Survey Says...

Sometimes I forget that we do things and inform our active clients (via a private facebook group or email list), but don't share that information publicly all the time so that past clients and the general public are aware of what we are doing and why. So if you're in that group, this isn't news to you.

We shared a survey with our current/recently active clients in our closed Facebook group, asking them what we could do to better serve them, and what the pain points were in their interactions with us. Three suggestions came through very clearly:

  1. More clarity around next steps for each clients in terms of what classes or services they should complete after the foundation work.

  2. More "real world" sessions where we work with clients out in real life situations so that we can give them feedback and guidance "in the moment", and also so they can enjoy activities with other like minded dog owners that they worked so hard to be able to do, responsibly.

  3. Accommodation for clients with limited or fluctuating income to be able to continue attending classes regularly.

Expanded Curriculum & Training Road Maps

To address item #1, we've outlined a four class obedience curriculum progression that takes clients from zero all the way through AKC/UKC Open level trained skills. We are not a "competition" dog training company. But adhering to a set of defined standards and a specific skill set allows us to continue offering a "guarantee" for these group classes with structured curriculum. We'll also be providing personalized training roadmaps for every client upon completion of the Foundation Obedience program, whether through group class or private lessons.


Increased Practice Opportunities “In the Wild”

To address item #2, we've committed to hosting at least three of our "real world" practice sessions each month: one off leash hike (in a place where it is safe and LEGAL to do so), one "pub dog" outing to a restaurant/bar/brewery, and one "street cred" outing where we do a pack walk through a city neighborhood to help people work on issues they encounter on walks in real time.


Making Continued Training More Accessible

To address item #3, in September we will begin switching to a "value for value" (also known as "pay what you want") model for our drop in classes beginning with our obedience practice sessions. Clients will be able to pay any price they wish from $25 down to $0 for each session, in $5 increments. These are people who have already demonstrated that they value what we are trying to do here, and by completing the Foundation training, shown that they are committed to putting in the hard work. So this was kind of a no-brainer.


Growing and Giving Back

As we continue to grow, and as a company that has chosen to be a predominantly referral based business that does no advertising, we are aware of how important our clients are to our success. We are always looking for ways to better serve you all and are open to suggestions. It’s not always easy to make balance wanting to be profitable and wanting to be principled. But I think have done a decent job so far. As always, if you have ideas, questions, comments, or concerns you can write us at




P.S. To those who think because we do “obedience” that we aren’t fixing problems… you’re wrong. More appropriately, we aren’t “dwelling” on them. In the process of teaching “do this” we also have to teach “and don’t do that”. Beyond that, we have to help dogs reference things differently in their mind (that thing’s not scary, that dog isn’t going to try to kill you, that person isn’t a monster, food isn’t something to fight over, etc.) But people trying to resolve complex problems without the requisite skills to do so, fail. They might not like to admit to it, but they don’t actually fix the problem… often settling on a combination of management, avoidance, and excuses instead. Once you’ve had a dog that is ACTUALLY TRAINED, you’ll never settle for anything less again.


Today is National Purebred Dog Day.

At times I think it's important to visit key points that are often missed. Without domestication, we would not have dogs as we know them today. And while there is a push to select rescued dogs over bred dogs, there are some important considerations when making that choice. First... that every dog was bred. Intentionally or not, they were. The difference is whether they are bought first or secondhand, and if they were well bred in the first place. People want their dogs to behave predictably. Much behavior is driven by genetics. Predictable genetics = Predictable behavior. None of this denies the value of training, obviously.

Dogs were selectively bred into "types" and then "breeds" so that their abilities and inclinations were more predictable. "Abilities," implies that the people who owned and handled these dogs actually needed them to be able to do some sort of work or perform some sort of task. When dogs were bred for their ability to do a job, along with health (being able to do the job for a long time), and temperament (being a cooperative co-worker)... generally good things happened provided the gene pool wasn't narrowed in a way that creates common issues related to inbreeding.

I don't expect every dog owner to hunt, or do search and rescue, or bite sport, or any other work. But it would be helpful for us to recognize that having a purpose is generally a good thing, and not having a purpose generally makes one feel a bit lost. A colleague once remarked that being a "pet" (a loved member of the family) is the highest position a dog can have... the most noble work. All I can say is that I know that guy has never had a purposeful dog doing purposeful work. It's a comment born of naivety. I don't know any good dog (wo)men who don't hold their dogs as highly regarded members of the family, and also recognize and appreciate them for their specific skills. Skills that are heavily shaped by their breed/type. And I think that if you ask a dog, they would probably tell you "accouterment", couch ornament, or conversation piece is not their dream job.

There is a reason most service dogs, police/military working dogs, hunting dogs, SAR dogs are intentionally bred. I am fully aware that there are plenty of dogs doing those things who are “mutts.” The exception is not the rule. And with 70 Million owned dogs in this country right now, even a hundred thousand of those outliers is barely significant. When it REALLY matters, you leave less up to chance.

The larger point I'm making is that when dogs are intentionally bred with function, health, and temperament as the top priorities, good things happen. When they are bred, intentionally or not, for other reasons, in general the good dogs that come out of that are the exceptions, not the rule.

I love GOOD breeders. I love WELL BRED dogs.

And I hate the bad ones. Some dogs simply cannot engage in any meaningful activities because they can't engage in much activity at all. At the forefront of this trend of breeding dogs who are diseased by design, are... breeders. You generally see these things any time "looks" overshadow what should be higher priorities in breeding.

Most flat coated retrievers will die of cancer before they hit double digits. The extreme brachycephalic dogs (including many of the various bulldogs, pugs, boxers...) can barely breath. Any of the hairless breeds have teeth falling out of their heads by three years old because the same things that makes their hair not grow properly causes issues with teeth. Most great danes don’t make it past what most of us consider “middle age” for a dog. The German Shepherd Dog, when bred without regard to mental and physical capacity (or the outlet) to do the work it was bred to do is just left with unrestricted desire. It explodes in every direction instead of being channeled. It's obsessive compulsive disorder. This is why so many of them are neurotic messes. Mental and physical disease… by design.


And a badly bred dog isn't suddenly made better by being purchased a second time from a shelter or rescue. Pure bred from a shelter simply increases the likelihood that you are getting a problem, a mess. It might imply a breeder was less scrupulous than they ought to have been, likely in both the breeding itself and the screening of buyers. Those things tend to go hand in hand.

A good dog can be found anywhere. But as your criteria increase, the desire to "luck out" falls away in favor of finding proven, predictable results.

If you buy a badly bred dog secondhand, you didn't do a good thing and they don’t transform into a good dog. You are supporting a secondary market for badly bred dogs. If you buy a badly bred dog firsthand, you did a worse thing. Not only did you fail the due diligence of researching, you paid retail. Rescue isn't good if it's perpetuating bad breeding. Breeders aren't good if they are perpetuating bad breeding. And the fact of the matter is that the market responds to the consumer.

Imagine if every consumer was well educated on how genetics play a role in instinctive behavior and temperament. That every consumer was looking at top line, angulation, and gait along with whether or not the dog was personable. That every consumer cared to know what the last three generations of parents died from and when. That they recognized that every breed basically has the same wikipedia information under temperament, and that they're all wrong. That they understood that any breed history that attempts to date back further than 100 years is contrived. And that every consumer was committed to buying what they need, meaning they get the dog that fits the purpose it needs to fulfill. Square peg, square hole. You can buy your peg where you please. Just make sure it fits the hole before you do.

And this is the ultimate reason for titling this post, "Saudade." People and dogs tend to do better in their relationship together when both agree on the purpose of that relationship and when the relationship fulfills the needs of each of the participants. And while relationship is a noun, it needs to be built... which is a verb. And maintained... another verb. There was a time when people were more deliberate about their decisions when it comes to selection of their dogs on the whole. And what if that could be worked in to modern dog ownership, and balanced with much of what we have come to understand about being compassionate and thoughtful to these amazing animals we choose to share our lives with? GOOD breeding helps people do that. Doing things "the old way" but with updated information would go a long way to fix many problems we are currently seeing with dogs and dog ownership.

10 MORE Rules for Training Your Dog

We wrote THIS post some time ago and it got more traction than any other. But it’s been a while, we’ve grown and learned from our clients, their dogs, our own new dog experiences, and many other trainers. So it’s about time we did an updated version of our 10 rules for training your dog.

10 Rules for Training Your Dog (1).png

1. Force the dog to be right instead of waiting to address them for being wrong.

We do not shy away from the use of punishment in our training when it makes sense: to stop dangerous and antisocial behaviors. That said, we find it much more productive to force the dog to do the right thing (use negative reinforcement) than to punish them for doing the wrong thing.

Punishment is EFFECTIVE (and doesn’t have all the nasty side effects that people claim… if it’s done correctly) but not EFFICIENT. The functional purpose of punishment is to suppress a targeted behavior and create an inhibition. But it doesn’t teach the dog what they should do instead. So it makes sense that you would have to rebuild other behaviors using reinforcement after the use of punishment to suppress some part in a behavior chain.

But when we use negative reinforcement we apply pressure from the moment the dog chooses to do something wrong, until they are back on track. In doing so, we teach them to avoid the incorrect behavior while also teaching them to complete the correct behavior. In this way, negative reinforcement is both EFFECTIVE AND EFFICIENT. We force them to do the right thing, which implies we are forcing them to avoid doing the wrong thing.

As a side note… you can’t support speed or style in a behavior with pressure. Use positive reinforcement for that. But you can create and support commitment. And that is what we’re talking about here… using pressure to create commitment to the correct behavior.

