My Wonderful Dog

03/04/2025

This is a very important read. I will usually refer someone to a vet behaviorist if their dog has done severe damage to either a human or another dog.

Veterinary behaviorist are like dog psychiatrists. They have the training that an ordinary vet has but they also have extensive training in animal behavior and behavior modification. They are also well bersed in all the pharmaceutical interventions that are available to help the animal. VB’s are so highly specialized that there aren’t many of them. Here in Maine we have two.

A dog attack is never as simple as a vicious dog. Instead, there are a variety of learned behaviors, stressors, and stacking triggers that lead to the attack.

18/03/2025

You’ve got to love New Yorkers

NYC subway has banned dogs unless they fit inside a bag. New York commuters did not disappoint.

When the New York City subway implemented a rule banning dogs unless they fit inside a bag, creative commuters took it as a challenge rather than a restriction. Instead of leaving their large furry friends at home, they found hilarious and inventive ways to comply with the rule—squeezing their golden retrievers, huskies, and even German shepherds into oversized tote bags, backpacks, and IKEA bags with cut-out holes for their legs.

This unintentional “dog-in-a-bag fashion trend” quickly became an internet sensation, with photos flooding social media

17/03/2025

In Spain, we are in the middle of the Fallas (fi-yas) holiday which among other things is notorious for all of the petardos (fire crackers) and other loud noise making fireworks.

I feel terribly sorry for all of the dogs and cats who have never experienced such noise, in fact, many dog owners leave town for the two weeks that the holiday lasts. My own dog, Sunny, would have never been suited for life in Valencia which is why she is not here with me.

You can tell dogs who have been socialized (exposed feom a very young age) to the noise of the fire works and petardos because they are clearly unfazed by them. Here is a video of me working with a young Biever terrier that belongs to two people I met here. We are sitting outside a cafe and even in the middle of the day the petardos are being set off. Notice that he is oblivious to many of the sounds.

The sounds that he does startle to, I immediately give him a treat to teach him that the loud bangers (as my Valenciano Spanish teacher calls them) predict that good things happen. I am not reinforcing the startle response because that’s a reflexive response and you can’t reinforce a reflex.

A word of warning—I would not advise doing this on your own. There are many considerations for working with a noise phobic dog. This dog does not show fear otherwise I would have suggested to the owners to take him home. You can’t work with a dog who is already afraid.

08/03/2025

Anyone? What a good looking guy

Happy Birthday Yeti!! Our biggest boy turns four years old today. He was spoiled with a Yeti-size rope toy and peanut butter Kong, and a not quite Yeti-size birthday hat and bandana. He also go to do his favorite activity, which is sitting on his friends.

What would make his birthday perfect would be finding a new home! If you have room in your heart (and house) for a 100-pound lapdog and the most gentle giant around, come visit Yeti at the shelter or got to arlgp.org/dogs to learn more about him.

26/02/2025

I love this trainer so much. Thresholds and introducing distractions slowly are too things that require thoughtfulness when you train

‘I’ve tried distracting him with food but it doesn’t work’

This is a common theme to bookings we get on a regular basis. So let’s talk about it!

I want you to imagine you’re sat on your sofa minding your own business in your own home, when suddenly the door opens and in walks a masked man carrying an axe.

Next thing, your other half pops over your shoulder and says ‘honey! I baked us a cake!’ And starts waving it around in front of you.

Any other time you’d want that cake. Cake is your favourite food (I know I am certainly motivated by cake) but right now, there is a man with an axe stood in your doorway, and your other half is trying to shovel cake in your face.

Now let’s change the scenario.

You know you have a tree surgeon booked to your home that day (you trust the situation). He has been in and out of the house a few times to pop to the loo so you are aware there is a man with an axe and it’s no longer a threat (you are accustomed to his presence and don’t feel threatened or like you need to take action). Then your other half offers you some cake. You’d eat it then right?

The thing is with BIG feelings like fear and anxiety is that they put your body into a state of ‘fight or flight’. We get a rush of cortisol and adrenaline and all the blood rushes away from our digestive organs to our limbs, lungs and heart ready to leap into action. Put more simply, the stomach effectively ‘switches off’.

