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Frolic Dog Training Dog training, walking, and pet care services in Portland, Oregon!

Everyone enjoyed the sunshine & the river today. We practiced a lot of down-stays and some of the dogs almost fell aslee...
05/03/2025

Everyone enjoyed the sunshine & the river today. We practiced a lot of down-stays and some of the dogs almost fell asleep 😴☀️😌🌿

T training focus before (and after) our hike was on trailhead skills. Down-stays in the car crates with the doors closed...
27/02/2025

T training focus before (and after) our hike was on trailhead skills. Down-stays in the car crates with the doors closed and opened, staying in the crate while another dog hops out, holding a sit or down-stay outside while another dog hops out of the car, and loose-leash walking and longer duration down-stays before being let off-leash. These skills will become more and more important as we move towards the warmer part of the year when trails will be more crowded! Not only are these skills practical by themselves, but they also teach the dogs that the way to access fun is through obedience and calm behaviors.

Day School dogs had a very windy adventure today 🍃
27/02/2025

Day School dogs had a very windy adventure today 🍃

Photo dump of the last few days ✨
08/01/2025

Photo dump of the last few days ✨

November/December photo dump ✨
14/12/2024

November/December photo dump ✨

Afternoon snack on this hot hot day was frozen sardines 🐟🐟🐟 (And a dried herring for Haylie who wanted to entertain the ...
05/09/2024

Afternoon snack on this hot hot day was frozen sardines 🐟🐟🐟

(And a dried herring for Haylie who wanted to entertain the idea of eating a raw fish but didn’t actually want to eat it)

These are sold for dogs by so are safe to feed! I usually buy mine at and

Day School dogs got some time in nature this morning before the heat wave arrives!
04/09/2024

Day School dogs got some time in nature this morning before the heat wave arrives!

Today’s training challenge was down-stay in the pool!
02/09/2024

Today’s training challenge was down-stay in the pool!

Baxter cooling off in the pool after his training session this afternoon ✨
27/05/2024

Baxter cooling off in the pool after his training session this afternoon ✨

Baxter the corgi arrived for his board & train a few days ago! So far we’ve been getting to know each other and he’s bee...
23/05/2024

Baxter the corgi arrived for his board & train a few days ago! So far we’ve been getting to know each other and he’s been settling in to the new environment. He got a play-bow from Haylie yesterday which is a highly prestigious honor!

Here’s another example of what I talked about in the last post - these two dogs can really struggle with high levels of ...
23/05/2024

Here’s another example of what I talked about in the last post - these two dogs can really struggle with high levels of arousal, *especially* around other dogs.

Through a lot of practice though, we’ve gotten to a point where they are able to manage their arousal (with some help from me still.)

Before letting them go wild, I ask for some obedience behaviors and make sure that they’re able to listen and think. They were today, so they got to have a romp together. During their play session I asked for a few more obedience behaviors to make sure they still had their brains, and to facilitate them taking breaks.

Ideally dogs will learn to take breaks themselves during play, but it is a skill that some need more help than others to master.

Another element to this is that dogs like Howdy and Shrike here have a really strong desire to have physical contact play with other dogs, I would consider it an essential need for each of them. But because of their over-excitement, this can be really hard to adequately fulfill.

It can become a vicious cycle where dogs become deprived of something they need because they can’t actually handle participating in that thing without going crazy, and the deprivation creates desperation, which makes them even more unable to participate cause now they’re REALLY crazy.

Breaking out of this pattern is not quick or easy, but it is doable. Teaching skills & concepts and starting slow is where it’s at. But finding compatible dogs will make the job a million times easier. Howdy and Shrike are highly compatible which means I’m able to let them fulfill that need with each other while they are still learning skills, and in a way that doesn’t require constant intervention from me. A win-win if you ask me!

Pool day! 💦☀️
09/05/2024

Pool day! 💦☀️

I miss this dog so much, and I’m thinking a lot about the “practice” of dog training. I trained Felon when I was a teena...
03/05/2024

I miss this dog so much, and I’m thinking a lot about the “practice” of dog training. I trained Felon when I was a teenager and had nowhere near the education, knowledge, experience, or access to other professionals that I do now.

And yet, he was and remains my best trained (and most fulfilled) dog. There’s a ton of reasons for that, but one is I think that with social media and the never ending conveyor belt of information and opinions, intuition starts to get lost.

I’m leaning towards limiting the amount of content I consume and practicing more “feeling” and “doing” for a bit.

Rain today meant extra empty trails, just how we like it ☔️
26/04/2024

Rain today meant extra empty trails, just how we like it ☔️

On top of Illusion being a bit more sensitive than his retriever brethren, another challenge of being a Collie service d...
28/02/2024

On top of Illusion being a bit more sensitive than his retriever brethren, another challenge of being a Collie service dog in training is that he is very *noticeable*

This evening we sat outside a grocery store for less than 7 min and we had not one, not two, but THREE people come up to us and ask me what kind of dog he was/ask if they could pet him. This is something I welcome (the attention not the petting, to clarify) for a service dog in training because it will be something they will experience and I want to prepare them for it.

But this is an important consideration when choosing a service dog. It not only means that that dog will have to be heavily inoculated against friendly strangers, but it also means you have to be someone who won’t be too negatively impacted by the extra attention.

I did love that all three people asked if they could pet him instead of just doing it, I have noticed a shift over the years of the general public being more respectful about petting strange dogs. Although the second woman was reaching out her hand towards him as she asked, I don’t think she was intentionally trying to be rude. She snapped her hand back when I said no, I think she just physically couldn’t stop herself because of how alluring Illusion was to her 😂

Because of his unusual appearance, people are gonna stare at Illusion a lot, they’re gonna want interactions a lot, and he’ll probably experience a fair amount of people touching him without asking. So we’ll do our best to train for it and hope that as he grows up he can handle the challenge of being so pretty 💅

Friends who shake off together, stay together
27/01/2024

Friends who shake off together, stay together

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Videos

Ball search for Illusion. Took him 2 min 45 seconds and the way he found it was so funny to me. You can see his cheek puffs going smelling the air and then he turns to it so fast.

Yesterday’s forest hike 🌲⛅️

Holter time! Every year Felix gets a 24-hour holter monitor and an echocardiogram to screen for dcm (dilated cardiomyopathy.) I don’t have updated numbers but dcm is very common in Dobermans (a 2010 study showed 58% of Dobermans in Europe had dcm. The gene pool for this breed is teeny tiny.) Felix will wear this holter monitor for 24 hrs and then in a couple months we’ll go in for his echo. We’re very lucky to have an awesome breed club/group in the PNW who puts on echocardiogram clinics and rents out this holter monitor, making it way more accessible and affordable than if I had to do these things on my own!

Feed the dogs breakfast with me! 🍽️ if you were a dog, who’s breakfast would you prefer?

Here’s another clip from Miklo + Illusion’s outing yesterday where I talk about advocating for Miklo when he’s interacting with another dog

Sharing a clip of a casual video I made for Miklo’s owners about dog-dog play and socialization. Seeing Miklo open up in play with Illusion has been so sweet!

Here’s a long video (what a world where 7 min is long 😅) I would post this on YouTube since I filmed it casually for Midge’s owner, but since I filmed it in portrait I figured why not share it here in case anyone finds it interesting! Midge is a dog who doesn’t really think she just acts, so a lot of what she is learning is how to think and exist in the world. I would not do something like this if the dog she was interacting with was a strange dog or one who might actually hurt her. She’s interacted with Wulfy many times so he’s not new, and obviously I know him very well. If she was seeking help from me in a productive way then I would allow it, but what she wants to do is hide behind my legs and scream/snap at Wulfy from her perceived safety bubble. She needs to learn different ways to handle discomfort, and you can see in this video she is starting to learn how to disengage from Wulfy by sniffing, moving away, etc. Much more effective and healthy!

I tried to fit my morning routine with the dogs into 90 seconds ⛅️

Rainy day at the river *asmr* version

A reel with no music so you can hear the sounds of our hike 💨🍃🦅🚂🌊

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