We consider a dog trained to do a behavior when they will do it anywhere, at any time, the first time you ask, and around any distractions. If you have to ask your dog multiple times to do something, if he only does it when he isn’t distracted, if he only does it when he feels like it, etc., then your dog is not trained to do that behavior. Here you see Flynn responding promptly to his owner the first time when she asks him to do something. This is what your dog’s responses should look like regardless of the amount of distractions around. Contact us today to learn more!
No matter what size dog you have, we are happy to work with you. We don't discriminate based on size, breed, behavior problem, etc. If you are having a behavioral problem with your dog that is making your life difficult or would just like a better relationship with your dog in general, contact us today and let us help you return your relationship with your dog to one of harmony and peace!
When working with your dog, it is important to remember that you are a human, and your dog is a dog. Now, this might seem like common sense, however, lots of people seems to forget this and process their dog’s behavior as if they are a person and communicate with them as if they are human. So, when you are working with your dog, remember that you need to process your dog’s behavior how another dog would see it, and when you communicate them, you need to communicate with your dog in a way that they actually understand. Because treating your dog like a little furry person isn’t going to help either of you.
Do you have a dog you need help with? Whether it’s puppy issues, generally not listening well, or more serious behavioral issues such as aggression or reactivity, we have over a decade of experience helping dogs of all breeds and behavioral issues live more harmoniously with their owners. Contact us today to schedule your free phone consultation!
If you want to be successful training your dog, there are two key things, that have to happen on a big picture level:
1. Your dog has to put effort in and be motivated to do what you’re asking. Because if your dog isn’t putting effort in you won’t get very far!
2. You also need to be able to communicate clearly and effectively with your dog. Even if your dog is putting effort in, if your dog doesn’t understand what you are asking or trying to communicate with them, it still isn’t going to go very well.
Now, when you think about that, once you have your dog putting effort in and you are able to communicate clearly and effectively though, being successful is really pretty straightforward.
If you are having a behavioral problem with your dog that is making your life difficult, let us help you create a relationship of harmony and peace with your dog. We have over a decade of experience helping dogs of all breeds and behavioral issues live more harmoniously with their owners. Contact us today to schedule your free phone consultation!
Meet Armani!
Meet Armani! Armani is a 7 month old Wooly Husky that came to us primarily for issues with separation anxiety (particularly when being left), as well as pulling on the leash, jumping, and peeing when excited. His owners also want him to be reliable off leash.
This clip is from Armani’s second lesson with us. Notice how he is already willing to follow his owners and is therefore acknowledging that he sees them as his leader. As we have discussed before in previous posts, your dog being willing to follow you (and in turn acknowledge that you are their leader) is essential to your success.
We have over a decade of experience helping dogs of all breeds and behavioral issues live more harmoniously with their owners. Whether you have a dog with more serious issues such as aggression, reactivity, or anxiety, or more minor behavioral issues, we’d love to help you navigate them. Contact us today to schedule your free phone consultation!
Meet Armani! Armani is a 7 month old Wooly Husky that came to us primarily for issues with separation anxiety (particularly when being left), as well as pulling on the leash, jumping, and peeing when excited. His owners also want him to be reliable off leash. We look forward to seeing all that Armani and his owners accomplish!
This clip is from Armani’s second lesson with us. Notice how he is already willing to follow his owners and is therefore acknowledging that he sees them as his leader. As we have discussed before in previous posts, your dog being willing to follow you (and in turn acknowledge that you are their leader) is essential to your success.
We have over a decade of experience helping dogs of all breeds and behavioral issues live more harmoniously with their owners. Whether you have a dog with more serious issues such as aggression, reactivity, or anxiety, or more minor behavioral issues, we’d love to help you navigate them. Contact us today to schedule your free phone consultation!
Merry Christmas from our pack to yours!
If you go through the training program that our Founder/Head Trainer, Matt, created, you will find that we talk about something called Relational Behaviors quite a bit. Relational Behaviors are essentially primal behaviors that, in nature, any more dominant dog can get any less dominate dog to do quite easily… but the reverse would not be true. The good news is, that on a foundational level, there are really only six core Relational Behaviors, which isn’t that many. Now, if you think about that, if you are able to get your dog to do these six core Relational Behaviors for you, your dog is essentially acknowledging “I believe you, I trust you, I respect you…. Let’s work together - I can follow you.” BUT, if you can’t get your dog to do those behaviors for you… That’s them essentially acknowledging that they don’t really view you as someone they are willing to work together with or follow, and it’s probably not going to go very well.
Do you have a dog you struggle with? We have over a decade of experience helping dogs of all breeds and behavioral issues live more harmoniously with their owners. Contact us today to schedule your free phone consultation!
Meet Otis! Otis is a Husky/Chow Chow/Heeler mix that came to us primarily for issues with anxiety and reactivity as well as some more minor behavioral issues such as pulling on the leash and not having good recall. In the past Otis has bitten guests coming in the house.
Having your dog's focus is essential to communicating with your dog. Without it, you won't be able to make progress on much else. This clip is from Otis’ first lesson with us. You can see how he is already prioritizing focusing on his owner, which is a huge step in the right direction. They’re off to a great start, and we look forward to seeing all that Otis and his owner accomplish!
