Natural Rhythm Animal Training

08/19/2024

Had a great time at The Pooch Parade this year. Was able to promote both of my businesses ❤️NRAT and Wendy’s Furtography.

07/12/2024

Come join me in Ventura!

🐶 GOOD MANNERS 1 Class with Wendy Signorella AVAILABLE!

❗️ENROLL HERE - DON'T WAIT, THESE SPOTS FILL UP FAST❗️
https://www.supersaas.com/schedule/venturapetwellness/Wendy_Signorella

👉When: July 26th through August 30th (Each Friday)
👉Time: 10:00 am to 11:00 am
👉This 6-week class is $185

💥For dogs 19 weeks and older
💥Must be current on vaccines
💥Handlers 14 y/o to Adult (to attend class without supervision)

Good Manners 1 Class Includes:
You and your dog will learn using modern, science based training. This class focuses on the beginnings of eye contact, sit/down/release, recall, loose leash walking, leave it/mine and an introductory target behavior. Dogs must be ready to work in a class environment around other people and dogs; dogs showing signs of moderate to severe fear or anxiety should do private training to get them ready to work in a class environment. This class gets you and your dog off to a great start on your relationship together! Whether you have a teenage pup, an adult dog, or a senior pup, all are welcome in Good Manners 1!

07/11/2024

https://youtu.be/l5sonj3AVQo?si=lqzJIV8LIlVzGgw2

Working on teaching Rio to target an object. Not bad for her first session.

07/05/2024

This is so spot on!

06/18/2024

Let's talk about this photo. It's cute, except it's not. I see a dog who cannot get up without telling the child to get off. How do you think a dog is going to do that?

The 7 Golden Toddler Dog Rules:
#1: If a dog walks away from you, you DO NOT FOLLOW.
#2: Always leave room for the dog to walk away from you.
---that right there is 90+% of dog bites eliminated---
#3: We do not climb on the dog.
#4: We do not grab or pull on the dog.
#5: We do not hit or throw anything at the dog.
#6: We do not touch the dog's food.
#7: We do not go into the dog's kennel.

I promise these are not overly difficult concepts for littles, nor will they rob a kid of their bond with the family dog. It will deepen that bond, while keeping everyone safe.

"Oh, it looks like Moose is walking away from you. She is saying she wants a break. Let's play with this instead!"

"It's Moose's dinner time! Let's give her space to enjoy her yummies."

"That is Moose's room(kennel) and only she is allowed to go in there."

"If Moose wanted a break, could she walk away from you right now? No she really couldn't. Let's move away from the play house. You can keep playing but now she can leave when she wants a break."

In conclusion, ***parent your child or your dog will do it for you, and you will not like how they do it.***

05/14/2024

05/13/2024

Beautiful Rio, always game for playing. How do you play with your dog?

04/20/2024

Don’t his she could smile any bigger😊🐾

04/20/2024

Milo offering to lie down.. this was hard for him, but he did so good❤️🐾

04/20/2024

Working with several dogs. They learn to wait😊

03/26/2024

For some dogs it greatly improves quality of life.

03/22/2024

Always look for what a dog is behaving the way they are. Most often there is an underlying cause. Just because you don’t find it does not mean it’s not there.

‘My dog is naughty/bad/untrainable/dominant/stupid’

I hear this most weeks on intake forms. Usually I get pretty excited to see these cos I know I’m gonna get to change a dog and owners life!

So often we write our dogs off as any adjective that fits the above and honestly, I’m yet to meet a dog who fits any of those adjectives (and I have worked with 10k plus dogs over the ten years I’ve been doing this!). I do however week in week out meet dogs with health issues that contribute to their slow progress in terms of training. Did you know dogs don’t show pain or discomfort how we do? We often think ‘oh he isn’t limping or yelping so he is fine’.

Please read the examples below ⬇️

🐾 A huntaway cross who I work with who bit his owner. Reluctant to have his feet cleaned, got spicy over any intense handling, had periods of seeming insanity and relentless barking and being unable to calm down. Huntaways are vocal dogs… but…

Turns out he had hip dysplasia. This dog didn’t limp. He wasn’t lame in any way. He chased his ball and sprinted and jumped and had no issues physically on the surface however under that behaviour was pain.

🐾 A French bulldog. Resource guarding to the extreme. Bit his owners while resource guarding the knot pattern in their wooden floor. Also bombed around without a worry in the world and had no outward signs of pain.

Turns out he had a severe spinal condition causing intermittent excruciating pain.

🐾 A young spaniel owned by a very good friend who was having confidence issues. She would ‘tap out’ of training on the regular and my friend went from ‘this is my ticket dog who will represent my country’ to ‘is this even possible?’

Dog had hormonal issues and likely spikes of hormones left right and centre. A carefully timed spay and she is now grade 6 in agility.

🐾 A friends Border Collie. Owned by a very experienced and talented agility handler and trainer. Regularly ‘checked out’ of training sessions, seemed to not be able to learn things that were moderately straightforward. Described by other trainers as ‘oh she is just a border collie it’s what they are like’.

Turns out she is mostly deaf.

🐾 A black Labrador. Always social and friendly and attended brilliant puppy classes and adolescent classes. Had the best start training wise you can imagine. He started showing some intermittent aggression to his owners in the home and aggression to other dogs out and about.

Turns out he had bilateral elbow dysplasia.