2. It’s your job to teach your dog the answer to two questions: How do I access reward? How do I turn off pressure?

If we only use rewards (positive reinforcement) in our training, our dogs choose when they want to work, what they are willing to work for, and what behaviors they are willing to perform. If we only use pressure (negative reinforcement, force, coercion, correction, whatever you want to call it) in our training, our dogs will only work when they know we can make them.

Before we can start “proofing” any training, meaning work to show the dog that the behaviors should be reliably performed in all contexts, we need to make sure we have prepared them for the information we’ll provide by making sure they understand for any action we ask them to perform: How do I turn off pressure? How do I access reward? What this means is that we have taught our dogs the appropriate thing to do in response to both types of reinforcement.

Whenever you give your dog a command, you are asking them those two questions. Please be certain that you really took the time to assure that they know the answer to both.

3. Your dog’s TRAINED response to pressure is your responsibility.

Their untrained response to pressure is not your responsibility. I’m including this one because I think a lot of people have experiences where their dog is visibly uncomfortable and that is off putting enough that they quit doing whatever they were doing. This usually happens when they were right on the cusp of a breakthrough. And because they quit, or go try to find a more palatable option for resolving their behavior, they end up at a vet’s office getting a medical solution for a behavioral problem (hint… that won’t work) or they pay a bunch of money to have someone make them feel better about having a problem instead of actually fixing it.

If you have a dog who is fearful of people, and you hire a trainer to help your dog work through that problem, the trainer’s simple presence is going to stress (put pressure on) your dog. There is no way around that, nor should you worry about trying to avoid it. Whatever the dog’s initial response to pressure is: fight, flight, freeze, whatever… is not our concern and we don’t have any control over it. This in no way excuses poor handling, ham handed training, or anything else of the sort. Shouldn’t have to say that, but nowadays there’s always someone who takes a good idea and twists it into something it was never intended to be. Abusus no tollit usum: the abuse of a tool is not an argument against its proper use.

Same with leashes and collars, as well as electronic collars. Some dogs have a short lived adverse reaction to these things. That doesn’t mean they are hurt or even all that uncomfortable. Frankly what it means is that they have been taught to turn on the hysterics when they want something to stop. Congrats on raising a drama queen.

We work with plenty of dogs who object to being handled at the vet. Most of them learned (were trained, intentionally or not) that acting out makes the pressure (the handling of their body) turn off. So when we teach them that doens’t work anymore, many of them have trouble with that at first. Once they learn that calm, quiet behavior makes that pressure turn off, the overwhelming majority of those dogs change quickly. They are happy to do whatever they need to do in order to get what they want: turn off pressure, and access reward. In this case, for most dogs, the biggest reward IS to turn off pressure.

What is, 100%, our concern and responsibility, is the dog’s TRAINED response to pressure. See rule #2 for how that works. And if you’ve been working hard for a while, and your dog still responds poorly to pressure, it’s a problem with implementation of the training at the thumb-loop-end of the leash.

4. Leave something in it for the dog.

When I got Anja, my first hunting dog puppy, I was amazed at how much work ethic she had and how willing she was to learn and try new things. And I realized it was because there was always a reward she found valuable available to her during training. It was inherent to the activity. She is genetically wired to hunt, to desire to find game. So she is always highly motivated to do whatever she can to access those rewards.

If you don’t have a built in reward, that your dog very obviously values greatly, you’ll need to spend more time finding and using some outside reward(s). It’s nice to think that our dogs should just do what we want all the time out of the goodness of their hearts. But we can’t apply our altruistic outlook on things to an animal who doesn’t think like we do. Aside from that, using (correctly taught) play as a reward is a good way to show your dog more appropriate ways to interact with you and others, and is a good bonding experience.

Rule 4.1 (or 4a… take your pick) in here is get a dog that wants to do the things you want to do with them. This makes training much easier because you feel like you are working together towards a common purpose rather than trying to motivate a dog that doesn’t deeply value what you want them to do.

5. In training, handle to show the approved route. In real life, handle to avoid failure.

At a Pat Nolan seminar we went to last year, he said, “In training we handle to show the approved route. In trial we handle to avoid failure.” In our last round of rules, one of them was “Always train, never test.” But I like this updated, more clear version now. With retrievers, Pat is trying to get them to go fast, go straight, and go long, taking a line to a bird. So in training, he’s going to use directionals to keep the dog going on that straight line path to the reward. In trial, he’ll handle the dog less, but will work hard to use handling to avoid places where failure is likely.

We should do the same thing with our dogs. In training, we’ll push the envelope and really push their impulse control and discrimination skills. But when we are out in public we should require them to do their job while ALSO working hard not to set them up for failure. This is called good “handling,” as in how you handle your dog through situations. So if you see the wild dog dragging its owner down the street, I don’t have any issues with you moving to the opposite side of the road. Yes, your dog should be trained and respond to you appropriately, no matter what. That doesn’t mean you make a habit of leaning on it in situations where you are subjecting your dog to potentially unfair treatment from others, or anything that could be dangerous when the risk isn’t necessary.

6. Reward the weakest behaviors more.

Most people want to reward the dog when they do something well. And I’m not really suggesting that you reward less than full effort. But by rewarding the behaviors that need more work, instead of the ones that are good already, you’ll find that those behaviors come around quickly instead of turning into a point of contention in your training. If your dog sit reliably, but won’t lay down or stay put, skip rewarding the sit, and reward those other behaviors when they are done correctly more often.

Dogs tend to perform behaviors in direct proportion to how frequently that behavior was rewarded. Most dogs sit as a default behavior because that got rewarded more than anything else. Start rewarding down more than sit… you get more downs more reliably because you draw more attention to them.

We often see clients have issues with stay and recall because they just get their dog staying nicely and then start calling the dog out of a stay to come to them. What ensues is a confusing event for the dog where they are corrected for breaking a stay a few times, and then immediately after that, asked to leave the stay to come to the owner. A better option is usually to reward the recalls until they are solid, and then reward the stays to make them competitive with the recall. But particularly when you are working two opposing actions together, try to put emphasis on the one that needs help by rewarding it more during that session, rather than using correction. When the dog has a decent idea of both, then we can add correction when needed.

7. The four quadrants of a good dog. (Not operant conditioning)

Your dog’s behavior is a function of four things:

  1. Genetics

  2. Socialization

  3. Environment

  4. Training

Genetics are what they got from mom and dad. If you got your dog from a breeder, you picked that. Maybe you picked well, and maybe you didn’t. If you didn’t meet parents or see pedigrees that confirmed important behavioral traits, you defeated the whole (intelligent) purpose of going to a breeder. If you got your dog from a rescue, you most likely decided, actively or not, that you didn’t care too much about genetic predictability. That might come back to bite you in the butt, and since it’s your decision, it’s your “fault”.

Socialization is the early exposure to things in everyday life that determines how your dog views the world for the rest of their life. We’re talking birth to four months old. So again… if you got your dog from a breeder, some of this is on them and the rest is on you. If you got your dog from a rescue, unless they were a puppy, you made a decision that you were fine with having no control over this. This is the nurturing, pruning, and conditioning of the raw materials provided by the genetics.

The environment is everything around the dog. Every person, place, and thing your dog interacts with. Your dog is always responding to pressures from the environment. So the better you are at controlling them in ways that help your dog be successful, the better your dog will be able to behave. And if you properly socialized your dog, the amount of time you’ll have to spend controlling the environment will be significantly less.

Training is the way you teach your dog to reference environmental elements around them. Whether they should interact with them or not, how they should interact with them, if they should signal some default trained behavior, and so on.

The point of this rule is to recognize that decisions you made prior to actually obtaining your dog play a role in their behavior for their entire life. Only you can prioritize your values as they relate the the choices you make when selecting a dog. But only you can be to blame for those choices as well. Anybody can be a one hit wonder. Ignore genetics and socialization at your own peril and understand that if you don’t think those things ever matter, your expectations are probably so low that they… well… don’t. It’s probably not wise to subscribe to an “any dog will do” mantra unless you really mean it. Put as much effort into selection of a dog as you do any other major life decision that will affect you for the next 10 - 20 years. So the next time you decide to slag on somebody for getting a healthy, purpose bred dog from a reputable breeder… consider how very responsible it was of that person for being really thoughtful about what they wanted in a dog, how well it will fit into their lifestyle, and how all of that sets them up for success.

8. The worst thing about dogs is they do what you train them to do.

You are inconsistent. You behave differently in class than you do out on walks. The way you allow your neighbors to interact with your dog and your unwillingness to hold your dog accountable for improper behavior in certain situations… all of these things TRAIN your dog to behave differently in different situations.

You passively endorse disobedience. You tell your dog to sit but don’t have a leash on them and don’t feel like getting up after a long day of work. So you just brush it off. But you just weakened the classically conditioned connection between the command “sit” and the act of sitting. You are literally un-training your dog.

Your dog gets fussy, or maybe downright violent when they are handled in ways they dislike at the vet. And when they do, the handling stops, no matter how briefly. You are training your dog that fussy or violent behavior is how they are able to get people to stop doing things they object to.

Other ways this comes out that folks don’t think about? We get calls about:

  • mouthy dogs whose owners roughhouse with them

  • dogs that kill small animals who get to play with squeaky toys

  • dogs that jump but are allowed to do it when the person says “it’s ok”

  • resource guarding dogs whose owners constantly yank things out of their mouth

In each case, there is a behavior perpetuated by the owner that is contributing to the “problem” behavior.

So before you say “the training isn’t working…” make sure you are actually implementing the training correctly and thoughtfully.

9. Watch the PERSON, not the dog.

Folks have a tendency to focus on the dog. The dog’s behavior, or their natural ability, their temperament. These are the things that get focused on. But what made them that way is the result of the person.

