SpiritDog Training

26/08/2024

11/07/2024

All dogs are born with front dewclaws (and some with rear dewclaws - both “single” or double dewclaws). Some breeders choose to remove them early after birth … others leave them!

If your dog has dewclaws, make sure to trim them regularly. If we don’t trim them, they will grow very long and can get caught - which will lead to a painful injury for your dog 🤕

I trim my dogs’ dewclaws every week, when I also trim their other nails!

Does your dog have dewclaws? If so, how many (just front or also back)? And do you include them into your grooming routine?

26/06/2024

Struggling to keep your dog cool in the current heat wave? 🥵

Here are 5 fun and enriching activities that let you stay out of the heat and entertain your pup!

Which one is your favorite?

12/06/2024

Yesterday I taught what easily qualifies as the worst webinar of my life.

Everything that possibly could have gone wrong, went wrong. Errors with my mic. A million Zoom errors. Shaky internet connection. Error messages that I had not even ever seen before.

So there I was, frantically trying to fix everything while feeling gutted to keep my 200 students waiting and wasting their time. I wanted a hole in the ground to open and swallow me.

Mind you, I have done hundreds of Zoom calls, webinars, student calls over the years … I know how to do this. Until I suddenly had no idea how to manage all these new problems.

Which actually is a lot like … dog training.

A lot of my students tell me that they had dogs in the past that were easy-going dogs. They didn’t have issues, and life with them was a joy.

Until … They got a dog that CHANGED everything.

That one dog who suddenly was really reactive, or way too hyper, or had behavioral problems that they hadn’t even heard of before! (Just like me and my Zoom errors)

That is SCARY. That is totally novel, uncharted territory to navigate. And there will probably (naturally!) be quite a bit of failing involved (like every time we do a new thing).

Last night, while I was desperately trying to solve my tech issues I thought:
“I don’t know if I will be successful. Possibly not. The only thing I can do is try my best right now.”

And that’s exactly what I want to tell you if you currently live with a dog who is much more challenging than any dog you had before …

Just try your best. 🫶

After all, that’s all you really have control over.
You don’t have control over when exactly your dog will stop being reactive. But you DO have control over what YOU do.

So the next time you are struggling with your dog, or you feel hopeless about training … Just remember: Try your best. That is enough ♥️

Have you ever had a dog that changed everything … that was completely different than any you had before?

29/05/2024

The other week I received an email from the owner of a reactive dog who told me:

“I am scared, but I try to be brave and take him on walks …”

Reading the email I could really feel her worry and conflict - I wrote back and told her that there was NO reason to *be brave* in dog training.

I am sure she had heard sayings like these before:

😒 “If you are anxious, your dog will be anxious”
😒 “Dogs are reactive because their owners are not confident enough”
😒 “Your dog will feed off your energy”

This is so dangerous and stupid … because it implies that if the human only was a bit more daring, the dog would do much better (NOT TRUE).

And it leads to humans trying to “be brave”, and putting their reactive dogs into situations that are way too challenging, and escalating and potentially even hurting others in the process.

Let me be very clear:
🙅🏻‍♀️ Your dog will not become less reactive by you not worrying about their responses
And “Being brave” is never required in training!

IF you are worried about any specific part of training, you should LISTEN to that worry. Because there probably is a good reason for it.
Don't push through and disregard it ... you know your own dog and their behavior best.

Training should be safe and NOT stressful for you and your dog. If any trainer gives you instructions that make you worry about training, walk away 🚩

A good trainer will ALWAYS make you and your dog comfortable 🫶