Mind Your Pawz

The MYP team was invited to Real Life Community Church in Middletown yesterday to speak with a young group of students about dogs. Myself and Ben, along with our trainer Asha, and her digs Eden & Ivy, held a group discussion with Q&A, lots of petting, some trick perfomances, and fun facts education about the canine citizens that so many of us share our homes ans lives with.I think its safe to say that everyone had a great time!Many thanks to Mary amd Pastor Dee for inviting us in to share our love and knowledge of dogs wirh them💖🐾#dogtraining #community #dogsandkids #goldenretriever #bordercollie #caninegoodcitizen #positivereinforcementdogtraining #smallbusiness #middletownde #elktondogtraining #delawaredogtraining #cecilcountymd #mindyourpawzdogtraining #mindyourpawz

Our pup schoolers are getting the zoomies out with our lead puppy wrangler Eden this morning! 🐾. #elktonmd #puppyschool #daytraining #dogtraining#certifieddogtrainer #elktondogtraining #cecilcountymd #puppysocialization #dogplay #goldenretriever #cavalierkingcharles #germanshepherd #poodle #puppies #smallbusiness

Filing Her Own Nails

Stay & Train Lily has some pretty strong feelings about handling her feet and nails. We are working on that in separate cooperative care sessions but meanwhile, we need to do something about the TALONS😱! This video clip is her 4th lesson learning to file her own nails on a scratch board via marker training #dogtraining #nailcare #gsp #positivereinforcement #markertraining #inhomeboardandtrain #stayandtrain #puppyboardandtrain #elktonmd #delaware #delawaredogtraining #cecilcountymd #marylanddogtraining #mindyourpawzdogtraining #mindyourpawzstayandtrain #mindyourpawz

Big dogs don’t come out of the womb knowing how big they are, especially compared to smaller dogs. It’s absolutely vital that while these big dogs are young and impressionable, we introduce them to appropriate (!) small adult dogs. Rudy is 15 weeks old and plays rough and tumble with other puppies his own size, but that play style isn’t conducive to getting along with small dogs. Enter Reese and Lemon! Reese is a 16 month old Poodle and Lemon is a 3 year old Cavalier Spaniel. Lemon is amazing at teaching the young hooligan puppies that not all dogs want to interact (even if they’re available to interact with!), while Reese is great at teaching them how to approach a small dog appropriately, how to play appropriately, and she even lets them know when to stop playing! All of those skills are very handy for big dogs to learn as puppies, and the window for teaching them these skills is pretty limited as we have to keep the safety of the smaller dog in mind. #germanshepherd #poodle #cavalierkingcharlesspaniel #doglanguage #dogbodylanguage #lifeskills #doglifeskills #puppy #dogsocial #Rudy #elktondogtraining #mindyourpawzdogtraining #mind_your_pawz #delawaredogtraining #puppyschool

Early morning walk with Stay & Train youngsters Lily and Dewey 🦮🐾#goldenretriever #germanshorthairedpointer #walkswithdogs #stayandtrain #morningwalks #elktondogtraining #delawaredogtraining #mind_your_pawz #mindyourpawzdogtraining

Super Star Client pup, Rudy (14 week German Shepherd) settling under a table on Main Street in Newark - just watching and listening to the world 🐾♥️ This is one of the skills that we practice at Prodigy Pup School during our field trips. It’s important for pups to learn early on that there is a time and a place for greetings. It’s also important for them to have experiences that allow them to observe and not necessarily interact. This type of exposure and socialization is one of the hallmarks of our Prodigy Pup School program 🐶🐾 If you have a puppy under 16 weeks old and you have hopes to share activities with them outside the home, this may be a great program for you and your puppy! Registration is limited. We have 2 openings to begin the program this fall. #puppy #dog #puppysocialization #dogtraining #positivereinforcement #mypprodigypupschool #germanshepherd #elktonmd #NewarkDelaware #Starbucks #mypprodigypupschool #mindyourpawzdogtraining #dogs #gooddogs #delawaredogs

