Check out Apollo at Cabela’s a few weeks back taking the skills we initially taught with a 3-D printed button and putting them to the test with a real life automatic button.
We happened to get this on the first try and get a video for it.
Apollo continued to perform this skill an additional three times to ensure he understood WHY he was getting the food treat.
Great job team!
Check out Bella working through a wonderful game that helps her deal with working through distractions, called 1,2,3.
You may remember Bella and Diesel from an earlier post.
These two cousins have very different approach’s about the world; where Diesel the GSD is excited and at times overly enthusiastic, Bella is older and lacks confidence.
These two differing personalities, paired with such size differences could be a definite recipe for disaster if we didn’t teach them both how to interact around one another.
Often times people get stuck on the word “interact”, thinking that, that means the dogs have to play with one another.
The contrary of this is often true, being that the goal of interaction we do is how to teach a dog what indirect involvement looks like - the art of existing within an environment whilst also building emotional confidence.
Bella used to bark and lunge quite a bit when Diesel was around.
In her mind it served as a way to try and intimidate a potential threat.
We have several goals with 1,2,3: building Bella’s confidence, helping her learn that WE are more interesting than Diesel, and, that the presence of Diesel does not mean there is a need for DIRECT interaction between the two.
Check out Pepper working on some socialization at the park.
Here we introduce Pepper to a bridge that offers give (motion) when walked on.
As humans we take for granted the many different surfaces we experience.
For our dogs however, these things are new and novel; and often times scary.
It is our goal to over prepare the dogs we work with by providing them experiences that are a bit “out-of-the-box”.
You never know when you may encounter a similar walking surface when out in the wild - one that will move as you and your dog are moving so if you can practice such a thing in a low-stakes way, you’ll be empowered if/when the time comes.
Wonderful job team!
Check out Pepper!
We worked in Barnes and Noble getting Pepper used to a myriad of things.
Here Pepper can be seen learning to navigate a tight space.
Additionally, a stuffed animal falls behind her as she turns, which she ignores and continues on her intended path.
Such wonderful work team!
Here Pepper works distance, duration, and distractions.
Pepper already holds both the American Kennel Club Canine Good Citizen (which she obtained prior to working with us) and Community Canine (which she obtained since working with us) titles and we’ve been working together for about 6 months at this point.
Pepper perfectly demonstrates the importance of ensuring foundational training is solid, and the benefits to slow, concise training over flooding.
We have experience with a wide array of dog breeds and personalities from shut-down puppy mill rescues to over-enthusiastic adolescent dogs.
You could say that German Shepherds have really become our “thing” however in recent years as we have seen an influx of them as clients.
What we’re working on here with Diesel has a few parts to it and it has to be trained in steps in order to get our desired result.
And our desired result is always: a dog with a a solid skill set AND confidence, as well as support for the Handler to become self-assured in their skills.
Our goal here is that when a human approaches Diesel will pay no mind to them.
Diesel is also getting acclimated to his head halter.
For us, it’s not enough that Diesel remain in position, we want the appearance of a human trying to interact to signal automatically “checking in” with his Handler.
In order to build all of these working parts in a successful manner and in a way that leaves no confusion for Diesel we have trained them all separately ensuring a thorough understanding before trying to put any of the pieces together.
We are so very proud of how incredible he is doing and that is wholly due to the commitment of his Handler to this process.
GOOD training is slow and should never compromise the mental well-being of the dog.
Check out Dante!
You’ll probably remember Dante the former Queen City Pitties Animal Rescue dog we’ve been working with in group classes and now, private lessons with his new family.
Dante is acclimating amazingly with his new humans.
The one skill that Dante struggled with like many dogs is his leash manners.
Though he is doing almost 100% better since we began our one on one lessons with him, some distractions like birds, squirrels, and the occasional rogue human being can still be rather tempting.
It’s important that all the adults within the household are able to walk the dogs that reside there without fear that they’ll be the ones taken for a walk.
We introduced the Pattern Game 1, 2, 3! for Dante and his family.
This Pattern Game, created by Leslie McDevitt is designed to get our dog reengaged with us by creating predictability in the face of the often unpredictable factors/challenges in life.
Here you can see that Dante and his human are being approached by us.
We are carrying our treat pouch which we are shaking; making direct eye contact with Dante while ignoring his human completely and talking right to him in an excited manner.
As soon as Dante’s Handler feels that we may be trying to engage with their dog, they begin the count.
