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K9 Leadership

Dog and puppy training. Obedience, engagement, tracking, scent work and more, based North Vancouver.

DOG AND PUPPY OBEDIENCE TRAINING & TRACKING CLASSES IN NORTH VANCOUVER and Greater Vancouver Area

22/11/2024

A few shots from the Urban Tracking Trial this past Sunday, once again hosted by the wonderful Great Dane Club.

What a tough day it was! Out of 7 teams, only one made it through despite lots of hard work. Conditions were looking good, but the dogs told us things were not as easy as they seemed!

Congratulations to Lizl and Gabby on their UTD, and congrats to all the other teams for their hard work. We are excited to share some more stories from the day, so keep an eye out over the next few days!

20/11/2024

A great recap from Ona about her recent TD with her pup, Casey! We love to hear it! Huge congrats to these two!

“Casey * Woodside’s Stand By Me, earned her TD (Tracking Dog) on Sunday hosted by the Western Great Dane Club of BC.

We drew the last track so lots of time to think about what could go wrong. Heading to the scent pad it was hard to hold her back, she took a quick sniff and off we went. She works fast so I sometimes struggle to keep up with her and quite often I’m at the end of my line and just hanging on. I basically just trust her and follow wherever she indicates where the track goes. She found the Glove. Now I can catch my breath😂

Thanks to the Great Dane Club, our Judge Maureen Fielding and all the track layers, volunteers and to the farmers who let us track on their beautiful fields. The Trial went so smoothly. My goal is to try to get Casey to slow down🥰”

10/11/2024

Some great shots from the Great Dane Club tracking trial last weekend!

It was a fantastic day for tracking with an almost 100% pass rate!

Huge congrats to all their teams for their hard work. Check out our Facebook for full videos and stories from some of these great teams.

We also want to add a giant THANK YOU to our track layers (we can’t do it without you!!) as well as Barb and Al Rose from the Great Dane Club for once again putting on a wonderful test for us!

04/11/2024

Amazing work from these two at the Forbidden Plateau Tracking Trial last weekend!

Karen and Halo make a great team and were a joy to watch on their TD.

Check out our recent Facebook post to watch the track and read Karen’s recount of the big day.

Congratulations, team! 👏🏼🎉

01/11/2024

For those that are interested in watching - here is the video of our tracking test the Forbidden Plateau Obedience & Tracking hosted. I feel so lucky we drew a track here for our very first test! Even luckier our instructor Maureen Fielding was there with her young dog and able to watch and video our test after their successful one. (Kenya and Maureen rocked their test as well! Congratulations!!)
Morning of, I had no power in my motel room and couldn’t find my car keys via flashlight. I was sleep deprived and really really sick. Maureen calmly told me it would be ok and let me hitch a ride to the rendezvous. If you aren’t there exactly on time you forfeit your track. Coughing and hacking away, super sick, I got in Maureen’s car and promptly found my keys in a side pocket of my purse. A spot I have never put them…
I was able to get to the rendezvous but the bad start to the day lingered and I was nervous. And still coughing and wheezing.
I told Maureen I was nervous and she reminded me how amazing my dog is and that all I needed to do was follow her. She was so so bang on. Halo carried my on this track while I did my best to stay upright and slow her down. Halo rocked this track with absolutely no need for support from me other than giving her all the leash she needed on the 3rd corner when she needed to circle off the end of that leg. I was so winded by trying to stay upright I spent some time on my knees catching my breath after. She was so confident on that track it took all my effort to hold on and slow her down. I have no words to describe just how proud I am of this dog and how lucky I am for the training and support we have been gifted with.
Here is the video, it may not look exciting but imagine leading your dog up to a 1 meter square of field that a track layer walked on then stood for 60 seconds on and then set out on a track across a field with varying vegetation and lots of distracting odour and sights and then ultimately drops a leather glove. These are farm fields with livestock and wildlife. You bring your dog to that little square of odour, no scent article - just a small patch of odour, you then ask them to take in that odour, remember it, follow where that track layer went then tell you (alert) when they find something in that field that smells just like that track layer. It’s astounding really!!!

