Pawsitively Polite Dog Obedience Training

12/02/2024

Before you surprise your family or significant other with a puppy for Christmas, please consider the life-long commitment it requires.

Gifting a young pup (or adopted dog) is certainly exciting, however, the thrill and anticipation of Christmas can overshadow the everyday care that the new pet necessitates.

Have a serious discussion with the recipient(s) beforehand to determine their willingness and ability to nurture a pet. It’s heartbreaking when an owner surrenders his dog to a shelter (or worse, abandons it) because he cannot properly care for it or no longer wants the responsibility.

If you do ultimately decide to treat someone to a new puppy, ensure you have a dog trainer in place to teach obedience, how to walk the pup while keeping a loose leash, and how to socialize it. The earlier you start, the more success the dog will experience and the more cooperative your family or loved one will be to care for the puppy for its whole life.

11/08/2024

I just started using a new (to me) technique called Behavior Adjustment Training. It's a dog handling method developed by Grisha Stewart that allows your reactive dog to decide how close or how far away he wants to be in relation to a trigger, something he perceives as scary. Let me explain:

If you're walking your dog and he sees another dog, he may react by barking, lunging and snapping or cowering and hiding behind you. Your options are 1) you and your dog walk the opposite way from the other dog or 2) hide behind a structure until the other dog is out of sight. With Behavior Adjustment Training or BAT, you use a special leash, learn specific leash handling skills and start at a distance in which your dog sees the trigger but doesn't react. With practice, your dog learns he can make a choice to either gradually get closer to the trigger or ignore it, without the usual overreaction. The confidence your dog will obtain from being able to make this choice is indescribable.

I've been using it on my skittish dog, Mochi (in the video) starting this past week. I've seen an increase in her confidence to approach things she normally avoids.

As a trainer who comes to your house, I offer a free consultation to dog owners who live within the I-435 loop. I'd love to show you how effective Behavior Adjustment Training is.

08/13/2024

Let your dog sniff when you walk on leash!

08/09/2024

07/30/2024

54 Followers, 26 Following, 74 Posts - See Instagram photos and videos from Debbie Tangen, CPDT-KA ()

06/18/2024

It's summer, a popular time of year to barbeque bone-in meat cuts such as steaks, chicken wings, pork chops, etc.

For those who love to grill: after you're finished cooking, please ensure that, after the meat has been consumed, all bones are discarded properly to prevent dogs from eating them. It's very easy for them to chew up and swallow splintered bone fragments, potentially lacerating their tender esophageal tissues and gastrointestinal tracts.

An abandoned meat bone left on the ground is as attractive to a dog as the aroma of barbeque is to us. And as much as dogs love gnawing on bones, the last thing you want to do on a fun-filled day of eating a barbequed meal with friends or family is to rush your dog to the emergency vet clinic.

06/07/2024

If you get a dog, please ensure you have the time, energy and funds to adequately take care of it. It's a living, breathing creature that will depend on you for its survival.

05/31/2024

Go see Dr. John Carey at Carey Chiropractic. He's very knowledgeable, compassionate & a great listener. He'll figure out what's causing your pain, fix it & set you on your way to a pain-free day!

05/15/2024

Is it OK to continue rewarding your dog for behaviors it already knows?

Think about this: let's say you just landed your dream job. You're doing what you were trained to do, you love your work and you're making a really good salary, getting paid every 2 weeks. Now, fast forward 6 months. Your boss comes to you and says, "You're doing such a great job, I don't need to pay you anymore. But keep up the good work!"

How motivated would you be to continue working? I think we all know that answer.

It's the same with your dog. Contrary to what many people believe, dogs don't perform behaviors out of the goodness of their hearts or to please their owners. They get a payoff. And whatever payoff it is, i.e., food rewards, praise, affection, play, etc., they want the rewards to keep coming. Perhaps you don't reward your dog for every single occurrence of a behavior you ask of it; maybe it's every other time, or every 3rd or 4th time. But keep rewarding your dog because that will keep the desired behaviors alive.

04/26/2024

Appeasement signals in canine body language

04/19/2024

04/15/2024

04/15/2024

03/11/2024

This pup, "B," is a training success story!

His owner stated B was fearful and barked at nearly everything: people and dogs he saw from inside his house, people and dogs he encountered outside, delivery people who dropped off packages at the front door, the sound of the doorbell, the sound of his owners' cell phone ringtones... you name it and B probably barked at it.

