Hey All! I'll be here LIVE Wednesday, Thursday and Friday @noon to talk about all the changes to our online course as well as what's in each module!
I've made big changes to the course I'm excited to chat with you about! LIKE BIG LIFE CHANGING TOPICS!
Join to learn more, ask questions or just to learn some great dog training tips join me over at my Happy Rescue Dogs FB Group https://www.facebook.com/groups/happyrescuedogs/
The LIVE will be here and available for replay here later but join LIVE to ask questions :)
If you want to learn more before the LIVE chats you can click here to learn more https://happyrescuedogs.com/join/
When you’re trying to make a video of your German Shepherd Dog jumping up on the glass slider door but she won’t do it LOL.
I’ve been working on this behavior for the last couple of months with Ziva once it popped up. We specifically worked on negative punishment training by the glass slider.
Negative punishment in dog training is a popular training tool and it’s even more powerful when you combine it with teaching a dog how to relax and change their mindset (how they view the world).
You can mark the behavior you don’t like with a Non Reward Marker word and follow it up with removing your dog from something they value. It should decrease the behavior (as it has greatly here with Ziva as I haven’t seen her jump on the glass slider door in a few weeks).
We work constantly on rewarding Ziva for relaxing and she knows that relaxation is the key to manipulating her world and get what she wants. Often the opposite is true for client’s dogs. They learn that barking, being pushy, demanding or jumping gets them out the door faster, gets their owners attention faster, or that they can manipulate their owners movement. Why wouldn’t they do more of this?!
The TBTE System is brilliant in that it teaches dogs they can control their environment and us through relaxation.
Eventually I can be even more specific with Ziva in that she can’t spin out of excitement or whine by the door or I’ll remove her from the door and put her in the crate after I’ve marked it with my non reward marker word. Picking apart the behaviors we dislike by the door one behavior at a time will make it easier for her to be successful rather than expecting perfection.
We teach dog parents like you all about how to use the Non Reward Marker in the Happy Rescue Dogs FB group. Come learn all about it! Click the link in our bio or join here https://www.facebook.com/groups/HappyRescueDogs
Do you trust your dog enough to leave all your windows down to your car and they won’t jump out? Can you trust your dog will not to go outside if people are coming and going from your house? Does your dog DART OUT when they see the door open?
The door trick would solve any of the above problems for you! We’ll be teaching it in our Happy Rescue Dogs Online Course!
If you see my car at the gym you’ll find all my windows down and the dogs happily staying inside or happily hanging out the window to say hi to everyone. By working on small increments of success with doors and boundaries we’ve built up to that level of trust.
If you can trust your dog won’t rush out of your crate unless they meet certain criteria then you can move onto more challenging thresholds like doorways and then car doors.
Through the TBTE System we learn that dogs can have a negative assumption or positive assumption about doors. Some dogs believe I CAN go through a door unless you tell me “wait” “sit” or “no”. This is a positive assumption. I train using a negative assumption because it creates more reliability and less micromanagement. The dog assumes they cannot go through a door unless they meet certain criteria (in the TBTE System you learn that they must meet 3 criteria) or they can’t go through the door.
It works LIKE A CHARM. Ziva has been so reliable at thresholds that early on I could bring her anywhere with the windows down and she wouldn’t jump out. I can have my doors open and she won’t jump out. But once she meets those 3 criteria she can jump out.
If we take this even further, this could save your dogs life. It’s extremely beneficial to those of you that have reactive or aggressive dogs and it’s way less stressful knowing your dog won’t lunge out of doors.
I can’t wait to teach you about the Door Trick and so many other ways to create really solid boundaries rather than micro managing your dog throughout the day. Come learn more by followi
Do your palms get sweaty on dog walks when passing another dog or person? Wish you could find a technique that works with your reactive dog?
When we adopted Ziva she would bark at dogs on leash. Her hackles would go up and she could be pretty nervous around them if they were hyper active and pushy.
In the past I’ve taught clients the ‘look at me’ technique (where client’s put a look command on cue so they can manage their dogs behavior through what their dog sees).
Your training would benefit greatly from focusing on the emotional state of your dog rather than stopping your dog from looking at another dog.
We can’t ignore our problems. Today, I teach dogs to enjoy looking at another dog.