If a dog has good genetics, look at the breeder and find out what they are doing. Where they source, their criteria for putting dogs together.

If a dog shows great natural talent for some activity, look at the handler and figure out what they did to imprint, condition, and nurture that talent. What type of exposure did they provide to allow those things to come out?

And if you are looking at how obedient or well trained a dog is, look at the trainer. Watch what they do and how they do it. I think clients are often watching their dog during training sessions instead of watching us, the trainers. But when you go home and have to do homework, it’s what WE were doing that you’ll need to do, not your dog. After all, your dog was responding to what WE were doing.

Your job is to do the play the part of the person. You can’t be a good understudy if you were reading the lines for the wrong character. You cannot repeat what the person does if you are not watching the person. So focus on the person. Not the dog.

10. Measure dog training time in “good reps” not minutes, hours, days, or years.

We teach a six week introductory curriculum. And we advertise that we can get ANY DOG from untrained to meeting the requirements to pass the UKC SPOT in that time frame. But here’s what is implied with that… A MINIMUM of

  1. 36 laps of long line work.

  2. 42 sessions of tethering

  3. 450 reps of sit

  4. 300 reps of stand

  5. 300 reps of down

  6. 200 stays

  7. 18 physical handling/grooming/vetting sessions

  8. 13,500 steps of heeling

  9. and more…

And remember these are GOOD REPS which means you did your job correctly AND your dog did their job correctly. The latter usually happens easily when the former does. But if you perform the work incorrectly, those reps don’t count. In fact, depending on what we’re talking about, bad reps do worse than simply not count, they put you in the negative. For habituated undesirable behaviors, incidents where your dog is overwhelmed with fear or defensiveness, and so one, each occurrence probably adds a minimum of 10 repetitions that need to be done correctly just to make up for that one bad rep.


One of the worst things that ever happened to pet dogs was having the term “socialization” come to mean “playing with people and other dogs.” Socialization is the lifelong process of inheriting and disseminating norms, customs, values and ideologies, providing an individual with the skills and habits necessary for participating within their own society. Most of us would prefer that our dogs were a bit more calm, listened to us better, and exhibited more self control, yet most of our “socialization” efforts seem to contradict those goals. No part of your training needs to contradict any other. What socialization really amounts to is that your dog is exposed to as many things as possible. This means they see, feel, hear, smell, and taste (where appropriate) as many things as possible, and that each of those experiences end positively.

The (Unfortunate) Norm

You are walking down the street and a stranger runs up to you and gives you a chest bump, or hugs you and kisses you on the mouth. Maybe they grab your ass. You yell at them and then tag them in the mouth for being so rude. Self defense, of course. They look at you like you’re crazy and then a fight starts.

This sounds like an awful scenario, but it’s how “good” dogs ROUTINELY overstep boundaries because they were never taught that there were supposed to be boundaries. And those dogs are often responsible for creating more defensive dogs than the one odd-ball-actually-aggressive dog you might encounter.

The same thing happens with people. How often do random strangers, who would never have spoken to you otherwise, come up and interact with your dog (hopefully asking first, but that’s certainly not a given)? Would it be the “norm” for them to come up to you and mess up your hair or to even ask to touch you in any way? What about your child? Is that appropriate? People often speak of wanting their dog to have autonomy and then they take all of that away from them in favor of letting random people and dogs grope them.

We are TEACHING our dogs to behave in the EXACT ways that society is trying very hard to stop people from behaving towards each other. Not only that, but when it’s repeated often enough it becomes the EXPECTATION of other dogs and the general public that they get to interact with your dog without any concern whatsoever for whether your dog wants that interaction or not.

A Simple Concept

Everything else in this post can be summarized by the following concept:

If that person isn’t someone who you have, or would, invite to your home, they don’t need to have interaction with your dog. If that dog isn’t one that your dog will be interacting with regularly, they don’t need to have any interaction at all. From your dog’s perspective, strive to have the default behavior toward other people and dogs be to ignore them. Finally, to find success and balance with your dog, allow them to directly interact with other people, other dogs, and various other distractions only in direct proportion to their ability to ignore those things in favor of focusing on you or any task you ask them to perform. With dog-dog interaction, your ability to be polite precedes your permission to play. Even well socialized dogs can have undesired responses to things. It is common for certain breeds or types of dogs to go through protracted development periods, and to see lots of new behaviors emerge during adolescence.


For the most part, we would like our dogs to simply ignore environmental distractions. The best way to do this is to place them in situations, appropriate to their level of training, where they are stimulated by these kinds of things, but are taught to ignore them in favor of doing something else like an obedience command, or interacting with us through play. For most dogs, desensitizing to environmental distractions simply entails keeping them in the situation long enough that they work through any excitement, anxiety, or fear. And going through that process repeatedly. Keep your dog safe by not letting random people, dogs, and stuff interact with them directly. This helps assure that even a moderately stressful situation has a positive (and controlled) outcome. And pay attention to your dog. If they are completely overwhelmed then you may need to move to a quieter or less active place to start.

Exposure To New Things

Most dogs who did not have experience with a particular thing (or had a bad experience with it) when they were going through their puppy development phases will have a default response to new things that is less than ideal. They will generally be overly cautious, either offensively or defensively. Your job when these things come up is not to baby them, or feel sorry for them, but to be their fearless leader as you show them there is nothing to be concerned about.

Exposure To Infrequent Things

Adult dogs that do not experience certain things regularly, and did not experience them when they were puppies, will likely need routine maintenance with respect to those things. A dog that has poor social skills might make amazing progress if routinely put in social situations. But if we stop maintaining those skills, they will very likely get “rusty”. This is particularly true when what we want our dog to do is counter-intuitive to their instincts. The term “instinctual drift” is used to define the tendency of an animal to revert to their instinctual behaviors absent the influence of motivation that maintains trained responses.

Other People

We want our dogs to be friendly with people, but we often allow things to happen that would make anyone uncomfortable. You would not allow a random stranger to come up and grope your spouse or your child, yet we often allow such things to happen to our dogs. Interactions between your dog and people (including all adults and children in your household) should be structured so that they are learning experiences until everyone involved shows that they are capable of acting appropriately. And they should be agreeable to all involved, including your dog. Anyone unwilling to participate in the correct training of your dog when it comes to in person interactions, should not be allowed to interact with your dog. When in doubt, please ask people not to touch, stare at, or talk to your dog, but also train to prepare your dog for those things because they will happen.

Dogs In Your Household

It is best if all dogs in the household are expected to follow the same rules. That said, there is no need to have as much structure in place for dogs that show they are capable of making good decisions on their own. Always exercise caution. Dogs, from the smallest to the largest, are still predatory animals. They solve problems with their teeth. Things like “sharing” items, allowing dogs to take things from one another, and allowing play that borders on violent are recipes for disaster. We can’t count how many times where “everything was fine…” until it wasn’t. Be proactive and avoid having significant problems.

If you are going to bring a new dog into the home, the dogs should spend a lot of time occupying the same space (like in the same room) but not able to directly interact with one another. Use crates and tethers. Do this until you are pretty sure that the dogs are bored with each other. Allowing them to play right away, interact right away, and “work it out” on their own is rarely a good idea. With dogs, boring introductions are best. You want your dogs to bond with you first, then with each other so that you maintain the role of leader, guide, and mentor.

Other Dogs

In order to have our dogs remain calm and under control in the presence of other dogs, we must teach them that that is the expected behavior. We do this two ways: through obedience, and through calm off leash interaction. For dogs that know each other well, more invigorating play is acceptable. But we recommend that this is limited to two dogs, so that no single dog gets ganged up on. Please exercise good judgement and remember that dogs are dogs. There will be disagreements and it is important that you are ready and willing to step in and advocate for your dog, or correct them, as is required by the situation. It is better to be proactive, and prevent an issue before it happens, then to try to address something that has already taken place. Again, when in doubt, do not let your dog interact with unknown dogs. As a general rule, find a few dog friends for your dog, and stay away from dog parks.


Communication Skills

In our training programs, we communicate with our dogs most often using sounds and touch. Sounds are broken down into markers, and commands. Touches include leash/collar pressure, touching with our hands, touching with objects, and touching with stimulation from a remote collar. Simply put, we are trying to connect signals, responses, and consequences reliably.


Markers are used when/after a dog does something. It's helpful to think of markers as serving two functions

  1. They take a "picture" of the behavior you are targeting

  2. They tell the dog what consequence is coming next

We use the following markers, each with a distinct meaning:

  • "Okay" or Click - You did the right thing, and can stop to get your reward. This is followed by some tangible consequence that the dog values. This is our “reward marker”.

  • "Out" - You did a bad thing, and punishment is forthcoming. This is followed by some tangible consequence your dog finds intolerable. This is our “punishment marker”.

  • "Wrong" - You made a mistake, try again or try something else. This is followed by nothing. This is our “no reward” marker.

Praise and Petting

Praise and petting are acknowledgement and encouragement to your dog. They do not mean that they can stop doing something you've asked. It is important that we reserve specific signals that tell our dog “yes,” “no,” “stop,” and “go,” so that there is never any confusion about those actions. Praise and petting are too imprecise to serve that function, but are valuable social interaction between you and your dog. Many a dog has had trouble with stays because they think “good boy!” means “you’re done!”

Keep in mind that the way you praise and pet can affect your dog's behavior. So do your best to use them judiciously and productively. Additionally, use common sense. If you are away from your dog or you have asked them to do something which requires movement, use verbal praise. If you are near enough to your dog to touch them and they are stationary, use praise or petting, or both. 