On 3, Dante’s Handler begins to position their body away from us, marks verbally and as such has the ability to move him away from us.
Once she is safely in the turn she pays Dante out with a food reward.
Amazing job team!
It’s hugely important that our Service teams learn that they cannot eat rogue food (or any items really) that they come across in the wild.
Being able to leave an item that one is actively passing is a complicated skill with big feels usually associated with it, but it’s only one part of the puzzle.
To be sure that training is rock-solid we cannot assume that because a dog is able to keep motion past food items that they will then be able to leave items that they’re encountering in times that are stationary.
We can’t be sure that because when we remain stationary, place items in front of or on our dog and ask for a leave it that this skill will carry over when it matters most to multifaceted situations like Pepper finds herself in, in our video.
Dogs do indeed generalize items but that information they place into folders within their minds which means, if a behavior has only ever been practiced in a certain type of context we cannot expected reliability in exposures with differing settings.
Simply put, practice in all settings and prepare for outlier events.
Change one item: add or subtract, introduce a new environment, or, ask for more than one complicated chain of behavior and it may all well crumble if you’re NOT preparing in ways like this.
Here we see Pepper being asked to “duck” beneath their Handler’s legs at a table where food is already on the ground.
Unfortunately we started this particular video late but we actually asked Pepper to walk up to the food, walk around the chair, and THEN “duck”.
Food on the ground is a rather common occurrence at patio restaurants and some cafes.
Staff tries their best to ensure tidiness but slip-ups happen which is why we practice skills like this.
Pepper and their Handler worked this skill like absolute rockstars.
Incredible work team! 🥰
Meet Carina!
Carina is our newest friend.
Her Handler called us as Carina is a rather friendly girl who just doesn’t know how to harness some of her excitability.
As our followers know, one of our specialities is Therapy dog training.
We believe even with our TD’s it’s important to put greeting on cue as a means of building the understanding that not every human exists for our dogs to interact with; this is a behavior we extend teaching to our family dog clients as well.
It’s equally as important of course for a dog to know what to do when a human comes up to them and we do not want to allow interaction.
We like to create a “check in” for our dogs.
Upon approach of a human, the dogs’ Handler will ask them for direct eye contact.
Here Carina practices checking in with her human as we attempt to enter and interact in her space.
Great job team!
Check out Diesel!
We worked on advanced distractions during our lesson in the yard.
As there is new building going on in the back of his house, we want to be sure that Diesel is still able to focus when we ask him to.
Here Diesels’ Handler goes out to the fence line; behind her is where all the exciting new noise has been coming from, including some very big and interesting looking construction vehicles.
Since Diesel excelled with holding position when it was just his Handler walking out to the fence line, we decided to add me in shaking a treat bag and making direct eye contact; Diesel was still expected to hold position until his Handler returned, which he did.
Great job team!
Pepper experienced Cabela’s for the first time.
We worked down an aisle that had some extremely smelly things to we could really work through a “leave it” in a natural setting.
Often times we don’t catch roving noses until they become a problem.
The goal here is to catch the roving nose immediately before our dog can fixate, deliver our cue, and mark the moment that Pepper’s head shifts back to forward.
Great job Pepper!
Do you all remember Dante?
Dante is a former Queen City Pitties Animal Rescue dog.
Thats right, we said FORMER!
Our ridiculously smart and loving buddy was adopted about a week ago.
His family called us in to help Dante work on his one true problem area: leash walking.
Like many dogs, leash walking can be a difficult one to get under hand.
We like to start our skills out INSIDE the house.
We do this for many reasons; one, to help everyone become familiar with where they want their dog to be when they go OUTSIDE, two so they can get used to their own placement for treats/clickers/leashes or anything else they may be using, and three to establish a pattern of behavior that reflects they’ll be “paid” to do something enjoyable allowing for our dogs to be more likely to model outdoors.
When training ANY new skill, think of it this way: if you start a new job and aren’t really on-boarded rather just walked through to a desk, handed a stack of files, told someone would be back to check in on you in 15 minutes and then they proceeded to crank the music up, would you fully understand what is required of you?
Is that an environment conducive to success and learning?
We don’t think so either.
Part of being your dogs advocate is putting yourself in THEIR shoes.
Dante did INCREDIBLE with his walking skills yesterday.
Off to the left side and out of screen is a family with small children running and playing on the lawn and yet Dante doesn’t miss a beat.
We are SO happy Dante has found his happily ever after🥰
