Keen Canine Dog Training

09/04/2023

For those in the Mobile area, MedVet has updated their hours. The closest after hours vet locations are now in Biloxi or Pensacola.

Effective Friday, September 1, MedVet Mobile is temporarily changing our ER hours. Weekdays (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday) our ER will be available from 2:00 pm to midnight. Weekends (Saturday, Sunday), our ER will be available 8:00 am to 10:00 pm.

If your pet needs care outside of our operating hours, please contact your primary veterinarian for care options.

08/03/2023

It’s normal for dogs to not like everyone and everything and it doesn’t make your dog a bad dog. All dogs are good dogs regardless of their sociability.

DON’T FORCE ME TO BE SOCIAL!
Do we like everyone we meet? Do we all enjoy socialising and spending time with lots of different people? I certainly don’t and refer to myself as a “caninetrovert” – a person that much prefers to spend time with dogs rather than people. Maybe I’m a little different to the “norm”, but be that as it may, we are all individuals with different personality styles and social preferences.

Some of us are extroverts, gaining energy from interacting with people; some of us introverts, who find people draining and need alone time to recharge our social batteries and some of us are somewhere in between.

If we acknowledge that we are all different in this way, we also need to acknowledge and accept that our dogs are similar.

They could be overly affectionate or fiercely independent, approachable or nervous, energetic or laid back, confident or cautious, sociable, tolerant, selective or reactive.

We may be really disappointed when our dogs turn out not to be the socialite we expected them to be.

Some may even see this as a behaviour problem that needs to be “fixed”. Sometimes it can be improved, especially if the cause is from a negative experience, but genetics, breed tendencies, individual personalities, health and age all contribute to tolerance levels and sociability.

Accept your dog for who they are, allow them to choose whether they want to be sociable or not, respect their choices and never force an interaction that your dog is not comfortable with.

06/16/2023

Meet Chloe! She is a 4 month old toy poodle weighing in at 5 whole pounds. We’ve been working on common puppy problems like nipping and potty training.

She’s may be little, but she’s a whole lot of sass. Shes got a great temperament and has been great with my baby and one of my dogs.

She’s a quick learner so I’m excited to see how far she will get in the next week and a half!

06/10/2023

Little Man had his last follow up lesson from his Board and Train today. Today we focused on integrating him with his two house mates.

Before putting them all together, we did some exercise with the flirt pole to get some energy out.

Once the girls came out, there were a couple of stiff moments with him and one of the girls, but they sorted things out amongst themselves. Little Man has gotten better at reading and responding to her body language.

Mom will be doing a few individual lessons to help further integrate him to her pack and help her gain confidence in managing her crew. I think they will all do well!

05/05/2023

Met with one of my reoccurring clients today! She fosters puppies through Save A Stray. We worked with four of them today on their leash walking.

These guys are so sweet, very food motivated, and love people and dogs. If anyone is looking for a cute six month old lab mix puppy, check these guys out at Save A Stray. She also has two other litters of puppies, one being Rottweiler mixes, and the other ones are pitty mixes that are maybe 3 to 4 months of age. 

05/04/2023

Little Man working on his come and leave it with with the baby and hubby. Last week he would get too excited/ interested in the baby on his shoulders so he had to be on leash during interactions. He has now graduated to being off leash!

05/04/2023

Little Man has been with me since Monday and has been working hard. We’ve been focusing on advancing his behaviors around distractions and he has done very well! He still has a lot of puppy moments, but is able to recover and work through them better than last week.

I’ve also been working with his housemates this week. On Monday I mostly focused working with him with his housemates present. He struggled at times as he really wanted to play with them, but was able to respond to his cues relatively well.

He will be wrapping up the boarding portion of his program Friday, so we will be focusing our work around responding to cues with distractions until then.

05/03/2023

The results are back from the training contest and I placed 3rd in Alabama! Thank you to everyone who voted. I am so grateful to you all! Congratulations to Sunpaws and Mobile Dog Training for also making first and second place! I’m so thankful to have such great colleagues and clients! I wouldn’t be here without y’all’s support😊

04/29/2023

Little Man had his first transfer lesson today when I dropped him off for the weekend. We went over some homework for mom to work on with him while he is home. He did so well working for mom and around his house mates! He will be back with me on Monday to start back up his Board and Train!

Here are some photos from this week working with him and his house mates.

04/25/2023

Little Man started his Board and Train with me this week! He is a 7 month old pit mix and will be working on basic manners while he is with me.

We will be doing a modified version of the Board and Train where he will get to go home on the weekends. I will also be working with his two house mates a couple times at their home during the week while he is staying with me.

Mom’s goals are for Little Man to respond to basic cues and for him to be integrated into her pack. She currently rotates Little Man and the other two dogs since he is a bit much for them.

The modified program will allow everyone to get a bit of training they need to help mom achieve all her goals.

03/16/2023

Tuk Tuk has been with me a week as of yesterday. His potty training is still going really well with no accidents in the house🙌

He has learned several behaviors like go to your bed, come, drop, and waking on leash. He still will try to jump up when excited but is jumping up less frequently than when he first arrived.

We have figured about a good rhythm and he knows the routine pretty well. We have a nice balance of play, train and sleep for that works well for him!

03/16/2023

Took Koda out front of his house to work on his reactivity to cars and people as well as his walking on leash. He will bark and lunge when he sees cars, people, or dogs on leash. If he’s off leash, mom doesn’t see those behaviors.

I worked on seeing how close in proximity to the cars and people he needs to be before seeing early signs prior to the lunging/ barking. In each lesson going forward, I will try to focus on getting him more comfortable with each trigger individually at his pace.