Pressure and Release

If we only utilize rewards in our training, our dog will only do what is asked when they feel like it, or the reward we have to offer is more important to them than whatever else is going on around them. At some point we will need to compel behavior rather than simply wait for the dog to “feel like it”. In those cases we will apply physical pressure to them to motivate them to do what we want. When we do so, we are looking to use as much pressure as necessary, and as little as possible, to get compliance. When they do whatever we asked, we release that pressure. Pressure is applied through the use of physical touch or a dynamic training collar, and the removal of pressure communicates that the dog has made a good choice or completed a desired action.


Commands are used to tell the dog to do something. This is the standard list of commands that we use.

  • Name - stop, look, listen

  • Here - come towards me and sit directly in front of me looking me in the face

  • Heel - walk on a loose leash with your head in line with my leg

  • Sit - sit with your backside firmly on the ground

  • Down - lay down with your elbows and belly touching the ground

  • Kennel - climb on or in an object

  • Leave It - ignore something and do not make contact with it

  • Out - stop making contact with something

  • Off - four paws on the floor

  • Quiet - be quiet

It’s important to remember that we are not teaching these skills as circus tricks. We are teaching them as cues for the dog to be responsible for completing or maintaining an action. So “heel” should tell your dog to walk at your side and don’t lunge at dogs or people, don’t sniff the ground excessively, and don’t stop to mark every tree or bush we pass. Our dog doesn’t know “heel” until they know, clearly, what it means and what it does not mean.

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Living with your dog

These suggestions are intended to provide you with ways to get reliable and predictable behavior from your dog in and around the home. Every dog may not need every part of this information but we attempted to cover every aspect of life with your dog that falls outside of what is commonly considered "formal training". Follow these guidelines to start and then adjust as your dog's behavior changes or as you see that certain things are of higher or lower importance.

Supervise Or Confine

Until your dog is reliably doing everything you want and nothing you don’t want, keep them on a leash (with you holding the other end), on a tether (with you supervising in the same room), or confined in a crate. The overwhelming majority of problems in the house are caused by the owner’s failure to control the dog effectively. If your dog chews up the leash or tether, you aren’t paying enough attention to them and they should have been confined. If your dog is able to run to the door/window when they see something, they are not adequately controlled. If they are able to pick up random items like pens, paper, socks, etc. they are not properly supervised. Ownership of these problems as ones you are creating or failing to effectively intervene in is key to resolving them.

One Set Of Rules

If each person that your dog interacts with has a different set of rules, it makes it more difficult for your dog to understand what is and is not allowed. Make sure that the whole family is on the same page with respect to what behavior is acceptable and what is not, how to respond to those behaviors, what commands are going to be used, etc. Any family member, or guest, who will not follow those rules should not be allowed to interact with the dog.

Bathroom Stuff

Scheduling Food, Water, And Bathroom Breaks

Not every dog gives tell tale signs that they need to go to the bathroom. By scheduling access to food and water, we can begin to figure out how long after they are consumed that our dog will need to be aired. Using this scheduling we can better prepare for times when we will not adhere to our normal routines such as traveling or having to stay late at work.

Bathroom Location And Expectations

Get into the habit of selecting one designated spot close to your home where your dog is expected to use the bathroom. Do you travel for extended periods of time looking for just the right place to do your business? Of course not, because a place is designated. Take your dog to the designated spot and wait there for five minutes. If they don’t go to the bathroom, take them back inside and put them in the crate for a while. Take them straight from the crate back to the bathroom spot again. Repeat this process until the dog goes to the bathroom in the designated spot, then take a walk, or play a game, or do something else fun and interactive with your dog. Over time they will learn that walks, training, and any other fun stuff does not happen until they have used the bathroom.



Dogs have physical exercise requirements that can vary with breed, age, and for each specific dog. But we do not subscribe to the idea that “a tired dog is a good dog”. A trained dog is a good dog. But we do need to make sure we provide outlets for physical exercise. 30 minutes of walking or hiking daily, or games of fetch or tug, are usually enough for most dogs to fulfill their exercise requirements.


Some days the weather, long hours at work, or other circumstances prevent us from being able to give our dog the physical outlet they need. We can also tire them out mentally through training, or through games that require them to think. Things like training, scent work, puzzle feeders, or simply scattering kibble in the yard and letting your dog hunt for their food are all great ways to exercise the mind when you can’t exercise the body.

Using Trained Skills

The whole point of having trained skills is to make your dog’s behavior more predictable when it otherwise would not be, and to help give your dog information that will help them through situations before they have to experience a consequence from making a mistake. Think about places where you can use your obedience to proactively create the outcomes you want:

  • Use stay or kennel while you eat dinner to keep the dogs from drooling on your leg under the table.

  • Use sit stay to keep your dog still while you take equipment off or put it on.

  • Use heeling to keep your dog from charging through doorways.

  • Use stay and recall to get the dog out of the car under control.

  • Use stay and kennel to get the dog into the car under control.

  • Use recall to call your dog away from something they shouldn’t be doing/eating/interacting with.

Think of other places where you can apply your training to better help your dog understand what you need them to do. Doing these things allows us to guide our dogs through situations. Further, if we need to correct them, it provides more context as to why the correction is happening, instead of punishing them and requiring them to figure out why that happened through repetition.

Transitioning From Management To Freedom

As your dog’s training progresses, you can use less management (crates, tethers, leashes) when they have proven they are trustworthy. Allow your dog to have interaction with their environment (other people, other dogs, various distractions) in direct proportion to how well they can ignore those things when you ask them to. As an example, your dog should not meet any dog on a walk until they have shown, repeatedly, that they can ignore that dog. To be clear, this means that they are able to ignore that dog without you having to make them do so.

Further, remember that in training we are trying to handle our dogs to teach them the right thing to do. Out in the real world, we handle our dogs to avoid failures. So unless you are reasonably certain an interaction is going to go well while you are out in public, avoid it.

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Behavior Modification



Why Does My Dog Do That?

Our dogs act in order to:

  • Make something good happen.

  • Make something bad stop.

In our training, we use BOTH of these motivations because:




Three Keys To Dog Training








Environment: The “Fourth Key” To Dog Training


  • Distance: move the dog further away from something distracting


  • Degree of Difficulty: lower the intensity of the distraction


How To Create Behavior





How To Stop Behavior

  1. Identify the behavior, specifically.

  2. Administer a consequence that the dog finds intolerable.



Use It Or Lose It



How dogs learn

The main difference between how we learn and how dogs learn is that dogs don't understand things "in theory". They can't think through a problem without it being presented to them in real life. They must do, or experience it in real life in order to learn it. This means that we cannot say our dog "knows" something until they can prove to us that they know it through their actions.

Recalling Pictures

Dogs seem to recall pictures. We can teach them concepts that they can fall back on, so long as the “picture” of the situation looks similar enough to what they have encountered in the past. When the picture changes too much, we have to teach them again. We often hear that our clients’ dogs are obedient in the house, but not outside. This is not the dog being stubborn, just very literal. This is the dog not recognizing that though the picture has changed, the behavior we ask of them has not.

Discovering Patterns

Overwhelmingly, dogs learn through the discovery of patterns in the world around them. They connect actions to consequences and recognize the connections between events if those connections are consistent. If there is a knock at the door, your dog knows a person is on the other side of the door because they have experienced that enough times to recognize the pattern. If you generally feed your dog shortly after you come home from work, your dog might behave in ways that show you they are anticipating being fed, again because of their ability to pick up on the pattern that you come home and then they get to eat.

Experiencing Feelings

In addition to associating behaviors with their consequences, dogs also associate certain activities with their feelings while engaged with those activities. If a dog feels good, relative to a situation going on around them, they will tend to proactively feel that way in that situation in the future. If a dog feels bad, relative to a situation going on around them, they will tend to proactively feel that way in that situation in the future. It’s important to know that this “emotional conditioning” is involuntary to the dog. It just happens. And that can be a powerful tool that helps or harms us in training.

Your dog’s learning process

Action >>> Result >>> Memory

Any action that your dog takes, which creates a favorable result, will form a memory for them that they should repeat that action when presented with a similar scenario in the future.

Any action that your dog takes, which creates an unfavorable result, will form a memory for them that they should avoid that action when presented with a similar scenario in the future.

And don’t forget that all three things are happening at the same time, all the time: pictures, patterns, feelings. Your dog is ALWAYS learning, whether you intend to be teaching or not.

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Physical Handling Drill

This is the physical handling "protocol" we teach for increased predictably at the vet, groomer, etc.

As you handle each body part, you are feeling for resistance. You do not move on, or stop the exercise, until you feel relaxation. It’s best to go through in a predictable order. We go over every part of the dog. Generally a dog will have four feet and legs, a tail, a belly, a back, a head, eyes, ears, nose, and mouth. Don’t miss spots. Definitely don’t skip the parts they have issues with. The whole point of this exercise is to work through those issues.

The dog is rewarded by ending the exercise. For most adult dogs, practiced already in objecting to handling, that is the biggest reward to them anyway.

If needed, one person holds the collar and another performs the handling. A proper collar hold and arm perpendicular to the dog's neck puts you behind the sharp parts. A safety muzzle (leash around face) puts your hand behind the head, still away from the sharp parts. If you have to do that, this is probably still a 2 person job.

Over time, the collar hold creates a conditioned response of relaxing (if the rest of the exercise is performed correctly).

You screw this exercise up by letting go or stopping at the wrong times. By doing the handing in a forceful way. By being anything but emotionally neutral.

If you need to, muzzle or safety muzzle. If the dog is big, you build scaffolding to further restrict movement while working this exercise, and do enough training prior that doing so isn't a ridiculous proposition. If you have a dog that will end up very large, don’t be foolish and start this as a puppy so it's a non-issue by adulthood.