I would have been happy to pass, I’m delighted with the judge’s assertion that it was a ‘10/10 perfect, pretty, pretty track’! Lots more training to do, this is just he start - it is a good start though. Good girl Halo ❤️

30/10/2024

We are thrilled to share that our very own Maureen and Kenya have earned their first tracking title in Canada!

As all tracking students and trial participants would know, Maureen is currently the only active local judge. She has judged many, many trials over the past several years, giving her students and all entrants a chance to title their dogs and be recognized for their hard work in training.

The down side of this is that Maureen rarely gets a chance to enter her own dog! So, this past weekend they made the trek over to the Vancouver Island for their chance to trial with the Forbidden Plateau Tracking Club.

We are so proud of Maureen and Kenya who have now earned their TD, as well as Hugo, Maureen’s other tracking buddy who has finally earned his TDX after years of amazing tracking!

Congrats, you three!

30/10/2024

25/10/2024

Otto loved his water world track. Proud of his glove!

24/10/2024

Here’s some water tracking from today 🤣Fields still flooded from the weekend! Yup we’re a bit crazy but it’s ok 👍 😁

17/10/2024

We are beyond excited to share that our new website is now live!!

This has been a long overdue update for us. On our new site, you’ll find:

- Class descriptions
- Upcoming schedules (without logging in!)
- FAQ
- Lots of cute pics
- Client testimonials
… and more!

We won’t tell you how long we’ve been working on this, but we will say we’d love for you to check it out!

➡️k9leadership.com!

24/09/2024

Nova and I participated in our first scent trial this weekend with the Sporting Detection Dog Association and she was amazing! I went in with no expectations. I thought she would be distracted, excited and all over the place. My plan was to let her do her thing and not stress about the result and just hope that we would have fun overall. I couldn't have been more pleasantly surprised!

First - Containers: She was so excited to go into this room! We lost a couple points for "lacks focus/distracted" and "inconsistent search sequence" (She wants to search the perimeter, hasn't quite figured out that the boxes in the middle of the room are where it's at) but still found the hide in less than 30 seconds (27.56 sec). We were last in so it was interesting because I knew it was one of 3 boxes (due to pupkiss and damage) so had to make a very big point of not specifically pointing out a box to check.

Second - Exterior: 7 seconds. Just BAM! Found it, rewarded, done! Perfect score (there was no time to lose any points)

Third - Interior: 28 seconds. Focused and very thorough perimeter search. Perfect score again! She was a little more wiffle-waffly at the end (could tell she was in the area but was a little unsure, so i turned her around 180 and BAM!) but then found it and laid down to mark it (thank you David in tracking!)

She got her Starter title, first in interior and exterior search and then first overall!

We had so much fun! (actually, Nova was a little frustrated because we usually play this game several times in a row so she was wondering why the game ended so quickly). We had a fantastic time learning to play from Laurel. Could not have asked for a better teacher! She comes to you where you're at, does not expect perfection right off the bat, breaks everything down into very manageable chunks (for both dog and human) and is forever patient with the humans who make the same error 10 times. She is also genuinely excited for you and your dog's successes, I want to share everything with her!

Things Nova does super well
- Identifies a hide VERY confidently when she has found it
- Searches the perimeter first
- No dilly-dallying!

Things I learned from Laurel
- Trust Nova when she confidently identifies a hide
- Give her space
- 180 rule (had to use it in interior!)

I'm sure there is more that I've learned and just haven't realized that I've incorporated it.

Looking forward to more scent work with Laurel in October!

Stephanie & Nova

13/09/2024

A couple of regulars from David’s weekly pack walk- Karma, Cheech and Halo.

So nice to see familiar faces and the progress they’ve made!