Through the TBTE System we teach relaxation as a skill. Ziva’s reactivity training protocol involved learning labels, to predict good things would happen when she saw a dog and then to help her understand her calm emotional state is what earns her the reward.
This emphasis on the dogs emotional state is what makes the TBTE System so great and why I’m getting more results with my clients and their rescue dogs.
Teaching alternate behaviors (like look at me) wasn’t helping my client’s dogs feel good about the dog. Sure, it helped them feel safer at times because they couldn’t look at the dog, but that feeling of safety wasn’t translating during our off-leash socialization classes or worse when another off-leash dog would rush their dogs on leash.
I love socializing dogs and the process of helping a dog feel good seeing a dog and learning to relax around them lead to faster progression during dog socialization.
Now my client’s have more success when dogs rush up to them, when dogs aren’t as friendly during socialization, when a dog is reactive toward them they rebound more quickly. This is all because we helped them feel good about their trigger and not just ignore it.
Want to learn more? Join us! Follow the link in my bio or here https://www.
The best trainers I know use retractible leashes in their training.
Like a retractible leash they’re flexible, are often misunderstood, very open to new ideas, they like t think outside the box and the mainstream.
Finding trainers to learn from that were willing to go against the norm, be ostracized, open to new ideas and be flexible is what makes our program Happy Rescue Dogs so great.
We use the elements of my favorite pro retractible leash trainers in our course; Mark McCabe, Jay Jack and Ivan Balabanov.
And by the way it’s the way you use the tool that makes it so great. We use it for t-r-a-i-n-i-n-g.
You hear me talk about being flexible to new ideas in training all the time. Come learn more about Happy Rescue Dogs in our FB Community https://www.facebook.com/groups/HappyRescueDogs
I wish someone had told me this when I first started training dogs- If your dog won’t eat they’re stressed. Stop training and decrease the challenge.
So much focus in training is on the behavior of the dog and not the emotional state of the dog. When I started to focus on the dogs emotional state my whole attitude about training changed.
We use food in the TBTE System as a meter for how dogs are feeling since changing how a dog thinks and feels is our top priority. When a dog loses their appetitive it means they’re really stressed and the environment is a poor place for them to learn a new way of thinking and feeling.
In this video Winnie is hardly eating. She’s not responding to her marker word and she’s nervous. If we had to score her she’d have a failing grade. In the TBTE System we use a Grade School Model. If she’s failing in this Grade School Level then we should go back a couple grades so she can be successful.
If what we truly want to do is help our dogs feel better around their triggers it would be in your best interest to start your training in the easiest location (which is typically the house first) and teach them how to relax away from the trigger. We can then bring this skill set into more challenging areas. It’s always done one step at a time and slowly. We always listen to what our dog are telling us and usually this is by watching if they’re able to take food, how they’re taking food, respond to verbal markers and if they’re able to relax and be optimistic.
Teaching relaxation as a skill set, starting in low level challenges and listening to your dog makes for more reliable training and less conflict between you and your dog.
How do I know all of this? Because I’ve put my clients on time frames in their training programs. Your dog should be able to do this by this date. There was so much emphasis on behavior and our agenda.
Today, my clients are a lot more successful getting real permanent results because they’re a
Behind the Scenes 🎥
Since I started my business I’ve never stopped learning.
Spend 1 hour a day every day for the next 5 years and you have a high chance of becoming an expert in that field. Consistency and commitment work!
There are countless hours in the week of playing dog behavior modification courses, workshops, chats, and podcasts.
I listen when I drive, when I’m in the shower, when I’m eating, when I’m walking the dogs, when I’m working out, when I’m rolling out my muscles, when I’m doing Physical Therapy.
Why? Because I care about my clients receiving the best and newest training out there. The Training Between the Ears System is hands down the best system for helping dogs with emotional trauma and behavioral issues. It’s all I ever listen to now and they put out SO much content in a paid group for dog trainers. I have about 12 hours of new content to catch up on.
Mark & Stephanie has so much to offer and I can’t wait to share it all with you through Happy Rescue Dogs coming out soon!
