These guys are killing it! Bill is learning how to focus and trust his owners to advocate for him and his owners are rocking it!
Always working, even with my personal dog.
Let’s talk about it.
Training is important, not only to change behavior, but to shape emotion, provide stimulation, and build your relationship.
What you see me doing here is rewarding Zorro for every time he engages with me and chooses to look away from something that grabbed his attention. I’m not verbally asking him for any behavior, talking to him, or correcting for shifting his focus on other things. I occasionally mark “yes!” with the treat he’s getting.
Zorro and I were both recently attacked and although he can perform fine when I ask, still gets excited to work, and does great with dogs, I want to support his emotional state.
Here we are taking time together, working towards him (and myself) feeling more comfortable around dogs, potential triggers, and new situations.
Did I think he was going to react while practicing? No. But I did prepare myself to reward him heavily anyway. Confidence and the relationship between a handler and their dog is something you can never work too much on! 🐾
Graham working so hard to be calm outside! He struggles with a lot of over arousal outside and this has recently progressed to dog reactivity as well. I worked with him for a short while over a year ago for some basics and laying down has always been a bit hard for him!
Here we are practicing being calm outside and making use of their patio to give him some space to observe and process. Laying down on command is starting to click for him as well! He’s doing great here, good body language, breathing calmly, focused on his momma and me, under threshold and taking food.
Yay Graham and his awesome Momma for working hard to manage his big emotions! 🤩
Dozer and his sweet Momma are doing so well with his leash manners! There’s even a dog barking across the street from us here and he ROCKED it, kept engaged with me and didn’t react at all. Yay Dozer boy! 🤩
Sped up video of me working on some leash training and engagement with the gorgeous Proxima!! This sweet Dane girl can bunny hop and pull like an ox so we’re learning some useful skills! 🐕💓
A shout out to these awesome peeps!! Meet Barney, a bit of an anxious and reactive poodle mix, and his parents who are doing an amazing job with him! Watch till the end 😉
This is just a snippet to show their good work!! In this video we LOVE Barney’s check-ins and how engaged he is, how positive and firmly his mom is giving commands, how little leash pressure is being used, and him having fun!!
It’s important that our pups have time to play and run and blow off steam. Even reactive dogs get to have freedom and happy zoomies in the snow! ❄️🐕
“What does socialization mean?”
Let’s forget the word “socialize” and focus on them. How can we set them up for success in the moment and in the future?
We teach them that the world is safe.
WE learn to advocate for them. WE make sure they can explore the world safely. WE educate ourselves so we can do right by them. WE nurture their curiosity in safe way.
And WE keep practicing even when they’re struggling or something doesn’t work how we want. Especially then.
Socialization is often the opposite of what we think it is.
We need them to be good with dogs? Then we pick a handful of trusted dogs to learn and play with and ignore the rest.
We need them to be good around stores with lots of people? We advocate for them and make sure they have the space they need. We don’t let random people come up and interact.
Be confident in yourself. You ARE enough for your dog. You have the ability to meet their needs and do so lovingly. You do not owe anything to the random stranger who wants to pet your dog. It’s good to be picky about who you let into their lives.
Don’t let anyone make you doubt yourself for putting your dog first. That is the BEST thing you can do.
✨ Exposure without interaction ✨is one of the most important things you can do for your dog.
We were at Yellowstone this weekend and I had to tell many a person “No thank you” to petting Zorro. And sometimes people don’t listen and you have to say it more than once 🤪😂 But that’s okay, and it’s worth it! Because this sweetheart right here was able to lay down and watch the world pass peacefully as hundreds of people walked by us, in stores, on boardwalks, by animals. Once they understand that you’ll advocate for them, they can start to trust you. Keep working at it! 🐾
