There are downfalls to playing fetch with your dog, and one is hyper-arousal. This is when their arousal and stress levels are increased, making it more difficult to regulate emotions and stay calm.
I mitigate this with Piper by working in some obedience and impulse control work between throws. Requiring commands like sit, down, spin, heel, paw/shake, before throwing the ball can keep them tuned in on you and your request, and in turn, keeps them from fixating too heavily on the ball.
Plus, when you’re training between throwing the ball, each time you throw the ball becomes the reward for their obedience ✨
Does your dog try to eat your hand when they go to eat their treat?
Try holding the treat between your pointer and ring finger. When you’re ready to reward, you push your middle finger forward and that provides access to the treat to the dog. This keeps your fingers out of your dog’s mouth, and also is a great way to hold onto the treat for a few moments without having to immediately give it to your dog.
This is my favorite way to pay dogs with treats when I’m training. And because I do this with my pack of dogs that go on off-leash hikes, many dogs are now satisfied when they touch their nose to my open palm, even if I don’t have a treat, when they check in. That touch has become a reward in of itself.
Looking for that loose leash walking where you can hold your coffee AND two dog leashes with your pinky on the same hand? I got you 😏😏
Reach out for individual, personalized training where I come to you! I’ll show you how to nail the loose leash walking so you can effortlessly walk your pups without losing a drop of coffee (or your patience!)
Neutrality around other animals comes from socializing your dog and teaching them how to regulate their emotions! You are training your dogs to behave a certain way in a certain situation - here, it’s around farm animals.
Few Tips:
🐾 Have control of your dog - on leash is best
🐾 Gradually increase exposure. Start far away and for short bursts of time.
🐾 Keep your dog relaxed - if they are too energetic around the animals and you can’t redirect them, they’re past their threshold.
🐾 Gradually increase duration of exposure and decrease distance from animals as your dog becomes less excited/interested by it
Remember! -
🐾 Learning isn’t linear! You could have some great days training followed by one that seems as though no progress has been made. That’s natural!
🐾 Some dogs may have a really difficult time with this. That means you have other skills to work on before you’re introducing new creatures
🐾 Make sure you’re keeping yourself, your dog, and any other animals SAFE. Be respectful of the life around you.
Working on neutrality can definitely feel complicated!
These pups all knew those animals were there. If the livestock were closer to the fence line, we definitely would have had a harder time. Same if the livestock were more active. Take your wins and your practice when you can! Every small step is still a step forward.
On their way to eat STEAKS and donate over $1,500 to @streetdoghero 🥹
Murphie’s human said he would buy the whole pack steaks and donate $250 to Street Dog Hero if we reach 10k followers by June 30. We did it in THREE DAYS.
A massive thank you to each of you that liked, shared, commented and followed! And a special thank you to Murphie, Micco, Arya, Riker, Reilly, Radley, Denali, Akina, Diesel, Kita, Murphy, Bailey, Frank & Piper’s humans for all donating to this lil’ effort.
Instagram, ya’ll are a wild and wonderful place. Keep lifting up the accounts you love and embrace.
KEEP YOUR EYES PEELED FOR STEAK VIDEOS BECAUSE THEY WILL BE COMING! But please know, they’ll be slow to cook, as I am headed to the East Coast for two weeks - but as soon as I am back, the whole pack will get STEAKS 🥩
Keep nature wild and don’t be an asshole.
I always leave each adventure with trash (in addition to all of my dogs’ poops!). The pack and I are so fortunate to have so many trails and locations to spend our time, but trash has certainly had an impact on that.
The worst injury any of our camp pups had ever received was courtesy of someone’s broken glass. I will always pick up trash we find, but we never return to somewhere beyond bits of litter. Too much trash ends up being more dangerous to clean up than it’s worth 😵💫
We are good on snow and ice in the city for the season *she says as she plans to take the docs cross country skiing next week*
