Sometimes you're exhausted and this is what training looks like. And sometimes that squirrel taking off across the street wins the day.
That moment when Stardust comes out of the kennel on his own 🥰
This is Starduster. He's a timid boy but will break out of that shell quickly! He's looking for a foster or adopter and I'd love to help with that transition!
When we are leash training puppies, we often forget to take into account that their legs will grow and, in turn, their strides will get longer. Watch this video of me working with Maris at a park this morning. Notice how in the beginning I'm walking at my normal pace and Maris is practically running to keep up with me. If I always trained him at this pace, I'm not training him to stay with me, I'm training him to walk at that pace on a leash. When he gets bigger, that will equate to him pulling me down the street on a walk. When you are leash training a puppy (or any dog, really) it's super important for you to vary your pace so that the dog learns that he/she stays on a loose leash and with you no matter the speed of the walk. In the second half of this video, you can see me slow way down, forcing Maris into a much slower pace. This step is often forgotten and skipped but it is vital to keeping those puppies walking nicely even as they grow older/bigger.
Is anyone else headed to Dog Days of Summer in Shawnee Town tomorrow?? Maris and I will be there to check it out and practice some public neutrality (it's very hard for him, he knows he's hard to resist).
This doesn't look like training but we are accomplishing a lot! Jackson is extremely reactive towards strangers. You can't tell from this video but there is a very busy trail on one side of us, the street (with a lot of foot traffic) behind us and a busy playground and a basketball game happening to the side. By standing in this spot in the middle of it all and just letting Jackson pick up treats, I am giving him the space to be aware of all of the activity around him without the pressure of interaction.
If his only activity during this time is something super positive like picking up treats, it gives him the opportunity to grow accustomed to the other people/kids/bikes without having to focus on them. This allows us to decrease our distance to the triggers as he gets more and more comfortable.
At the end of this, we stopped to have a short conversation with a lady about 20 feet away from us and he impressed the hell out of me 🥰
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Sunday Funday working on leash manners with Draco. He won't take treats on a walk so we do a lot of verbal praise instead while we work to find that thing he can't resist!
I love doing Walk & Trains and getting to know your dogs while helping them get used the outside world around them, practice their leash skills, recall, reactivity training and check-ins, all while giving them an enriching walk with lots of good smells so they're ready to relax the rest of the day for you. My favorite ❤️
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Find that thing that motivates your dog and then use it unashamedly to reinforce those lovely behaviors until they are habituated.
This is Rex. This is not the first time we've met but it is the first time I have worked with him. He needed major work on recall and leash skills. He spent the morning with me for my "On the Town" service and I spent that three hours evaluating him in different places with different levels of activity. We got the most work done in this empty parking lot, free of any major distractions. We will build in the distractions as we work on his handler focus and engagement but this is totally normal! Like I told Rex's owner when I dropped him back off at home- if you put me in a room full of rare breed dogs and try to teach me something or even have a conversation with me, there's no way I'm going to be able to focus on you! We have to start small, take the wins there and only then can we ask our dogs for more.
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First and foremost, new training options! The way I was doing it before made things a little bit muddy because we were trying to fit so many different things into so few hours that nothing was really getting worked completely. So I have decided to break things down into focal groups. My website explains each of these in more detail but I think this will streamline things a little bit. Or it won't and we'll go back to how it was before 🤷♀️
As always, the number one priority will always be that the dogs' needs are met above all else- this means enrichment will be discussed and an emphasis will be placed on finding the cause for behaviors and addressing that over just "fixing the problem."