03/13/2023

Tuk Tuk joined me last Wednesday for a two week Board and Train. Mom needed a reset with his potty training and help with basic manners. He has done great with his potty training and has had no accidents so far🤞

He’s a nervous puppy so it took him a couple of days to acclimate. He loves to play and is a great little worker! He’s also done well with my other dog and cats as well as the baby. I’m looking forward to seeing how he does the next week and a half!

03/13/2023

Been slacking again on my posts! Koda going on his second week of training. He got his harness in this weekend so I got him fit and started some loose leash walking. He scratches a bit with it on so we will do some short sessions with it on to help him acclimate to it before going for public walks.

03/07/2023

Voting ends this Thursday! Please consider voting for me by selecting Alex Franco (Alabama) using the link below. You can vote more than once! Thanks y’all! 😊

03/06/2023

Koda started his Day Training program today! This handsome guy is about 1 1/2 years old and about 120lbs. We will be focusing on his resource guarding and leash walking skills for the next month!

03/02/2023

I’ve been nominated for one of the 2023 Sniffspot top dog trainers for Alabama! Please consider voting for me! Follow the link below to vote. Select Alex Franco (Alabama). Thank you!

https://www.sniffspot.com/blog/dog-trainers/contest?utm_source=trainer_contest

03/02/2023

Charlie has been rocking it this week! We’ve been working a lot on his stays and his walking. Yesterday we were approached by an off leash dog while on our walk.

I used the encounter as a training opportunity since this tends to happen frequently to his parents. Charlie did well responding to his cues for most of the encounter until he got a bit too excited and started to zoom/ play while on the leash towards the end.

I don’t usually allow on leash interactions with other dogs as I like to teach dogs to focus on me while on leash and you never know how the interaction could go. In their neighborhood there are a lot of off leash dogs making it hard to avoid this issue.

I made sure to watch body language carefully with both dogs before and during the interaction. If I thought that dog was potentially aggressive, I would have done my best to avoid the interaction if at all possible.

02/23/2023

After we played with the flirt pole, we worked on his down stay. He did such a great job👏 even when I started to jog away! Here’s the sped up version of the clip.

02/22/2023

Charlie’s parents had sod put in the backyard this week and Charlie can’t go back there for the next two weeks.

His parents got him a tie out for out front for potty breaks and for when they’d like to sit out front with him. Since we can’t play in the backyard, we used the tie out so we could play with the flirt pole out front.

02/18/2023

Charlie did so well on his walk today! We went on about a 20 minute walk in his neighborhood. Charlie was able to walk nicely on leash for most of the walk with him pulling only a couple of times and attempting to do zoomies only once.

Prior to his walk, we had a short play break in the backyard with a flirt pole for about 5 minutes. It helps to get his energy out which allows him to be more focused on our walk.

Check out a short clip from our walk today!

02/17/2023

Norma had her last lesson today. We focused working around the cats and doing recalls on the longline out front.

Mom was concerned with how Norma would react with the cats, but she did really well. She showed interest, but kept a comfortable distance.

We did recalls past the cats as well as by the gate she has gotten out a few times. Moms next plan is to get the gate fixed up so she can no longer get out. Once that’s fixed, she’s hoping to get back into some training.

02/13/2023

Part of Charlie’s lesson today was building up toy drive. His dad would like to find other ways to exercise him and I really like having the option of toys as another form of reinforcement.

After trying a few things, Charlie showed the most interest in the flirt pole. He would chase it a little, then go into the zoomies lol.

02/11/2023

Charlie wrapped up his first week of Day Training and had his first transfer lesson with his parents this week. His parents had a lot of great questions, so majority of the time we discussed things like how to make his crate more appealing, how to work on his walking on leash, and how to manage his mouthiness.

We went over how to use a verbal marker with his sit and down. We also worked a bit on his crate as well. He did so well for his parents and they picked up on things quickly! I’m excited to see how far he will come along in the next few weeks!

02/09/2023

Charlie second lesson went well! We continued working on his crate, leave it, and walking on leash.

He’s already showing some improvement! He’s still trying to figure things out, but was calmer and more focused than yesterday with a few less zoomies!

02/09/2023

For Sophie’s lesson today, we focused on her stays. She’s done well with staying for doors, so today we focused on stays just outside the kitchen.

Sophie has been a trip hazard in the kitchen. We worked on her down stay just outside the kitchen where mom can still keep an eye on her but she will be out of the way.

02/07/2023

Today we worked with mom more on Sophie’s recall in the front yard. They live off a busy street so it’s important that Sophie has a really solid recall just in case.

Sophie did really well, but tired out quickly running on the longline. The longline is lightweight but since she’s only 6lbs it’s takes a bit more work to drag it along lol

02/07/2023

Charlie started his first day of his Day Training program! We introduced markers, worked on known cues like sit and down, and had plenty of fun breaks in between.

We also worked on things like going into his crate, not nibbling on hands, and getting his harness on. He did very well for his first day!

02/03/2023

Norma Jean also had a lesson this week. She has come such a long way! She greeted me happily at the door and even tried to jump up to say hi. When I first met her she was fearful and barking from the crate.

We worked on leave it and come mostly in this lesson. For her recall we worked in the backyard playing some hide-n-seek. She had so much fun coming finding us in the backyard.

02/03/2023

Sophie wrapped up her week 3 of 4 of her Day Training program. This past week we worked on her recalls, stays, tricks and started work on her crate.

In our transfer lesson today, we worked with mom at staying at doors, ways to get her to enjoy her crate more, and recalls. She did so well staying at the doors!

For her recall, we put her on a longline and went out front to practice with both mom and dad. She had a blast running 40ft to mom and dad!