06/12/2025
Introducing the cutest little board and train student: JOSIE!! 🐕
Josie is a 5 month old German Shorthair Pointer who recently graduated our 1 week puppy board and train program! Josie comes from an amazingly reputable breeder who breeds very active working dogs. While her family plans to do that sort of work with her, she’s a pet first! So they wanted her to learn some basic obedience, impulse control, and manners to help her have an easier time settling in the house.
Josie is smart, smart, smart, and with that comes a lot of naughty behavior as she began learning how to control her environment to get her own rewards. She jumped, mouthed (hard, with puppy teeth!), counter surfed, demand barked, and constantly picked things up off the ground that she shouldn’t have. All of these behaviors have gotten her rewards in the past! Rewarded with food, attention, trades, and play, she believed these behaviors were her best option to get something good when she was bored.
We spent her week in training teaching her basic obedience to use as a guideline, but most importantly we spend our time together teaching her to make better choices for her rewards! A sit, down, or place will get you a reward wayyyy faster than a jump, bite, or bark. This sort of clarity launched her brain into a completely different direction, and she was SO on board. Dogs like Josie aren’t bad just to be bad, they’re accidentally trained by us to make choices we don’t want them making, but it’s our job to bring clarity to the situation and help them choose something better! Josie’s family did (and are still doing) an amazing job with her at her go-home session and beyond, and we’re so excited to get her back for additional training when she’s a bit older! I love seeing how puppies age and mature 🥰
Great work, Josie! 🐾