Adirondack High Peaks Dog Training Club

07/30/2024

The Fall schedule is out! Build your skills and your relationship! Will you sign up for a class?
Please print your registration, fill it out, and mail it with your payment to the address printed on it.
Schedule: www.ahpdtc.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/2024-Fall-schedule-v2.pdf
Registration: www.ahpdtc.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/2024-07-10-Registration.pdf
Note: Coping Skills for Difficult Dogs class is already closed.

07/07/2024

Dogs of all types LOVE our Tricks class! Here's Onyx showing off his herding skills with a herding ball. Nice job, Onyx!👏👏

06/30/2024

Our 8-week Tricks Class is perfect for strengthening your relationship with your dog and learning to communicate more clearly--while you both are having fun!
Here's Cooper showing off his doggie "push-ups" on his way to earning the AKC Novice Tricks title!
Do you enjoy working with your dog? Consider joining our Fall class! Dogs should have completed CD1 or equivalent.

05/26/2024

Our Summer 2024 class schedule is out! Sign up for a class today!
Please PRINT the new registration, fill it out, and MAIL with your check to the address on it. Don't delay! Our classes fill quickly!

Here is the class schedule and detailed descriptions:
http://www.ahpdtc.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/2024-summer-v1.pdf
and here is the updated registration form for 2024:
http://www.ahpdtc.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/2024-registration.pdf

04/27/2024

It’s all about what your dog is saying with their body language—and what they think you’re saying!

The key to dog body language is recognizing stress signals, and understanding what our own body language communicates to our dogs.

04/19/2024

Author Marc Bekoff discusses a new book on raising happy and resilient puppies.

Having empathy for confused transplants from Planet Dog is the key to success.

04/15/2024

Have a reactive dog? Renee Rhoades of R+ Dogs has some great tips to help you and your dog!

Exhausted by your dog's reactive behavior? This trainer's simple tips are well worth trying.

04/11/2024

Canine Instincts and Wildlife 🐾🌳
So many dogs utterly lose their mind at the first sight or scent of a squirrel/rabbit/deer/bird. Nothing works to get their attention at those times. When that happens, a common human response is to keep the dog away from whatever is making them lose their mind.

Understanding Your Dog's Natural Behaviour 🐕💭
What we need to remember about those reactions is that the dogs are responding like that because they have deep and often carefully bred for instincts to do something with wildlife. When they are young and haven’t got the skills they’d need, their responses often are quite extreme. They might bark with frustration and lunge. To see your dog react like that is alarming – and that is what often drives the desire to keep them away from whatever causes them to act like that.

The Challenge of Avoidance 🚫🐦
Part of the problem is how to avoid. I don’t know about you but there is no way I could avoid birds. Even inside the house, my dog will watch them out of the window. As soon as we go outside, I can guarantee she’ll see birds.

Where I live deer are not as common as birds but still, in over 20 years of living with predatory dogs in Scotland, I am yet to find anywhere that is reliably free from deer. Even areas that have been carefully fenced to keep the deer out end up with deer in them. All it takes is for somebody to leave a gate open – and somebody always does that eventually.

The Consequences of Restricting Instincts 🐶❌
The lack of ability to reliably avoid leads to the second part of the problem with avoidance when you are dealing with predation. Lack of access to instinctive behaviour, makes dogs – all animals really – want them even more. By avoiding, you tend to create a huge amount of motivation in the dog. Dogs who are hugely motivated will go over high fencing, back out of harnesses, chew through leads. They become hard to manage and feel impossible to live with.

How Deprivation Fuels Desire➡️🔥
We know that lack of access builds motivation to do the thing that the animal has been deprived of. The scientists who first started studying learning in animals would use deprivation as standard practice in their experiments. If they wanted to train an animal to press a lever or stand in a particular spot to get food, they’d make sure that the animal was hungry. Not starving but keen to eat. That way the animal would make more of an effort to work out what they needed to do to get the food. If they were full and satisfied, they might have just given up and had a nap.

Motivation to solve maze puzzles would be built by confining the animals for a period of time prior to the experiment so that when they were placed in the maze, they were keen to move.

The Irony of Avoidance 🔄🎯
Nothing builds motivation for instinctive behaviour like being deprived of it!

So when we avoid and try to calm our dogs down and look for ways to get them to ignore enticing prey, often what is happening is the dog’s motivation to get to the prey is building and building.

What is the answer? 🗝️🐶
Well, almost all instinctive behaviour can be modified through learning.