Acclimation to wearing a muzzle

Acclimating to wearing a muzzle… This is a clip of our exercise and enrichment coordinator, Rachel. She is amazing with our dogs and I’m super proud of her work in this video clip of her working with Finley, one of our fearful prodigy pup school members. Rachel has been with us since last fall. She is studying to be a groomer, but I keep telling her what a great trainer she is becoming. The dog world is super fortunate that she is planning to make a career in our industry 🥰🥰🥰 I have the best team. I absolutely could not do this without them ♥️ #dogs #dogtraining #cooperativecare #muzzletraining #fearfuldog #positivereinforcementtraining #teamwork #employeespotlight #employeeappreciation #mindyourpawzdogtraining #mind_your_pawz #mypprodigypupschool

Stay & Train Lily is winning Ben over!! Appropriate adult dogs can do wonders for raising a puppy to understand dog’s social cues and interactions. #germanshorthairedpointer #gsp #bordercollie #dogsandpuppies #puppies #dogtraining #puppytraining #puppyboardandtrain #inhomeboardandtrain #stayandtrain #positivereinforcement #kpactp #mindyourpawzdogtraining #mind_your_pawz #elktonmd #delawaredogtraining #marylanddogtrainer

This was so hard for her! My new dog Kit LOVES to play Jolly Ball Fetch. It’s a very big reinforcer for her- even more so than high value food items. So I’m beginning to put some rules around our ball games for a few reasons: 1) Fetch doesn’t require much thought and I want her to be thoughtful. Using her brain will bring her more relaxed satisfaction afterwards than just running back and forth in a frenzy. 2) Since this game is so super reinforcing for her, I would like to be able to use it in order to reinforce her for other behaviors that I want. In order to use this ball as a reinforcer, I must be able to control the game. Here I’ve asked for a very simple behavior that she already knows well. “Touch!” is a behavior that I first taught her with food and it just means to target my open palm with her nose and she earns a treat for it. In this case, she must take her laser focus off of the ball for long enough to bop my hand with her nose and that’s what makes the game begin! It seems so simple, but it is a really tough skill for a dog that loves playing ball (just throw!!). It requires her to shift her focus and be thoughtful instead of just staring and waiting for that ball to move/release from my hands. I can, and probably will, put even more rules around this game and require her to to do other behaviors before I release her to go after it. What’s cool about training this way is that it also really strengthens the behaviors that I’m trying to teach her (which aren’t naturally exciting or fun for her otherwise) because she gets super excited to do them fast and joyfully because she has ball thoughts! Even though she is super driven to work for toy reinforcers, I like my dogs to have both food and toy reinforcers in their training bag. Food can promote a calmer feeling for calm behaviors, and for other behaviors you may want more energy in the execution, the way that toys can bring! Really enjoying the “getting to know you

Introducing the Flower Power 🌸 Gang! Daisy and Ivy are the two golden retrievers - Daisy is 12 weeks old and Ivy is 15 weeks. Both girls have been Puppy Campers since they were 8-9 weeks old 🥰 Lily is the newest member, she’s an 18 week old German Shorthaired Pointer! Today is her first day of Puppy Camp, and she’s fitting in very well! We love getting puppies this age (and younger) because they acclimate so easily and so quickly 💗 Lily will show up frequently in all of our reels/posts over the next couple of weeks - she’s participating in Puppy Camp this week in preparation of her Stay & Train which starts this Friday! 🐶🐾🦴 #puppy #puppytraining #dog #goldenretriever #puppycamp #puppysocialization #germanshorthairedpointer #gsp #puppies #stayandtrain #boardandtrain #puppyplay #Delaware #Maryland

How fast do you think they’re going?! #dog #puppy #puppytraining #puppycamp #puppysocialization #bordercollie #goldenretriever #mindyourpawz

