Getting a new puppy is so exciting! All the planning, waiting and preparing come to a head with the bringing home of the puppy. And, while the human family members are excited and prepared, the resident dog(s) in the family may view it differently. Depending on the individual dogs living Read more…
Over the years as a professional dog trainer and behavior consultant there has been a constant theme of comments that I have received and continue to receive in my work focusing on conformation. I have been told things like, “He never warms up to people as quickly as he has Read more…
One thing that I feel very lucky for is that I learned how to train dogs differently than I train today. I learned to train with more traditional methods and have changed over to methods that are progressive, effective and very dog friendly. I am grateful for this because I Read more…
Today I met with a new client. I am only doing training for show dogs and thought that this was a fearful show dog. It turns out that the dog is not a show dog, but a much loved companion dog who is fearful, but that someone had told her Read more…
One big piece of From Shy to Showy is the commitment to giving the dog “choice”. Particularly in the early stages, whether you are dealing with a dog who is very fearful, shy or even just doesn’t enjoy the ring it is important for the dog to learn that they Read more…
THE LITTLE DOGS THAT COULD One of the best parts of my job is that I get to travel around the country teaching people how to train show dogs, handle their show dogs and help shy or fearful show dogs. In order to save the hosts money, I always offer Read more…
SAFE PUPPY EVALUATIONS Many breeders, such as myself, grade our puppies at around 8 weeks old. The official “puppy grading” is when the breeder and the breeder’s friends, mentors and peers get together to look at each puppy as a group and as individuals and decide which puppies are show Read more…
COMMUNICATING CLEARLY WITH OUR DOGS Dogs are very visual when it comes to communicating with us. They tend to respond to our visual cues very strongly, especially in cases where their training was started with heavy visual prompts from us. For example, if you teach a dog to sit using Read more…
