Tayler in Training

05/12/2023

hi all, 👋

I am planning to come back into this space in 2024. So stay tuned! I’m working hard behind the scenes to start creating my content + looking into some schooling & seminars.

🤍🤍🤍🤍

24/08/2023

There’s been so much hate in the dog training community lately that it’s really had an affect on my mental health + discouraged me.

Right now is a really hard time in our lives and I can’t find my will to keep self educating. There’s only so much self educating I can do without having some real hands on experience + professionals with degrees in animal science to help me understand. At this time, we don’t have the funds for me to enter into any certification classes and that’s what I MEED to better get moving on this. So for now, I’m going to keep educating on what I can and try to get back into routine with our dogs but for now, I’m taking a hiatus from this account. I no longer feel safe or encouraged to post knowledge I learn because I’m constantly being torn down or told I don’t get it.

So stay researching friends ✌️ always reach out because I can try and troubleshoot as much as I can.

30/07/2023

Realistic goals, consistency, kindness & tons of patience is another.

When starting training, weather with manners or helping your dog learn safety you need to realize that just like you- your dog isn’t going to go from pre-school to senior year overnight. Or even in a week.

Teaching your dog new things will always take time, it will always take consistency (something I’m working on myself), patience and kindness, to yourself & your dog.

When I started working with R***r I won’t lie I was not consistent nor very patient. I often felt so frustrated and annoyed with him and myself.

I always thought training your dog took hours and hours a day but that’s simply not true. You can train daily for 20 minutes or more if you really want. A lot of training needs to start in the home either way.

Setting unrealistic goals is another thing. I love watching videos of dogs who connect so much with their owner and are so smooth with their redirection, walking manners ect. Over the last year though I’m learning what those dogs started as. It took them and their owner months to do that- and they still work on it daily. Training your dog is never ending. Sure, you’ll get to a point where it doesn’t seem like training because your dog just does it but you will always have to practice it.

When starting out, after finding that high value treat & what your dog is saying you can set some goals.

For us, R***r was reactive on leash toward people and dogs. It stressed me out and embarrassed me to the point I stopped taking him. After some research and talking to my friend Amanda at she encouraged me to just keep walking him, give him space when we would see approaching people and dogs and just keep going. We did and now, he could careless about people most of the time. He’s working through reactivity towards other dogs now which last night showed me so much as well he’s doing!

No matter what, you’re gonna need to set the goal, be consistent with it, be kind & have patience.

29/07/2023

I’ve covered a little bit of this and everyday I’m trying to learn a little more about it!

I’ll preach it until my lungs give out.

Learning what your dog is communicating.

has a seminar you can purchase (& keep forever!) to help teach you what your dog is telling you.

Learning how your dog is communicating is so important in your training, or just in your dog ownership. Do your research or check out my past posts that have a little summary of communication with your dog.

27/07/2023

Oh my 🥹

27/07/2023

I’ve seen a lot out walking today. Here’s your friendly reminder.

Dangerous heat indexes are predicted for the upcoming week. It’s important to remember to take precautions to keep your pets safe during this weather!

27/07/2023

What is a high valued treat? A high valued treat is something that gets your dog excited. A lot of dogs may seem to enjoy all treats because, well dogs love all food most of the time 😅 but a high valued treat will get their focus, it will cause a happy dance, tail wags and probably drooling!

When I get out cooked/deli meat, freeze dried beef liver and even our Pawsome Pup treats R***r let’s me know that the 3 seconds it takes me to get the bag out, open and a treat in my hand is too long and he gives me a “yip” or a little low bark that sounds a little like “c’mon!”.

Ways to figure out what is really motivating to your dog is to get some different types of treats. Of course when introducing new treats your dog(s) will be extra excited because it’s new. Introducing treats isn’t something you should do if they haven’t eaten yet for the day. Try to find a neutral time to try this out- an hour or so after breakfast, lunch or dinner.

If it gains their attention quickly, they drool & have a rapid wagging tail or happy dance you may have found the one(s)! Make sure you’re changing it up often to keep it exciting and new.

