Puppy 3 Students - Matwork
Puppy 3 students show off their skills in the final weeks of class.
These dogs have come a long way! From jumpy, barky, demanding teens to polite pups with a variety of important skills with owners who understand them and can continue their training journey.
These pups are practicing matwork patterns, learning to stay on their mats and wait while owners move around - pick up items and put them down again, as if they were cleaning up or doing projects at home. Matwork is a super helpful tool for a calm canine companion!
Looking to improve your teens skills?
Join the next session of Puppy 3, for students ages 7-24mo of age starting Wednesday March 12th at 3:45pm.
Sign up at www.problemsolvedtrainingmaine.com/classes
Puppy 3 - learning to stay!
Puppy 3 students did a GREAT job practicing their “stay” behavior in class today with distance and distractions! Puppy 3 is a specially designed class for the TEENAGE dog - learn how to work WITH your teenager instead of against them to get the behavior you want, learn focus, settling work, polite greetings and basic foundations such as stay, place and loose leash walking! There’s a new session of puppy 3 starting in March - head on over to www.problemsolvedtrainingmaine.com/classes to sign up!
Intelligent Disobedience
A lovely example of intelligent disobedience and a story about how my dog is smarter than me.
Intelligent disobedience refers to when a dog does not do a behavior when asked because they have used their own judgement and deemed it unsafe, inappropriate etc. Think about a seeing eye dog refusing to move forward when their owner cues them to because moving forward might put their owner in a dangerous position.
The other night Maddie and I were working on stimulus control with toys using her “switch” (drop the toy in your mouth and grab the other toy I’m offering instead) cue and proofing it. Working on her not dropping the other toy or grabbing for a new one unless she is sure im asking her to. As part of this training I ask her to do a series of behaviors while holding a toy.
In this moment, I completely GOOFED. Maddie actually has TWO switch cues (normally not a good idea to do for exactly this reason) the other switch is a heeling cue that means switch from left heel to right heel.
For some reason, my brain farted and I decided to ask Maddie to do the OTHER switch cue (switch to right heel) in the middle of a switching for toys game!! I even stupidly put my hand down to guide her into the right heel position.
So so so so so not smart. In her hyper focused mode Maddie should have bitten right down on my hand, it would have been entirely my fault. Watch her quick thinking in this moment as she goes to bite and realizes there’s no toy there, only my hand, and she stops herself short.
Phew. My fingers are thankful that my dog is smarter than I am!!!
Of course she got praised heavily, and then rewarded by being able to switchh and grab a new toy!
Helpful assistant!
Anyone else have a super helpful fitness assistance at home? Anytime I try to move into downward dog, Maddie comes over to let me know “I’m doing it wrong”. She may not be very helpful but she sure is cute. And a cuddle with Maddie is always a welcome interruption.
Advancing Noseworks Skills
Rosie has been taking some private sessions working on her noseworks skills, due to her reactions to other dogs she struggles in a group class environment but she LOVES her noseworks. Rosie has mastered pairing food with odor to build value, finding odor with food and is now excellent at finding odor without food pairing.
Currently we are focusing on advancing her skills, working on teaching her a really clear alert (lie down and nose target the odor) indicating she has found the correct thing, working on container searches, and teaching her to find a variety of different odors she hasn't done before.
Rosie LOVES her noseworks sessions, they physically and mentally stimulate her and she always goes home tired and happy with plenty of new things to practice!
If classes don't work for your schedule, or don't work for your dog, don't forget that private services are always available!
Book your private session at www.problemsolvedtrainingmaine.com/private
Noseworks Class - Week 1!
It’s been a LONG time coming but it’s FINALLY here! Our first ever official Noseworks Group Class launched this week!
What a great time! We had a FULL house with 6 dogs, but they all behaved perfectly and patiently waited their turns to have a good sniff.
Students learned how to introduce their dogs to odor, do some basic search games, create a release/finish cue after finding the odor, and learned all about the essential concept of odor obedience - helping our dogs learn that odor = food and odor is WORTH gravitating to and STICKING ON.
All students did fantastic - we had a great mix of dogs with noseworks experience and dogs who were complete novices and dogs and owners of all skill levels all had a great time (I hope!) learning along side each other.
So excited for next week, and to watch all these handler and dog teams progress and gain skill in this amazing sport.
Are you interested in learning Noseworks with your dog? Stay tuned, the next session of Noseworks will be open for enrollment in the next few days!
Leave it’s!
Why did I spend so much time teaching and proofing Maddie’s leave it cue? So we can have peaceful walks like this where she is free to explore and can easily be called away from any distractions.
Today she found a whole half eaten deer on our walk!!! But asking her to leave it alone is no big deal at all.
How is YOUR dogs leave it? Do you wish it was better? I can help with that!
Car Patterns!
Meet Mira! This little cutie is a recent addition to her family, and is working her way through a series of private sessions to help her adjust to her new life. Mira was originally a "southern rescue" pup who made her way up to Maine, into a local rescue group and eventually landed in her amazing home with her incredible mom who is dedicated to helping her live her best life.
Like many dogs who undergo such a BIG life change, Mira struggled initially. She was VERY fearful in the house, around people, and showed signs of not having lived in a home before. She also struggles with reactions to other dogs and people when taking a leash walk - the great big world is a little overwhelming for Mira. But maybe most challenging of all for her is her fear of the CAR.