I don't use food or any other extrinsic reward until we're well practiced, and then only when the exercise is completely over. I don't want to condition arousal as part of this picture. This is also the reason you want to find a vet and techs who can be quiet and just do their work. They are not paid to try to make friends (and actually make things worse for the dogs who have trouble with this)… they are paid to do their job, which is rendering medical care.

Once this is taught, the collar hold is used for whatever procedures are to be done, until the dog has enough self control and obedience that they aren't necessary.

My new puppy

I wrote this back in June of last year and never published it. Anja is just over a year old now, passed her first breed club test with a very nice score, and has become a fantastic can-go-anywhere companion, and a solid hunter, despite bursting at the seams with energy.


I brought Anja home a little more than a month ago. She is a Deutsch-Drahthaar, or German Wirehair, from parents who were tested and bred through the FCI affiliate breed club, the Verein Deutsch-Drahthaar, Group North America. She's being raised and trained as a hunting companion dog, meaning a working dog that I live with. This post is going to be a long catch up post covering a lot of things from her development and training so far.

Picking a puppy

Once I settled on a breed of dog, I began attending training days and tests to make sure that the decision I was making was the right one. For about a year I attended events held by both NAVHDA and the VDD-GNA. Two organizations who focus on versatile hunting dogs (the former a general group, and the latter breed specific). I watched how the dogs were trained, interacted with the folks who were there, and tried to either be helpful, or stay out of the way. When you are getting a dog to do the sorts of things that Anja is bred for, it takes a team and a group effort to get the training done. So it's helpful to know if you like the folks you'll be working with. Luckily for me, I find hunters as a whole a great group of friendly people. Hunting dog people were no exception.

I finally settled on a breed, and breeding, after watching a number of dogs work who were out of a particular sire, and then getting to see the dam of the litter both in the field/water, as well as at home. 

I chose to get a drahthaar puppy because performance (work/functionality) testing, and health/structure testing are required for every dog that is to be used for breeding. And the particular pairing that I chose was above and beyond the requirements in terms of both performance and health testing. Both dogs were tested through utility level (the highest performance test in the breed club), were high scoring dogs at the breed invitational, and had additional health screenings or scores that went above and beyond what was required (highest rated hips, elbow and shoulder dysplasia free, high scoring conformation, etc.). This, by the way, is what we mean when we talk about "REPUTABLE BREEDERS/BREEDING". Health, temperament, and performance testing, and limited availability only to suitable homes. And above all that, I liked the guys that owned the dogs, and I liked what I saw in terms of how the dogs conducted themselves in the field and around the home.

I met the dam of the litter on at least three occasions spread out over a year, and about three more between when the puppies were born and when I brought Anja home.

Bringing pup home, and managing her in the home

I picked Anja up at 7 weeks old. She cried in the crate the entire way home, and we spent about a month working on her crate behavior. From her perspective, she had lived her entire life with her mother and litter mates, then she was uprooted, lonely, and basically at the mercy of a stranger. There were no familiar sights or sounds or smells. That's quite a lot for her to get over. I saw that she was settling in and bonding with me well, but we were still having some issues with crying in the crate. At this point it was clear to me that it was learned behavior (puppies cry because they need to go to the bathroom, and they get taken out of the crate) because she had adequate food, water, had recently been to the bathroom, wasn't injured... Deductive reasoning and all that. So I had to spend some time providing rewards in the crate while also correcting that behavior that would prove to be incompatible with my lifestyle. I live in a townhouse. So hollering in the crate is not going to go over well with the neighbors. 

With that done, the next behavioral adjustment task was to curtail her biting of hands and feet, another very common learned behavior in puppies. This cleaned up relatively quickly. She's still a very young pup so exploring things with her mouth is part of the deal. But most of her launching for feet and hands and pant legs is behind us. These kinds of behaviors were appropriately (for her age) punished.

"Dogs don't grow out of behaviors, they grow INTO them." - Linda Kaim

So intelligently punishing these sorts of things, if done correctly, leaves no lasting negative effects, and is the most effective way to make sure that they go away for good. Puppies never forget what they learn when they are very young, so taking crate yodeling and attacking body parts off the table now will pay dividends for the rest of my time with Anja. Fixing these things now means we won't have to revisit them later.

I made sure that I followed two very simple rules without question: Supervise and Confine, and Schedule. I set up a schedule for Anja in terms of her access to food and water, and subsequently bathroom breaks. I was able to quickly learn how long after food and water she needed to eliminate, and also note how that changed as she aged. Any time I was not able to supervise her directly, she was crated. When she was out, she was either in an ex-pen learning to relax in the house on a bed with a bone, or on leash. This allowed me to begin to condition things that are important to me: the ability to calm in the house, that you can't ever grab something and run away with it, and so on. It also allowed me to interrupt any and all behaviors that I didn't want her to practice: chewing on a wide variety of things that she aught not, jumping on people and furniture, running around too much in the house, and more.

When we were outside, I let her drag a very light line with the handle cut off. This allows me to still maintain control if I need, but I want to work on her staying with me while "off leash" from day one, get her out and exploring, and get her comfortable with a line dragging since I'll need to check cord her during some of our training later on. By the time the check cord comes into play, she'll already be desensitized to it. 


All along the way, socialization was a top priority. I had trust in Anja's breeding and her abilities to do the things she's meant to do, even if I couldn't see all of those things in great detail yet. So what I was more concerned with was making sure she was comfortable with the rest of the world around her. Socialization is effectively exposing a puppy to everything that they are likely to encounter for the rest of their life. And you really only have until 12 - 16 weeks of age to do that. So I have made a point to take her as many different places and expose her to as many different things as possible early on, and still continue to do so now. And that will never stop, but I won't get as much bang for my buck once she's past the four month old mark. 

So she's been in rural, suburban, and urban settings. She's been exposed to a variety of surfaces walk on. She's climbed over things and under things. Seen big trucks, other dogs, people of all different races/shapes/sizes, people wearing hats/glasses/sunglasses, people in wheel chairs and other mobility aides. She's been inside stores, to restaurants, spent hours riding in the car while crated. She's been in fields with grass taller than her, in the water, in the forest. She's seen various cars, bikes, motorcycles, big trucks. She's been exposed to various types of game that she will hunt: rabbits, ducks, chukar. She's been exposed to gunfire. I'm sure there's a ton of things that I didn't specifically seek out that she was exposed to. And she's been around a large number of dogs, both puppies (heavily supervised and refereed) and socially stable adult dogs. 

The amount of time she gets to directly interact with other dogs and people is in direct proportion to how well she is able to maintain attention and focus on me around those same things.

Key points for socialization are that we are looking for EXPOSURE and not always INTERACTION. I don't want her dragging me over to people just because they are oogling at her and making noises (funny how that sort of thing is unacceptable if it was a person, but with a dog it seems to be ok?). I don't want her thinking she gets to make contact with every random dog she sees while we're out (again, funny how it's supposed to be ok for dogs, but if just walked up to you and put my hands on you, it wouldn't be ok). I want her to be comfortable with the world, all of it, passing around her, and her being able to stay comfortably and confidently calm. I want to make it so that nothing gets her highly excited except for the things that I really want her to be excited about. And all of this comes down to structured, tactful exposure, and paying attention to Anja to know when something is a bit too much for her. 

This part of raising a puppy, when you're really trying to do it right, is enough to make you hate people. Everyone wants to pet the puppy. Everyone thinks every dog should meet every other dog. Even a simple rule like, "if any of her feet come off the floor while you are touching her, you need to stop and stand up," can't be heeded. And so, the general public is generally awful at helping you raise a calm and polite dog. Because of this, most of her direct interaction with people has been with long time clients. Read: people who know how to follow directions. 

So far, I've made one kid cry because I wouldn't let them pet Anja. I've hollered at a few parents when I hear them say, "Go ask if you can pet the puppy," that, "No... we're not petting puppies today." I've shoved my booted foot in a few dogs' faces when their owners were unwilling or unable to control them. The bottom line... I don't care about anyone, or anyone's dog, or anyone's feelings as much as I care about the appropriate upbringing of my puppy. Because the random person that you meet out on the street certainly isn't thinking about you and your needs. They want to squeek and squawk, fondle and fuss at, get their puppy fix and move on. Yeah... no.

Your Training Partners

Not everyone has a breed club, or task/event specific training group, or training clients to help them raise their puppy. But generally, everyone does have family and friends and coworkers that can make or break the critical puppy development time you have. Here's the not so short list of people and ways that it "takes a village" to raise Anja:

  • she attends many of my training classes, usually tethered, getting non-interactive exposure to lots of people and dogs
  • she goes to Linda Kaim's training facility on Wednesdays with Gretchen for off leash dog socialization
  • also while at Linda's she gets physically handled by Linda, an important interaction when she goes for conformation evaluations with the breed club in the future
  • my training club clients have helped me with a variety of training exercises
  • my colleagues at work have allowed me to extend my lunch, and make that time up at the end of the day, so that I can get home mid-day for bathroom breaks to support housebreaking
  • members of NAVHDA and VDD-GNA assist with training days, bring game, set up training scenarios, and more
  • my vet, Scott Lindle, who allows me to handle Anja while she's being examined which helps create a routine that my little pup can count on to be predictable even when some things are happening that make her uncomfortable

You may not need some or all of these things. But I know I would have a lot of trouble getting it done without these folks. Not listed here... the general public. The general public is usually terrible at being helpful in raising your puppy. To the best of your ability, they should become background noise to your puppy.