Some high valued options:
+ freeze dried beef liver
+ cheese (cut into bite size pieces of courses)
+ shredded chicken
+ The Pawsome Pup treats (we like crunchy!)

High valued treats can help so much with training. It can help with grabbing attention, help make your dog feel less annoyed with a less than fun teaching moment and/or encouraging those shy dogs to become more confident in less than ideal situations.

I hope this helps a little and if you have any other questions feel free to reach out.

27/07/2023

Hey all 👋

I wanted to make a little post about some things that have helped me get started.

Weather you just want to learn how to communicate better with your dog + teach them a little thing or two I will be posting throughout the week, items and advice I’ve taken and learned along the last year.

19/07/2023

Sorry for the lack of content.

Life has been crazy and I’ve been studying a lot for my new job. I have some content I’m working on today and tomorrow to get pushed back out.

Our training has been lacking as well which makes me incredibly frustrated and sad.

Jack is starting to work on his reaction towards dogs in walks, we got lazy with his walks and he’s having a hard time passing other dogs so I’m hoping to get that worked on.

R***r is going to keep working on his recall and we’ve started on some door work so we can hopefully stop the bolting out the door.

19/07/2023

HEY ALL 👋

I will be in VB this week on FRIDAY. Pick up will be in Keosauqua at the park from 3-6 pm.

If you can’t make this please message me!

Shirts are getting shipped this week as well, my apologies it’s been a hot minute as life as been just something extra lately + our post office has weird hours.

Thanks again for the support! 🤍

10/07/2023

I only love my bed & my mama I’m sorry.

I don’t have much planned for this week in terms of content buuuut I am doing some research on nutrition and behaviors. This week for Jack and R***r I want to dedicate 20 minutes to strictly practicing our reliable recall.

At the park this weekend Jack was showing such good loose leash manners + recalling great.

Ideally with both the boys I want to be able to walk off leash before the end of the year to give them a little more freedom and enrichment.

I hope everyone has a great Monday! 🩵🤍

09/07/2023

Reliable Recall can save your dogs life.

Just remember when we are teaching it, we are setting up the expectations that we are the highest valued thing in the outside world.

Things to keep in mind when working on this:

• don’t poison your call with punishment
• be consistent
• do your research & watch the videos
• safety is your number 1 priority
• you can’t go from kindergarten to 8th grade in one day and neither can your dog.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this little segment. If you need any help please feel free to reach out. My DM’s are always open!

09/07/2023

Go & Get when Recall isn’t working.

**OH NO THEY DIDN’T COME ON THE FIRST TRY I’M FAILING**

No, you are all good! We don’t want to repeat “R***R COME R***R COME R***R COME” this cancels us out and our dogs are probably laughing at us. We want to refrain from chasing them because to them, that’s a fun game! Still ignoring you? Let’s try some “Go Get”.

Go Get is approaching your dog, grabbing their collar, giving the cue and treating them. We are still going to us that excited toned with their name and cue.

When grabbing the collar we don’t want to do it with force, anger or impatience. Instead we want to reinstate that we need them to come to us when called, so we are going to grab with the same energy we would if they had actually come to us when we called them.

If you are doing this more than your dog coming to you it may be a good thing to go back over the basics.

Is your treat high value enough?

Did you train adequately enough indoors/fenced in before taking them outdoors or to a high distraction place?

Are you using a poisoned cue?

If you feel that you have done those correctly, a trained force free/ positive reinforcement trainer may be able to better help this. Feel free to reach out and I’d love to help as much as I can! :)

06/07/2023

Shout out to my sister in law Bethany for making me this super cute, super fun color changing cup!

“Training humans to speak dog.”

Check her and my mother in law out at CLC: Crazy Lady Creations.

06/07/2023

Where to start training Recall.

Let's talk about how to get this started. To prepare for this you are going to need a few things to help!

+ High value treats (cheese cut into bite size pieces, chicken are some ideas); If you haven’t worked through figuring out what your dog’s highest valued treat is. Most of the time their daily kibble isn’t enough. For us freeze dried beef liver or cheese is something most dog’s have a high value for.

