I haven’t written anything on nosework in a while. As some of our team are moving past the ‘trial’ type of searches into more advanced work I wanted to highlight some of the reasons why some dogs fail to progress as fast as their owners want them too. Stop Helping I know owners hate to…   Continue

We started working on Canine Freestyle and Dance a year ago. It has been a fun journey. Harley and I worked through some of the beginning stages without realizing we were setting up the groundwork for dance. When I started to think about training formally I watched all the videos that were out there. I…   Continue

Look, look at me, or redirects are a common training tool when people are working with nervous or aggressive dogs. But remember that you need to build foundation behaviors. If the dog doesn’t trust you, it won’t leave the ‘scary thing’ to look at you. Teach this behavior to your dog, but if it doesn’t…   Continue

She stood arguing with me. She’d had German Shepherds all her life, but never a high drive dog. She’d only had this one for three months, and had been trying to get it to stop reacting for six weeks. Nothing was working.  It was a smart dog. More than one experienced dog person had taken…   Continue

We had an interesting discussion a week ago. Despite the wolf dog relationship has been disproved for over 15 years the belief in the ‘dominance’ or ‘alpha’ theory is still entrenched firmly in today’s dog training world. I tried to keep emotions out of this article, and relate the research in a way that can…   Continue

Note: I could not have written this article as well without some clarity and structure from Susan Garrett’s training courses. What is a Verbal Cue? A verbal cue is a word that tells your dog what you want it to do. In all dog sports, except scent, luring, and tracking we want to tell the…   Continue

“Cortisol, a glucocorticoid (steroid hormone), is produced from cholesterol in the two adrenal glands located on top of each kidney. It is normally released in response to events and circumstances such as waking up in the morning, exercising, and acute stress. Cortisol’s far-reaching, systemic effects play many roles in the body’s effort to carry out…   Continue

I have a new client this week and it brought me to the whole Cortisol problem. They wanted me to ‘train’ the reactivity out of their dog. Their exact words were ‘he needs some discipline to teach him some manners.’  I cringed, and tried to explain. One of the hardest things to explain to people…   Continue

Calming Exercises can help your dogs overcome aggression and fear based behavior issues. Dogs cannot learn when they are stressed. Sometimes they are showing aggression because they are stressed and too worried to learn. Vet Lili Chin made some great posters to help people learn how to calm their dogs    

There are so many ways to teach agility. There are many small behaviors to shape, from contact training to shaping speed. There is a method for every dog, and every trainer. When it comes to agility each handler needs to find a way that works for their dog. Dogs cannot see the full spectrum of…   Continue