Telltail Dog Training

12/09/2025

Wednesdays, SoMa Animal Clinic
6 pm - 6:45 pm - Puppy Kindergarten
7 pm - 7:45 pm - Level 2
September 24, October 1, 8, 15, 22, & 29

Saturdays, SoMa Animal Clinic
September 20, 27, October 4, 11, 18 & 25
12:30 pm - 1:15 pm - Puppy Kindergarten
1:30 - 2:15 pm - Level 1
3:15 pm - 4 pm - AKC Tricks
4:15 pm - 5 pm - Out and About Manners

Sundays, Bow Wow and Meow Bakery
September 21, 28, October 5, 12, 19 & 26
1:30 pm - 2:15 pm - Level 1
2:30 pm - 3:15 pm - Level 2
3:30 pm - 4:15 pm - Leash Manners

Email Elizabeth at [email protected] for more information and to register.

01/09/2025

The dog that didn’t want me in the house. 🐾

Image description: A two-tone brown dog sits with criss-crossed paws on the lap of a person who is mostly out of frame.

01/09/2025

Someone knows how to make good use of the shade. Poochie is back in training walks, and he’s been such a delight as always. If you need a local , is a real fun place to hang out.

Image description: A black and white pomsky lays on a green patch in the shade of a large garden.

01/09/2025

When I showed up to the soccer field, I could see we were in trouble. Charlie was determined to jump up and chomp the leash, so that was causing a lot of wrestling and frustration. He’s young, so we needed to find some quick ways to redirect that behavior.

Here’s what we did:
🐾 Loosen the leash when he was tugging on it. It’s tempting to make this a wrestling match when a dog is focused on leash grabbing. I prefer to remove all tension and make this boring instead, because let’s face it - tug of war is usually a lot of fun for dogs, so why wouldn’t they try to incite it?
🐾 Utilize some pattern games instead. I love Leslie McDevitt’s pattern games via Control Unleashed. They’re simple, but oh so effective, in helping dogs in small ways have agency and the ability to learn to focus despite distraction.
🐾 Capture the yes-please-do instead of the no-stop-don’t. He was close? We said yes and dropped a treat. He was doing well? He got more leash. He came to check in? A treat and then the opportunity to go sniff again.
🐾 I made myself boring as well. I know how to get a dog’s attention and I know how to redirect it away, food involved or not. I would avert eye contact and move my body away if he showed too much interest. This is also because we’ve been doing a lot of training walks and we have a good system, but we need to transfer. It was actually surprising to see the leash biting behavior because he never did that with me. But the person a dog sees every day has different habits than the one they see once a week, just like the teacher at school. We needed to transfer the skills. And we did.

I’m so proud of Charlie and how far he’s come!

Image descriptions: A human and white and tan doodle on a harness and long line explore a soccer field.

18/08/2025

Important information to consider.

A new study in JAVMA finds a correlation between early spay/neuter (3 - 6 months) with overweight/obesity in some large breeds, especially Labradors and golden retrievers of both s*xes. Small breeds were not affected, and the results varied by s*x in boxers, bulldogs and German Shepherds.

Food for thought, hey? Kudos to the authors for doing this study; it is just one study, always reason for caution, but it’s a large sample size (over 200,000 dogs) and deserves attention.

Read the full study here:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40367978

02/08/2025

Another installment of “is that comfy?” Featuring Rosie.

02/08/2025

Boomer’s got smiles for days. 🐾

02/08/2025

Matthew. There’s something about this guy. 🐾

02/08/2025

A troublemaker’s smile. Good thing Zee is cute! 🐾

02/08/2025

Recall practice with Charlie. 🐾

02/08/2025

Today’s rendition of “is that comfy” featuring Chewy and Mikey. 🐾