your day, just to give your dog physical exercise, make sure you have added mentally stimulating activities to your dog’s day first. And lastly, don’t forget to add in opportunities to practice resting, as most dogs don’t know how to do this without our guidance.

11/27/2023

I don’t let my dogs greet strange dogs; only acquaintances.

I like to say that I don’t let my dogs greet “strange” dogs, I let them greet acquaintances. What I mean by this is that I don’t allow my dogs to meet new dogs immediately upon seeing one another; I want them to get acquainted first.

So what does it mean to get acquainted?

This means the dogs get comfortable being in each other’s presence first without the threat of a face to face greeting. We can do this a few ways:
-Taking a walk together
-Parallel walking past each other several times
-Each handler holds a mini-training session with their own dog

In each scenario we would start at a distance that is comfortable for both dogs and gradually decrease that distance overtime. The idea is to help the dogs see each other in a positive light and observe each other’s personalities. It also helps each dog to see that the handler has everything under control and lastly-this gives each dog ample time to calm down before the greeting; which ultimately aids in a calmer, less intense greeting ritual.

Many times when we allow new dogs to greet immediately upon seeing each other, it is very tense-one or both dogs charge (which is not a friendly way to greet) one dog may be pushy while the other be timid but what a lit of it boils down to is arousal. The moment dogs see each other they immediately become aroused, so releasing them to say hello in that same moment can lead to a negative greeting simply because dogs don’t make good decisions when they are in that state of mind, instead, give the dogs time to process one another so you can help each dog have a more positive experience when greeting.

11/25/2023

Short answer, yes. It can depend on so many factors such as the age, personality, and level of training for both dog and handler, but here are some things to consider:

1-First thing to know is that your dog does not need to be friends with all dogs. Having just a select few dogs to be playmates is ideal. These dogs should get along and respect each other‘s signals. It is completely natural for your dog to be selective, especially as they get older. And I think it’s appropriate for the human to be selective as well. Choose dogs whose owners hold similar expectations as you.

2-Dogs are pretty awesome! I think we have all figured that out. But you don’t want your dog to discover that too. Avoid putting so much value on other dogs because when life gets real and you need your dog to focus on you, it may be more difficult to do so when other dogs are around.

3-Does your dog genuinely like playing with other dogs? Understanding dog behavior and body language is helpful in these scenarios-you need to be able to detect how your dog is feeling during play-for example are you able to detect the signs when your dog is uncomfortable or over aroused? How about when your dog is not being respectful or respected?

4-You must be willing to jump in and advocate for either dog. Are you comfortable doing that when the dog belongs to one of your friends? This is important because you do not want your dog to think he has to resolve these kinds of issues himself, because he will, and it will likely result in some unwanted behaviors in the future.

I personally have no problem with setting up doggy play dates for my boys, but there is a very specific way I go about introducing them to new dogs, which I will talk about in the next post!

Modern K9