Breaking ground on the trng bldg!
We’re breaking through- literally! 😅 (see today’s story!) I could not be happier. With last night’s warmer temps, the concrete blankets and a change of plans, we’re digging holes and setting posts today! Hallelujah! 🤩 As long as the weather holds up for us, we’ll be getting in a lot of work this week. 😃 -Amy
Beginning Canine Fitness Class 🎓 Grads!
Congratulations to our first group of VK9 Canine Fitness Graduates! 👏🏻
I had SO MUCH fun 🤩 working with this amazing group of dogs and owners! They all made tremendous progress over the past 5️⃣ weeks 🥰enhancing the communication and relationship with their dogs 🐕 as well as building their dog’s flexibility, strength and balance!
- Samantha
Sunday Graduated! 🎓
It has been so fun to be a part of this special dog’s journey over the past three weeks! 🥰
Through the ✨VK9 Method✨ Sunday 🐕 graduated today with a:
✔️newfound confidence
✔️impulse control
✔️manners
✔️solid on-leash obedience AND off-leash recall
✔️ neutral and engaged around her former triggers of reactivity
Prior to training, Sunday struggled with anxiety and reactivity. On the training wish 🧞♂️list, the Johnson’s hoped to be able to run 🏃🏼♀️ with Sunday, walk her 🙌🏻 on a loose leash and to be reliable off leash for 🏔hiking.
🤩 I’m excited for her owners to now enjoy their life with Sunday 🐕 to the fullest!
- Samantha
Rescue dog’s first snow! ❄️ /
Check 🥰 out rescue dog and gun-shot survivor, Sunday, the husky mix 🐕 enjoying her first time in the snow! ❄️
Although I’m not 😭 ready for snow in November, it’s made my day to see her so happy! 👏🏻 All three dogs in this 🎥 video are current board and trains who prior to training, were not 🚫 trusted off leash….
one of my favorite things as a trainer is to help dogs earn their off leash 🤩 freedom so that they can enjoy things like this. 💙 
- Samantha
Sienna dropped in for a Play for the Day! 🐾 She had so much fun adventuring and playing! She went home exhausted. 😴
Have a busy day? We’ll take your pup for you! They’ll get the exercise and potty breaks that they need, and you’ll know that they are in great hands! 🙌🏻
- Taya
Graduate Lesson with Lexi 🐕
Board and Train 🎓 alumni, Lexi and her owner, Zach, wanted to do a Graduate Lesson to work on building Lexi’s confidence around the 📣 noises of Downtown Boise and with dogs.
Check 👀 out Havok, my current ✨Behavioral Modification Board and Train✨ - in training for severe💥dog reactivity, being completely 🧘🏼♀️calm and neutral while assisting me throughout this lesson! 👏🏻 He graduates 🎓 this weekend! 🤩
- Samantha
Reactive & anxious to Neutral & confident 🤩
We met Remi 🐕 for a behavioral consultation 8 months ago. This sweet 🥰 girl had been rescued from a puppy mill, she’d been a breeding dog. 😔 She was anxious, shut down, her skin & coat a mess, she was out of shape and impossible to walk in public due to her severe leash 💥 reactivity.
‼️Before training, Remi was so anxious and fearful in public and around dogs that she could not offer eye 👀 contact, she wouldn’t take 🥩 food and she could not stop vocalizing. ‼️
Her owners signed her up for our ✨Gold Private Lesson Package✨with the focus of building Remi’s confidence and obedience and resolving her reactivity to dogs.
Over the past 8️⃣ months, Natalie has:
✅ put in an incredible amount of time, energy and effort into Remi’s weekly homework
✅ put Remi on a balanced raw diet which resolved her skin & coat issues! 😍
✅ slowly increased Remi’s endurance and exercise to get her into shape! Remi can now easily jump in/out of the car and change obedience positions with ease
✅ attended all of the Valor K9 Pack Walks
✅ had Remi do a dog socialization ✨Stay and Play✨
⏩ Fast forward to last night, Remi’s 🎓 graduation lesson!
I brought 4 dogs 🐕 to our last Private Lesson to put Remi & Natalie to the 👩🏼🏫 test! We practiced Remi’s ✅ obedience, ✅ leash manners, ✅ off leash recall AND ✅ passing dogs in CLOSE proximity.
💗 Remi was calm & relaxed, engaged with Natalie, taking food rewards and confident enough to be in close proximity to these dogs she had never met.💗
I’m beyond proud of this team! 😍 Natalie has been such a fun client to work with… I can’t thank her enough for her trust, hard work and dedication. It was incredibly heart ♥️ warming to be a part of Remi’s transformation!
- Samantha
Holiday🇺🇸Idea: Turn your dog’s meal into a 🧊frozen treat!
🇺🇸 Fourth of July is often a 😖 rough weekend for many dogs,🐕 so I thought I’d share what I’m doing for my ✨Stay and Play✨ guests! 👉🏻They’ll be getting their meals in the form of these yummy 🙌🏻and healthy 🧊frozen treats on Place Command or in their Crate. 😊
This is a great way to work your dog’s brain and help them stay calm around 🎆loud noises, 🏕while camping or while your dog is crated is to utilize their meals!🤩
Here is our recipe for a healthy balanced meal turned into a frozen treat! Recipe 👇🏻 below!
STEP 1️⃣: Patriotic 🇺🇸 Treat Topper
✅ Blend/Purée Whole Strawberries
✅ Plain Non-fat Greek Yogurt
✅ Whole Blueberries
💡BONUS: Add K9 CBD to this mixture if your dog struggles around this holiday!
🔥 Fill your molds 1/2 way with yogurt and then add the strawberry purée & top with blueberries! 🧊 FREEZE until ready to use!
STEP 2️⃣: Turn your dog’s meal into frozen treat!
✅ In a bowl, mix your dog’s kibble + dehydrated raw + bone broth + H2O
✅ Let soak for 15 - 20 minutes! The soggier the kibble, the better!
✅ Stuff your dog’s toy! We 💙 @westpawus @kongcompany @mywoof and @nylabone toys for this!
✅ Use pumpkin 🎃 purée or more yogurt to seal the kibble! BONUS: for added difficulty, layer your pumpkin or yogurt with the kibble mixture!
✅ Add your patriotic treat topper
✅ 🧊 FREEZE until ready to serve!
COMMENT BELOW & give us your dog’s review of this recipe! 😍
- Samantha
⚠️ Littermate Syndrome ⚠️
Meet littermates, Bucky & Maui 🐩 These two standard poodles are 7 months old and just arrived for a ✨2️⃣-Week Custom Board and Train✨
Both dogs are super sweet and eager to please. However, 🚫 not knowing any better, their owners have allowed them to be together 💯 percent of the time since arriving home 🏠 five months ago.
Bucky & Maui are now 🆘 inseparable and both severely lacking confidence… they haven’t been socialized or exposed to much until now so they are ‼️completely dependent on one another.
🎥 This video clip is of the day they arrived AND the first time 👆🏻they have been ↔️ separated. Maui 🐩 is in the car crate barking and Bucky 🐩 is totally stressed - drooling, tail tucked and pulling to get back to Maui.
Over the next two weeks, we are hitting the 💫reset button to implement much needed structure, confidence building and impulse control. We will:
✅ Crate train them separately
✅ Teach and implement AODN & Place Command
✅ Lots of confidence building and socialization individually
✅ Build their human engagement & overall motivation in training
✅ Shape their on-leash manners and obedience
👉🏻 Post Board and Train we’ll be doing ✨Private Lessons✨ with their family to continue Bucky & Maui’s training individually and creating ⚖️ balance with them together. 🙌🏻
It’s only been two days and they’re already making positive strides to a calmer state of mind! Stay tuned to see their progress! 🥰
- Samantha
Xena is excited to be back! 😃
Xena 🎓 graduated from our ✨Reactive Rover Custom Board and Train✨ last year and is back 💃🏼 for 👌🏻continuing training while her owners are on vacation!
Xena 🐕 is the perfect example of how 🥰amazing dogs are… she was run over 😖 by a car as a puppy 🐶 and left for dead. 👉🏻 She was taken in by a rescue who paid for surgery to repair her broken leg and was later adopted by her current owners. As you can see by this 🎥 clip, she is just a happy girl who is unaffected by her past!