Training Timeline

Though I put my hands on more dogs in a day than most folks will have in their lifetime, doesn't mean that I don't suffer from the same kinds of things that everyone else does. Most notably, putting too much pressure on my puppy in the form of expectations that are way too high. People should know that from taking a puppy home until about 2 years of age, constant management, supervision, and training is needed to make a solid companion in a dog. Perhaps these standards are a little different from other folks, but I want a dog who:

  • is calm in the house
  • has work ethic in training
  • is reasonably social with other dogs and people (this mostly means outgoing, friendly, and polite... not a falling-over-themselves-attention-seeker)
  • keeps their mouth off my things
  • responds reliably to commands with little need for enforcement of them on my part
  • shows emotional control in stressful situations that sometimes aren't fun (like the vet)
  • allows me to handle their body/feet/ears/eyes/mouth without protest
  • knows not to go to the bathroom indoors

That alone is quite a list for a dog! But on top of all these things that I need to have in a companion, Anja has a whole separate set of skills that she needs to develop. She has a job. Her hunting job will require her to learn to use her nose, her body, and her mouth in specific ways. Some of these I can teach, and some I simply need to provide enough exposure to the right circumstances for her to develop them on her own. 

And so I find that I am routinely reminding myself that she's just 3 months old right now, that I've signed on for what will be a minimum of constant and progressive training for a variety of things that are sometimes in direct contradiction with one another:

  • be a drivey monster while hunting but be calm, quiet, and relaxed everywhere else
  • keep your nose on the ground when you are tracking, but keep your head up and air scent when you are field searching
  • show reservation on feathered game but pursue furred game with reckless abandon
  • be independent but be cooperative

These things take time. And I find myself constantly battling internal demons when she's showing a little too much of one of the things I want (but maybe in a setting where I don't want it) or a not enough of something when I really want her to do more of it. 

The thing I just keep trying to remind myself is to try to make sure we're both having fun. When that stops happening, for either of us, that's when training ends and we spend some time apart. I'd like to say that all of our training is "play" to Anja right now, but that wouldn't be true. There's a few behaviors that I've had to punish early on. She takes some things very seriously. Retrieving bumpers and other non-game items is fun. When she has something furred or feathered within scent, sight, or in her mouth, she is not playing. It's something deeper, something more serious to her, but still something "good." So right now our field work is all about exposure. She can't really do anything wrong there. I don't ask much of her, perhaps a recall once in a while. Other than that I try to stay out of it and let her figure things out, and cheer her on when she does something awesome, which happens with regularity! 

Separate from out in the field we work on basic obedience, mostly using food and toys as rewards, and minimal pressure. We're working on static commands (sit, down, stand), recall, and directional movement. We do play retreives during very short sessions where I'll throw items, release her to get them, and she brings them back so that I throw the next item. I'm not extracting anything from her mouth during play retrieving. I just tease her with a new item until she drops the one she has, then throw. Or I pick her up and she drops the item after a short time. This is helping her not want to play keep away. We'll start shaping a hold and deliver (that I can back-chain a formal retrieve off of later) when she's holding static positions just a little bit better... and when I find something that isn't so much fun to play with (which is hard when your dog naturally picks up everything, including metal objects). 

We also spend a short time, about 5 minutes a day, doing physical handling exercises. I go through a patter of touching every part of her body: feet, toes, belly, tail, eyes, ears, mouth. We go through this work to help her understand that she has to allow me to inspect her. And I trim/dremel nails about twice a week. Getting through any protest related to these activities now, assures that I (and the vet, and the breed club judges) are not wrestling with rancorous 60 pound animal later on. We teach appropriate behavior in this situation now, when she's tiny pounds and easy to handle. We don't wait until the dog is fully grown and then try to fix it.

And in the house we're working on "don't touch that, you can't have that, stop that" and "relax, chew this instead, you can have that when you do what I asked".

Oh... and she really likes watching TV.

The Basics - Part 2 - Schedule

Pretty much every dog we see that has a problem with house breaking really has an owner with a problem with scheduling. In addition to bathroom related troubles, keeping your dog on a schedule helps add an element of predictability in your dog's life. We are all about predictability whenever possible. It helps you and your dog know what to expect, which reduces anxiety and increases clarity for everyone involved. Keeping your dog on a schedule comes down to a few key areas:

  • periods of confinement
  • access to food and water
  • bathroom breaks
  • training
  • having both active and passive time with your dog


An appropriately sized crate will generally help dogs learn to hold their bladder and bowels because most normal/healthy dogs (other than puppy mill dogs or other dogs who were essentially taught that they have to go to the bathroom in their living/sleeping quarters) do not want to soil where they sleep/eat. For all the gross things dogs do they are generally clean in this regard. An "appropriately sized" crate for the purposes of helping a dog learn to hold it would be one that is large enough for the dog to turn around in, but not so large that they could ever pee or poop and then avoid having to lay in it. If you have a mansion of a crate where your dog can go to the bathroom on one side and then sleep comfortably on the other... that is half your problem with bathroom related training. 

We also use confinement to create contrast with other events that I want to be, by comparison, fun or exciting. Crating a dog for an hour prior to a training session will immediately make that training session far more engaging than it otherwise would be.

Lastly, crating your dog while you are home is the first step to resolving crate related problems when you are gone. While you are home, you are able to intervene when your dog is doing things that are undesirable, and you are able to reward your dog for calm behavior while confined. If your dog is only ever put in their crate right before you leave or go to bed, it becomes very easy for them to pick up on that pattern and form a negative association with the crate because it indicates those other events are going to happen.

Food and water

Feed and water your dog at scheduled times. Generally speaking if your dog is eating the same food every day, you can begin to predict how long after eating they will need to go to the bathroom. This is especially true if you make the minor effort of keeping a little log of feeding and bathroom times. We can then anticipate our dog's needs better and get them outside in advance of accidents. 

I know lots of places tell you that your dog needs access to water at all times. But if your dog is in a climate controlled house, I don't really agree. You should make sure that they are getting enough water each day (1 oz per pound of body weight seems to be good) but they don't need to have access to it around the clock. 

Every dog we've ever worked with that had problems with housebreaking had free access to food and water, and/or were not kept on a leash when they were out of confinement.


Since we are scheduling food and water, in a short time we will be better able to schedule bathroom breaks. When we take a dog out to use the bathroom, we do so on leash. This helps dogs learn to go to the bathroom while... on a leash... which is helpful if you ever travel with your dog and don't want to wait around at the rest stop for 45 minutes until they finally decide to go (because they are used to being turned loose in the backyard).

Another thing that helps teach them to make haste when making waste? Teach them that nothing else happens until you go to the bathroom. Lots of people use walks as bathroom time. Many then complain the dog will go for a long walk and then go to the bathroom in the house after it is over. Instead, take them out to the nearest bathroom spot. Give them the full 6 feet of leash while you stand still and be boring. Give them 5 minutes to go to the bathroom. If they do not, they go back in the crate for a while. We'll then take them out of the crate and straight outside to use the bathroom again. And we'll repeat as necessary until they go to the bathroom. Only after that will we go for a walk, allow them liberty/play time, or do some training. 

Having just returned from a road trip to North Carolina, I can tell you that it is very convenient having a dog who you can let out at a rest area, tell them to "hurry up" (my cue for "go to the bathroom), have them produce in 5 minutes or less, and be back on the road. And like all other things, we have that ability because we made a point to practice it.

It takes most dogs a week of this routine or less to understand that "nothing fun happens till I poop." If you have a puppy (6 months or younger) consider that activity and excitement get things moving, and that they will likely have to go after any period of rest. So puppy owners should take their dogs out to use the bathroom:

  • after being crated
  • after waking up
  • after training, or playing
  • after anything that they find exciting
  • before being put back into the crate


Training only works if you do it. And if you don't use it, you lose it. The two easiest ways to make sure that your dog gets some routine training are to: use meal times (and the meal) as training rewards or to use it a little bit throughout the day. 

In the morning and evening you can spend 10 or 15 minutes training your dog and using small handfuls of their food as rewards. Whatever isn't used up during training can then be given to them in a bowl. Alternatively, and my personal preference, is to build it into all of your everyday activities:

  • lay down and be quiet to be let out of your crate
  • sit to have your leash and collar put on
  • sit and wait to go out the door
  • alternating between heeling and freely moving on walks
  • waiting for your food
  • sitting politely while being petted
  • hang out on your bed while I vacuum or eat
  • down stay in the dining room while I cook

Active vs. Passive

Your dog needs active time and passive time. They need exercise and play and training that teaches them TO DO things. They also need lots of time learning to just be, to allow the world to move around them without having to respond to everything that goes on. These start out as separate "events" or training sessions. Over time, we want our dogs to be able to discriminate when it is appropriate to do so and be able to move from an aroused state to a calmer one (something fancy-pants dog trainers call "drive switching"):

  • You can chase this ball but not that squirrel.
  • You can bark when someone comes to the door, but you need to stop when I tell you.
  • When you are off leash in the yard you can interact with the other dogs present but when on leash and walking through the city, ignore them.
  • We just got done playing, now I need you to lay down quietly while I have coffee with a friend.

Dogs generally enjoy and are predisposed to want to be active and engage with things in their environment. So we have to spend a lot of time teaching them to be passive. One of the best ways to do that is to teach them that passive behavior is rewarded with opportunity for active behavior.

The school analogy

We don't give it much thought, but think for a moment all of the training and social conditioning your went through while in school. Your day was broken up into many hours of highly structured socialization and education where rules were enforced, you were expected to respond in appropriate ways, and you were around others but not allowed to directly engage with them in at that time. Then you'd have some time to be a bit more creative but still in a structured format (music and art class). You'd also have a little bit of very active time where you focused on team building in again... a structured manner (gym class). And then every day you got about an hour to cut loose where the only rules were to make sure nobody was bloody, on fire, or had bones sticking out (recess). 

