Tucson Dog Training

12/31/2021

When it’s cold and wet outside, it’s good to make your own entertainment! 🤣

12/29/2021

Are you already getting ready for 2022? What are your training goals?

12/27/2021

We often speak of training as being a top down affair. We need/want our dogs to do x. And while I stress the need to ensure that our dog’s needs are met, I don’t spend any time discussing how it is we may learn what those needs are. I forget how much time I spend observing dogs, paying attention to body language, and searching for answers. ‘Normal’ people don’t do this. And tbh even with all if my study much of how and what I provide my dogs is guess work. I think our dogs deserve more. Think about your dogs, watch them, and try to look for signals from them that they need something: How do they ask? What do they want? Are you pretty good about responding?

12/21/2021

Tucson’s own Empire Ridge Ranch dog training podcast

01/05/2021

We will be doing a monthly training challenge. This month we will tackle "Stay" in all it's power. If your dog doesn't know stay, no worries, we'll provide a basics video. If your dog already knows stay, we will challenge your idea of stay, and up your dog's game. Buckle in and get ready for a fun month of "stay"!

01/02/2021

Would you recognize the signs that a dog might be considering aggression? We all recognize the overt signs: growling, hard stare, raised hackles, but what if the dog skips these signals? How can you tell right away if a dog may not be entirely comfortable with your presence? The very first sign of discomfort in a dog is lack of social ability - a dog that hangs back, doesn’t engage, is not overtly happy to see you. A dog exhibiting these signs is a dog communicating lack of interest in meeting someone right now. They could warm up if given time, but approaching these dogs to ‘try to make friends’ may not have the desired outcome, and could force the dog to express displeasure more overtly. Who has a dog that just needs time to warm up or just isn’t into interacting with strangers?

08/26/2020

What are your dogs doing to celebrate National Dog Day?

07/08/2020

Lions and Tigers, and.... leopards, oh, my! Check out our latest podcast

In the week’s podcast we got to speak with my old friend, Alicia Antle about her job as an animal handler at Myrtle Beach Safari - it’s a fun discussion, so I hope you’ll check out our podcast ( Your Dog’s Best Life)

06/16/2020

Our Podcast is up on Stitcher! Check it out

The easiest way to listen to podcasts on your iPhone, iPad, Android, PC, smart speaker – and even in your car. For free. Bonus and ad-free content available with Stitcher Premium.

06/13/2020

After a three-month hiatus, we’re back in business training dogs!

03/07/2020

Tucson is getting a GRC Club! We had a wonderful turn out today at The Dog Spot.

03/06/2020

We’ll be at Woofstock on Sunday at Reid Park - stop by and sigh hi! We’ll be at The Dog Spot’s booth

02/22/2020

Day 13 of the 30ish Day Challenge: Emotions

Ooh! What a contentious topic! Does emotion cause behavior? Does behavior create emotion? What emotions do dogs have? Which are solely found in higher primates (or just humans)? What exactly is an emotion?

Animal Training has a turbulent history with emotion. Think of the statement, “my dog was jealous of my new boyfriend so he ate his shoes’.

There’s a lot of human emotional freight there: an unwelcome intrusion into a new relationship by a family member, a plotting dog (what should he vengefully eat?), anger (at the dog,maybe at the girlfriend because of the dog, from the dog - shoe eating seems like a big step in communication!)

In this emotional construct the dog is bad, over reactive, petty, and possessive.

Reframed as a behavior without emotion the sentence is; My dog chewed my boyfriend’s shoes.

No instead of a petty dog vying for power we have a mystery: why? Does he normally eat shoes? We’re the shoes somewhere shoes aren’t seen usually? Are the shoes possibly stinky from the boyfriend’s job? Etc....

I think emotions are both helpful and dangerous when discussing dog behavior.

02/15/2020

Looks like it’s going to be a gorgeous weekend! Happy Valentine’s Day and we hope everyone gets a chance to spend some time outside ❤️

02/11/2020

Dice photobomb!