Thanks for being patient with me. “Anything worth having is worth waiting for” ❤️ (I believe that’s a Teddy Rosevelt paraphrase)
My roots! Dog to dog socialization is where my heart sings. I love seeing dogs play off-leash.
Many dogs need a lot of behavior modification training prior to off-leash dog time.
More on that tomorrow. Today, enjoy this video!
Your overly pushy dog can easily become the aggressor in dog play.
How?
Because a dog can only say no nicely to your pushy dog so many times before they attack.
This can put your pushy dog into a defensive state when they meet other dogs if it happens enough.
Avoiding this means you’ll have to teach your dog to slow down and learn to relax around other dogs.
This allows them to read body language cues and gives them the ability to walk away when a dog says no.
It’s so easy to focus on dog socialization as the problem but the true problem is your dogs inability to relax when aroused.
Prevent aggression by teaching your dog our mindset training that includes relaxation techniques like yoga and meditation for the body and mind.
Join our FB group to learn more! Link in bio or https://www.facebook.com/groups/HappyRescueDogs
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#DogPlay #dogplaying #dogplaytime #dogplaydate #dogplayground #dogplays #dogsocialization #letdogsplay #playdogplay #doggietime #rescuedogsrock
Advanced Recall Training can greatly enhance your rescue dog’s life by giving them safe freedom off-leash. But understanding when to introduce advanced obedience is the most important concept for your off-leash life together!
Follow these 3 rules before teaching any type of obedience outside.
Rule #1, Your dog must be able to eat outside. If they can’t eat that means they’re stressed. If they can eat, that means we have motivation to shape behaviors like a recall.
Rule #2, Your dog must feel safe outside and have a general positive outlook on life. They shouldn’t be flighty outside, suspicious of dogs or people, or have a hard time concentrating on their person. I don’t want to teach obedience to a dog that doesn’t have their most fundamental basic need met of feeling safe.
Lastly, Rule #3, Your dog must be able to relax outside. When we have the right mindset, motivation and our dog has an important life skill - the ability to relax - we’re on our way to setting our dogs up to be successful learning obedience outside.
Only then do I teach obedience outside.
This is not your typical purely positive rescue dog page. This is an advanced mindfulness dog training system where we master your dogs mindset and teach them how to relax. It’s a sensible and kind approach to using all tools that can get you really reliable results.
When you introduce advanced obedience at the right time in your rescue dogs training you’ll create the life you always dreamt of with your rescue dog!
Want to learn more? See link in bio or join here https://www.facebook.com/groups/HappyRescueDogs
What if you were to change what your dog was seeking outside to something you could control and then use as a way to manipulate and change behavior? If you struggle with your dog being territorial outside or obsessively hunting squirrels then this post is for you!
The benefit of getting your dog focused on finding and seeking food (rather than finding dogs or people to bark at or squirrels to chase) is that food is something you have control over.
When dogs are territorial outside it’s more beneficial to get them seeking something good in life. We want to stop them from practicing aggressive behaviors and learn a new relaxed way of being outside.
When dogs are obsessive about hunting squirrels outside they can’t listen to your commands or relax. Using food as something else to find and seek helps them become more interested and motivated for food rather than squirrels. The next step would be to intentionally start to manipulate the dogs behavior we want outside to build more confidence and relaxation in our dogs.
This is just the beginning of changing behavior outside to something more calm and relaxed. It looks so simple and basic right? Many training concepts in the TBTE System seem so basic to implement but are psychologically very complex because the focus is always on changing the way a dog thinks. We are rewiring their brains! We are creating new neural pathways in our dogs brains that creates new permanent behavioral change!
If you’ve always wanted to create deep permanent change join me! Follow the link in my bio or join here https://www.facebook.com/groups/HappyRescueDogs
Why you should get good at teaching your dog healthy boundaries! But first, what is a healthy boundary in dog training?
Healthy boundaries can be your dog respecting your space when you bend down (yeah we’ve all felt the dreaded nose smash when a dog jumps up underneath you). It can be leaving you alone when you’re eating, it can be waiting to come inside until invited (great for wet and dirty dogs like Milo & Ziva in this video).
Many times teaching boundaries can be overwhelming to dogs if they don’t understand what you want or you’re creating too much social, spatial or physical pressure onto them. It can shut your dog down. It can create fear about you moving into them. It can create distrust in your relationship.
