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Community K9 Building safe, happy, and healthy human-dog relationships.

16/02/2025

Why Do I Use a Collar AND a Harness to Teach Loose Leash Walking?

Because sometimes humans are lazy, tired, and unmotivated to train their dog.

When a dog is first learning loose leash walking they need to have a very clear understanding of what leash pressure means. I teach it as a cue to engage with the handler for further instructions. This is done through consistency in how I interact with the dog when they put pressure on the leash.

However, sometimes the dog needs to go out and we don’t have the time or energy to engage in actively training them. This is when having a separate tool that the dog can pull into comes in handy.

I recommend letting the dog pull into a harness (with a chest piece between the front legs and shoulder clearance) and teaching the dog to loose leash walk on a collar. Harnesses were designed for pulling and safer to pull into on a regular basis than a collar.

Of course there are some dogs who just don’t do well in a harness or a collar for a variety of reasons and can’t use both tools.

For the dogs that can use this system it is a huge help in maintaining clarity and consistency while also making the training achievable for the average person.

08/02/2025

Are you ready for more snow? We sure are!

23/01/2025

The domestication of dogs did not eliminate their need to hunt, but rather enhanced specific parts of the predatory sequence in different breeds.
For thousands of years a dog’s purpose in society was to be completely, unwaveringly dedicated to a specific role. Herding dogs needed to work long days stalking and chasing with precision and stamina. Hounds needed to cover long distances in any terrain while glued to a scent. Bulldogs needed to have tenacity and bravery to keep livestock five times their size under control.
We spend hundreds of years specializing these breeds and pushing them to the extreme to meet our needs.
And now we want it to all stop so they can be house pets. But that’s just not how genetics works.
If you want your dog to be the best version of themselves you need to honor the expectations our ancestors hardwired into our dogs. And no, a long run isn’t going to meet those expectations. Dogs need access to parts of the predatory sequence that they enjoy in order to have their basic needs met.
Swipe for some examples of different ways you can help your dog tap into the predatory sequence and fulfill their innate needs.
Do you have a suggestion not on our list? Let us know in the comments below⬇️

11/01/2025

5 month old Luna started a six week Homeschool Program with us this week and we are so excited to see her progress. We went over a lot in the first few days together.

🍗Food chasing games- like but more fun and no clicker.

🦮Leash pressure games - so she understands that leash pressure = engage with human for fun game instead of learning to pull.

🎾Biologically appropriate tug play, with rules, boundaries - to help her build impulse control and meet her terrier needs.

🛏️Go to your bed and stay in your bed around distractions- because she needs to have healthier boundaries with her family.

💉Introduction to the scratch board and handling for - because she already had a scary experience at the vet and it doesn’t have to be that way.

She surprised me with how much she was ready to learn this week! If I have time I will share some more clips of her training in our stories.

15/12/2024

Rain or shine we are having a good time ☀️
Swipe to the end to see how all of Zack’s dogs respond to being called!

22/11/2024

Some fall fun with some good pups 🍁☀️🐕

13/11/2024

One of our favorite training tools is a long leash. There are so many good reasons to use one. Of course they aren’t appropriate for every situation and they take some education on how to handle. But they are an absolute game changer for so many dogs, especially reactive and anxious dogs. Here are our top five reasons to use a long leash.

Less pulling. If the dog has more leash they are going to hit the end of the leash less. This improves your loose leash walking skills and reduces your dog’s frustration about being restrained. This can be a huge help for reactive dogs.
More agency. The dog has more opportunities to make their own decisions about where to go and what to avoid. This can be a huge stress reliever for some fearful and anxious dogs.
Better perception. Dogs primarily “see” the world around them through smell. Odors don’t move in a straight line right next to us, they swirl all around us and are greatly affected by space, wind, and temperature. Using a long leash allows dogs to follow odor and better perceive the world around them. Walking right next to us all the time can kinda feel like watching the world go by when sitting in a train.
It’s more natural. Requiring a leash to walk a dog is a relatively new thing. For most of your dog’s genetic history their ancestors have been able to freely move with their humans. They may have chosen to walk with their humans, but that is not the same as being forced to on a short leash. Since this restraint is so unnatural it can cause a lot of big feelings and confusion if it is not done with the dog’s needs and perspective in mind.
Necessary to teach recall. You really can’t get a reliable recall without practicing on a long leash.