#malinois #belgainmalinois #sillydog #smartdogs #flirtpole #yumi

Rudy (a 12 week German Shepherd) is staying with us for some social exposure and basic training/life skills for the next couple weeks. (By the way I adore him and quite enjoy spending time with him 😍) My dogs have been super fair with him, and 6yo Ben especially so. I turned on the camera a bit late, but Ben drew the line at Rudy herding him - which I was glad to see because that behavior can land Rudy in a fight if he’s still doing that to others when he’s older and bigger. Oh and then he decided to bonk Kassie while she was trying to potty so he’s on her 💩 list too 🤣🐾 #puppy #puppysocialization #puppiesanddogs #caninebehavior #germanshepherd #bordercollie #elktonmd #marylanddogs #herdingdogs #appropriatecorrection #mind_your_pawz #mindyourpawzdogtraining #mindyourpawz #Rudy

July marks the one year anniversary of Puppy Camp (MYP Prodigy Pup School) and I have no regrets!🥰🐾 We were gifted with beautiful weather today and we introduced lots of new friends! The socialization opportunities have been wonderful for some of our adult dogs as well the pups. The beginning of this video is my Ben, who has been pretty dog reactive most of his life, but he has relaxed so much just by being around my work and because I’ve never allowed unknown dogs to approach him. He’s been choosing to!! And he has amazing signals and such lovely appropriate behavior with puppies, like he does with this 12 week old German Shepherd (Rudy) and the 14 week old Golden Retriever (Ivy). Also shown is one of our newest camp members, Lady Lemon (Cavalier King Charles Spaniel), and also our long time member Reese (miniature poodle). We took a ton of video today because everything was so cute and everything seemed so worth capturing… However, editing it and getting it uploaded as a whole separate project! We will do our best to share more of the cuteness and great body language over the next couple of 🐾💖 #dogs #puppies #socialization #socializingpuppies #caninebodylanguage #dogbehavior #dogtraining #puppycamp #mypprodigypupschool #puppydayschool #bordercollie #germanshepherd #minipoodle #cavalierkingcharlesspaniel #goldenretriever #mindyourpawz #mind_your_pawz

Kit (my newly adopted dog) is wired for the chase 💨 🙃 I’m sharing some of our projects openly because I know a lot of people have similar challenges. Unfortunately I live on a busy road and we have SO MANY ATV and motorcycles racing back and forth on several evenings a week. This evening we were outside when this one kind of surprised us. Just taking her inside is not going to work because they do this A LOT. I need her to be able to function without leaving me to chase them. Plus, we are inside a fence here, but this is an incredibly dangerous habit. So we’re going to work on it. She called off really well, but I could see her instinct to chase was still very much driving her behavior as she tried to return to it. Giving her something appropriate to expel that same energy(the chase) is going to be our plan, as well as playing really fun games (tug, etc) while the motorcycles are speeding past. I will determine the distance and the type of work/games that will keep her engaged while the bikes are passing by, and eventually the bikes will become background noise, and thus not as exciting as they are today. Eventually. Yep - we have lots of projects - but she’s gonna be so worth it 💙🤪🐾 #bordercollie #impulsecontrol #selfregulation #dogtraining #toyskills #rewardyourdog #rescuedog #adopted #mind_your_pawz #kitkat #jollyball

After school shenanigans last week! One of our trainers has a new puppy and we introduced her to two of our current stay & train dogs. Both adults are super appropriate with the pup! One is larger and one is smaller, so puppy is learning so much from these interactions 💖🐾 #dogs #dogfriends #puppycamp #mypprodigypupschool #puppy #socialization #dogbodylanguage #mindyourpawz #elktonmd #delaware #potatoprincess #goldenretriever #bordercollie #goldendoodle

Yumi 6 mos Big Sticks make her happy #malinois #belgainmalinois #maligator #stickdog #puppycamp #mypprodigypupschool #mindyourpawz

These two …bffs 🤣😍