2nd Start Dog Training

From the down into the sit position

Working on sit from the down position with king (basic mechanics). 

Stepping out the whelping pin for the very first time. So now during the day, they will be placed in a larger area somewhere around the house and sleep in this whelping pin at night. They’re at 6wks now and already going through training lol… not sure how long I will have them but stay tuned 🙂

Socialization and leash work

The walks last longer when you have obedient dogs 🐕 2nd start dog training

Winter

Confidence building

Training with Kyoshi

Working on basic to advanced skills 🐕

Three-way place work with Kyoshi. Eclipse is her distraction for this exercise. Eclipse has one job to do which is to maintain the down position while Kyoshi works. The goal set in place for Kyoshi is to hit all three markers without trying to engage with Eclipse. 2nd Start Dog Training 🐕

Both human and dog working outside of their comfort zone.

Confidence building…

The goal is to get Winter on the ladder and onto the hood of the car.

Nonverbal training session

I haven’t been able to work Kyoshi the way I want to but she stays on point and ready to work. Kyoshi is no different from the rest of my pack. When it’s her time to shine, she takes full advantage of her one on one sessions. Friendly with all dogs big or small but she don’t take no mess from her litter mates. When Kyoshi is not training, she’s playing and when she’s not playing she’s most likely studying her human while relaxing on the couch.

Basic skills on leash

Training with your dog in the beginning, it is what it is, take what you can get and come back to it later to finish up what you started. What you don’t want to do is shut your dog down during training. In the beginning your goal is to keep your dog engaged in the exercise and feeling good about what he or she is doing at that moment in time with you. No matter how far along a dog is in training I always start our day with the basics ( continuous reinforcement). Also this is how I like to warm up with my dogs before we get into the more challenging stuff. The warm up session will also give me an idea on how focused and motivated Fido is to work. Both of these dogs understand the assignment but my assistant does not. He is a dog lover but not to dog savvy. This video is a good example to showcase that it is not always the dog that needs the help. The human must also understand what it is that they’re asking the dog to do and why. Humans must also understand how to manipulate the behavior they want from their dog when verbal communication is not working. When it comes to communicating with your dog, it’s not all verbal. Communicating with fur baby comes in many forms such as leash pressure, body pressure and sometimes physical touch just the name a few. If your dog is having a hard time understanding you verbally, it’s time to cut off the communication and take a more simpler approach (treat luring). I don’t like to put a name to a behavior until I know that the dog understands the criteria. Again, everything starts with basic obedience if the dog or human doesn’t understand that then there’s no need to move forward in training, stick to the basics until you are both successful. 

Make sure that you are clearly communicating with your dog. If you have to repeat a command over and over again, most likely, the dog is distracted or he doesn’t understand what you want. 

If you own multiple dog’s it will come with some challenges. Training and learning how to communicate with your fur babies will help reduce a lot of unwanted behaviors. Knowing your dog’s triggers will also help you manage your dog’s unwanted behaviors. No matter how good you think your dog is, at the end of the day they’re still animals. Dogs, just like humans have good days and bad days, disagreements are a part of life. The process of dog training is different for each dog in your life, you can’t compare one dog to the next. I love all my dog’s and even the ones I work with all the same but I deal with each one of them based off their personality 🐕

Crate training with Elvis 🐕

In between each cone, there is food on the ground and on top of the cones, there are tennis balls. I set it up this way to add in some distractions. As you can see at this point, I am competing with the food. He’s sharing his eye contact with me and the food, but the food is winning. My goal is to up my value with him to the point that the food doesn’t matter. I want him to understand that his engagement with me pays out more than the little kibble he sees before him on the ground.

Before I take any dog on a long walk, I need that dog to understand a few things before the walk. like… No pulling on leash, walk with me or slightly behind me. For dogs that I allow to walk slightly in front of me, they can’t be reactive to other dogs on leash. They have to check in on a regular with eye contact. If I give a verbal command that dog must respond immediately. Regardless of the dogs position on the walk, when I stop the dog stops. It doesn’t matter how many times a day I walk my dog, each walk is different and is catered to making the dog better.

This is one way I like to keep my fur babies busy or in other words give them something to do especially on hot days. This one was a quick fix. It was just water, bananas, and butternut squash you can do your however you like 🙂

In the lab with my Buddy Malx… he’s working on the place command. Normally when he’s doing this exercise I have him on some type of hard surface to make it easy and clear about what I want. This time his marker is inside the circle of a hula hoop.

Shaping and creating new behaviors with Maggie 👍🏾

Training time, basic obedience with Maggie 🐕

Distraction training and confidence building also working on a little bit of leash reactivity.