Don’t forget to proof your obedience as much as possible before ever leaving your house. The proofing stage is where we teach dogs how to troubleshoot when they make mistakes. So often this stage is skipped because it appears the dog is doing “so well!” But then take them to the outside world and their training falls apart. We make things difficult for these guys before ever going into the public scene so that they can learn how to handle a bit of stress and what to do when they are. The real wo

Dog Escapes Backyard Through Narrow Gap in Fence

Walks with training dogs (for us) are always structured. The yard is for free time and play. Pretty much every dog that comes to us for training has issues on the walk such as pulling, barking, or full blown reactivity. If we allowed dogs to make their own choices on a walk right from the beginning, it would end up a disaster. Without a baseline of training, the dogs would just continue repeating the old behaviors that they came in for in the first place. Instead, we want dogs in follow mode mea

“How can I stop my dog from digging?” Well ... once a dog has started obsessive digging, this will require quite a bit of management and training. The thing is - digging is a normal canine behavior. And in many cases, dogs will dig occasionally, but not excessively. However: Once a dog discovers “Oh wow, digging is really fun when I am bored” then it quickly gets out of hand. Dogs that are left to their own devices outside for many hours and that do not have enough enrichment, training and exerc

Digging Dogs