That’s why you can wave a whole roast chicken in front of your dogs nose and your normally greedy dog at home simply ignores it.

So what do we do about it? We have two options.

1. Remove the threat (avoidance)
2. Change emotional response to the threat (training)

Neither options exist in absolutes. I find there’s a careful balance between the two and favour the second as a priority.

The thing is that food isn’t everything in training. Simply ‘lobbing sausages at the dog’ isn’t the whole story. There is nuance to dog training and it’s why professional services exist to teach you HOW. When we see snapshots of Instagram or Facebook reels we invariably venture out into the world to try and emulate these videos and wonder why we cannot. As humans we often then put the problem elsewhere in sentences such as ‘my dog isn’t food motivated’ or ‘I’ve tried distracting him but maybe he is wired wrong’.

Typically the process to behaviour modification is moderately easy when you look at it through a simplified lens.

- Show the handler how to train effectively
- Show the handler how to use reinforcement effectively.
- Teach the dog that learning is fun and worth engaging with.
- Set up manufactured scenarios in which learning can happen.
- Improve the dogs (and often the handlers!) resilience by presenting more pressure in different environments.
- Re transition the dog back to old environments with new skills on board.

To put it even more simply, the reason your dog will ignore food and continue to yell at stuff, is because you haven’t yet shown them how to feel safe, enjoy learning or created resilience within the dog.

It is possible though! A good trainer can show you exactly what to do to improve yours and your dogs life. There’s no ‘magic wand’ or ‘magic lead’ but there is a way forward from where you are at, I promise.

- Kahla

12/02/2025

Dogs are amazing

04/02/2025

A digi dog!!! Dogs are amazing

02/02/2025

That’s a wrap!

17 years of hiking then walking then trudging and then lumbering over hill and dale.

We hiked through blizzards and rain storms and dealt with hoards of mosquitoes and ticks. As one of my clients put it, that’s a lot of treats, sticks and balls thrown, a lot of swims, a lot of chases and car rides and tons of dog p**p.

I have been honored to know so many wonderful dogs through the years and all of them will always hold a place in my heart. Gone but not definitely not forgotten are Hank, Patrick, Chuckles, Gerty, Roxy, Addie, Lincoln, Rita, Ringo, Max, Henry, Maisie (x2) and most recently, Toby.

To my many clients—your generosity has been overwhelming. The last couple of years have been rough for me personally and you have provided me moral support and helped me cope with health issues and an even an invasion of rats. Without you I wouldn’t be able to embark of this next phase of my life journey.

Some of you have become friends, all of you have become like my second family, even allowing me the honor to be with you when your dogs have passed. I have been so lucky to have had you and your dogs in my life.

To Patrick and Cyndi—I owe you the greatest debt of gratitude. You helped me when I was at my lowest, you stepped in and provided me with mental support and helped me walk through a truly awful time in my life. And finally you gave me the greatest gift anyone could’ve given me which was to provide a loving and stable home for my beautiful dog when I couldn’t care for her. She has flourished under your care and I am so grateful for that and as hard as it was at the time to give her up, I know now it was the best decision I’ve ever made.

And lastly to my OG’s Lucy, Bear, Mabel, Tella, Charlie, Boyd-o, Izzy, Bella, Katie and Milo and Millie—I love you to the moon and back. You have grown up with me. You have provided endless hours of entertainment and joy. You made me laugh and sometimes you made me mad but you always came when you called (mostly).

I know you’ll be in great hands with Hunter and Rebecca and I’ll see you when I get back in May.

PS to put piece of my career into perspective:

Out do curiosity I asked my brother to help me figure out how many walks I put in over my career and the numbers are staggering.

Me: Can you help me with a math problem? Today is my last day of walks. I'm just trying to figure out approximately how many walks that is. I've been walking dogs for 17 years minus let's say two weeks a year for time off plus weekends. How many dog walks would that be?

And let's say I average 3 miles a walk. That's low for some years but high for the last couple of years. How many miles would that be?

My brother: 50 weeks x 5 days x 17 years x 3 = 12,750 miles

Me: How many walks is it? Two walks a day.

