Pup to Perfection

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When I first start taking a puppy out on training field trips, very little of the outing actually focuses on what most people picture when they hear the word “training.” Why? Because there are important foundational building blocks that often get overlooked when it comes to dog training and those will serve you better in the long run than jumping right into obedience. The first order of business to me is letting my puppy get acclimated to new environments in their own time. This means lots of sniffing, exploring, and watching the world go by. Now is the time to make distractions no big deal by exposing your puppy to lots of different things! At this age, they will likely disengage on their own. And if you reinforce that behavior, that’ll go a long way in preventing reactivity from happening. I also want to start teaching my puppy that engaging with me is always a good thing to do, and that there are lots of different types of reinforcement that can be earned by doing so (treats, toys, attention from me, access to fun things to sniff, etc). By structuring your training outing in this way, we are also working on putting behaviors on cue like sniffing, play, taking a treat from my hand. This helps make it clear to our puppies from day one what types of reinforcement are available when, which does wonders for building confidence and stimulus control! #puppytraining #dogtrainingtips #dogtrainer #puppytips #puppyhelp #keeshondsofinstagram #keeshondpuppy #forcefreetraining #positivereinforcementdogtraining

NOW ACCEPTING AGILITY FIELD RENTALS! More info and to rent the field: https://www.sniffspot.com/to/0emi5 To book a private agility lesson or if you are an instructor looking to host events, seminars, or classes please email me at [email protected] More pics in the comments!

Last week while I was teaching, another trainer asked if they could bring their in season female into the classroom. I’ve never not let a female in heat in my classes (as long as they wear pants) so I said of course! The trainer clarified that they wanted to make sure it was okay since Chester was just chilling on his mat, off leash, and he is an intact male so they wanted to ensure that wouldn’t bother him. He has never batted an eye about in season females, so I reassured them it would be fine but asked my assistant to stand nearby just in case. Chester continued to not care even a little bit, and stayed for the entire class while I kept teaching. No leash. No special training tools. No gates or pens of barriers of any kind. And no cookies given until after I was done teaching either! All trained using positive reinforcement. Getting a reliable behavior like this despite some pretty intense distractions doesn’t require “consequences” or “holding the dog accountable.” It just requires proofing, patience, planning, and practice. And thank you to my assistant Chrissy for having the foresight to snag a video! #positivereinforcementdogtrainer #placework #placetraining #dogtraining #dogtrainer

Working on some behavior chains with Zephyra! These more complex tricks will be used for her Elite Performer trick dog title. For this trick, she is going to pull on a rope to open the door, retrieve a specifically named item, and then close the door with her paw. There are a ton of skills that go into this trick! Retrieving an item, a paw target, pulling on a rope… and she’ll need to do this all on a single cue! A great way to get your dog to perform multiple behaviors on a single cue is a process called backchaining. With back chaining, you start with the final behavior in the sequence- in our case, closing the door with her paw- and then you slowly add on the behavior that comes before that and the behavior that comes before that until you get all the way to a fluent sequence of behaviors performed when given one signal. A trick like play dead is another example where back chaining can be useful! #trickdog #trickdogtraining #standardpoodle

There is a difference between reinforcing BEHAVIORS and conditioning EMOTIONS. My issue with “you get what you pet” is we’re conflating the two. Go watch the longer video for more on this concept!

It’s a Christmas miracle… there’s a new video up on my YouTube channel! 😂 If you wanna see two of my favorite games for making heeling fun & engaging for your dog (and a tip for getting some flashy fancy prancy heeling to happen without using a food lure) then you’re gonna wanna check this out! #heeling #obedience #dogobedience #dogobediencetraining #heelwork #heeltraining #dogtrainingvideo #dogtrainersofig

Clicks & treats for Molly and her dad James who have been making HUGE strides in their loose leash walking!! This has been an ongoing struggle for Molly but her dad is putting in the work and it shows. What a massive improvement for this girlie! Yay! #looseleashwalking #positivereinforcementdogtraining

Instead of playing fetch for two hours or hitting up the dog park to tire out your dog, try this instead! #dogtraining #dogtrainingtips #dogtrainer #prodogtrainer #forcefreedogtraining #fearfreedogtraining #prodogtrainer #springerspaniel

Reactive dog Roz working on looking at a big distraction without barking! Her biggest trigger is delivery trucks & people, but of course during our lesson there was nary a mail truck or Amazon van to be found 🥲 so we adapted! We got to practice the same protocol we are going to use for seeing delivery vehicles with a lesser trigger, another dog. We upped the ante a bit by getting Chester hyped up tugging on a toy, and you can see in Roz’s behavior that this was harder for her to disengage from. Good practice! Because it will be even harder for her to disengage from the Amazon van 😜 Let this be another reminder for you all: train FOR the situation, not IN the situation. #dogtraining #reactivedog #dogtrainingtips #dogtrainer #prodogtrainer #reactivedogtraining #windsorlocks

Add this video to the ever growing library of dogs walking on a loose lead *ON A HARNESS* Harnesses don’t cause pulling. Reasons why dogs pull: - they have twice as many legs as we do and even smaller dogs walk fast - they are trying to get closer to something they want - they have learned that pulling allows them access to a reinforcer (continuing to move forward, access to a fun smell, etc) - they are scared and trying to get away from whatever spooked them - they have not learned that walking on a loose leash is a valuable behavior to do If you would like your dog walks to look like Stella’s here, DM me and let’s get to work 💪 #looseleashwalking #dogreel #pittienation #bullybreedmix #forcefreedogtraining #prodogtrainer #leashmanners