If you have a puppy who is screaming and scrabbling at your cupboards whenever you prepare food, you wouldn’t respond to that by not feeding your puppy. Instead, you would teach your puppy that sitting calmly or going to a particular spot is the way to get their food. Nobody would ever question that it is possible for dogs to learn that they can get food by doing something specific.

It's the same with instinctive predatory behaviour. You can’t take that instinct out of your dog but your dog can learn to do something that is more socially acceptable than lunging around and screaming on the lead.

Consistency in Training is Crucial 🐕
It is important to remember that the instinctive behaviour is always going to be the most obvious thing for your dog to do so keeping up with training and being sensible about when and where your dog is off lead are both important things to do too. But you certainly don’t have to keep on living with a dog who loses their mind at the sight of a bird.

04/07/2024

We love adolescent dogs❤️
Adolescence is such an important stage of development! These dogs require extra patience, kindness, and thoughtfulness on our part.

ADOLESCENCE:
As dogs go through adolescence, it’s safe to say things turn a little topsy-turvy! 🙃

If you’re currently at this stage and feeling like you’ve taken one step forward and two steps back, don’t panic! During this stage of life, there’s a lot going on in their busy little brains.

Here are three facts about the adolescent brain 🧠👇

1. The inhibitory neurons of the amygdala that help to dampen down emotional responses don’t fully mature until the END of adolescence.

2. Communication between the frontal cortex and amygdala, which is essential for skills training, decreases during adolescence.

3. Extinction memory is impaired during adolescence, so if your dog has a bad experience it’s much more likely to lead to a ‘hard wired’ fear memory.

Have patience and compassion as you support and guide your dog through this vulnerable period of brain development.

04/05/2024

Friday Funny

03/19/2024

We still have a space or two in the following classes as of 3/15:
Puppy
CD2
Lost item recovery
Skills for Hiking
Tricks
Canine Community Adventures
K9 conditioning (both classes)
Canine Good Citizen

Schedule (does not reflect current availability):
http://www.ahpdtc.org/wp.../uploads/2024/03/2024-Spring-
Registration (please print, fill out, and mail in)
http://www.ahpdtc.org/.../2024-spring-registration...

03/16/2024

Did I mention our classes fill up quickly?
Some of our classes are already filled. Here is a screenshot of current availability as of 3/18/2024.
Schedule:
http://www.ahpdtc.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/2024-Spring-
Registration (please print, fill out, and mail in)
http://www.ahpdtc.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/2024-spring-registration.pdfschedule-v4.pdf

03/10/2024

Anyone who has ever lived with dogs knows that they show concern for us humans and also other dogs when we /they are distressed. This research shows that dogs do have empathy and sympathy, and (depending on the individual) may offer comfort to try to alleviate the other’s distress. Thank you The Science Dog for the blog.
https://thesciencedog.com/2016/07/12/i-feel-your-pain/?fbclid=IwAR03E54CdW8vhx24ok2Le7E-Pcf5tgSJm1Exx2vjfZIXyf_9V1jCWfuHIgg_aem_AeHaERTldMAn0q9FPMpRZHyHnIPza-bm1gMERGbg4mEfAwaMdv9Ir1r8Y1K-lKGlk2U

Many people who live with multiple dogs have had the pleasure of experiencing two dogs who become great friends. Call the relationship what you will – bonded pair, social partn…

03/04/2024

Have you ever done scentwork with your dog? What kinds of things do you do?

Scentwork stands out as a form of training that goes beyond the typical obedience classes, offering dogs a way to engage in activities that are closer to their natural instincts and needs. This method of training is not just about following commands but about allowing dogs to utilise their inherent....

03/03/2024

Our spring 2024 class schedule is out! Please PRINT the new registration, fill it out, and MAIL with your check to the address on it. Don't delay! Our classes fill quickly!
**THIS SCHEDULE IS NOW OUTDATED**
Please see our recent post for updated class availability.

02/26/2024

If you want to know more about training your dog, or helping them with some behavioral issues, check out this free summit.

Dog training summit for owners and trainers

02/05/2024

Free summit on reactive dogs happening through February!
Talks from 35 speakers delivered to your inbox. Happening right now!
https://barking-up-the-right-tree.newzenler.com/f/summit-24?fbclid=IwAR0Xrv3Hjsp-5J75CX0DSFoFGQ7PgvPHZrEi2UGug923XGAf2NGrfqEKmr4_aem_AUXh2aZPmQnhP0_guLl6sMhGcLLQ8DhniD4tyKRmazS0qzY19ejRhd4ynOhKRMnwo1U

34 amazing experts on all aspects of dog reactivity, coming to you for FREE.