My brother: 50 x 5 x 2 x 17 = 8,500. The distance walked is roughly the same as from the South Pole to Juneau, Alaska.

Me: For real??

My brother: Yep.

Me: Wow. No wonder I'm so broken. That's insane.

My brother: It's a lot even for someone without foot issues to begin with.

Me: And that's just the walks that's not the training and the shopping and the chores, etc. etc.

My brother: 12,000 miles is halfway around the globe. Add another 6,000 miles for all the miscellaneous movement over the last 17 years, you'd be pretty close to circumnavigating the globe.

Me: wow, I’m a beast!

And that’s just 17 years of my life. I’m sure I must’ve definitely walked the equivalent of around the globe.

14/01/2025

Sweet old girl needs a home

***♥️♥️♥️ADOPTED!!!!♥️♥️♥️***

Sweet old Maybelline got a new coat for the holidays and she figured if she dressed up and was looking her best someone would take her home. But the holidays came and went and here she is.

Mabel, as we call her for short, is a wonderful 12ish year old girl who still has some pep in her step! She loves to go for walks and absolutely adores a joyride! She still hops up in the car or truck like a champ and she's eager to go on little adventures. She's also extremely polite in the car, and in public.

She's very happy to just curl up in a blankie or on the couch. With a few little p*e breaks during the day, some couch time and a few kind words, this girl would be grateful.

Super easy dog, doesn't ask for anything, just needs a spot to land in her elder years, which at this point are limited.

Anyone out there have a place in their heart for a sweet, old, easy girl?

She doesn't need to be the only pet as she really likes kitty cats. But she doesn't like dogs that are in her face and she will let them know that If they are too rambunctious or disrespectful.

Otherwise she's a bowl of peaches. She's always so happy about anything or nothing at all- If you've got space in your heart and on your couch this girl is the one for you!

For more information please review our adoption application and contract which will be posted in the comment thread below. You can also email [email protected] after reviewing the adoption material with any further questions!

13/01/2025

Important information for this time of the year

Ice melt can be toxic. It can also irritate a dog's paws if they are walking in melting ice. Pet friendly ice melt can alleviate the hazard.

09/01/2025

I love this trainer so much. Pretty much everything she has to say rings true to me and I am constantly learning from her. Such an interesting post on street dogs.

✨ Wisdom Wednesdays ✨

Today is one for the adopters of ex street dogs amongst us. Let’s have a chat about these often complex dogs and why they aren’t as straightforward as they may seem.

I’m gonna get a bit nerdy to start off with and talk about epigenetics. Put VERY simply, epigenetics can be behavioural traits passed down family lines. There was a study done on rats that showed that fear can be passed down as many as five generations and the same likely goes for dogs. So if your dogs great grandfather was beaten by a man wearing orange with a stick, your dog COULD carry this fear too, despite never having encountered a man with a stick wearing orange before. Epigenetics are POWERFUL. This is of course a gross simplification of the process but it holds true. Epigenetics exist to aid the survival of the animal, and if ancestors can ‘warn’ you about danger, you’re more likely to survive.

So what does this have to do with street dogs?

Street dogs are vastly different to pet bred dogs in many ways, but the main thing is that even if your street dog was born in captivity or ‘rescued’ early on, their parents, grandparents and great grandparents and so on will likely have lived a semi feral life where survival was a much higher priority than your pet bred golden retriever.

These genetics DO pass down. I see many street dogs adopted from Romania, Cyprus, Turkey, Portugal and many more places. I recently worked with a dog from the meat trade. All of these dogs have two things in common:

- A strong dislike of being on a short lead.
- A hypersensitivity to change in environment.

This is epigenetics at play. You cannot escape threat when you are trapped and you must be aware of your environment in order to survive.

Training CANNOT and WILL NEVER change genetics. It’s a bitter pill to swallow. Your dog ‘saved from the streets’ will likely NEVER be the same level of social, relaxed and easygoing as a Golden Retriever purposely bred and raised for generations to be those things.