02/06/2020

Day 12 of The 30ish Day Training Challenge: clarity

We know we don’t need to be ‘Alpha’ with our dogs. They don’t need us to dominate them nor do they desire world domination.

Having said that, dogs do need leadership. We must provide clarity of expectations for our dogs for them to feel comfortable.

Here’s an example of why we need clarity and how rules can create freedom and comfort:

Imagine you’re driving in the US. You know what a yellow light means, what a red light means, etc... you also know that almost every car at the intersection will obey these rules.

Imagine now you’re in a different country, and you approach an intersection, the lights are the same, but no one seems to care! Maybe 60% of the people run the red, and so everyone stops on green so they don’t get killed. Pedestrians do not seem to have right-of-way, nor do they adhere to the little designated walkways. How do you feel?

Scared? Confused? Frustrated?

This is what happens when there are no rules or the rules are muddied up with unknown variables.

In your house: can your dog sleep on furniture? Initiate play by bringing a toy? Elicit food by begging? Paw for attention? Bark for attention? Sprint through doorways?

All of these should be answered with a yes (always) or a no (never) - it depends, sometimes, well... , etc... all breed the kind of confusion you felt at the imagined intersection.

Your dogs must have clarity, the same way we do. That doesn’t make you Alpha, it makes you the leader, and dogs absolutely need that!

Have you accidentally created muddy rules? If so, how do you think you can fix them?

02/05/2020

Day 11 of the 30ish Day Training Challenge: create courage

Did you know that you can train courage? Courageous dogs take chances, greet challenges and training with enthusiasm, and live fuller lives.

We can build courage in our dogs by carefully constructing challenges that are solvable, encouraging attempts and rewarding success.

Happy training! ❤️

02/01/2020

Day 10 of the 30ish Day Training Challenge. It’s a whole new month! We’re only on day 10 😉. Whatever...

There are times when training that you feel like the most incompetent b**b in the world. Like you have 6 left feet and you can’t take a step without tripping.

Other times, you see that the work you’ve been doing, that has looked like nothing and felt like ...meh.... has started to Become..

If you’re an honest trainer, you should have these feelings regularly!

This week I spent Tuesday with an amazing trainer in my chosen sport, and wow! I know nothing!! It was humbling, and amazing, terrifying, and exciting. I felt incompetent and hopeful.

One day before that Ruby ‘got’ Over. She figured it out, and I can begin to feel good about putting together our (first ever!!) disc dog routine later this year.

Tagg ‘got’ pivots! She now offers them even without the bucket! Wow!

It’s been a month since we began this journey, take a moment to look back. There may have been low spots, and while we may study them to seek better answers, we may not dwell there! Share all of your wins! No win is too small!

01/27/2020

Day 9 of our 30ish Day Training Challenge: the power of ‘touch’

Teaching ‘Touch’ can have far reaching benefits beyond the simple mechanics.

Teaching a touch to hand can give a bouncy dog a better target than clawing up legs when excited (Ruby here). It can help a worried dog disconnect visually from a scary object and give him a powerful win. It can be used to teach heeling, spin, and a half dozen more behaviors.

A foot touch can help teach pivots, create confidence to novel objects, help with proprioception, assist with core strength.

A foot touch can also translate into a multitude of tricks.

Rear foot and right/left foot targeting are more advanced and are also powerful if used for balance and strengthening work, tricks, husbandry and the like.

If you have not taught this behavior teach it today. If you have, share your stories here, or your videos on The Dog Spot’s training group page.

01/25/2020

Day 8 of our 30 Day Training Challenge: taking chances

We’ve become an extremely risk-averse society - eschewing novelty to continue down well-worn paths.

There’s a idea that our biggest Aha! Moments happen when outcomes don’t reflect expectations. Surprise begets seeking, which begets new understanding.

We and our dogs Benefit most when we step away from the tried and true, when we dabble in a new sport, try a different training method, reframe a problem.

Today’s challenge - step away from the known. Take a chance. Look for surprise

01/22/2020

Day 7 of the 30ish Day Training Challenge. Error free learning

One of the goals mentioned by trainers is creating an environment where the dog is presented with almost zero chance of making an error.