And you followed that process, every day, for years. This is why most of us are reasonably well adjusted and socialized people. Contrast that with the average dog who does one of two things: either sits in a crate/room all day or goes to dog daycare (also typically called lord of the flies, mosh pit place where dogs go to learn that there is no such thing as boundaries or appropriate social behavior). And then they have a very abridged, maybe, version of the above school analogy. And this is why most of them are good dogs, but struggle a little bit with things they shouldn't: not enough practice at the right things, and/or lots of practice at the wrong things.

The Basics - Part 1 - Confinement and Supervision

This is the first post in a series of fundamentals that we teach at Baltimore Dogworks with every dog that we see for training, puppy or adult.

Control your dog or control your dog's environment

When we're in the process of training our dogs, and for as long as is needed for them to prove to us that they are ready for more freedom in any given situation, our rule is supervise or confine. We make this rule very simple by explaining to owners that, at all times until they are 100% happy with their dog's behavior, their dog should be:

  1. On leash
  2. Tethered
  3. In a crate

On leash

When you are able to directly supervise AND directly interact with your dog, they should be on a 6ft leash (the implication is that you are holding the other end). If you are truly paying attention to your dog during this time, there should be no opportunity for them to engage in undesirable behavior without you having the ability to intervene using the leash and training collar. When your dog is outside in the yard, we instruct clients that they can switch to a 15 or 20 foot long line. This allows the dog more freedom of movement, but if we do need to stop the dog from doing something, extract something from their mouth, or otherwise get control of them, it's as simple as walking up the long line.


When you are able to directly supervise but not directly interact with your dog, tethering can be a good option. Examples of times when this is a good option would be while you are cooking, eating, folding laundry or doing yard work. Your dog should be tethered to some immovable object and there should be nothing within reach of the dog that they could chew on or grab hold of that you don't specifically want them to. Providing them with a pacification toy like a nylabone is optional. Never leave your dog unattended while tethered. They should always be within eyesight. Tethering also has the added benefit of "leash breaking" a dog, meaning they learn that it is more comfortable not to pull against the tether than to lean into it.

In a crate

If you are unable to directly supervise and interact with your dog, put them in their crate. I like to leave a very large pacification toy (solid nylabone or raw marrow bone), big enough that the dog can only scrape it with their teeth (not close their whole mouth around it) in the crate. I also often feed my dogs in the crate. These things help to occupy their time while kenneled and also assist in helping them form a positive association with the crate. Crating keeps your dog out of trouble. It disables their ability to engage in any undesirable behavior while you are not there to intervene. To this day, if I am not home, my dogs are kenneled/crated. This way I never have to wonder if they grabbed that sock on the floor, or the pen on the table, or the bread off the counter. I don't have to wonder if they are barking at people passing by the house, peeing and pooping on my couch, and so on.

Your only 3 options

The only three options you ever have in training are;

  1. Remove the stimulus/distraction/opportunity from the dog
  2. Remove the dog from the stimulus/distraction/opportunity
  3. Change the dog's response to the stimulus/distraction/opportunity

Following the rules outlined above assures that options 1 and 2 are handled. They don't have the opportunity to do things you don't want. We work on option 3 when we are prepared to train our dog. And as we do that, we stop having to do 1 and 2 so much. It's a process, and the only short cut is doing it correctly from the beginning.

If you aren't using this stuff... You should be! (Part 2)

Long time, no blog! I figured I'd ease back into giving the blog some more love by doing an updated list of the tools, equipment, and various other accoutrements that I'm using now. I did another post like this a while ago, and still stand by those recommendations too. 

Nail Clippers

Last time, I recommended Millers Forge nail clippers, but they make another model that has become my go-to favorite. These are their small nail clippers but I use them on every dog. They come so sharp, you don't even hear a "click" when you clip a nail. Simply switching to these clippers, because of how sharp they are, resolved a lot of protest from quite a number of dogs who didn't like to have their nails cut. Their small size allows you to really get in there and shape around the quick for larger dogs, and they are small enough to use easily on puppies as well. Best of all... they're really cheap!


I've been using these Red Barn Food Rolls as treats for a little while now. Last time I recommended the Stewarts Freeze Dried Beef Liver, and I still like them as a really long lasting, never goes bad treat. But these food rolls are a bit stinkier, and they're soft. I cut about 1cm discs off the log, and then cut that into 1cm x 1cm chunks to use as treats. All the dogs love them, they don't crumble or squish in your pocket or treat pouch, and the roll does not have to be refrigerated until it's opened. I recommend buying the 2lb rolls in bulk, or buy the 4lb roll, cut it into discs, and then freeze discs until you're ready to use them. I think a 4lb roll yields more treats than a large bucket of Stewarts, so it seems to be a bit more cost effective but not quite as non-perishable.

Crate Pads

For a long time I didn't have any bedding in my dogs' crates. They would usually be fine but every once in a while they'd start chewing on their bedding. To avoid a potential situation where the bedding was ingested and possibly caused a bowel obstruction, they simply went without. But as Marc is in his golden years, Czar (now 6 years old!!!) on his heels, and with a new large breed puppy that was already beginning to develop some hygromas on her back hocks I figured it was time to revisit the crate bedding thing. 

I've outfitted all three dogs' home crates with Primo Pads. These pads are closed cell foam that are wrapped in heat sealed vinyl. The result is a thin and supportive pad that is also waterproof, easy to clean, and as chew proof as anything I've found. To further help make sure dogs don't start gnawing on the pads, you can purchase them with a tie down kit that consists of reusable zip ties to secure the edges of the pad to the bottom of a wire crate. The only down side is that you have to remove the crate pan. This was fine with me and I now have the pans on top of the crates, which provides a flat surface to hold each dog's collars, bowls, any medication they are taking, etc.  So far, the pads are holding up well. They are super easy to clean (just wipe them down with the cleaner of your choice, or pull them out and hose them off). And my dogs love them.

My new puppy is a sporting breed and regularly goes out for field training. She's all over the place in the field, forest, and the water. In between exercises, she's crated while other dogs are having a go at training exercises. I wanted something for her crate in my vehicle, but I didn't want her sitting in water if she had just come from a water exercise. These WetMutt mats have holes in them that allow water to drain through. They come in a variety of sizes and I purchased one that was sized to fit the Rough Tuff kennels that I use in my van.

Creating a Framework... The underlying principles of a good method

In the dog training world there are a lot of techniques, tools, protocols, ideas, theories... and a lot of nonsense as well. The tenured trainer is likely able to move seamlessly through all of these things to find the quickest and easiest way (for them, the owner, and the dog) to complete training. For most of us, though, it may serve our purposes better to have a clear and consistent plan for how to address any and everything, and some rock solid rules of thumb for how to apply our work regardless of what our challenge is with our dog.


And this is why our training follows principles laid out in the Koehler Method. It is, simply put, the only methodology I know of that can offer, unaltered, as near 100% success as possible to the end user who applies it skillfully and tactfully. And it also allows the user to understand the underlying principles that allow additional flexibility if desired. In short, here is the process:

Teaching Skills

  1. Teach the dog what IT is you want (a basic skill)
  2. Give IT a name
  3. Praise the dog when they get IT right, and make it impossible for the dog to get IT wrong
  4. Only after the dog demonstrates clearly that they understand what IT is, correct them to help them keep IT right

Between the last two steps begin incorporating distractions the deepen the dogs understanding and responsibility, as well as their commitment to right action. In order to make sure that the dog experiences as much success as possible, while also ensuring that they have the opportunity to overcome failure (the true confidence builder for an animal still very much governed by instincts and a survivalist mindset), we make sure that we follow the Pareto Principle for proofing (increasing reliability against distractions):

The Pareto Principle

If your dog gets IT right at least 80% of the time, increase the difficulty (distraction level) by 20%. If your dog gets IT right less than 80% of the time, decrease the difficulty by 20%.

This assures that we are always being fair. And that our dog is always being challenged to progress. Overcoming failure is the key to progress, and you will see that we try to keep that to about 20% of our work, while the rest of the time, we bank successes and allow the dog to relax into the work as their understanding increases

When we correct or praise the dog to help them understand and work through a situation, we look to a well known fairy tale for guidance.

The Goldilocks Principle

Too Cold (not enough) - may not produce the desired outcome
Too Hot (too much) - may produce some undesired outcome
Just Right - produces the desired outcome

A note on corrections: The trainer with a good hand on a dog knows that "correction" means "to make correct". It is not a "punishment". If your correction (however it is made) does not have the result of creating the correct outcome, it was improperly administered. And if our correction does result in "right action", then that means every attempt the dog makes is praise worthy. There is time and place for "punishment". That is outside of the scope of this writing. 

A level deeper

Know that the sequencing of the exercises is important as well. Each week's work is not a separate lesson, but a continuance of building upon the foundation laid in earlier work. Specific to the Koehler Method, you will find that the work pays forward both week to week, and in 2-3 week increments. There's some numerology going on here that I know my buddy Bow Wow Bill appreciates. Here's an example:

The longe line work of week 1, informs the dog of their responsibility during the heeling work for week 2, and also prepares the handler to understand their responsibility for week 2, at least on gross aspect: move linearly... and when needed, in opposition to the dog.

The longe line work of week 1 also serves as a preconditioning exercise for the recall, introduced in week 4: move toward the handler.

Further, each lesson is meant to impart additional understanding to the dog at a cognitive level. 