The Walters came to✨Valor K9✨ to help resolve her dog 💥 reactivity and to solidify her overall obedience on and off leash. Since graduating, she has been loving hiking off leash in the 📍Boise foothills and her owners love that she’s able to be neutral and reliable. 🤩
Over the next 3️⃣ weeks, we’ll be:
✅ doing some refresher training for her Place Command
✅ going on 🚘 field trips to practice her public manners and obedience
✅ teaching her an Off Leash Heel! 👏🏻
✅ continuing structured socialization with balanced 🐕dogs
Xena is the sweetest dog, I’m excited to have her back! And we love 💕loyal clients!
- Samantha
Proofing Off-leash Recall 🤩
Wesley, 🐕 the Golden Retriever, and his brother Auggie, a frenchie, completed their 5️⃣th ✨Private Lesson✨ yesterday!
Their owner 🥰 loves the outdoors, so a big 💪🏻 training goal of hers is to be able to hike 🥾 with Wesley off leash! After shaping Wesley’s recall with positive reinforcement, we then layered in a remote collar to proof 👌🏻 his off leash recall and obedience.
Yesterday was his first day practicing truly off leash recall and obedience and check 😎 out the speed in his call away! 👏🏻
With Wesley 🐕 being a super social and confident Golden Retriever, 👉🏻 we practiced his off leash manners, meaning ✅ neutrality around my personal dogs and ✅ call aways from humans and he was a total 🌟 rockstar!
For our next lesson, we are going to hit a dog friendly trail to practice his manners in real life scenarios!
- Samantha
Welcome Sable’s sister, Seabee. 👋
This lady😌 is here for a lot of the same reasons as Sable, however, she does have a few differences🤨.
Both came in fearful and reactive. Sable was nervous but never acted 🎬 on her fear, Seabee on the other hand has😬. She has bit her owner a couple times, and has tried biting other dogs (including Toby, as you see in the video).
Seabee will be here for 5️⃣ Weeks to help her become a much more confident neutral dog🥰, and to gain a solid understanding 🤓 of basic obedience and off leash recall training📢.
Stay tuned to see 👀 her progress!
-Jenna
Have you seen 👀 Sable's transformation?
Check out this video from Instagram to see how far she came in 5️⃣ Weeks!🐾
Fun fact, it has over 13k views now!🤯
-Jenna
Boone, Board and Train Alumni, is here for a Week long Stay and Play while his owners are in Hawaii!🌴
He is so much fun to have and blends right in with the pack.🥰
-Jenna
Happy National Puppy Day from all of us here at Valor K9 Acacemy! 🎉 Fletcher says he hopes your day is filled with puppy breath and belly rubs. 🐾
Freckle is doing so well with her retrieval task! 🎉  She’s less than halfway through her private lesson program and is already generalizing the behavior to new and random objects! ✏️ 🧤 👜
One of Freckle’s handlers is a wheelchair user. 🦼 Freckle is learning how to pick up and retrieve items for her to have a clear space to use her wheelchair around the home 🏡 and to retrieve important items for her.
Training service dogs is truly my passion, and I’ve loved working with Freckle and her dedicated family! 💜
- Taya
✨Client Updates are the best!✨
Check 👀 out this clip 🎥 of Jazzy the “Whoodle” doing amazing 🤩 in agility!! 👏🏻
Nothing makes my day like getting updates from clients! 🥰 Jazzy is a Puppy Head Start Board and Train 🎓 alumni; and she is now a regular 🐶Stay and Play guest!
She is a very high ⚡️energy dog so, during training, we discussed with her owners several ways to help meet Jazzy’s daily ✅mental and ✅ physical exercise needs. Signing up for agility class was one of the recommendations because Jazzy 🐕 loved all of my at-home 🏡 agility equipment.
It makes me so happy 😃 to see her living her best life and having loads of fun with her rockstar 😍 owners!
- Samantha
Confidence Building with a Teeter 🐾
Check out 🐶Francis the doodle puppy and his owner working together as a team to introduce Francis to a teeter! 🤩
Exposing your dog to new objects is a great way 👌🏻 to build their ✅ overall confidence and ✅ their trust in your leadership! 😍 For each of Francis’ ✨Private Lessons✨ I bring new obstacle or Fitpaws object to expose Francis too and it’s been his favorite training exercise every lesson! 👏🏻
I love that in this 🎥 clip, you see Francis initially hesitate to put his back paws 🐾 on the teeter but he checks in with his owner and follows his food lure. 🐕
- Samantha
