The Laughing Dog

Does your cat wrestle, scratch, bite, run away or hide when you need to give them meds? We can help! This class is all about teaching your cat to willingly (and happily) take oral medication. This will make life so much easier! Sign up here - https://paws4u.dogbizpro.com/public/registration/index.aspx?cls=321

Training Tip Tuesday! Most dogs need to be trained to tolerate grooming and veterinary procedures, like nail trims. Slow and steady wins the race, but even if your dog already struggles with things like nail trims, we can help!

Mason practices a cooperative care staple, the chin rest, at the vet! If you'd like to help your dog accept veterinary care with less stress, we can help! Send a message to get started.

Training bloopers! 😂

Giving meds to cats doesn’t need to be a big fight. We can show you how!

Cats benefit from puzzle feeders too!

Have an extra pumpkin or squash? Some dogs love to play with them, and it’s a great workout! Mason spent about 30 minutes on this pumpkin, then passed out for the rest of the night.

If you’d like your dog to tolerate nail trims like this, we can help! We use low stress, cooperative care methods to train dogs to tolerate and even participate in grooming tasks like nail trims. If you’d like help, send us a message!

Using wet/canned food as a treat is easy when you put it in a camping food tube! This makes life easier for owners of pets with special diets. #TreatWeek

It can be hard to find treats for pets with special diets. Ask your vet for approved ingredients, and blend it all into a paste. You can put that paste into a camping food tube and store in the refrigerator for use throughout the week! Alternatively, use the wet food version of your pets special diet, and toss that into a camping food tube to use in the same way. #TreatWeek

Kitties benefit from food puzzles too! In fact, I think Francis enjoys his Toppl more than the dogs in my house! #TreatWeek

Helping your dog learn to tolerate and participate in their grooming and veterinary care, long before you ever need it, can make difficult times much easier. Cooper has been battling cancer for the last 5 years. We’ve reached a point where his body can’t do surgeries any more. But he’s still happy! One of his tumors ruptured, and there is an open wound that needs to be bandaged several times each day. If I hadn’t been working on these cooperative care tasks before this happened, I might need to euthanize him earlier, because the stress of enduring these bandage changes could easily degrade his quality of life if he wasn’t prepared. While we may be nearing the end of our time together, I’m so grateful that our cooperative care training has given us the ability make that final decision when we are ready.

Francis takes a dry pill

If you'd like medicating your cat to be THIS EASY, we have the perfect class for you! Tablets for Tabbies (and other feline friends) is a low-cost, one-time virtual class dedicated to making medicine time much easier on kitties and their humans. The first class is July 18th at 6:30 pm. Sign up here - https://paws4u.dogbizpro.com/Public/Registration/Index.aspx

As dogs age, or when they are sick/injured and need to be still to heal, they can become bored, and that’s no fun for anyone. One way 13-year-old Cooper gets some excitement is when he gets to choose his own special treat. This time was a fast choice, but sometimes he checks out each of the options before making his selection. This is also a great way to give back some control to our dogs, even when they’re perfectly healthy. We control every aspect of their lives, so I’m always lookfor ways to give the dogs more control and choice. **Of course, always use your best judgment! This may not be a great way to interact with a dog with resource guarding issues.**

Can you train a dog to ASK you to trim their nails? Yes! If you watch this short video, you'll see our founder Bailey preparing to trim and apply Toe Grips to Cooper's nails. Cooper starts to get a little antsy and offers a chin rest on her arm. Cooper has been trained to offer a chin rest when he's ready to accept cares like nail trims, shots, ear cleaning, etc. So here we have it - a dog asking for his owner to please hurry up and trim his nails please!

Your mornings could look like this! ✅Dogs staying out of your way in the kitchen ✅ Pancakes sizzling on the stove ✅ Perfect cup of coffee in your hand We can help you check that first box! Send us a message to get started!

Some of the value in using a professional dog walker/pet sitter comes in ways you might never see or know about. When we wrap up a walk, we end by celebrating with a treat jackpot at your door. Why is this important? IF your dog ever escapes your home, they are likely to return to a place that they’ve been fed and had happy experiences. We have never lost a dog, but here is a quote from one of our clients (not the dog pictured): “I opened the door to pick up a package and she ran right outside! I panicked, and she ran around, but she came right back to the front steps when she finished scaring a squirrel up a tree.” We never want these skills to be put into practice, but we faithfully reinforce these kinds of things with the hope that if bad things do happen, the harm is minimized. #functionaldogtraining #joyfuldogwalking #reliablepetsitting

I have been hearing folks concerns about the turkeys in the Moorhead neighborhoods behaving aggressively. I wanted to share a video on how I avoid conflict with the turkeys. 1.) If I see them coming down the sidewalk on the same side, I’ll slow my pace down. The turkeys have always decided to cross the street before we get too close. 2.) If I step out of my house and get surprised by a turkey (like this video shows) I’ll either step back inside, or if I’ve already gone a little too far from the door, I’ll just stand still, keeping my distance and allowing the bird to pass by. My goal is to stand my ground while remaining non-threatening, not running in fear (could trigger the bird to chase me) or bristling. I’m trying to keep my body natural, not frozen, but no sharp or quick movements, no puffing out my chest, so to speak. Just non-threatening stillness. I have never had an issue with the turkeys, so I hope these tips can help everyone out!

The Dog Trainer's Naughty Dog

Ever wonder how a dog trainer handles "naughty" behaviors in their own dogs? In this video, you'll see a few mistakes! 1.) I accidentally left the lid to the food bin open. Juniper took that opportunity to gorge herself( 👀 peep her feet coming up off the floor 👀). 2.) After I give the recall cue, Juniper seems to acknowledge the cue, but continues eating instead of responding right away. Instead of scolding Juniper or getting into a power struggle with her, I just waited for her to make the right decision, then rewarded her generously. I did assess the safety in this situation, and the risk of harm was low, so I could be patient. I avoided accidently punishing a correct (but late) response. And the best part is, she is likely to respond faster the next time she finds herself in a similar situation. Have you ever been working hard on your favorite hobby, or savoring a special treat when someone walked by and asked you to do something? Sometimes you're so engrossed in your own activity that you barely perceive the question. Sometimes it can take your brain a couple beats to switch tasks. Sometimes you make a conscious choice to finish what you're doing before responding. It's okay to give dogs the same benefit of the doubt that we'd give to humans in similar circumstances. From this experience, I hope that Juniper learned that she can take her time to fully process what's been asked of her. I hope she learned that it's safe to approach me after a delay in response. I hope she learned that even when she's doing something she's not supposed to do, it's safe to interact with me. I hope she always knows it is safe to be near me. #functionaldogtraining #naughtydog

Feeding your cat an empty pill capsule every day (or at least frequently) followed by a really great and generous treat will help make medical care easier if your cat ever needs to take pills. If you’d like help learning how to do this, book a lesson by sending a message! #functionalcattraining #fargocattrainer #moorheadcattrainer #mncattrainer #ndcattrainer