The Balanced Dog with Trainer Leah Will

15/11/2025

🌹 Rosie Update! 🐾
Where are my loving life single people?!? Or adventuring couple? This girl is SO much fun and would love a home to call her own for the holidays! 🏠 🥧🎄

Rosie is about a year old now. She is super smart and loves to keep busy.

🌲 She enjoys hikes and getting to smell and investigate new trails.

🎾 All the Balls!! This girl lives for tennis balls and will try to fit several in her mouth.

🍖 She is super food motivated and easy to teach new things.

🥰 Rosie LOVES to cuddle with you at the end of the day. No lap is safe in our house with Rosie around. lol

🐶 Loves playing with other dogs. She enjoys being chased and wrestling with other dogs. She can share toys and bones, but will sometimes try to take another dog’s toy to get them to chase her. She would enjoy a play buddy or two in her new home, but not required.

🚗 She is crate trained and housebroken. Rides well in a crate in the car. Still occasionally gets car sick, but continues to improve.

🐱 Does okay with cats, just wants to herd them. So, cats that are accustomed to living with dogs would be best for her.

👦🏻👧🏽She does well with kids, is a little too much for young children. However, Rosie is a very spunky and busy girl that is looking for a home that can continue to give her mental and physical outlets to keep her happy. So, a home where everyone is busy with kid’s schedules would not be a good fit for her.

✅ Fenced in yard highly recommended (no underground fencing please).

If interested in Roise you can fill out an Application with the Allegan County Animal Shelter.

Link:

https://www.allegancounty.org/departments/animal-shelter/adoption

14/11/2025

🤣 Friday Funny! 😆

Comic Credit: Theycantalk.com

13/11/2025

⭐️ Stage 1: Acquisition 📝

Acquisition by definition is the learning or developing of a skill, habit or quality.
(Oxford Languages Dictionary)

This is the first stage in learning, where the dog is introduced to the behaviors you would like them to learn.

This can be done through capturing or luring the dog to teach the behavior you are focusing on.

❓Capturing VS Luring❓

*Capturing a behavior is where you wait for the dog to offer the behavior on their own then mark and reward.

*Luring is where you use a treat or toy to prompt the dog into the desired position.

When you are in the Acquisition Stage your reward schedule for that behavior (or command) should be 💯 % of the time. So in other words, you want to mark the correct response and give your dog a reward immediately after EVERY single time.

This will help get you and your dog to the second stage quite quickly.

12/11/2025

Let’s talk about the 4 stages of learning.
🧠 🐾 🧠
I am going to spend the next few days discussing the 4 stages of learning.

This will give you a better understanding of what steps are involved when training your dog. And why training and obedience isn’t a one and done deal. 😊

11/11/2025

Book Recommendation: 📖 🐶

If you have a dog with a high prey/hunt drive this book is fabulous. ❤️

Hunting Together by Simone Mueller, is a great read and helps breakdown the predator sequence in our canine companions. It gives step by step training exercises to help you use your dog’s natural hunting desires in your favor, to get a better behaved dog. All while giving your dog an appropriate outlet for their prey/hunt drive.

Definitely worth the read.
The book is available on Amazon.com.

10/11/2025

🐶 Meet The Pack Monday! 🐶

💖 Wigeon 💖

Aka: WeeBoo, The Boops, Wiggie Piggie Baby, Princess Beautiful, Crotch Gremlin, Mama’s Little Angel….. and several others. lol

Breed: Chihuahua

I never thought I would own a Chihuahua. 😆 Wigeon came into my life because another rescue friend sent me a text about a woman looking to rehome her 14 month old Chihuahua. Wigeon was displaying quite a bit of aggression towards the family as well as people that would come over. So, I went out to evaluate her and ended up taking her home to work on her aggressive tendencies to get her ready for adoption.
On night 2, she crawled under the bed cover to snuggle with me and that was it! She wasn’t going anywhere. She turned 5 this year and we have had her 4 of those years.

Now I know why people have these little gremlins. 👹🤣 She is just the best little snuggle bug and loves going anywhere with me. Totally a spoiled little mama’s girl. I can’t imagine life without her. 😍🐾😍

08/11/2025

📹 Video Clip.

So, this is a short clip in real time of me allowing Rosie to sniff and investigate her surroundings, but still applying the do not pull on me rule.

🐾 Happy Sniffing!

Allowing your dog to sniff on a walk.

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

07/11/2025

🐾 Friday Funny 😆

06/11/2025

Pro Tip: 💡🐕
Let them sniff during walks.
You can still work on heel and other obedience commands, but make sure to give them time to investigate the environment with their nose. Dogs process the world through scent. So, by giving them time to sniff, you are giving them the ability to process what is going on around them. This is also an easy and great why to stimulate their brain and have them spend some mental energy.

🐕‍🦺 🐾🐾🐾🐾

04/11/2025

🤔The more you know….
Teaching your dog to “Greet”in a structured way can save you from some serious behavioral issues popping up down the road. This is an older video of Mille, one of my rehab dogs, working on building a structured way to meet people.

In this video I am working on teaching Millie (English Shepherd) to only approach and greet a person on command (Greet). Then move away when cued to do so. Millie would get over excited meeting people and then would become uncomfortable when she was too close to them. So, we taught her to only greet on command regardless of how close we were to the "new person" and then to back away or move out on command, if/when she started to feel uncomfortable.

Millie has since been adopted. ❤️🏠

In this video I am working on teaching Millie (English Shepherd) to only approach and greet a person on command (Greet). Then move away when cued to do so. M...

03/11/2025

Meet The Pack Monday!
💙 Ranger 💙

This boy right here is one of my heart dogs. Ranger was rescued as a puppy by rescue friends of mine and as soon as I saw his photo I knew that was my dog. lol He had my heart from the start and I am forever grateful to those that brought him into my life.

Ranger was such a scared pup when he came, however, with socialization, confidence building and training he has grown into a great dog. 🐾❤️ This boy has gone all over Michigan and surrounding states with me. He has been my go to demo dog, dog distraction dog and dog introduction buddy. Ranger has also helped with countless foster dogs and shelter dogs over the years.
He is the best and such a Mama’s boy.
Many of you that have done training with me have met Ranger. As he is starting to get older, I’m slowly moving him into retirement. I just can’t believe it’s been 9 years already. 😳