Just a buncha bony dogs, nothing to see here ☠️

Discrimination drills with Melody

Practiced some discrimination with Melody 🎶 today out in the field! Each sequence starts with the same three obstacles in the same order- tunnel, tunnel, panel jump. From there I changed it up! The first time we kept running a straight flowing line to the teeter and an ending jump. The second time we went from the panel to the weave poles, then the double and a really far send out to the tire (out of frame unfortunately) and she nailed it! Then we did the same sequence as the first time, but I asked her to turn on the jump before the teeter, bringing her to another jump and then the weave poles going in the opposite direction, jump, ending on the tunnel. The first time she had to come to a screeching halt and barely avoided touching the teeter. The second time, I did a front instead of a blind and though her turn was still wide she ran the sequence much better. Will have to practice doing a soft turn (her “dig dig dig” cue) while running full out! But overall she did so super good! Was also happy to see that after not seeing a broad jump in a hot minute, she flew right over it without a care. Good girlie! #agilitywhippet #whippetsofinstagram #sighthoundsofinstagram #agilitytraining #agilitydog

Rip the terrier mix working on some focused heeling and down stays this morning! It’s a beautiful day to get out and train your dog 😉 #dogtrainingreel #dogtrainer #heeling #dogobediencetraining #neverspark

Molly the lab mix working on polite greetings! We started by playing the “up & down” pattern game so she wasn’t so fixated on me before moving on to a couple of drive by greetings. Drive by greetings are fabulous for managing a dog’s excitement greeting guests, and also teaching a dog how to approach people with their sides rather than head on. Dogs are much more likely to jump up if the charge head first for the guest rather than approaching with their side and leaning in for some pets. And of course we have her on a leash too for an extra layer of management to prevent unwanted behaviors. Great job, Molly & dad James! #politegreetings #fouronthefloor #dogtrainingreel #labmixesofinstagram

Skye is here for a Stay & Train to work on her reactivity towards other dogs. The first order of business was introducing her to her new housemates. Since she’s never lived with other dogs before, and she has a limited social history with other dogs, my main goal for the first day is counterconditioning & desensitization to the fact that other dogs were going to be inside four walls with her. Thankfully Chester & Melody basically just ignore other dogs in the house, so that took a lot of pressure off of Skye. I’d say it’s going well so far, wouldn’t you?

I have been TERRIBLE about recording client sessions lately 😞 so here’s a clip of part of the course Chester & I did in our Wednesday morning rally class today! He’s the bestest boy ever 🧡 #rally #rallyobedience #goldenretriever #dogtraining #dogsports #sportdog #dogreel #connecticut

A clip from a training field trip with Stella! Full video on YouTube! #dogtraining #dogtrainingtips

Stella’s first field trip! I opted for Tractor Supply for a few reasons. 1) it was a million degrees out so we needed somewhere with air conditioning 2) she’s a little stressed being crated in the car so I wanted to go somewhere close by and 3) this particular store is usually pretty quiet, so minimal people & dog distractions. Stella was super nervous, so we spent about 10 minutes just doing some acclimation- allowing her to walk around and check stuff out without me asking her to do anything specific. I wasn’t sure she’d be able to respond anyway, so no point asking for things that I she might not be capable of doing. After about 10 minutes we found a quiet spot to do a little bit of stimulus-stimulus pairing with strange sights and sounds. Every time she took note of something interesting, she got a cookie. She quickly patterned to look at me after looking at a distraction, so then we moved into some “Find It” so I could start marking and rewarding the specific behavior of looking at me. Then we did a little “Moving Find It” which is essentially Leslie McDevitt’s Super Bowls game (but minus the bowls) to work on a little bit of focused heeling. We worked for about five minutes, and then we left! It’s so important to end training sessions, including field trips, while the dog is still successful. I want the last thing the dog does, to be the best version of that thing. I never want to end with the dog getting it wrong, or checking out because they’re tired or overstimulated. She was still happily working with me, so we stopped! Over the next couple weeks she’ll get more practice working with me in new places, and will be able to work longer and longer each time. Provided, of course, it’s not 12 bajillion degrees outside and we both don’t pass out from heat exhaustion 😅 #boardandtrain #pittiemix #bullybreedmix #superbowls #patterngames #positivereinforcementdogtraining

Reactive Dog in Recovery Jack getting some more practice in seeing dogs walk by his house without getting worked up. He’s doing so well! Jack’s parents commented that they never hang out in the front yard, only the back yard. So this set up we did isn’t something they’ll ever do in real life. But we’re practicing this because I like to take the concept of “train harder than what you’ll see in competition” and apply it to real life. From the back yard, Jack has a lot more visual barriers (the neighbors’ houses, trees, cars parked on the street, etc) or break up how long he can see another dog for, plus he’s also much farther away when in the back yard versus the front. But! If Jack can be in the front yard where he can see the dog for longer periods of time AND he’s closer to where the other dog is, then doing the same thing in the back yard will be a piece of cake. Can you think of any other real life applications for this concept? 🤔 And huge thanks to my sister for handling Melody for this exercise! #reactivedogtraining #terriermix #dogtraining #behaviormodification #positivereinforcementdogtraining #classicalconditioning #engagedisengage #forcefreetraining