I’m sure there are even more reasons, but those are my top five. In my experience with using long leashes, even though the leash is longer, your connection with the dog is stronger.

02/11/2024

Please welcome new border collie puppy to the pack. Meet Sitka!

I am excited for Beth to put all of the puppy training she has learned working with us to the test with her own puppy! Puppy training can be really fun and also challenging at times. Here are some of our top puppy training tips.

❤️‍🩹Practicing cooperative care skills should be your top priority. Teaching your puppy to be calm/ cooperative during handling for grooming/vet care may save your puppy’s life one day and prevent unnecessary trauma during vet/grooming visits.

✋Don’t let your puppy have free reign of the house. Use crates, puppy gates, play pens, closed doors and/or a leash to prevent the puppy from accessing spaces you can’t supervise them in. This will prevent a long list of bad habits, miscommunications, dangerous situations and behavioral issues.

🎾There are a variety of games that lay a very solid foundation for building your puppy into a motivated, cooperative, and confident dog. Working with a trainer who prioritizes those games over obedience commands will result in much more fun for you and your puppy when you do start teaching obedience commands.

🐕Do not let your puppy greet every dog and person even if they want to. Quality over quantity is important when it comes to social interactions. If you don’t know how to identify healthy social behavior, find a trainer who can help you before you put your puppy in a situation that causes long term negative effects.

💤Puppies, like human toddlers, sometimes express how tired they are by being overstimulated/hyper. Like a toddler, your puppy needs to be put down for a nap even though they are acting crazy. They may bark, cry, and fuss in the crate when you do so. You are not traumatizing your puppy, they are just having a tantrum because they are overstimulated and tried. Don’t give up on your crate training, I promise it will be worth it in the end.

😈Puppies bite! It is a developmentally normal behavior and I am sorry their teeth are so sharp. Redirect them to a toy as much as possible and stock up on bandaids.

I could talk about puppy training all day, but I will leave it at that!

27/10/2024

We added two more group class dates for November!

11/10 at 12:15pm Castle Island
William J Day Blvd Boston, MA 02127

11/24 at 11am Walnut Hill Cemetery
96 Grove St, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467

These classes are only available for those who have done one on one classes with us. You can sign up via Pet Pocketbook or you can email us at [email protected] to reserve your spot. $40 per dog

The following are some of the topics we will be covering in Group Class. Feel free to request additional topics or exercises.

* Emotional regulation skills around distractions.
* Loose leash walking around distractions.
* Recall around distractions.
* Stay around distractions.
* Advocating for your dog in a public setting.
* Exercises for building endurance and strength.
* Hiking/off leash etiquette and safety around water.
* Facilitating healthy social behavior with other dogs.
* Polite greetings with humans
* Canine Good Citizen Prep.

Please feel free to reach out to [email protected] if you have any questions or concerns. We are looking forward to seeing you at Group Class!

18/10/2024

Leaf peeping with some good pups 🍁🍂☀️

01/09/2024

New group class dates for September-October. These will probably be the last group classes of 2024, unless the weather is reasonable in November!

9/15 at 11:30am Walnut Hill Cemetery, 96 Grove St, Brookline, MA 02467

9/21 at 12pm Houghton’s Pond, Picnic Area 5 off of Blue Hill River Road MA 02186

9/27 at 5:45pm Daisy Field, parking on Willow Pond Road, Boston, MA 02130

10/6 at 11:30am Home Depot, 1213 VFW Pkwy, West Roxbury, MA 02132

10/19 at 10am Walnut Hill Cemetery, 96 Grove St, Brookline, MA 02467

10/27 at 11am Daisy Field, Willow Pond Road, Boston, MA 02130

These classes are only available for those who have done one on one classes with us. You can sign up via Pet Pocketbook or you can email us at [email protected] to reserve your spot. $40 per dog

The following are some of the topics we will be covering in Group Class. Feel free to request additional topics or exercises.

* Emotional regulation skills around distractions.
* Loose leash walking around distractions.
* Recall around distractions.
* Stay around distractions.
* Advocating for your dog in a public setting.
* Exercises for building endurance and strength.
* Hiking/off leash etiquette and safety around water.
* Facilitating healthy social behavior with other dogs.
* Polite greetings with humans
* Canine Good Citizen Prep.

Please feel free to reach out to [email protected] if you have any questions or concerns. We are looking forward to seeing you at Group Class!

24/06/2024

I am so proud of all of the progress Ted has made over the past year! Ted was fostered with .and.coco and as a result got a free training session with me when he was adopted. A few sessions later Ted and his humans now have the skills to walk on a loose leash, pass other dogs on walks, hangout with family dogs, greet humans politely, and so much more.
Having .and.coco give Ted a strong training foundation when he was being fostered made a huge difference with how much progress he was able to make over the past year. and.coco is currently fostering another pittie mix named Cash who is hoping to land a family just as cool as Ted’s. Whoever adopts Cash will get a dog with a solid training foundation and a free class with us.
🌟Check out her profile for more info on Cash! 🌟

30/04/2024

Some of our happy hikers over the past few weeks 🌲🐕🌳

12/04/2024

Emma, our wonderful admin for is moving on to bigger and better things! We are going to miss her so much and we are eternally grateful for the amazing work she has done for us for the past few years.

For now Beth and I (Micaela) will be doing all of the admin work. We are not sure if we are going to hire another admin (Emma is truly irreplaceable.)

Thanks in advance for your patience during this transition and feel free to let us know if you have any questions.

08/03/2024

It doesn’t get much cuter than this 😍

Tugboat the Newfie puppy has been doing one on one classes with us and is going to start Home School Program with Zack this month. We are very excited to be part of his puppy education!

Before we even met Tug, his humans set him up for success by crate training him. Like most puppies, Tug threw some tantrums about being in the crate, but overall it has been a really productive tool to help with the following:

- Decreases the chance of Tug developing unwanted habits. If Tugs’ humans can’t prevent him from doing something inappropriate or dangerous he goes in the crate. This keeps Tug safe, decreases conflict between Tug and his humans, and decreases stress for Tug later on in training. If developing bad habits is avoided from the start then training is a lot more fun!
- Helps better regulate his emotions. Like most puppies, Tug is not great at knowing when he needs to be put down for a nap. He will get overstimulated and start nipping, jumping, vocalizing etc. The crate is a great way to diffuse those situations and help him successfully decompress. This leads to better emotional regulation skills as an adult.
- Helps build healthy boundaries. Daily time on his own, away from his humans, and in his own space decreases the chance that Tug will develop separation anxiety later on.

The crate isn’t a punishment, it’s a versatile tool that is an important part of your puppy’s education. We see a lot of puppy owners give up on crate training the first time the puppy throws a tantrum in the crate and then develop a variety of behavioral issues that could have been avoided with crate training.

We also understand that crate training is not the solution for every dog’s behavioral issues. We have some client that needed to remove or reduce their dog’s time in the crate to better address specific behavioral issues. However, for the average puppy it can be a HUGE benefit despite the occasional tantrum.

Post your crate training success story in the comments to inspire other puppy owners to sick with their crate training⬇️

03/03/2024

Our Group Class program is back after our winter hiatus! These classes are only available for those who have done one on one classes with us. You can sign up via Pet Pocketbook or you can email us at [email protected] to reserve your spot.

3/23 at 10:00am
Arnold Arboretum, Fairview Entrance

3/30 at 10:00am
Daisy Field, off of Willow Pond Rd in Jamaica Plain

4/20 at 10:00am
Arnold Arboretum, corner of Bussey St and and Walter St Entrance

4/26 at 5:45pm
Lowes Garden Center 306 Providence Hwy, Dedham

The following are some of the topics we will be covering in Group Class. Feel free to request additional topics or exercises.

* Emotional regulation skills around distractions.
* Loose leash walking around distractions.
* Recall around distractions.
* Stay around distractions.
* Advocating for your dog in a public setting.
* Exercises for building endurance and strength.
* Hiking/off leash etiquette and safety around water.
* Facilitating healthy social behavior with other dogs.
* Canine Good Citizen Prep.

Please feel free to reach out to [email protected] if you have any questions or concerns. We are looking forward to seeing you at Group Class!

01/01/2024

Happy Holidays! Hope everyone had a relaxing and joyful end of the year.

Super late on posting about this because we have been BUSY but our new website is up! And it has our updated 2024 prices on it. Link in our bio.

If you have a Pet Pocketbook account with us you should get an email with an updated Client Services Agreement for you to sign. New prices will be listed there along some new policies in regard to boarding late fees and lock boxes.

If you have any questions please feel free to email us at [email protected]. We don’t want to raise our prices, but several of our expenses increased going into 2024 so we need to compensate for that. We are willing to do reasonable discounts/payment plans for those who need financial support.

Thank you to everyone who trusted us with their dogs this year. It is such a privilege to grow, learn, and adventure with your dogs every day. We are all looking forward to another year of fun!

Lots of love
- The Community Canine Team

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@sunshinedogcare and I recently took the dogs to Monhegan Island in Maine. It’s absolutely beautiful and dog friendly, but requires a ferry ride to access. Two out of three dogs had been on a boat before. I knew Ares, who hadn’t been on a boat before, would be nervous without the right support. Even though I didn’t have a boat to practice with before the trip, there were other skills we could practice beforehand that would help regulate him through the process.The following are the well practiced skills I used to help support him during his first boat experience. 🎾 I played with him right before we got on. We regularly go to new/stimulating places and play. This is a normal thing for him and an activity that has been used to help him regulate around a variety of distractions and stressors. 🧠 I used words and sequences he knew well to get him across the ramp, on the boat, up the stairs, past the other passengers, and to lay at my feet. 🐕 Once we settled in our seats I massaged him in a way that I do on a regular basis after we play. 🍗 When he is nervous he is less likely to take food, but I did offer high value food rewards multiple time throughout the trip. Initially he declined, but over time he became much more eager to take the food rewards. Anytime there were changes in the environment I would give him a food reward.. This helped him regulate himself and build positive associations with this new experience. By the end of the ride there he was able to lay with his head down and relax. On the way back he just slept the whole time. If I had a different lifestyle with him he could not have done this trip. He would have gotten nervous and had no way to recover. Since we regularly play and train in new and stimulating places he knows how to overcome stress with me. The skills used to help him regulate his emotions were familiar and comforting to him because we practice them every week. Having two calm dogs with us that he knows and loves was a h

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Community K9

Community K9 is a Boston based dog training program aimed at creating healthy, safe, and balanced relationships between humans and their dogs. We offer in home one on one training sessions, one on one training sessions out of Falco K9 in South Boston, Board and Trains, and Community Pack Walks

Community K9 is owned by Micaela Purnell who is a AKC-CGC and APDT certified dog trainer who has years of experience training and rehabilitating dogs and horses. Her goal is to build a safer and educated dog community in Boston. She has two dogs, a Boston Terrier and a Pit Mix. She has experience working with a wide variety of behavioral problems as well as dog grooming and nutrition. For her, dog training is far more than a few commands and tricks, its a lifestyle choice for you and the dog, and a good one at that!

We offer a wide variety of methods, skills, tools, and exercises to train your dog. Our goal is to make you and your dog have the highest quality of life, no matter what behavioral issue you are faced with. We offer a free meet and greet to all new clients to discuss your dogs unique curriculum before starting classes.

16/02/2025

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23/01/2025

11/01/2025

15/12/2024

22/11/2024

13/11/2024

02/11/2024

27/10/2024

18/10/2024

01/09/2024

24/06/2024

30/04/2024

12/04/2024

08/03/2024

03/03/2024

01/01/2024

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