🐾 Young German Shepherd. Always energetic and silly in her behaviour but suddenly got worse. Excessive zoomies, inability to settle, increased reactivity to other dogs, reluctant to get in the car, obsessive destruction at home.

Turns out she had an infection in her va**na that was causing discomfort and exacerbating all those teenage behaviours to the point of being unmanageable.

🐾 My own dog! My NSDTR started missing his dog walk contact early last year. I was tearing my hair out trying to fix it.

Turns out he had a minor iliopsoas strain and some physio fixed the issue for us.

———————————

All these dogs have one thing in common. They are not stupid or untrainable or naughty or dominant. They are uncomfortable and that is triggering extreme behaviour fallout.

None of the above issues would be resolveable with training. All of the issues will be resolveable with training ONLY when the pain is resolved. Some of them will have drastic improvement from the moment the pain or discomfort is managed!

If your behaviourist or trainer doesn’t immediately advise a veterinary visit if any aggression, excessive ‘naughtiness’ or strange behaviour is present, walk away immediately. Even if you think your dog is fine, visit the vets. Ask for a thorough examination and push for a proper evaluation of your dog from nose to tail and potentially blood tests too. If you’re still not sure, get a second opinion.

You cannot train the pain or discomfort out of your dog. Address THIS first and foremost.

03/20/2024

* Bringing this post out of the vault, because it’s so important * 👇🏻

I think it’s common to think that when our dog is unruly, there is something wrong with them. 

Especially when we look around us and see perfectly behaved pups strolling happily down the street with their owners. 

But the truth is…

Everything your dog does is NORMAL. 

Chewing…

Digging…

Barking…

Pulling on the lead…

Lunging at other dogs or joggers…

Growling…

It’s all NORMAL. 

This is  a normal response for a predator (because that’s what dogs once were) that got plucked out of their natural environment and dropped onto your sofa. 

What’s not normal? 

Walking on a leash at a mind numbingly slow pace as you stare at your phone…

NOT chewing things, or mouthing you…

Holding a sit stay or a down stay as you chat to a friend…

NOT losing their mind around another dog. 

Sure selective breeding has curbed some of the more natural responses our dogs have…

But the truth is…

Your dog’s behavior is a NORMAL response to them trying to adapt to an environment that truthfully is NOT normal for them. 

So tell me…

What does that shift for you? 

Because your dog isn’t “Bad”. There’s nothing wrong with them. Everything they are doing is completely normal.

03/19/2024

What do you do to enrich your dogs lives? Today is a packed day for me so I am in and out. On my lunch break I made my dogs lick mats to give them something to do. These take them approximately 10 minutes but they are actively working on them which helps relax them.

03/17/2024

Trainers who use reward-based training methods (aka positive reinforcement training) often expound about its benefits to dogs and likewise caution about potential risks associated with punishment-b…

03/09/2024

This playful goofy guy had fun learning how to keep his paws on the ground. No Koda, not many humans appreciate such a happy, heavy greeting. 😊🐾

02/27/2024

How do you relax and have fun with your dog?

02/27/2024

Simon is an adorable senior boy learning to stay at home. He has separation anxiety so we are teaching him to calm when his owner leaves.

Clicker dog and horse training

05/16/2023

Reactive Dogs. Many of you will know they are a passion of mine.

What can be confusing for some are terms which are used....and importantly what they actually mean and why we stress the importance of these when working with reactive dogs.

So this is a very non technical explanation of what some of these terms mean.....a very general and hopefully easy to understand explanation of terms.

This isn't just for fear reactive dogs......even over excited/hyper dogs can have high levels of stress....in fact some dogs that are just on the "go" all the time often have very high levels of stress hormones.

🔵Stress levels/Stress hormones
Reactive dogs have releases of stress hormones when they react ....the difficult thing with this is they can stay at a high level and can take hours or DAYS to reduce.....if your dog reacts many times a day.....those levels may be very high, and stay high. These levels need to come down to help reactivity. As mentioned even overly excited/hyper dogs can have high levels of stress hormones.

🔵Lowering stress hormones/stress levels/decompression.
Simply put.... ways to help your dog lower those stress levels. Lowering the pressure your dog is feeling.
Ways to help lower those levels include not adding to those stress levels (avoiding situations where dogs react again and again). If your dog reacts again and again....those levels may not drop and they can stay high. Every reaction can "top up" stress levels.
We also add in ways to help your dogs life by helping with confidence, enrichment and creating relaxation which can be a natural way to lower those stress hormones.
Sleep is very important for reactive dogs.
Helping a dog use their nose is extremely helpful for reactive dogs.

🔵Trigger stacking.
Small issues that can occur in a short period of time (or over a few days)....that add to stress in a dog. These can be seemingly small when looked at individually. These smaller "triggers" stack on top of each other and can cause reactions. They may react to something they have always been ok with if they have had multiple smaller scares/stressful situations, even if there are very small outward signs or reactions, they can "add up".......They may also have a much bigger reaction if they have had multiple smaller issues during the day. These can be as innocent as a very small startle when a door is closed too quickly, or a car toot as it goes past......these can have an accumulative effect on your dog so they will be MORE likely to react to something else, react more strongly and at a far greater distance than they may normally have an issue with.
Understanding trigger stacking is important with reactive dogs.

I hope that may clarify a few terms commonly used with reactive dogs.🙂

I will put a link to the trigger stacking post made a while ago in the comment section.