Iron Oak Dog Company

Pub Dog sessions focus on public access training in urban and indoor environments. Prior to attending these drop in sessions we set clients and dog up for success with drop in sessions focusing on manners/obedience, and confidence/environmentals in more controlled scenarios first.

Good +R functions a lot like -R. Whenever we are using any form of reinforcement, it has two polarities. Rewards (positive reinforcement) have gain and loss. Pressure (negative reinforcement) has comfort and discomfort. When a dog really wants/needs a reward, lack of access to it creates angst, especially when the dog connects their behavior to the loss of access to that reward. That angst is a form of mental discomfort that will only be resolved when they receive the reward. This is why high drive dogs (very operant, very motivated for rewards) often respond BETTER to LESS pressure and more manipulation of access to rewards, at least early on in the building of an exercise. They want the reward so bad they are willing to endure a lot of discomfort to get it. So instead of using the kind of reinforcement that they are very comfortable dealing with or pushing through (and having to use a lot of it)... use the one that they absolutely can't stand and have a lower threshold of tolerance for. Food is the most obvious example, as I discuss in this video. It's easy to manipulate reward value by withholding food for short periods to increase hunger. But dogs that are motivated for prey driven rewards (toys, birds, etc.) take losing access to those things very seriously so it works as a very powerful motivator to figure out what to do next time to make sure that the reward is realized. This is a clip from the first live session in our Trained Retrieve Virtual Group class. When the class is over, the recordings will be edited a bit and available as a self-paced online course.

Feather likes to start every retrieve session with a biiiiiiiiiiiig stretch 🤸‍♀️

'Scuse me lady...can you stop talking and get back to work?!'

Roosevelt is becoming quite tolerant of having his nails dremeled! He put up quite a fuss when he first arrived here, and if I remember correctly the groomer needed two helpers to get the job done. The most challenging part in today's session was keeping his curly coat from getting wrapped up in the Dremel. Sidenote: the whining is from another dog in the adjacent room. Roosevelt was quiet as a mouse!

Roosevelt is becoming quite tolerant of having his nails dremeled! He put up quite a fuss when he first arrived here, and if I remember correctly the groomer needed two helpers to get the job done. The most challenging part in today's session was keeping his curly coat from getting wrapped up in the Dremel. Edited to add: the whining is from another dog in the adjacent room. Roosevelt was quiet as a mouse!

A clip from Nate's seminar this past weekend!

We held our first Gun Dog drop in session last weekend. These sessions are open to all of our clients (companion dogs too!) as fundamental skills are similar for all training disciplines. We’re teaming up with our good friend @walkerwoods_the_human of Woods Family Dog Training to bring a bunch of group sessions to the clients of both of our companies taking place in a range of locations from Baltimore, MD, up the I-83 corridor, to York/Hanover/Gettysburg PA. We worked on directed movement (send aways and casting to remote locations), confidence on unstable surfaces (precursor to small watercraft), restrained recalls (first step to starting trailing exercises for SAR and/or dragged game retrieves), and a bit of live bird work with gunfire. We followed up with a Pub Dog session, and had brunch (and mojitos!) at one of my favorite dog-friendly spots since moving to south central PA, Greystone Brewhouse, in Dillsburg. #dogtraining #baltimoredogtraining #dogsofinstagram #obedience #verbandfürkleinemünsterländer #kleinemünsterländer #kleinemünsterlander #kleinermünsterländer #kleinermunsterlander #smallmunsterlander #jagdhunde #versatilehuntingdog #navhda #vddgna #klmgna #jgv #drahthaar #drahthaaraddiction #smallmunsterlandersofinstagram #smallmunsterlander #kleinermünsterländer #germanwirehairedpointer #retrievers #germanshorthairedpointer #pointingdogs #dogtraining #retrievertraining #gordonsetter #pitbull #austrailianshepherd #bordercollie #brittanyspaniel #australiancattledog