10/09/2024

How’s that nose working, Porter? Might be time to get back to scent work 🙊

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Videos

For those that are interested in watching - here is the video of our tracking test the Forbidden Plateau Obedience & Tracking hosted. I feel so lucky we drew a track here for our very first test! Even luckier our instructor Maureen Fielding was there with her young dog and able to watch and video our test after their successful one. (Kenya and Maureen rocked their test as well! Congratulations!!) Morning of, I had no power in my motel room and couldn’t find my car keys via flashlight. I was sleep deprived and really really sick. Maureen calmly told me it would be ok and let me hitch a ride to the rendezvous. If you aren’t there exactly on time you forfeit your track. Coughing and hacking away, super sick, I got in Maureen’s car and promptly found my keys in a side pocket of my purse. A spot I have never put them… I was able to get to the rendezvous but the bad start to the day lingered and I was nervous. And still coughing and wheezing. I told Maureen I was nervous and she reminded me how amazing my dog is and that all I needed to do was follow her. She was so so bang on. Halo carried my on this track while I did my best to stay upright and slow her down. Halo rocked this track with absolutely no need for support from me other than giving her all the leash she needed on the 3rd corner when she needed to circle off the end of that leg. I was so winded by trying to stay upright I spent some time on my knees catching my breath after. She was so confident on that track it took all my effort to hold on and slow her down. I have no words to describe just how proud I am of this dog and how lucky I am for the training and support we have been gifted with. Here is the video, it may not look exciting but imagine leading your dog up to a 1 meter square of field that a track layer walked on then stood for 60 seconds on and then set out on a track across a field with varying vegetation and lots of distracting odour and sights and then ultimately drops a leather glove.

Akiva practicing our weave.

Part 3: The Assessment If you missed part 1 & 2, go back and check them out now! Here’s Maureen’s rundown: • Kenya had no problem! In fact, it was too easy! • Time to reduce the use of water on tracks • Increase difficulty so Kenya has to work harder • This should slow her down and keep her head down, too! Maureen and Kenya have done a ton of work with HITT, and it has paid off! Kenya is now ready for more of a challenge. They will continue to use water for exercises to work on precision and pattern nose down tracking. Thanks for watching!

Part 1: Listen to Maureen’s rundown of her plans for her dog, Kenya’s, urban training track. She mentions: • A focus on hard surface today • Use of water on the track (HITT) • Use of cracks, dips and other supports • Fading out supports throughout the track Maureen will be covering these things (and more!) in depth at our upcoming April 7th scent theory seminar! Stay tuned for part 2 to watch Kenya on the track!

If you’ve taken Dog Leadership, chances are you’ve heard of Casey’s legendary back up skills. Here he is in action with Kayleigh! Though this was no challenge for Mr. Casey, he’s happy to get out and show off his skills every now and then 💪🏼 We sure love this guy ♥️ Kayleigh teaches how to back up like a pro in her class, Target Ready! • • • #dogtraining #dogtrainingtips #positivereinforcement #clickertraining #markertraining #dogsofinstagram #trails #northvancouver #northvan

That’s a “wrap” with River! We all know the feeling of dread when your dog heads off the trail on a long line and wraps themself around a couple trees… We teach “wrap” or “go around” in several of our classes. It’s a great way to get your long line untangled and a fun skill to show off. Over time, we often see dogs starting to untangle themselves without being asked! 🤯 P.S. did you hear the distractions in the background? Way to focus, River! • • • #dogtraining #dogtrainingtips #positivereinforcement #clickertraining #markertraining #dogsofinstagram #blacklab #trails #northvancouver #northvan

Never met a puppy who didn’t love Dave! We’re looking forward to getting started again with puppy classes and more in 2024! • • • #dogtraining #positivereinforcement #clickertraining #markertraining #puppyclass #puppykindergarten

We’ve never met a puppy who didn’t love Dave! Looking forward to starting our next round of puppy classes and more soon! • • • #dogtraining #puppytraining #puppyclass #positivereinforcement #clickertraining #northvan #northvancouver