There are times when we want to create as few opportunities for error as possible and others when having the dog struggle to a solution creates a powerful and memorable learning opportunity for the learner.

We have competing studies that illustrate these concepts.

First. Several studies show that few errors in learning (and even better, completely ignoring those errors that do occur) creates confidence in the learner.

Additionally, owners like to see success right away.

Confidence is a necessary component to learning.

Second, researchers have found that struggling with an answer and creating many wrong guesses has a higher incidence of producing a better memory and deeper understanding of the learned behavior in the long run.

Owners like to see results that last.

How do we reconcile these two opposing pieces of data?

First, for a new or unconfident learner, create early and frequent wins. Teach simple behaviors where errors are limited, and create a high reward schedule.

Second, with the boost in confidence provided by error free learning, begin to permit small easily solved problems into training. These could be slightly more complex behaviors or known behaviors in strange circumstances (like sit on a wobble board) - you want the dog to think, but not quit, and the win needs to be pretty easy.

Last, as your dog begins to understand that she is powerful and can solve problems, provide her with learning situations where the solution is available, but many wrong options are likely. If you’ve built up your dog’s confidence appropriately the struggle will engage the dog until the problem is solved - no quitting.

Now your dog has the tools to practice focused learning for complex problems.

Think of your own training. When and where have you practiced one style of learning, when perhaps the other would have been more beneficial?

01/20/2020

Challenge 7 of The 30ish Day Training Challenge: work with distractions

If our dog’s desire for a reward is high enough, she may be too excited to function in its presence. This makes it useless as a reward in the short term, but extremely valuable for working through high arousal and distractions.

In this short video Tagg LOVES ❤️❤️❤️ her flirt pole! But, she cannot function in its presence. I’m asking for a very basic behavior : sit. And she cannot do it.

So, I add distance trying to put more distance between her and the awesome thing. She keeps lying down because that gains her access to sheep when herding, but it doesn’t work here since I’m asking for sit.

At one point she breaks away and gets her toy. But, it isn’t rewarding if it’s not moving. Finally I get a sit in the far corner. I get a second one and mark with Yes, and reward with the flirt pole.

This is how I can begin to build thought around the exciting thing. It also provides an easy scenario for distracted training.

At no point is Tagg in trouble for choosing the toy, I simply urge her to return to me and try again.

01/18/2020

We just want to point out how much we love our work. This little marshmallow of extreme cuteness is Finley, and we’ll be working with him in the following weeks to help build him into the courageous and brave little fellow that he deserves to be.

01/18/2020

Do you love your dog trainer? Help pull the Tucson dog training community together by helping The Dog Spot fight bullying in Tucson! Share the ❤️❤️. Post a comment, share it! Let’s flood Tucson’s dog trainers with our thanks!

A note on dog training.

Currently, there is a dog trainer in town who is using her social media following to disparage and run down other local trainers.

This is a shame.

The vision of The Dog Spot is to be THE place for dog people. To accomplish this goal, we have reached out to multiple trainers in Tucson and further afield to train here, and offer workshops to Tucson’s dog owners.

Two of our trainers routinely provide workshops out of state. Three of our trainers have CGC certification. One of our trainers provides dogs for police and hospitals. One of our trainers is certified through Do More With Your Dog. One of our trainers provides an inexpensive option for owner-trained service dogs.

All of our trainers work incredibly hard to improve their training skills. They are always reading, studying videos, going to workshops, seminars, and talking to one another.

None of them agrees 100% with how the others train. Not one.

What they do agree on is that we are better when we come together. We are better when we speak with people with whom we disagree MOST! We are better when we find that we all share a common goal of helping every dog, and every dog owner achieve lives of harmony and joy together.

We can either lift one another up, and grow our community together, or pull one another down. We are committed to lifting our community. We are committed to joining together with people with whom we agree, and with those that we do not, and opening our minds to the knowledge that every good dog trainer possesses and can share, and opening our hearts to always, always, remember that together we are stronger, smarter, more joyful, and more capable, than we ever could be apart.