This car fear is something we see often from dogs who have had long transport drives up into the state, or who used to be stray or "outdoor" dogs who have never ridden in a car, and it can be quite a shock for them the first time they get into a vehicle. Having a dog who can't ride in the car is a big challenge that MANY owners of these new pups struggle with.
So - here is a little clip of Mira working on her new car patterns to overcome her fear, so you can see the process!
1. At our first session, we worked with Mira on playing the "find it" game (treat tossing) NEAR the car, without any pressure on Mira to get IN the vehicle. For every treat we tossed TOWARDS the car, the next treat got tossed AWAY from the car - no pressure here girlie. Once Mira was comfortable bouncing around and playing near the car we worked on opening the car door, still without any pressure to jump in.
2. Mom found a great little "step stool" for Mira that works great to help her hop into the car more securely. She worked with Mira inside on learning how to jump on and off the stool, using it to get off and on the couch etc. before introducing it to the car.
3. We combined the two games, playing "find it" with the step stool
Meet Copper!
I posted this earlier and somehow it ended up deleted, so lets try again?
Everyone - meet Copper! A recent graduate of my Puppy 3 class a class designed specifically for teenage dogs and all the fun challenges that come with it.
Copper is currently up for adoption at Midcoast Humane! Whenever there is extra space in a class we try to get a shelter dog in for a little practice and to start learning some basic skills that can make them more adoptable!
Copper totally ROCKED in his class - at first being in a classroom with other dogs and people was VERY exciting for Copper - a typical bouncy, distractable teenager it was a struggle to get him to focus, he needed LOTS of food to distract him and some barriers to help him think.
He didn’t know anything other than “sit” when he started the class and NOW look at him! Cooper MASTERED “down”, learned how to settle so well shelter staff observances even calmer in his kennel than he used to be, loves doing hand targets, playing games to help him learn how to not jump, learned how to “stay” and “place” with a variety of distractions (as seen in this video) and worked on some loose leash waking skills.
ALL new dogs require time, consistency and training to get their behaviors “up to snuff” but whoever adopts this loveable boy will have a bit of a head start!
Copper would be a GREAT dog for a single owner, or couple or family without young children (too much energy for a household with young kids) he is smart, active and highly trainable and would love an owner who wants to continue teaching him new skills, taking classes and nice long romps in the woods. He is funny, bouncy and VERY bright.
If Copper sounds like a good buddy for you reach out to the folks at Midcoast Humane to schedule a time to meet him!
Meet Copper!
Everyone - meet Copper! A recent graduate of my Puppy 3 class a class designed specifically for teenage dogs and all the fun challenges that come with it.
Copper is currently up for adoption at Midcoast Humane! Whenever there is extra space in a class we try to get a shelter dog in for a little practice and to start learning some basic skills that can make them more adoptable!
Copper totally ROCKED in his class - at first being in a classroom with other dogs and people was VERY exciting for Copper - a typical bouncy, distractable teenager it was a struggle to get him to focus, he needed LOTS of food to distract him and some barriers to help him think.
He didn’t know anything other than “sit” when he started the class and NOW look at him! Cooper MASTERED “down”, learned how to settle so well shelter staff observances even calmer in his kennel than he used to be, loves doing hand targets, playing games to help him learn how to not jump, learned how to “stay” and “place” with a variety of distractions (as seen in this video) and worked on some loose leash waking skills.
ALL new dogs require time, consistency and training to get their behaviors “up to snuff” but whoever adopts this loveable boy will have a bit of a head start!
Copper would be a GREAT dog for a single owner, or couple or family without young children (too much energy for a household with young kids) he is smart, active and highly trainable and would love an owner who wants to continue teaching him new skills, taking classes and nice long romps in the woods. He is funny, bouncy and VERY bright.
If Copper sounds like a good buddy for you reach out to the folks at Midcoast Humane to schedule a time to meet him!
Family Dog Advanced!
The dogs in Family Dog Advanced have blown my mind and surpassed my expectations.
This hard working group is in one of my most advanced classes - all dogs have taken previous classes and have a good handle on “the basics” allowing us to really take things to the next level and challenge our learners.
Last night we worked on advanced Leave It games, heeling games, and finally a game I like to call “chatting with neighbors” where we ask our dogs to lie quietly, very close together while their humans have a conversation.
So many skills being learned here - owners are learning to split their attention between their dog and another person, how to use the appropriate rate of reinforcement to get the behavior they want and our dogs are learning they don’t get to greet a dog just because they’re in their space, and how to be calm and patient. Family Dog Advanced students Boone and Goose ROCKED this exercise!
Good job teams. We only have ONE week left in this great class - I will miss this group!
More noseworks magic!
Just another video demonstrating the power of noseworks. Here’s Rosie again, the same dog who was working with her muzzle in the last video, working on noseworks with ANOTHER DOG PRESENT.
For a highly reactive girl this is a HUGE WIN. She gets distracted a few times by the dog, but we seemlessly worked the dog distraction into our training (rewarding for seeing the dog) and directed Rosie back to her task (which she was able to do easily).
Without noseworks, Rosie would not have been able to be this close to another dog without having a massive emotional reaction. But by focusing on a task she enjoys that also creates calmness and helps her override her fear, she can start to learn it’s SAFE to be around other dogs.
Rosie will be enrolling in an upcoming Noseworks class i will be offering, to continue improving her ability to work and focus and feel safe around other dogs.
Also - SPOILER - nosework classes coming soon!!
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