Northshore Canine Academy

22/11/2024

Hello you little ray of sunshine! 😍

Meet Charlie! Charlie is here for 2 week boarded training!

He's happy it's Friday!

21/11/2024

😳

All my Border Collie owners...yall doing okay? Yall have some intense dogs. 🤣🤪

20/11/2024

Is this not the most handsome boy?! 😍

Introducing Max, an 80lb Cane Corso puppy, who is here for boarded training!

He is here for pulling on the leash (and as you can imagine, he's very strong) and not responding to commands when on leash or off.

We're super glad we got him in now, because we are 99% sure he's in his second fear period and we are thrilled to be able to help him through it! When we can catch them in their fear periods, we are able to set a beautiful foundation for life moving forward!

Stay tuned!

20/11/2024

Hey Harley, I see you rocking it! 😍

20/11/2024

Last night, I came across an unfortunate posting where an owner alleged a dog trainer in Alabama starved her dog to death.

I started reading some of the comments and they just really bashed boarded training. Crap like this gives boarded training a bad name overall.

I do not know the dog from Alabama, nor the trainer, so it's not my place to speak on that. But as a company that specializes in boarded training, I felt it my place to stand up and defend the ones of us who do it correctly.

Is everything always perfect? No. If there's an illness, we notify immediately. If their dog isn't eating, we notify immediately. If their dog needs anything, like a bed, more food or different treats, we notify the owner. If there's a concern that warrants a vet visit, we go immediately and notify on the way. Our local vets know us and we have clearance in most cases, to just get there and they'll take us immediately. That's how this is supposed to be done.

I was told pictures and video updates should be sent daily, people should be allowed to randomly drop in to check progress, blah blah. Give me a break. You don't randomly drop in to your doctor's surgery room just to check progress on an on-going surgery. Their reputation and reviews speak for themselves.

Here's the comments. People seem to think we are just sitting around petting puppies all day instead of actually working.

But one thing I am very certain of - our paying clients with dogs in our care, particularly the dangerous ones, are very thankful for our closed door/appointment only policy. They don't want random strangers around their dogs, and neither do we.

Our reputation is solid - we are even in the wills of several of our owners and should they pass, we are to care for their animals. I've had a client who was in the hospital and needed someone to get their dog literally call and ask me to go hop their fence and go inside. I've been given house keys for people in the event of an emergency to get their animals for them. We've had people drive to us in the middle of the night to drop their dogs off because an emergency is happening with a family member. Etc. We've built the reputation and relationships in this community based on trust and defending it on social media from things like this is getting old.

Getting very sick of that.

19/11/2024

Bonnie graduates today!

Here's her "Most likely to..." award!

🤣

18/11/2024

Good Monday Morning!

Today is graduation day for Francesca!

Here's her "Most Likely To" award 🤣

17/11/2024

This rambling on is a classic example of what we tell people NOT to do.

Besides simply being obnoxious, it would be much easier to mark simply, "good" or "no" accordingly.

Dogs don't understand "make a good choice please, not the bike lane".

If you keep your markers clear and consistent, this dog would learn much quicker. "Good" for what you like, "no" for what you don't, and leave it at that.

Otherwise all she hears is "blah blah blah noooo, Maggie, blah blah blah."

Essentially it'd be the same as someone talking to you in another language you don't know, but you pickup keywords like your name.

This is what your dogs hear when you ramble on in run-on sentences. So many trainers do this, and it's terrible quality training, yet you still pay for it. 🤦‍♀️

17/11/2024

Sharing this again.

Good dog training isn't cheap.

Cheap dog training isn't good.

Choose your dog's future wisely.

I clicked on an article that was about businesses you can start for less than $1000. Curiosity got me.

What gets me more, is this crap.

The world, including new "trainers" in and around our area, has figured out that you can make a few thousand dollars per month by keeping dogs in home for training, or by teaching private lessons. They think they can do less than half the work of their desk job and make the same amount or more, by training two or three dogs per month. Because they "like dogs!" and "have always owned dogs!" themselves.

Folks, this creates a HUGE problem.

This means that there are uneducated individuals out there who have no formal education or experience, who are charging you money to "train" your dog.

Fact - anyone can watch a YouTube video and learn how to teach a dog to sit or down. If that's the level of training you want, why not Google it and do it yourself for free?