The Dog Spot wishes to open the door to great dog training in Tucson! We want to open our hearts to every Tucson trainer, affiliated with us or not, who gets up in the morning with the singular goal of helping dogs and their owners live better lives together.

Let’s ACT in the face of online bullying! In the comments below, please shout out any trainer in Tucson with whom you have had a wonderful experience. Share this post, and flood Tucson with the love we have for the folks who every day seek to make the lives of dogs better.

01/17/2020

We had fun last night at our Weaves, Jumps, and Tunnels class!

01/16/2020

Using the Choose to Heel training method on bouncy dogs who want to stay way out in front can be difficult. This is Ruby’s first attempt (though there was five minutes of work before this that was very bouncy, forge-y, and crabby, but it didn’t occur to me to film - dangit!!)

As you can see she wants to face me and walks sideways and is shaped like a C to be in the position she prefers. To train heel position I need her further back, so I feed behind he head when I mark Yes (at Yes she’s usually pretty decent on position, maybe a bit in front, but by the time the treat arrives she’s often a foot or more ahead.) By treating where I want her it forces her to think about the most efficient way to get the treats, and she begins to slow down. There were even a few seconds where she slowed her pace to match my own - and even if she wasn’t in position I rewarded her attempts to rate her speed to mine.

We are still miles from a nice heel here, but this is where we begin the process

01/14/2020

Day 6 of the 30ish Days of Training Challenge.

Build confidence in your dog! Training a confident dog is a joy! Living with a confident dog is easy and rewarding!

Fearful dogs take work to train! They’re hard to live with!

Part of confidence is breeding, part is early socialization, and the rest is today and every day thereafter.

If your dog worries, hesitates, spooks at noises or movement, lunges defensively at humans or dogs she doesn’t know, then you’re living with a fearful dog.

Fearful dogs benefit from clear expectations and many, many easy wins. Confidence is built slowly, over time, but can wiped out in an ill-considered second!

Confident dogs need to be rewarded for their confidence, provided the opportunity to solve complex confidence building problems, and permitted to learn from errors. Dogs lacking in confidence must be built up slowly to grow resilience and courage. Problems must be structured carefully and enthusiasm for risk-taking must be encouraged.

Today, think of what you do in your day to sustain or increase your confidence, and what it takes to knock it down.

01/13/2020

I have an embarrassing confession: I’m terrible at p**p bags! I live on a mountain and my dogs run in the desert. When I’ve needed a p**p bag I’ve always used an old grocery bag. But recently, training in town, I was running low on grocery bags, and so I decided to try all the free p**p bags I’ve been accumulating over the years. I’ve used them MAYBE 10 times. In those 10 times I’ve stuck my hand through the whole bag and grasped a pretty cow-pie like p**p with my bare fingers (SO, so, so wrong!!) and had to wipe them clean in the dirt for the lack of a better option. Today I somehow omitted putting my thumb into the bag - with predictable results!! Please tell me that some of you have similar impairments of what should be basic actions! Please tell me that my ineptitude isn’t singular! 💩💩

01/13/2020

Challenge 5 of the 30(ish) Day Challenge: take care of foundations!!

It’s easy to get caught up in the end goal of training. We can see towards our finished goal. The stuff between that goal and us may seem like something we’d want to dispense with as quickly as possible.

However, there’s a reason that the best in every sport (human, Canine, equine) are forever talking about foundations: it’s because they’re the framework for everything that we’re trying to build.

Without solid foundations the structure will collapse as soon as any pressure is placed upon it.

Today, focus on foundations - what are they for your sport? (And dogs that are companions need foundations as well!!)

01/12/2020

OMG! So much fun at yesterday’s Disc Handling Workshop! Cannot say enough good things. We want a strong dog community in Tucson? We want great events, sports, and venues for our dogs? Then we need to applaud one another, support one another, and get out and do things! This workshop was a blast! Thank you David for teaching and The Dog Spot for hosting!