If you’ve ever felt like your dog was really sensitive to you trying to create boundaries then this is a great read for you! Or if you’ve ever felt like your dog has a total disrespect for space and boundaries then keep reading too!
Teaching boundaries is so important because it gives an idea to the dog where they should or shouldn’t be. It allows for us to reward our dogs more because they are out of the way and we can start rewarding the behavior we want more of.
Did you know creating a boundary that a dog wants to respond to can greatly reduce their reactivity by 50%? Now, combine that with relaxation training and mindset training- teaching them to think and feel differently about their triggers and you can start to see how powerful our training can be!
You can teach boundaries through spatial pressure, physical pressure from a leash, a squirt bottle, a door. But the most important thing to remember is how the dog feels about the implementation of you creating the boundary.
This is why in the Training Between the Ears System Mark teaches us something called ARTA - Appetitive Response to an Aversive. We train our rescue dogs to feel good and appetitive when we have to create a boundary. They should never be afraid of us creating
Before you socialize your dog they should be able to do this 👉🏼
✨ feel safe
👉🏼 our dogs must be able to trust us that we are there to put them in safe situations and support them. That starts way before dog socialization.
✨ understand and respond to boundaries set by you.
👉🏼 if our dogs can listen and respond to boundaries at the house they sure won’t do it when they’re in a more stressful situation like dog socializing.
✨ understand how to relax
👉🏼 if a dog doesn’t know how to play calmly and at a low energy with other dogs they’ll most likely scare, turn off, and break rapport with other dogs. This could lead to dog fights.
✨ lastly, they need to be able to respond to their marker word
👉🏼 this way we can help dump some good feelings into them when they’re stressed
At our Mutt Mixers we use the Training Between the Ears System to socialize our dogs. The dogs have been through a lot of training and so Haven’t the owners.
When your dogs can predict good things are doing to happen when you socialize then you get less 👉🏼
✨ reactivity & fights
And more calm and confident dog greetings. The more the dogs practice having calm and confident dog greetings they can then use these skills and feel these feelings when you’re on the trail hiking and you run into a dog!
#yougotthis !
Our online membership site for Rescue Dogs will prepare you to have positive dog greetings! Learn more through the link in our bio or by following https://www.facebook.com/groups/HappyRescueDogs/
Improvement versus Perfection ~ Focus on paying or rewarding your dog for improvement in their behavior and you’ll reach your dog training goals faster! If you have a rescue dog that has a hard time settling down or following through with commands than this post is for you!
Paying a dog for improvement rather than perfection seems to be a wild idea in the dog training world but it’s a main concept in the Training Between The Ears System. We reward for improvement a lot using this system and see dogs learning really quickly how to calm themselves down and understanding where we’d like them to be in relation to things. Before using TBTE I was putting a lot more pressure on the dogs through spatial pressure or through leash work when I was teaching obedience. I was diminishing their motivation.
Focusing on perfection often creates frustration, disengagement and diminishes a dogs drive to want to work with us because of having too high of criteria for what the dog understands and is motivated to do.
We also reward for improvement when teaching a dog to feel safe and relax. Hardly do humans ever go from feeling anxious to confident overnight or from fearful to safe. We get there in steps. When we focus on the same concept of rewarding for emotional improvement in our rescue dogs we reach our goals of achieving a much more calm, confident, and engaged dog!
You’ll see in this video I don’t focus on a heel with Jace. Instead, I’ve created a large boundary around me. I’m looking for improvement in his behavior while also making sure he can still respond to his verbal marker word. You too can have a dog that walks nicely on a leash by following this concept of rewarding improvement over perfection.
Today, my clients dogs are way more engaged, excited to train, can relax really fast in stressful situation and love spending time with their owners over other exciting stimulus. Learn about rewarding for improvement rather than perfection by following the link i
Let’s talk about ANCHORS! What’s an anchor? An anchor is an emotional association to a trigger. Many people have strong anchors when hearing a favorite song that brings them back to a time associate to a happy childhood memory. If we were feeling particularly down we may then use this anchor (the song) to put us in a better mood.
In dog training using a marker word (like ‘yes’) also creates an anchor. But not everyone uses these anchors to their maximum benefit.