For the trainer or owner who has completed the core work, we are now ready to move forward with problem solving. Again, there are faster and easier ways to do, well, just about everything. But none as sound, in my opinion, as this. With any issue, we need to discern the source of pressure (stimuli that is motivating ill response from the dog) and begin formulating a plan to use the skills the dog knows to change their response to that source of pressure. After all, we only have three options when it comes to these situations:

The Handler's Three Options

  1. Remove the stimulus from the dog (management, avoidance)
  2. Remove the dog from the stimulus (management, avoidance)
  3. Change the dog's response to the stimulus (training)

Some level of management/avoidance is required as we work through helping our dog become more comfortable. After all, if we are to maintain the Pareto Principle of Proofing, repeatedly putting our dog in a situation where they fail will prove counter-productive at best, and detrimental at worst.

But sometimes we make mistakes. Sometimes an unforeseen situation comes up and we have to recover from a bad experience, and sometimes we simply do not have the luxury to work in a sterile environment and so we are left to work "what is" since we cannot work "what should be". And in those times, we provide recovery areas and experiences. We assure that we have an area of low distraction to escape to should we need to backwash our training so that our dog can bank some successes. We started our session there, with something relatively easy, to remind the dog how well they are capable of doing. We also go back to the last point of success (perhaps a different exercise, or a different point in the training process of an exercise) to help the dog remember how easy it is to be right. Primacy and Recency.  

So how might we apply the skills our dog knows to find resolution to some problem that is seemingly not tied to "obedience"? Let's look at two examples where often psychotropic drugs are usually the first line of treatment:

Separation anxiety is defined as "a form of anxiety experienced by a young child and caused by separation from a significant nurturant figure". And therein lies an important detail. The dog has incorrectly framed (likely due to the actions of the owner) the relationship between themselves and the owner as one where confidence and comfort is predicated on the proximity of one another. You see this in human relationships too: the notion of "you complete me" vs. "you compliment me". And so we work our benching, long down, walk away stays, and out of sight stays to reframe this relationship in two ways:

1. Your relaxation is what ends this exercise
2. My return to you does not always signify "relief". In fact, if you are not relaxed while I am returning, my return indicates corrective action and continuance of the exercise

Confinement anxiety (claustrophobia), is often confused with separation anxiety. But it is the fear of being confined, not left. And we may see both disorders present in the same dog, with potentially varying eliciting thresholds. For making the dog accustom to the crate, perhaps our approach would be to use the long down (typically performed on a training table, and probably conditioned there in advance of this work) and do it in crate, with the door wide open. Now the battle in the dog's mind is purely mental/emotional. There is no physical barrier. And so we work the long down in the crate until we reach not an extended duration, but noticeably quicker relaxation into the exercise ("conditioned" relaxation). And then we work our Pareto Principle, closing the door bit by bit, assuring we remain at a reasonable expectation with no more than 2 corrective actions required on the part of the handler, out of every 10 trials. Again, at this point we are not concerned with time in the crate. We are concerned with time to relax. Once we are able to have the door closed, now we can work on duration.

And our dog was prepared for these lessons all along. From the time we first placed them physically into a sit, we were teaching them to seek comfort through relaxation. First from physical tension, and now from emotional/mental. We see that happen over time with each exercise during the core work, as the process moves from resistance, to understanding, to physical relaxation, to emotional relaxation. And we make sure that the dog is rewarded for every success, appropriate to the level we are working, both with the primary (innate, unlearned) reward of comfort, and secondarily with our verbal and physical praise.

People often remark that the Koehler trained dog doesn't look "happy". My response is that most dogs we term "happy" are overly aroused. They've never met dog with a stoic "disposition" (trained... vs. "temperament" which is inborn), they likely follow hedonism, and unfortunately they have projected that philosophical belief onto their dog... who is, again, still governed by a survivalist mentality despite being domesticated (a natural stoic, if you will). Couple this with the understanding of hedonic adaptation, and you should be able to easily put the pieces together as to why a hedonistic lifestyle does far greater disservice to our dogs than it does to us. I hesitate to even make that statement... What with the national savings rate somewhere around 5%, and "lifestyle inflation" being a thing. More and better is never enough, all it does is create the same baseline with ever increasing requirements to maintain that baseline. 

I understand the penchant for instant gratification nowadays. I get that we like excitement. People watch NASCAR for the crashes, fights for the knockouts, go to concerts where showmanship trumps musicianship. And if that's your gig, that's fine. Me? I'll take Beck over Beyonce, a corner bar on a weeknight over a mega club on the weekend, a mountain or wooded retreat over South Beach. I also understand the movement for some to seek out support or the appearance of resolution for their problems rather than resolution of their problems. And there are folks all too willing to sell that to you. We live in a world now, where "life coach" is actually a profession. And one where carrying mortgage debt, a car note, and student loans essentially into perpetuity... is normal.

My hope with this essay was to provide not necessarily an endorsement for my chosen methodology of dog training, but to illustrate how the principles behind it provide a framework for dog owners and trainers to work within that provides clear steps to take to teach their dog and to solve problems, using a well designed method as an example. It takes time, it takes effort, it takes skillful implementation. None of us have enough of the first, any worthwhile task is deserving of the second, and only practice can provide the third. But a dog in your care, for whom you are wholly responsible, is entitled to all three.

The Crux of the Matter

A facebook friend, Amy, who is a (kick a$$) hairstylist wrote this on facebook earlier today:

Hairstylists are magical creatures that can listen attentively, care about you and make your hair fabulous, however, these are things we can't necessarily do:
1. I can't actually turn you into Meg Ryan or Heidi Klum. I can give you Hollywood hair but I can't cut 35lbs off of you with your hair or employ a fulltime trainer and personal stylist team for you. 
2. I can't ensure that your hair will look as styled as it does when you leave the salon if you insist on using crappy Pantene, don't want to touch a styling product that we used and think your hair will style itself by sleeping on wet hair. 
3. I can make your hair look polished and professional but can't actually make someone hire you. Joint effort required here.
4. I will happily share my infinite hair wisdom with you and always try to make your day a little brighter but if you take my "infinite hair wisdom" and run with it.. With scissors you picked up at walgreens... And "tweak" your own hair and wind up with a pseudo mullet... That is not my fault.
4. I can't make you take my advice. But if we look at pictures, obsess over swatches for almost a half hour and I make your hair look just like the pictures we agreed upon and you call me two weeks later saying you look nothing like Meg Ryan because you are unhappily (and self admittedly) 40 lbs overweight, out of work, and refuse to style your hair at all then again, not really my fault. I must have lost those super powers along the way somehow.

I've been wanting to write this blog post for some time, but couldn't think of the proper context and then here it is, staring me in the face. In any vocation (a job that requires skilled physical labor) there are a few key elements:

Skill (which comes from intentional and correct understanding and practice)

Quality equipment

Realistic expectations

This is why we include equipment with all of our training programs. Webbed cotton or biothane for long lines, and leather or biothane leashes... Herm Sprenger branded slip collars or prong collars... remote collars from one of the big names, not a $59 special from Amazon. People who are serious about what they do use appropriate equipment.

This is why we don't care for single session programs where we give someone a "plan" and wish 'em well. To develop the necessary skill to effect change in, and manage, another living being's behavior, it takes time. And then, even with a measured amount of that skill, the onus is upon the end user to actually DO what is taught. This is an area where even many trainers fall victim. Having a theoretical understanding of something, but lacking the skill to execute it in practical application, can have detrimental effects at worst or leave the situation unchanged at best. If you think differently, I invite you to view proof of my statement.

And finally, setting realistic expectations... Trainers can create massive changes in behavior, make the fearful dog more brave, the boisterous dog more reserved. But we cannot make a German Shepherd into a Labrador Retriever, a Pit Bull into a Pointer (though Marc and Zwei do act an awful lot alike)... Or completely account for missed developmental opportunities for a puppy pulled from it's litter at 4 weeks of age, or make a current dog into a beloved past dog. We are working with animals that have personalities, emotions, innate predispositions and drives, and certain biological imperatives that are frankly... what make them dogs. We also cannot make a dog a person. Our job is to help you live a safer, more enjoyable, more communicative, and more fulfilling life with your dog.  That takes some give-and-take at both ends of the leash. 

It also comes as no surprise that the products of most vocations require maintenance. Hair requires washing and styling and other appropriate care. Houses and cars require things to be replaced or repaired from time to time. Flush Q-tips and paper towels down your toilet and it will stop working properly. So when we get questions like "How long do I have to do this for?" and the answer is "Until you don't have to anymore." or "Until you do it correctly," it's not us being abrupt. It's us providing concise and honest feedback. I'll never tell a client that the solution to their problem is management, rather than training, unless I really feel that is the only option. But if they find my solution disagreeable, I may have limited options. So if Amy's client doesn't want to buy the right products, sleep on wet hair, and  scissor their own hair with Walgreen's shears... her only option might be to tell them to put on a hat.

My First Trip to a Holistic Vet

On Monday I took my dog, Marc, to a holistic vet. I'd heard Dr. Sanderson's name come up numerous times over the past few years and generally wrote off the idea of holistic veterinary care. I also did the same thing with raw feeding, and many other things. Hazards of being a natural skeptic I suppose.  But in the four and a half years that I have had Marc, though overall a hearty dog, he has had some lingering allergy issues that have caused him significant enough discomfort that I felt compelled to try to resolve them.

If You Aren't Using This Stuff... You Should Be! (Part Two)

Back in August we did a post about dog related products that we use and recommend here at Baltimore Dogworks. As with the last post, I don't get any affiliate marketing credit for this stuff or anything like that. I just want to share good stuff with you good people! You can click on any picture to be taken to an external site where you can purchase the item.  

10 Rules for Training Your Dog

A quick internet search will produce about a million different tips, tricks, and opinions on how to train and get better behavior from your dog. I'd wager that just about all of them have worked for someone, and for some dog, at some time. Rather than tell you, "This is how you teach a dog to... xyz," here are ten rules that should be ubiquitous across any training methodology: