A mid-week moment of love from Guzik and Winfrey ❤️ We love having such sweet snuggly pets!!!
Feel free to share your snuggly pet pictures below ☺️
It’s cold cold cold this week!
Which makes it harder to provide our pups with the activity we both need 😩
Here are some ideas for indoor activity to entertain yours pups with to prevent too much pent up energy:
-Treat or toy scavenger hunt: hide a handful of treats- or a toy your dog is playing with- in one room. Then release your dog to use their nose to find their prizes! The first couple of tries they might need a little help.
-Trick training: teach your pup something new and fun! Some examples: spin, bow, jump over your leg, or back up (as Henri demonstrates in this video). You can find trick ideas and descriptions on the AKC website on their Trick Dog page.
-Food enrichment toys: Use some of your dog’s food to prepare some food enrichment toys so they can entertain themselves by working for their food! Classic Kong toys, puzzle toys, snuffle mats or a DIY treat dispensing box are all great options!
How do you keep your dog busy and entertained when the weather is harsh? Share your ideas below!
Trainers’ dogs want training too! Here’s a snippet of what it might look like to train two dogs at once 😅
Winfrey and Henri here are at different stages of their training journeys. Here Winfrey (8 years old) is working on heeling on my right side, while young Henri (just 1 year) is working on waiting his turn calmly in the crate.
He’s learning that calmness = treats and getting to come out of the crate
To help Henri get here, he first got to run, play and train before I asked for him to settle in the crate. This, and keeping the training session short with breaks helped him succeed.
Waiting your turn is hard for a young guy like him- well done Henri! And thanks to Winfrey for being her patient angel self and helping Henri with this.
Pups like day training student June are great at reminding us humans that it’s important to take breaks when working!
Love watching how silly she is- hard not to smile and laugh 😆
Family Dog Foundations 2 students did a lovely job in class yesterday!
Here they are learning “stay” on their “place”! All four pups did such a lovely job holding their stays until released 🤩 well done everyone!
We all need some sweetness right now. Here’s Winfrey and our cat Guzik being sweet last night- Guzik has decided he loves Winfrey (yes Winfrey stays asleep this entire time lol) ❤️
Share your sweet animals in the comments below 🐾
Happy Monday! Back to work for me today after some lovely time off. I’ll be catching up on emails and communications this week, working with students in training and getting ready for new classes to start!
In the meantime enjoy this silly video of Winfrey’s ears catching the wind at the beach 😆
Family Dog Foundations 2 students rocking their dog distraction exercise today! Not easy for adolescent dogs!
Well done everyone! 😍
I love puppy class!
First day of Puppy Foundations 1 and these teams were awesome! I’m amazed at how well these youngsters focused in a new environment amongst so many other young pups.
They’re practicing learning the marker word and getting reinforced for giving their owners attention. Success! 🥳
Sunday’s Puppy Foundations 1 class worked on building foundational skills for leash walking this week.
Polite leash walking is a concept that contains many different skills and can be a challenge for dog owners to tackle.
To accomplish a pleasant walk around the neighborhood we might want our dog to: not walk too fast, keep the leash loose, stay calm around distractions, respond to cues around major distractions, ignore cars and bikes going by, ignore the neighbors barking dog, wait for us rather than pull towards something they want to check out… The list can go on depending on the context!
Are you overwhelmed reading that list? You’re not alone! There’s a reason why polite leash walking is one of the number one skills that dog owners seek training for.
So, how do we help puppies build these skills from the beginning?
We start small and simple, and build from there. Our goal is to set our pups up for success to learn good habits.
In this exercise we are helping our pups learn:
-to stay engaged with us as we walk a few steps
-to slow down and stop when we do
-to stay engaged and listen for the next cue!
These teams totally rocked it! Look at those calm, engaged youngsters! Truly a lovely class. Well done everyone!
First day of a full Puppy Foundations 1 Class yesterday!
Such a sweet class and look how calm and focused they are while learning the first skill of the curriculum!
What does the first day of puppy class look like?
In our first class we went over:
-Introductions and the goals of the class
-Positive reinforcement training theory
-Learning the marker word & building attention skills
-How to teach reliable name response
-House training check in and discussion
-Puppy teething survival strategies
-Intro to drop it
-General questions & discussion
And this is just the beginning 🤩 So excited to keep working with these teams!
Looking for a class for your new puppy? Our September class is already filling up! FMI and to register you can head to trainmeanimaltraining.com/group-classes/ .