Through the Training Between the Ears System we use anchors A LOT! So much so that it's a really big part of the TBTE system called perception modification. We teach our dogs to feel differently about a trigger (dog, location, person, squirrels etc.) by the support of an anchor like a marker word or a repetitive anchor like an intermediate bridge. This helps put them in a better state of mind or mood while they’re experiencing the anchor.
Through the TBTE foundational training we’ve created a really strong anchor to our marker word and something called an intermediate bridge (you’ll see in the video it’s when I say my D’s). Through the foundational training the dogs know when they hear our anchors it means “GOOD THINGS HAPPEN!”
You’ll see in this video I use both my marker word and an intermediate bridge.
The goal is for Pilot to hear the marker word and intermediate bridge and immediately have an involuntary (anchored) feeling of calmness and optimism. Through our training we can then use this as a tool to support him in relaxing or to reward him when he chooses to be calm instead of alert.
Anchors are a game changer! Are you using them in your training? You should be! Especially when the root cause of your issue is your dogs mindset. As an NLP practitioner anchors are detrimental to the success of a client changing the way they feel about triggers and the same goes for our training!
We’ll be teaching all about anchors in our Membership Site Coming Soon for Rescue Dogs! For
Yesterday we talked about Condition Relaxation and here’s the beginning of what that process typically looks like. The goal is to provide purposeful touch rather than a reliance on our affection to calm our dogs down during stressful times. Instead we purposefully teach them how to relax through our touch.
We want to communicate to our dog how to;
Recognize their different emotional states during touch
Differentiate different body parts
Recognize when these body parts are and are not relaxed
Learn how to relax them
Learn how to relax them on cue
Become motivated to relax them
More importantly we want them to;
Feel safe when we touch them
Feel like we can be a safe place they can learn to seek out for comfort
Start to enjoy this more purposeful touch
Learn how to relax their body all on their own in easy times and when they’re stressed
But more importantly enjoy relaxation
This process reminds me of when I drive to the mountain in a snow storm and when I get there my shoulders, neck, jaw and hands are sore from clenching or holding tension. If we were to compare what condition relaxation teaches a dog to this scenario of me driving to the mountain essentially what we would first want to teach is my different emotional states when I’m driving and how to choose to relax. Then how to recognize when my shoulder, neck, jaw and hands are tense. Then, when they’re relaxed and how to control the tension while driving. Eventually the more I practice the more I enjoy the feeling of being relaxed while driving under dangerous conditions.
The more the dogs practice this, like any muscle they flex, they build more physical control to relax their body and get good at it.
Interested in learning condition relaxation? We’ll be teaching it in our membership site releasing soon called Happy Rescue Dogs! Join our private FB group to learn more! Or follow the link in our bio! https://www.facebook.com/groups/HappyRescueDogs
When your dog and training is crumbling around you what choices do you have?
Did you know you can affectively relax and calm down your rescue dogs mind through their body? People do this everyday through yoga. Yoga studios are filled with people that struggle with anxiety and a need to slow down their monkey minds. Yoga instructors routinely say there is a body mind connection.
Relax the body and you can directly relax the mind. “There is a direct connection between muscular tension and emotional tension. Help the physical and muscular tension go away and the emotional tension will go away” - Mark McCabe.
A long time ago I heard of another trainer being told to never give her dog affection to an anxious dog and her dog ended up dying from a heart attack one night when the fireworks were going off. That will always be one of the saddest stories I’ll ever hear in dog training because during a time of confusion, discomfort and fear it was advised to let her dog work their way through it alone.
I never want my dog to feel alone and I never want to idly stand by and do nothing to help but so many rescue dog parents don’t know what to do.
Your solution is learning how to purposefully guide your dog to relax through massage so that they can start to focus on their muscular tension, be aware of it, learn how to change it, relax body parts with our support and then be able to do it on their own. More importantly start to enjoy relaxing their body the way people eventually fall in love with stretching and relaxing body parts in yoga just like Pilot in this video.
We teach this purposeful touch and massage through Mark McCabe’s TBTE version of condition relaxation and let me tell you it works! Really well.
