Crowd control
Here is psychiatric service dog Dahlia showing her crowd control task at Seattle Aquarium. I have PTSD and having people really close in my personal space can trigger a panic attack. By having Dahlia do an “about” will make sure people give me enough space.
If you’ve been needing a service dog, please email me and we can discuss your needs and the training program required for a service dog. [email protected]
Dog Park
A wonderful training session with 18 month old Ash’kii. I’ve had Ash’kii since he was 4 months old. He’s mostly Cattle dog mixed with American Pitbull Terrier, Labrador, and super mutt (😁). He’s my first working dog and unaltered, so I’ve been working with a dog with lots of drive, highly intelligent, and with raging hormones. It’s been a glorious learning experience and I’m incredibly grateful he’s in my pack.
I began working on Ash’kii developing an “off” switch with his ‘place’ command. It took 9 months for him to get to a place where he rested on his cot for an hour. The past 4 months I’ve been working on his heel, engagement, and dog neutrality. We’ve had steps forward and backwards. I’ve had to change the tools I use with him and the way I’ve trained in the past. He still has a lot to go before he’s completely neutral around people and dogs, but I wanted to show and share how dog training is a lifestyle; not a one and done thing.
You will make mistakes and have slide backs (I do too) but don’t ever give up. The only way we can train a dog to be obedient, trustworthy, and neutral is to keep at it and moving forward. If it’s been awhile since you’ve worked with your dog, go back to the basic; high structure and basic obedience.
Heel
A wonderful training session with 18 month old Ash’kii. I’ve had Ash’kii since he was 4 months old. He’s mostly Cattle dog mixed with American Pitbull Terrier, Labrador, and super mutt (😁). He’s my first working dog and unaltered, so I’ve been working with a dog with lots of drive, highly intelligent, and with raging hormones. It’s been a glorious learning experience and I’m incredibly grateful he’s in my pack.
I began working on Ash’kii developing an “off” switch with his ‘place’ command. It took 9 months for him to get to a place where he rested on his cot for an hour. The past 4 months I’ve been working on his heel, engagement, and dog neutrality. We’ve had steps forward and backwards. I’ve had to change the tools I use with him and the way I’ve trained in the past. He still has a lot to go before he’s completely neutral around people and dogs, but I wanted to show and share how dog training is a lifestyle; not a one and done thing.
You will make mistakes and have slide backs (I do too) but don’t ever give up. The only way we can train a dog to be obedient, trustworthy, and neutral is to keep at it and moving forward. If it’s been awhile since you’ve worked with your dog, go back to the basic; high structure and basic obedience.
A wonderful training session with 18 month old Ash’kii. I’ve had Ash’kii since he was 4 months old. He’s mostly Cattle dog mixed with American Pitbull Terrier, Labrador, and super mutt (😁). He’s my first working dog and unaltered, so I’ve been working with a dog with lots of drive, highly intelligent, and with raging hormones. It’s been a glorious learning experience and I’m incredibly grateful he’s in my pack.
I began working on Ash’kii developing an “off” switch with his ‘place’ command. It took 9 months for him to get to a place where he rested on his cot for an hour. The past 4 months I’ve been working on his heel, engagement, and dog neutrality. We’ve had steps forward and backwards. I’ve had to change the tools I use with him and the way I’ve trained in the past. He still has a lot to go before he’s completely neutral around people and dogs, but I wanted to show and share how dog training is a lifestyle; not a one and done thing.
You will make mistakes and have slide backs (I do too) but don’t ever give up. The only way we can train a dog to be obedient, trustworthy, and neutral is to keep at it and moving forward. If it’s been awhile since you’ve worked with your dog, go back to the basic; high structure and basic obedience.
Do you want a “mostly good” dog, or a dog you can completely trust to be off-lead and go anywhere with you?
Do you want a “mostly good” dog, or a dog you can completely trust to be off-lead and go anywhere with you? The only way you’re going to get a calm, balanced, and obedient dog is having expectations and doing the work to hold your dogs accountable in meeting those expectations.
