Obedience Commands

Obedience commands are awesome, but not enough on their own to change the relationship you have with your dog. The obedience commands give us a common foundation to work with, but it’s impulse control and proofing that give us practical applications in the real world (which is in fact where we live). It also gives us a way to address the dog’s mindset. When we give dogs boundaries and teach them to look to us before making choices, it actually changes their perception of us and builds a more well rounded relationship.

Establishing Communication

I work with specific tools that I think help us communicate to our dogs in the most effective and subtle ways possible. Prong collars and e-collars are the two most important tools that I utilize to help dogs understand exactly what we want. Prong collars allow us to give our dogs directional cues while on-leash, and e-collar gives us the ability to hold our dogs accountable and communicate to them when they are off leash. They really give us the ability to have a common language so we can communicate clearly to each other, they allow for a huge amount of subtlety or not as the case may be. I also use things like food, praise, and physical affection, but most people are already familiar with those.

Crate Training

Crating is really important in my program. I love crate training because it gives our dogs a safe, comfortable space to decompress in. They are safe from the pressures of the outside world in their crates. Crates keep dogs from being able to damage or ingest belongings or food items in your home. This keeps our stuff from being damaged—but more importantly, it could save your dog’s life. Many dogs if left unattended will ingest foreign objects, food, or medicine that could make them very sick. If dogs are left unattended with other animals in the home, they can also potentially harm each other (even if that’s not their intention things can escalate quickly). And in the case of an emergency we want our dogs to be comfortable and accustomed to a crate. If your dog has to stay at the vet for an emergency you’ll want them used to a crate, same if you ever find yourself evacuating for a natural disaster.

Mindset

Mindset is the overall mental state of our dog and ourselves. We need to be prepared to set and enforce boundaries for our dogs, and we want to teach our dogs to remain calm until we tell them it’s appropriate to be excited. We have to be willing to tell our dogs “no” when it’s appropriate and do what’s best for our dogs. My goal is for you to have the fullest life possible with your dog, but in order to do that, you have to find the right balance of calmness and structure, and excitement and freedom. That will look slightly different for every dog. Oftentimes I find that our relationships with our dogs get out of balance because it’s really easy to give them freedom and affection, but much harder to give them boundaries and rules. We often lean on our dogs emotionally as well, and it’s a really tough space for a lot of them to be in. They want someone to look up to, so we want to make sure you are that person they can trust, respect, and look to for guidance. Doing training means you will be able to involve your dog in more of your life because they will better understand how to remain calm, cool, and collected in different circumstances. But, they only hold up their end of the bargain if you hold up yours.