The Dog Blog

Recall. It could save your dog’s life someday, so practice it! We practice inside in low distraction-environments first to make sure the dog really understands what we’re asking of them. Here, Willow is practicing recall while we’re out of sight using the e-collar to help her. We use the pressure of the e-collar essentially as a game of hot-or-cold. As she gets closer, the stimulus from the e-collar lessens. If she gets farther away, the

So much of puppy training is about setting up a really nice foundation. That means building confidence, teaching them how to move with you, trying new things, and exposing them to the world around us. Daisy was pretty nervous with trying new things, so we took her to a park with lots of structures to explore, lots of smells to distract her, and lots of opportunities to make mistakes and try again. We used lures

Willow absolutely adores other dogs. The problem with that is, not all dogs adore her. She has a lot of energy and doesn’t know how to read their signals when they’ve had enough of her, and that’s led to other dogs correcting her. We don’t want that! So we haven’t introduced her to Copper yet in the traditional sense. It’s not because I’m worried (I think they would actually love playing together). It’s because I

Theo is all about escaping discomfort. If he hears a loud noise, he tries to run away. If he’s feeling needy, he pushes into your arm for attention. If he’s in the crate, he wants out. If he’s out of the crate, he wants in. He needs to not only understand that he can’t escape everything (it’s not a safe option!), but that I will keep him safe and help him through everything that is

Patriot is helping me demonstrate how to ask for more eye contact from your dog. This is a great skill to have that can translate into so many other areas of your training. You want your dog to focus on you, so start them young if you can and teach them that giving you their attention will earn them a reward! This is a great exercise to work on with your puppy to encourage them

Puppy training takes patience, so I love that I captured this moment in Patriot’s training that was all about waiting for him to problem solve. In this video you’ll see a really cool learning moment in Patriot’s training. He knows place, and he knows down. So now we’re pairing them together, the end goal being that he will get on place and down automatically. So we start by telling him “Place, down, break. Place, down,

Ren is a sweet girl that LOVES people and thinks that everyone is here for her. That gets her into the wrong mindset and leads to her jumping on people, breaking command, and pulling on the leash. We need to work through that so that she can be exposed to new environments and people, but still be respectful of their space and the rules we have in place.

Let’s talk about this incredibly simple but useful tool. Don’t have one? We’ll show you how to make one in a pinch so that you can safely leash your dog anytime, anywhere.