+ A low distraction area- for us this will be our front yard on a 6 foot leash. *Never start a recall without a leash or in an unfenced yard. *We don’t have a fenced area near us to use and he also bolts and his recall isn’t reliable yet so for his safety we work on leash. This can make it a little more tricky BUT it also helps me with loose leash training him. However, today when we were working on it after about 10 minutes I let the leash go and just walked around the area with him and he did great.

+A cue with your dog's name and paired with “come”, “here” or whatever you like best. Just make sure you are using this each time. If your cue has been poisoned by yelling, repeating or physical punishment you will more than likely need to find a new cue as this one may not work.

To start, let your dog freely roam (or loosely walk on leash) a low distraction area first, such as your living room, fenced in yard ect. We don't want to start in a place where there's a lot of new things to sniff, people, dogs and whatever else your dog may want to meet and sniff. Let them just enjoy a few minutes where you aren’t asking anything of them, stand in a neutral pose and observe them. Observing their body language and seeing what excites them and distracts them. This can help you understand what outside things that your dog may value more than you.

It’s important to keep in mind when setting this up we don’t want to cause the dog to see us with the treats. It’s a good idea to have a treat pouch and ensure we keep the treats somewhat out of sight as we don’t want our dog to only want us for our treats but to learn that coming to us is for their safety and best interest.

Standing in the neutral position while your dog is roaming. Place your hand out with a closed with a treat inside. With excitement, call their name and the cue you’ve chosen “R***r, come.” once your dog comes to you grab their collar firm but not aggressively, treat them and let them know how good they are. Release their collar and let them go play again. Do this at random times. We are going to work on this 15 minutes daily.

Using an excited tone and saying their name + cue gets their attention and helps make an impression on their brain that you are the highest valued thing in the outside world.

The first few days of this training we want to make sure we are setting the expectation of “I’m the highest value treat!”. Your timing of treating is huge.

Teaching a reliable recall can take anywhere from 3-6 months. If you are having issues with this taking more time please reachout to a trained professional.

Don’t worry, if your dog doesn’t come when called I’ll share a couple tips tomorrow on how you can troubleshoot.

05/07/2023

What is a Reliable Recall? And how you can introduce it.

So what even is a Reliable Recall? It’s the act of calling your dog and them coming to you. This is a very important thing to train, for so many different reasons. Having our dogs value us over outside distractions can keep them safe. Having a reliable recall is such an important tool to train your dog(s) to have.

The outside world is unpredictable and sometimes scary for some dogs. We want to ensure we can successfully get our dogs to come to us. They don’t always know danger- you know like chasing a rabbit can be fun for them but can lead them into traffic.

Ways you can introduce this is with games like Find Me, Hot Potato and/or Catch Me. You can find these on YouTube. Games are great way for enriching your dog and releasing energy. These can also be done in replace of a walk if you can’t get out to get one in. Or, like our approach you can just start working on it! :)

Come along with me this week as I introduce and work on training our dog R***r! I’ll show you how to start, share tips that helped us, give you resources and how to slowly fade out rewarding with treats.

04/07/2023

It's not déjà vu, I'm back to Tayler in Training and here's WHY :)

When I decided to make this journey public I knew one thing and that was aversive training methods were not for me. So I dived into Positive Training which I've now learned is actually more referred to as "Positive Reinforcement (+R)," which means the tools you use are things like praise, treats and toys to reinforce a good behavior.

Recently I've been looking into Force Free training as well! Which also fits into how I want to train. Force Free is the act of teaching dogs without the use of painful tools, intimidation, threats or force. It's really intrigued me to redefine my journey with training.

Building trust, confidence, understanding and a secure attachment is still my goal with training regardless of the title I choose.

Since I'm still so new and have so much to learn to ever call myself an actual trainer, I've decided that Tayler in Training best suits me until I find my "title". So thanks for sticking around.

04/07/2023

Have a safe and happy 4th! 🇺🇸

This week I am going to share more on recall and it’s importance + how to start.

I also want to share a little on feeding. It’s something I recently dove into for our dogs but wanted to share a little for you all.

