Category: Uncategorized
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An Open Letter To The Guy Who Has His Dog Off Leash
Dear sir, This letter has been written so many times and I’m hoping someday you’ll hear the plea of those of us who have to write these letters. Today, you decided to play fetch with your dog off leash after seeing me and my dog were in the vicinity and my dog was on a…
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I Don’t Know If I Can Keep This Dog
Today has been a day and I feel like I need to write this. I get emotional calls from dog owners all the time, some from clients and some from desperate dog owners just looking for someone to talk to. This call was not unlike others I have gotten from a person dealing with a…
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As A Dog Trainer, My Dog Isn’t Very Well “Trained”
Ivan Balabanov, one of the pillars in the dog training community has said several times on his podcast: Training Without Conflict Podcast something along the lines of: If people were to see me with my dogs, they’d think I need a dog trainer. As a dog trainer I felt this. My dogs get trained on…
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Accepting Failure in Training
Yesterday I got Lucifer, my year old German Shepherd, evaluated for protection sports and he failed. Pretty epically. He was the most uncomfortable I’d ever seen him and I won’t lie, I spent a good amount of time mulling over what I had done wrong as his owner and trainer. The reality of the situation…
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Puppy learns to heel
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Why I Got My Dog From A Breeder
My German Shepherd puppy goes with me most places dogs are allowed and I always get asked if I adopted him or went to a breeder. Based on the title of this blog, you already know the answer, and I feel it’s my duty as a dog professional to answer the unasked, “why?” I only…
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5 Ways to Maintain Your Dogs Training
Training, just like all other skills in life must be maintained. You can spend all the money you want on dog trainers and training tools but if you stop implementing those skills they will deteriorate. Most dogs get to a point where they’re pretty much self reliant, they let you know when they need to…
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My Dog Isn’t Food Motivated: Why Food Isn’t Always the Answer in Dog Training
I’ve been seeing this a lot lately and as they say, write what you know, so here we go. We don’t get to decide what our dogs are motivated by. We can encourage and discourage certain things, but ultimately the dog decides what makes it happy. I’m going to go through food drive and what…
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How to Desensitize Your Dog to Loud Noises
More dogs are lost on the 4th of July than any other day. Why? Because most dogs only hear fireworks once or twice a year and they’re scary. Most of the time, the dog has no prior experience with fireworks or anything similar and it’s first experience is terrible. So, how do we help it?…
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Why You Shouldn’t Let Your Dog Fence Fight
Fence fighting is one of the biggest issues I’ve seen living in the suburbs. For every house with a dog, about 70% of them rush the fence, bark, and run back and forth when another dog or sometimes, just a person walks by. Some people think their dog is just being protective and others are…