We have over a decade of experience helping dogs of all breeds and behavioral issues live more harmoniously with their owners. Whether you have a dog with more serious issues such as aggression, reactivity, or anxiety, or more minor behavioral issues, we’d love to help you navigate them. Contact us today to schedule your free phone consultation!
What does it mean to take a natural approach to dog training? If you look at natural communication with dogs (how they communicate with each other), you will see that they use four primary forms of communication in this exact order:
- Energy
- Body Language
- Touch
- Sound
Notice that sound is listed last among these. So, when we use sound as our primary form of communication with our dogs (talking, yelling, telling them what to do verbally, etc), this doesn’t naturally make much sense to your them. That being said, verbal cues can be great, and you can absolutely use verbal markers and commands successfully.... Once you can communicate with your dog through energy, body language, and touch, you can use that form of communication to teach your dog what the verbal markers and commands mean.
If you are having a behavioral problem with your dog that is making your life difficult, let us help you return your relationship with your dog to one of harmony and peace. We have over a decade of experience helping dogs of all breeds and behavioral issues live more harmoniously with their owners. Contact us today to schedule your free phone consultation!
A common misconception when working with anxious dogs is that you can’t be firm with them. While this is a totally understandable thought process, in reality, working with an anxious dog is similar to white noise. If you are talking to someone in an environment with lots of white noise, you will have to raise your voice for them to be able to hear you clearly. Anxiety in your dog is like white noise, so if you want your dog to be able to “hear” you on top of their anxiety, you will need to be “louder” when asking them to do things. This way they will be able to prioritize you over their anxiety.
Do you have an anxious dog that you need help with? We have over a decade of experience helping dogs of all breeds and behavioral issues live more harmoniously with their owners. Contact us today to schedule your free phone consultation!
If you have an anxious, nervous, unconfident dog, building their confidence is something you should be focusing on. One thing you can do to help build your dog's confidence is to have them get on small, slightly unstable, or oddly shaped objects that they are a little nervous about at first. By having your dog learn to climb on these objects, stay there for a short time, and climb back off again until they are used to it and doing it willingly, they learn that the fear they had of getting on the given object was unfounded. By repeating this with several different objects, your dog starts to learn that a lot of their fears are unfounded and that if they trust you, everything will be okay. 🐶 Do you have a dog you need help with? We have over a decade of experience helping dogs of all breeds and behavioral issues live more harmoniously with their owners. Contact us today to schedule your free phone consultation!
Here is one of our trainers, Lisa, and her twin daughters on a pack walk. They are learning how to be pack leaders early! 🐶 Would you be comfortable walking your dog(s) with children in tow? Whether it be a pulling issue while walking, agression issues, anxiety, reactive, etc., we have over a decade of experience helping owners navigate to a more harmonious life with their pups. Contact us today to schedule your free phone consultation!
Tuesday Tip! Training your dog is a lifestyle, not an activity. Your dog should be responsible for his own behavior whether you are in an active training session or not. What you do with your dog when you aren’t in the middle of a training session is just as important as what you do with him when you are.
Do you have a dog you need help with? We have over a decade of experience helping dogs of all breeds and behavioral issues live more harmoniously with their owners. Contact us today to schedule your free phone consultation!
Every dog can learn to walk behind you and focus on you. This was just in the first few minutes walking with this dog. It doesn’t have to take forever. As his owners continue to work with him, the anxiety he came with will continue to go down and his confidence will continue to grow and it will look even better.
Good heeling requires more focus from your dog than almost any other activity. If you would like your dog to focus like this on you, contact us today to learn more!
This is a clip from Rosie’s last lesson. Rosie initially came to us for being anxious and reactive/aggressive towards people. Now she is much more relaxed and able to safely be off leash without a muzzle around people. We are so excited to see how far Rosie and her owner have come!!!
Tuesday Tip! If your dog has a high toy drive, playing with your dog can be an awesome source of motivation. Especially as you get to the proofing stage of training with your dog, you want training to be something he feels like he GETS to do rather than something he HAS to do. If you are successful with this, training should be something that your dog looks forward and enjoys doing. For example, someone watching you training your dog should have a hard time telling if you are training him or playing with him. Want to find out how to accomplish this? Contact us today to get started!
Tuesday Tip! Pressure motivates, release teaches. When you are asking your dog to do something, applying pressure is what motivates your dog to try, but it is the release of pressure that actually teaches your dog what you want. By getting the timing of your pressure and release in the right place, you can be effective with both motivating and teaching your dog relatively quickly.
This is Roxy, a 3 year old French Bulldog that came to us for issues with anxiety, aggression, and resource guarding. After only a few weeks of working with her, you can see how nicely her training is coming along! Roxy went from biting people before she came to us, to being a much more confident, happy dog that is becoming more and more reliable off leash. We are so proud of how far Roxy and her owners have come, and we can’t wait to see the final result!
Do you have a dog that is aggressive, fearful, and/or possessive of things? We can help! Contact us today for a free consultation!
Proofing is an important step in getting your dog reliable with both obedience commands and being responsible for their behavior in general. Practicing around various distractions allows you to challenge your dog and reinforces that you expect them to be responsible for their own behavior regardless of what is going on around them. Wherever you find yourself with your dog, they will still listen to you and obey you if they are well trained. You shouldn't have to worry about taking your dog into a new situation if you have a good relationship with them.
The pack never lies. They will tell you if you are really a good leader or not. If you would like to get results like this with your dog, contact us today!