The goal is to eventually put it on cue (like a regular command) so your dog can learn to relax for rewards (going outside, a ball, food etc). The amount of emotional & physical control brings my clients closer to their goals of having a more reliable, rel
When we go to touch objects how does your rescue dog feel? Optimistic that something good will come out of it? Or pessimistic and fearful that something bad is going to happen? When we focus on how a dog thinks about their environment (rather than how they behave in that environment) we get so much farther in creating a happy rescue dog. Focusing on your dogs opinion about the world means you can resolve their anxious, fearful, reactive problem behaviors faster and more permanently.
If we can affect how a dog first thinks this will affect their emotional state. When our rescue dogs feels safe and good they behave brave and confident. When they feel scared or hesitant they behave skittish are are unable to listen or can become aggressive. Their fear overrides their ability to listen and want to work with us because all they want to do is flee or fight. It’s important to include your dogs opinion about the world or you may be micro managing them through obedience for the rest of their life!
Wouldn’t it be nice to not only get our dogs to do what we want them to do but for them to also feel safe, confident and curious about the world? This makes it more possible for you to take your dog out on hikes, walk downtown, and bring your dog to your family and friends houses because we’re getting to the core of your rescue dogs problem - their perception of the world.
Want to learn more so you can start creating feelings of confidence and safety in your rescue dog? Want to go beyond obedience training and really get down to the core of why your dog does what they do and why they feel the way they do? Sign up for our group on FB to start learning how to create a happy rescue dog! Link in bio or follow this link… https://www.facebook.com/groups/HappyRescueDogs
Why should you learn if your rescue dog is more auditory, visual or kinesthetic and how will that help you resolve their anxiety and fears?
Rescue Dogs & Sensitivities- Dogs like people can have a more heightened auditory or visual perception while others are kinesthetic (tactile based).
Your rescue dog that is fearful, aggressive or shy playing with other dogs most likely is sensitive to touch.
Your rescue dog that barks a lot at noises most likely has heightened auditory senses.
Your rescue dog that gets overwhelmed being outside and tries to chase cars or bikers may have heightened vision that attracts him or her more to moving objects.
Knowing how your dog takes in information about their world and focusing on that specific sense in training can have a dramatic reduction in reactivity and help them feel safer in this sensory overload world.
In our membership coming out soon called ✨Happy Rescue Dogs✨we’ll show you how to create more optimism in the sensory area your dog is overly sensitive to and relax their heightened responses. If your dog is highly sensitive to noise like Pilot in this video, you’ll find your dog is constantly alert throughout the day because of common house hold noises and even ‘ghost’ noises.
Through relaxation training and mindset training to teach Pilot that noises are normal, safe and good things happen when he hears noises he can learn to relax more around the house. Pilot struggles with squirrel noises (other visually oriented dogs would go bananas over the sight of the squirrel and you can see Pilot is calm). We are working on him feeling relaxed about the squirrel nosies when he hears them on YouTube. Pilot has previously also struggled listening to music playing and hearing his person cooking in the kitchen so we first worked on some of those easier challenges first.
Getting your rescue dog out of a state of survival and changing how they sense their environment will help you have an easier time in your training
Why do we suggest you focus on helping your rescue dog to relax getting out of a crate and how does this help you with some of your bigger goals like leash reactivity or aggression?
If you start with teaching your rescue dog how to relax, build impulse control, respond to boundaries and communicate to them how to get rewarded in the lowest level challenges first and where they are more likely to be successful this actually BUILDS confidence and understanding in the concepts you’re trying to teach them.
We build confidence through becoming successful and really good at something. So we focus on as many easy challenges inside the house first to create confidence in our dogs and a feeling of security, safety, curiosity and motivation in our training together. All similar emotions we want to build in people for them to become highly successful and confident.
Once these feelings are created we can then draw upon these newly acquired resources in more challenges areas of their life.
If your dog has never felt safe or confident inside how will they be able to feel this way outside? All the training starts inside before they start outside. Have you started your training outside and aren’t getting the results you want? Try working inside first! Need support? Click on the link in our bio above to learn how to start the training! Or go to
https://facebook.com/groups/HappyRescueDogs to be apart of a supportive community to help you train your rescue dog into a happy rescue dog!
We can help you create a happy life with your rescue dog!