“But I want my dog to just be a dog.” Have you ever said that to yourself or someone else? I think what people mean by this is, they want a dog they don’t have to do much work on. It’s your dog and that’s your choice, but it always comes with a cost (and it’s usually the dog that suffers).
Dogs are opportunistic and they do everything in their self interest. So as long as the opportunity is there, they can and will get into trouble someday. They will be the leader if you’re not. They will destroy things if they want to. They will choose their instincts (usually aggression) to control their environment. They will guard what they think they own (this includes the human). They will excessively bark, ignore you, and flee if that’s what they want and they know there are no consequences in choosing so.
So what kind of dog do you want? A dog that’s a dog? Or a dog that trusts you, respects your boundaries and leadership, follows commands, neutral around stimuli’s, calm on command, and has a strong bound with you (meaning, your joy is their ultimate motivator)? Because that takes having expectations, training your dog, rewards, accountability, structure, patience, clear communication, setting aside your wants and doing what the dog needs, and consistency.
It’s never too late to have the dog you dream of, so you can do more with your dog. I can help! Email me at [email protected] to learn more.
Teaching impulse control and boundaries is how you do preventive care around stimulating places. This is especially important for our more driven dogs. Here I’m practicing boundaries and impulse control with Ash’Kii’s crate, and his ball when I say “out” (something he wants to comp at prematurely). Slowly I’m adding the distance I send back to the car and duration he waits in the car. Once I got that solid, I will work on growing my distance and durations I’m away from the car. From there, I slowly increase the distractions.For me, it’s imperative my dogs know not to jump out of their crate or car before I release them, since I never know what’s behind me. This is a hard boundary and the above is how I teach it.
I wasn’t able to get a before video because Dotty’s family were very anxious Dotty’s behavior. Dotty lunged at the end of her leash when she saw me for the first time. I had to go back into my place and retrieve a slip lead and muzzle. For 6 months old, Dotty was spicy and willing to use aggression to protect herself. But once her family left, Dotty did a complete 360*. She was timid, insecure, and afraid of the world. She was sweet and even initiated affection from me. It didn’t take long for me to trust her without her wearing the muzzle. What I gather is Dotty is exhibiting dominate by default. This is where the dog has taken the role of leader because no one in the family is taking the lead. Dogs typically feel very stressful and use aggression to control the world that feels very out of control. The best way to address this is implementing structure (consistent boundaries) and having the dog earn their meals from your hand from day 1. This will show them you’re calling the shots and good things come from you being the leader.This video was taken today, 3 days into Dotty’s board and train. 3 days after seeing her be so fearful aggressive towards me, cars, and strangers through reactivity. I’m incredibly proud of this girl and it shows just how much she wants to do good and just follow her leader. Next is passing this knowledge to her family, so they can be the leader she needs to feel safe.
Goose’s first time at my neighborhood park. Kids are scary when you’re tiny, but look at that impulse control! He didn’t react and came to me instead! Eventually he stopped quivering and that’s when we left, helping gain small amounts of confidence one visit at time😊
It’s important to use the reward that motivates your dog the most to work for you, be engaged, and to enjoy the training. Board and train Tucker’s food motivation was there but finicky. His toy drive? He was ALL about play tug. Here is Tucker doing some reps on down with pressure. In the past leash pressure would’ve made him have a melt down. But once he saw playing the tug was his payment…well you can see how quickly he responded to my commands and giving me all his undivided attention.
Repetition is the key in getting our dogs to understand word association from command to behavior. I love how enthusiastic Maya is to learn (or for that 🍪). Her sit-stays and down-stays are coming along nicely, as well as I introducing and shaping her heel.
One of the first things I noticed with Maya was her insecurity with stairs. So that’s where we started with her training and here is her passing her test. She now is finding stairs sorta fun to go up and down☺️
Packing in these last field trips and tests before Chewy goes home. Today we worked around Woodland Dog Park, and I gotta say Chewy did awesome ignoring the dogs. He’s still wiggly when he’s in a down but his owner knows that will take time to go away (Chewy is the King of avoiding a command, hence the wiggles).