If you’ve got an ex street dog. You are possibly experiencing;

- Lack of lead skills
- Sound sensitivity
- Fear of people or other dogs
- Resource guarding
- Generalised anxiety

These things, for a dog living on the streets, are NORMAL. If your dog lived on the streets for a while, these ‘behaviour problems’ kept your dog alive. They were repeatedly reinforced by the very act of surviving another day and all of their grandparents genetics are laid out to aid that survival. They aren’t ’bad dogs’ or ‘problem dogs’. They are exactly what they are meant to be and when they were shipped to a two bed town house in a different country, the comfy sofa did not immediately erase everything the dog is.

A few years ago I received a call at 9pm with an older lady desperate for help immediately. Her family had adopted a street dog for her to ‘guard her house’. Yes, some questionable ethics on all counts there especially the rescue organisation! The dog had been driven in a van over days, and deposited in her house in the middle of a town. She had never met the dog, the dog had never met her. She had read that a stuffed Kong can help dogs relax and suddenly the dog was ferociously guarding the Kong and she couldn’t get into her own sitting room. She was distraught. The dog was explosively stressed. None of what played out was surprising. I did that emergency visit that night and took the dog out of her home and took him to a kennels where the rescue then re placed him. I don’t know what happened to him after that and I wonder often.

So what can we do? This isn’t about whether I think rescuing from abroad is appropriate or not and I want to keep that out of this discussion. What do we do if we find ourselves living with such a dog?

We honour them. For who and what they are and what their generations before created. Honouring them means seeing exactly who and what they are and not trying to force them to be what they aren’t. It’s a humbling process.

The first thing is that they need a lot of time. Space to just be. They often don’t want a person up in their grill trying to drag them down the street on a lead on day one. They need often weeks or months just to acclimate to the home environment.

Typically ex street dogs do not do well with the family trip to the park on a busy Sunday. Everywhere there is threat. This stacks up. Even if they don’t react to everything on the walk, they get home and guard their food bowl with incredible intensity because it’s all they CAN control now. Or they bark at anything that looks suspicious because that’s what kept them alive (or their parents alive) for years.

My favourite, really simple thing to do with street dogs, is a harness on, long line walk and explore of grotty back alleys, industrial estates, wasteland and environments like that. Mimicking that environment they came from and survived in is a real key to their hearts. When you explore those environments together and delight in the discovery of gutter snacks or an interesting p*e smell with them, that’s where they come alive.

Street dogs were not born in the UK. They were not born to run around the park playing with everyone. They were born to survive. Of course there are exceptions and I’m fully waiting for the comments of ‘my street dog isn’t like that’. Many are though.

The single biggest thing we can do is to honour everything that they are and stop trying to fit a round peg in a square hole. Meet them where they are at, and accept that they may not be what you expected. They are still very much trainable, but the process is likely to look very different to a ‘normal’ dogs progress.

Do you have an ex street dog? How has your experience with them been?

- Kahla

06/01/2025

Hahaha. Love her

‘But my dog isn’t food motivated so positive reinforcement won’t work for my dog’

I’m gonna be blunt here. That is a sentence I hear from people who have either spent too long on the internet or who have been shown poor positive reinforcement training.

Let’s break it down.

Your dog is food motivated. If he wasn’t. He would be dead. Every dog on the planet is motivated by food. Food is necessary for survival.

Even if your dog isn’t food motivated, he has motivations in the environment that can be used. If he isn’t motivated by anything, then yes, he is probably dead.

‘Oh but that’s what all you fluffy dog trainers say! You throw hotdogs at dogs!’

‘But I can wave a whole roast chicken under his nose but it doesn’t stop him reacting!’

Again, that is likely because you have either misunderstood how positive reinforcement works, or your experience of it has been poor.

Our job as modern, positive trainers, is to do two things. Namely solve the underlying reason leading to your dogs behaviour issues, then retrain in new skills.

If you take Dave the Dog to the park where he routinely screams at other dogs and wave sausages at him, it’s gonna do precisely nothing. It won’t help. Then you’ll go on facebook and say ‘positive reinforcement doesn’t work for every dog and sometimes you have to be the alpha while collectively the planet rolls their eyes at you.