Because he wouldn't let me get too close to him to train due to his fear, I recommended his owner take him to his vet, get him physically examined and have a conversation with the doctor about anti-anxiety medication. Legally and ethically, I can't tell the owner his dog needs to be on meds - I'm not a licensed veterinarian - however, I can suggest the owner talk to the vet about this.

Ultimately, the owner received an Rx for B's anti-anxiety meds and after 24 hours of being on this medication, B's owner saw a marked decrease in his reaction to things he feared. This reduction in reactivity allowed me the opportunity to work in close proximity to B and teach him some new skills.

If you have, or you know someone who has, a fearful dog, talk to your vet about medical intervention. Fear reactivity can have a genetic component and no amount of training will effect a change. With chemical therapy, it's possible to reduce the fear in some dogs
enough that a trainer can work with it.

02/27/2024

I recently had a consultation with a dog owner who wanted to pursue training for her fearful adult pet dogs because they weren’t friendly toward unknown people and dogs. The owner hoped that I could change the pups’ feelings of fear when a stranger wanted to pet them and become more tolerant of being near unfamiliar dogs.

I wish I had that power! Unfortunately, fear of unfamiliar humans and dogs is a common trait among many dogs for different reasons. The most common reason is that they weren’t exposed to unacquainted people, dogs, sights, sounds and experiences during the critical socialization period of puppyhood, typically from 3 weeks to 4 months of age. During this period, puppies introduced to as many unknown people, dogs and experiences and having positive outcomes are primed to favorably accept new people, dogs and experiences as they mature and become adult dogs.

Keep in mind that genetics, and the environment in which a puppy develops, also determine how it grows into a mature dog. All the training in the world won’t affect genetic traits. In addition, should you adopt an adult dog, you can’t change what happened to your canine companion in their early days, but you can work toward decreasing its reactivity to fearful things. Certified Professional Dog Trainers and Certified Canine Behavioral Consultants can work with you and your dog to create a training plan that will, ideally, reduce its response to things it finds scary (see below).

As an aside: dogs determine what scares them – we don’t. Many people believe all dogs like each other and also believe dogs want to be petted by every human they see; these are falsehoods that continue to be mischaracterized by movies, commercials, pictures and books.

Here are some things to try:
• Walk your dog at a time of the day when you know the chance is low that you’ll run into other people walking their dogs.
• Don’t enter a dog park unless you see only a few dogs present. Fearful dogs who are swarmed by a lot of interested and friendly pooches can traumatize your dog to the point of not wanting to be around any other canines, ever. Trust me on this one – it happened to my first dog.
• If a person approaches you and your reactive dog, insists on petting her, and says, “Oh, all dogs love me,” suggest the stranger bend down, turn his body so his side is facing your dog and advise him not to make eye contact. This takes pressure off your dog to have to deal with something scary, before it's ready. If your dog wants to approach the stranger, it will. If not, this is your dog’s choice. Should the stranger persist, give him a reason to step back by telling him, “No, I’m sorry, she has ringworm,” or whatever you want to tell him to back off.
• Contact a Certified Professional Dog Trainer or Certified Canine Behavior Consultant for help. These educated professionals can design a treatment plan to slowly desensitize and counter-condition your dog to things it determines are scary. And I do mean slowly – for an adult dog, this process can take weeks or months to see a difference. For you, the dog owner, patience, along with consistency and repetition, are your most valuable assets to help your dog through this.

01/30/2024

Same 💗💗

❤️🐶

01/19/2024

I often have to remind myself when I walk my dog that it's not exercise for me, it's mental stimulation for her. Mochi gains so much information out of the various aromas she encounters. "Pee-mail" from other dogs tells her the gender, if a female is in heat, what the dog last ate, if it's sick and a variety of other important elements. So the next time you're walking your dog and he's taking his sweet time, seemingly sniffing every blade of grass, every rock and every leaf, remember that he's gaining of lot of knowledge about his world and it's keeping his mind active.

01/18/2024

Dogs may not like wearing winter gear but it's essential to keeping them safe and warm. On that note, please use pet-safe ice melt on your walkways and sidewalks. Regular ice melt burns sensitive paws. Your neighborhood dogs will thank you!