But the level of skill and experience it takes to do anything beyond that - where you're dealing classical conditioning, operant conditioning, tools, pressure systems, markers, handling different personalities and temperaments, working different drive levels daily, PLUS how to handle and effectively teach clients, requires MUCH MORE than what these these individuals make you believe or even know themselves!

This is extremely disturbing! Dog owners are going to see the new trainers lower prices and assume that the services are of the same quality. That doesn't bother me. What bothers me, is that they are dealing with a living, breathing, thinking animal that they could very well, completely screw up permanently. Lack of education can cause fear, anxiety and aggression. Lack of education implements ineffective training techniques, methods and tools that fail to work causing the owners to seek more training in the future, or make a decision to end a dog's life.

If you run across a deal that seems too good to be true like " I can train your dog for 1 month for only $750 when the competition is charging double!" you better ask the hard questions! If your questioning can't be answered immediately or don't make sense to you, run.

Because what happens, and we've seen it in more cases than we count count, is that owners go through a training service that screws up the dog for a little bit of money, then they come to us to fix it. We have way more layers of an onion to tackle at that point to fix, if fixable, and the owners are out the same amount of money if not more, than they didn't want to spend to begin with.

This isn't trying to scare you, this is true. We've had one dog that went through 6 different boarded trainings before coming here, one dog that went through a local trainer who told the owners the dog was useless and to euthanize, one dog that went through training for a month and was handed a leash and good luck at the end instead of a session....you name it, we've seen it.

Please do your research.

And no, you can't start a legit dog training business for $340.00. Your qualifications, education, and personal financial investment alone easily are that amount times 100. Shoot, our contract alone was several thousands.

🤮🤢😡

17/11/2024

Throw back to that one time we trained a feral dog from the Exclusion Zone of Chernobyl!

Katya came in literally feral. Prior to being collected from Chernobyl and tested for radioactivity, she had zero human contact. She was then shipped into the USA at hopes for a better life.

Many of the domestic dogs at Chernobyl have bred with wolves and coyotes, producing hybrid, wild offspring, so her DNA was likely very interesting.

The dogs that remain there have to rely on instincts to hunt for food and seek shelter to survive the harsh Ukrainian climates, especially in the winter. It's very sad...

Katya lived in a very "wild" state of mind, trusted nobody or nothing, and relied heavily on instincts for what she perceived as her own survival. It took us a few weeks to really make a difference.

What a wonderful experience it was to work with such an amazing animal!

16/11/2024

Received this from Watson's mom! We LOVE getting messages like this! 🩵🩵🩵 Watson was here for Behavior Modification! This is exactly why we do what we do - this is what it's all about. Two dogs kept safe and a confident owner!

" ...we had a teeny tiny chiweenie looking dog come BOLTING at us. I put watson behind me so fast and picked that tiny dog up. The owner ran across the street and apologized probably 10 times.

Don't worry, she was reminded of leash laws over here and that not all dogs being walked are friendly with other dogs. 🙃

Watson didn't have a care in the world though. Literally just stayed behind me the whole time. I really wish I had it on video because at one point he had no care for what was happening. Literally just sat there and waited like the best boy. But the muzzle being on him gave me the confidence to handle the situation appropriately and not immediately stress out and panic.

So thank you again for the 10000000th time. I'm constantly building my confidence with handling him and in him every single day 💕"

15/11/2024

"The dog's tail is wagging, so that must mean it's happy!"

WRONG!

We hear that SO OFTEN, and we always tell everyone it's WRONG and DANGEROUS to think that way!

A dog's tail will wag when it's happy, when it's scared, or even when it's about to attack!

You have to watch the height of the tail and the speed of the wag to determine intentions.

Watch Sassy's tail very closely. This is the classic "flag" we preach so much about. Then it goes right back to her normal wag.

Learn to read your dogs!

15/11/2024

NEW PROGRAM ALERT!

💥 Elite Complete 💥

Elite Complete is our phenomenal Complete Obedience program but taken a step further with public proofing!

You're only 4 weeks away from a fantastic dog!

Call NCA today!
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Harlee Quinn and Harley Quinn are in our Elite Complete program and are proofing in public today for their 4th day out!