❤️🤍💙

02/07/2023

4th of July prep in action.

Last night I took 5 minutes and whipped up these enrichment feeders.

I’ve been wanting to start this as part of their daily feeding and what better time to start than now!?

Breakfast will rotate weekly with their additives and next week we’ll start diving into adding things to their food + importance of feed scheduling.

- lick mats with yogurt, blueberries and their kibble
- mid-day enrichment of frozen water, peas, carrots and freez dried beef liver
- early evening ball with PB and freeze dried beef liver in the center
- not pictured the rest of their food served on a snuffle mat

Later I’m hoping to post the set up for their safe spaces since tonight for us is fireworks!

01/07/2023

Our last day of 4th of July prep: 🍺 Keep your dog(s) away from alcohol and all the delicious 4th of July food.

Even though a drunk dog could be funny, it’s unsafe and could really harm your dog and make for an expensive 4th. This isn’t just them consuming by mouth but could also be absorbed through their bodies. Most of our foods can be toxic so keeping an eye on your dog while entertaining your guest can also take the fun out of your day and cause unnecessary stress for you and your dog.

I hope these have helped. Today I am going to work on the boys’ safe space and getting their chewys cleaned and ready for tomorrows fireworks- and maybe some tonight if the neighbors shoot some off again. I’m blessed to live in a neighborhood where people are pretty respectful of the time ordinance and not shooting them off all night but I also know tonight is the kickoff to the weekend here where we live and sometimes people can get a little rowdy.

30/06/2023

Day 3 of our 4th of July Prep:🎾 A little extra enrichment.

If your 4th is like ours, you aren’t home a lot. Giving their breakfast on a snuffle mat, lick mat or making it into a game can destress and tire some of their day. It also helps work their brains and can help them rest a little easier. Or, if your town isn’t super busy (ours is!) you can get a long walk in as well.

My plan for our dogs is to get them up and out early on Sunday when our festives are. We will be home throughout the day but the town and the area we live is always super busy and not very safe for venturing out into with dogs who are unsure of a lot of people.

30/06/2023

We are doubling up on our 4th of July prep! (Mostly because I originally meant to post 2x a day for these and would just forget 😂)

🏠 Keep your pet indoors.

For many reasons including that dogs don’t sweat and can’t cool themselves. Dogs can become overly excited or anxious in large crowds and a lot of owners don’t always read the body language stating that they are- which can cause an outburst, running away ect. Keep them inside away from drunk shindigs, people who don’t respect their space and the dangers of fireworks.

29/06/2023

Day 6 of our July 4th prep:🪪 Update your dog(s) tags and microchip.

It might be a little too late to get into your vet for microchipping but you can ensure all tags are securely on your pet + the info is right. PetSmart, PetCo, Walmart and some Thesiens have places you can make tags!

28/06/2023

Day 2 of our 4th of July prep:🙏 Create a safe space.

For our dogs this will be their kennel, with a brand new chew, a fan going and dog tv on the laptop. The year before I was home with them and even with me home they both whimpered and shook. I hope this year I can make it a little less stressful.

When creating your dogs safe space think of something that would make YOU feel safe in scary situation. Ensuring they have their bed or blanket, fresh water, enrichment toys, a noise machine or something to create a relaxing sound are some things to add!

This on top of cleaning medication can be so helpful to your dog(s)!

27/06/2023

Day one of our 4th of July prep: 💊 Calming Meds.

Talk with your vet as they will have the best advice for this including brands, dosage and when to give it to them.

I learned the hard way one year with Bear that he needed them. At the time I was very uneducated. I thought if I left him out of his kennel so he had space to pace and move around he would have a better time with fireworks while we went with my family to watch them. When we got home he was hiding under our bed, he had shredded our couch and had a lot of accidents throughout the house which wasn’t a normal thing for him.

Giving calming meds is a great and important step if you won’t be home for the 4th.

26/06/2023

This week I’m going to share how we prepare for the 4th of July! ❤️🤍💙

Stay tuned on all the ways to help your dog(s) through a fun human celebration that can be stressful for our dog.