Blog

You’re excited to be bringing home your new dog. You have great plans but remember that your new dog doesn’t know this yet! Here are seven tips to help you successfully navigate those first three days.

Did you know that all cued behaviours are tricks to your dog? Once you understand this perspective, you can start to see the benefits of training any behaviour and have fun with the process.

Despite your best intentions, you’ve been too busy to train your dog. With a few simple changes, you can fit training time into your schedule and start to see the results you’ve been hoping for.

Congratulations on bringing a rescue dog into your home! To help your dog adapt to their new life, learn what to expect over the first 3 months and play low-pressure games to help with the transition.

Once your dog is labelled stubborn, your story becomes a tragedy “my dog isn’t trainable, he’s stubborn”. Let’s change the narrative, transform your dog’s behaviour, take your relationship to a new level.

Introduce variety into your dog’s daily diet. Adding fresh food is one of the best ways to improve the quality of whatever diet you feed your dog, and variety is always better than feeding the same thing.

Learn the importance of two essential calmness skills and how to teach them to your dog. 1) Disengage from all the exciting 'stuff' in the environment; it's none of your business and 2) Relax calmly on a boundary.

Did you know that your dog has a bucket? Learn why a full bucket can lead to over-arousal and poor choices. Learn how adding two strategies into your dog's day can empty the bucket and why that's beneficial.

Discover how you can grow calmness in your dog by teaching them to access the emotion of calmness. A calm dog is a dog who can make good choices leading to better behaviour from your dog.

When off-leash does your dog chase, ignore your recall, wander away, rarely check in? If yes, their brain isn’t equipped to make the choices they need to stay safe. Using a long line and games can change this!

Discover the why, what, how, and when of using a long line to grow the skills your dog needs to be safely off-leash on your outdoor adventures.

What dog doesn’t pull on leash.  From an early age, your dog learns that to get to the good stuff, they need to drag you over to it.  Learn how to skill up your dog to walk nicely on leash.

Dog’s who struggle with disengagement usually start to bark, lunge, or chase the thing that has caught their attention. Learn how to grow disengagement with three simple approaches.

Do you have a dog who repeatedly goes through the day reacting to every event (no matter how small) by going from calm to high arousal? Discover the four tools you can use to grow more appropriate responses.

Growing a great relationship with your dog doesn’t happen by chance. Learn how to consciously seek out positive interactions, identify negative interactions, and turn those negative interactions into positive ones!

You take your dog to the park, cue the sit, and nothing happens. You feel so frustrated because at home he aces it every time and find yourself saying "but My Dog KNOWS That!" Do you have a disobedient, stubborn,...

Does your dog get sick in the car, pant excessively, bark and whine when you are driving, bark and lunge at things outside of the vehicle, or get over-excited when you near your destination?  If yes to any of ...

If your dog is afraid of getting into the car, it's important to grow their confidence and optimism. A dog who likes the car is a dog who will enjoy traveling to all the amazing places you want to take...

Look at the pros and cons of live on-line vs in-person classes to determine which type of class might be right for you.

Around 7 – 9 months of age (on average) your puppy will enter adolescence.   During this life stage, growth and sex hormones will change their physical body, their emotional responses, and ...

Last month you were introduced to the concept of a ‘ladder of responsibility’.   In today’s post, you will learn how to deal with setbacks, how to tell if your dog is improving, and watch the concept in action with Piper.

How can you grow calmness in a dog that has difficulty relaxing in a specific space (or situation)?  This post will describe the ladder of responsibility as it relates to calmness, and you will learn how to apply the concept to...

In my last post, I talked about what Action Prompting is and what you can do about it. Today, let’s delve into more detail on the four strategies that you can employ to address this struggle: Grow Calmness, Ditch the...

You are sitting at your desk and your dog comes up to you and bats your arm or leg with their paw.   They want something from you:  food, attention, play.  Initially you don’t really ...

Dog's bark for a variety of different reasons but the underlying cause is an emotional response to something in the environment.  What we don’t realize is ...

Are you frustrated and angry because no matter how often you yell "NO" your dog just doesn’t listen and stop their bad behaviour?  If this is you, read on! To improve your mood and to see a change ...

On these hot summer days, a nice treat for your dog is to give them a homemade pup-sicle.  I learned about these at the Kootenay Scent Hounds nosework trial I attended in May.  I have since ...

High value rewards combined with fun delivery can make the difference between a dog who goes through the motions versus a dog who is actively engaged in the process.

I am so proud of Loki today.  We were walking along the lower Galena Trail this morning and just before getting back to the car, Marley found a nice deer bone.  I was about 10 feet ...

Training sessions can be planned to run for an hour with lots of breaks but often shorter training sessions make for better learning and its easier to fit short training sessions into a busy day!  An interesting study found ...

May is International Dog Bite Prevention Month.  Did you know that the majority of dog bites come from a friend's dog or the family dog and that dogs never bite ‘out of the blue’?  Don’t be lulled ...