What will help is;

- Good, species appropriate diet.
- Good, breed appropriate exercise
- Good, dog appropriate training
- Good veterinary care
- Good environmental management

A good trainer will look at your dog as a whole, and your lifestyle as a whole. We will do gait analysis, veterinary referrals, ask questions about the consistency of your dogs turds (yes really!), talk about your exercise routine, talk about breed specific outlets. I am yet to meet a dog owner in my decade of training dogs that I haven’t given homework of significant changes in the above before we even get to the training.

The reason your dog won’t take the food while screaming at Deirdre’s cockapoo down the road is more often than not because he is freaked the hell out and food is the last thing on his mind. Your job (and by extension our job!) is to figure out WHY he is freaking out and address THAT.

You know what happens when you have a dog on a good diet, feeding regime, exercise plan and training plan?

Food motivation skyrockets. Engagement skyrockets. Confidence skyrockets.

I have five dogs of my own. All of them would do backflips for a bit of pocket dust or a musty old toy I found in my cesspit of a van.

It never was about whether cheese is better than chicken. It was about the dogs overall physical and mental wellbeing.

So that’s my rant for the day. Next time you think ‘well positive training won’t work on my dog’, I encourage you to think again. Consider whether it’s actually that no one has shown you HOW to use positive reinforcement based methods.

- Kahla

📸 Rebecca Reed Photography

29/12/2024

To my loyal followers (warning this post is long but important)

I'm so sorry that I have been remiss in posting for so long and I apologize for that. It's been a heckuva year for me with various health issues and life changes but as the year closes, I'm changing it up and trying to get back to posting about the things I love, one of which is dog behavior.

My goal for 2025 is more good content for those folks who truly want to create a connection with dogs and don't want to view the relationship as a who's the boss kind of dynamic. It's not for everyone but for those of you who are interested--read on.

For years, basically since Cesar Milan came on the scene, dog trainers like me have felt like we have been screaming into the void. Serious problem behaviors can't be magically fixed in 30 minutes and those aversive techniques may look like they work but they can have some serious blowback and oh, the cost both on the human and the dog.

To be clear, I am what's called a crossover trainer. When I first got into the business (1997) I was taught to use a combination of punishment (collar jerks mostly) and cookies. Punishment does work but the older I get, the more I endeavor NOT to resort to punishment. I don't like how it makes me feel and I don't think it's necessary and for some kinds of training, it might have some really awful unintentional consequences.

Last year I worked with a young woman who had gotten a Great Dane puppy for service dog work. She had a disability that left her very unbalanced and she needed a dog who was big enough to provide support for her when she was mobile.

All her life, she had mostly she had been using a wheelchair but she wanted to be able to have more freedom and so she set out to find a service dog to suit her needs. She wound up getting her own puppy and because of her disability. Because she wasn't a trainer, she entrusted her puppy's training to first, the breeder and then a trainer that the breeder recommended. Surely he would be in good hands.

Unfortunately, he wasn't, Both used shock collars to train her dog. She didn't like the idea of her puppy being treated that way but she was assured that this was the way it was done so she went along with it (not her fault, by the way).

She reached out to me because she was in Portland (she's from the Midwest) and she was seeing some dog to dog aggression. I haven't been in the service dog business for years, for personal reasons, but I really liked this young woman and I wanted to help her. She was doing consulting for a university here in Portland and was staying in a hotel and her dog was reacting to other dogs in the lobby. The management had told her that she needed to get a handle on this behavior because it was unsafe and unfair to the other patrons who were staying in the hotel.

Because this dog had been trained since a puppy with shock collars, my guess is, this dog had the crap shocked out of him if he ever tried to interact with another dog and probably learned to associate other dogs with not so good things happening. Ando so after bunch of aversive training and thousands of dollars later, here we were.

When we first met, we met in the lobby of the hotel because I don't have a facility to train. It wasn't the most ideal situation but it was what we could do but I did ask her to move herself and the dog away from the traffic in the lobby the best she could. When I saw was a big, out of control adolescent dog that she could barely handle.

Generally, I would have had her back tie the dog (tether him) so that nothing could go wrong but in this setting it just wasn't possible. I had a really hard time reading the dog so I took my time getting near him. When I was close enough without warning, he charged me and grabbed my arm and would not let go. He was big and strong and I could not get him off of me. I had the wherewithal to scatter a handful of high value treats and thankfully he let go but we were both a bit shocked. I didn't see anything in this dog that made me expect it and she had never seen him do this to a human before. The dog problem was a separate issue but this was new.

It was a couple of weeks before Christmas and she was supposed to fly home with him so we decided it might be safer to board him at a place where they wouldn't be using shock collars (a lot of board and trains do).

When she came back from her trip we met again, this time in a room where he could be tied to a heavy table. I also brought another trainer who is a good friend of mine to get her feedback. She is really good at reading dogs and I wanted another perspective.

Both my friend and I took our time working ourselves towards the dog and the owner (who was actually a pretty good trainer as it turned out) was reinforcing him throughout for calm looks at us, engaging with her. I eventually sat a short distance away from her and the dog and verbally coaching her throughout. My friend was nonchalantly moving about, not making any direct eye contact, pretending to be engaged in anything other than him.

By then, he was lying down in that rolled to the side, leg kicked back way that would suggest he was pretty relaxed. We saw nothing in his body language that was concerning to us and finally my friend was able to sit near him and pet and interact with him. He seemed fine and we all were very pleased.

The owner was going to have my friend do a training walk with the three of them so I left them to talk and I went to use the bathroom. When I came back both were ashen. Without any discernable warning (again) the dog went after my friend and jumped on her and was grabbing at her arm and her clothing. It wasn't vicious but it wasn't playful either.

A few days later my friend tried to conduct a training session with the owner and the dog but he pulled out of the owner's hands and went after another dog in the lobby. After hearing about what had happened, I had to make the awful decision to tell the owner that the seriousness of these incidents were enough for me to decide that this dog wasn't appropriate for service dog work, it was devastating for both me and for her.

I did give her the name and information of a trainer in MA who was a positive trainer who trains service dogs and told her to reach out and get another opinion but ultimately, she decided not to.

I tell you this because, though I can't be 100% sure, I'm sure this dog's experience with punitive training methods effected his behavior adversely. I have no idea what the breeder and his first trainer did to him but interestingly he never has gone after anyone other then trainers. I can only guess that he can tell who is a trainer by the context of what's happening (the treat bag, the language, etc.) and doesn't like us much regardless of what our methodologies and beliefs are and who can blame him.

This is the blowback of punishment in training. Some dogs can shake it off and be fine and some dogs are damaged to the core and you can't tell until something bad happens. And to me, the former cookie and corrections trainer, why chance it? It isn't necessary. So away from those methods I move, and I like myself better and so do the dogs.

I'll explain what I would do instead in another post but until then Happy New Year to you and all of our four footed friends. Lots of joy, good health and happiness to you all.

p.s. for a little fun, here is an article about flirt poles--a great way to engage and exercise those high energy dogs

The lure at the end of a flirt pole for dogs mimes the movements of prey, and can be used to engage with a dog's instinct to chase for play and training.

17/12/2024

Yes!!!

There’s no money in exercise and exploration.

Every day as dog owners we are besieged by advertisements for the brand new piece of equipment that will change your dogs life, the guaranteed to tire your dog out enrichment toy, the next amazing deal on an activity to do with your dog.

We live in a world that is increasingly designed to extract as much as it can from your pocket. Even as I write this I’m aware I’m posting it on my business page!

The thing is though that you don’t need any of the fancy stuff to give your dog a good life. You don’t need to spend money to give your dog what it needs. Regular, quality exercise is the best enrichment your dog can get. Sniffing, exploring, chewing, running, rolling, playing. All of it. The best thing about it is that the only equipment you need is a collar and a lead (and even those don’t need to be anything special!)

There is absolutely a place for enrichment. I also absolutely believe in giving your working dog a job too. But it’s no substitute for exploring together and it never will be.

Enrichment, training and sports should be in addition to being a dog, not instead of being a dog.

If there’s one thing your dog wants for Christmas, it’s not the next fancy and colourful enrichment toy, it’s regular, good walks and adventures with you. A chance to be a dog and do dog stuff in the real world. The truth is, that isn’t very marketable but it will improve your dogs behaviour tenfold and improve both of your lives. There’s no money to be made from this. It’s totally free and the absolute best thing you can do for your dog.

- Kahla