The Monthly Wag: August 2024

Hello Fellow Dog Lovers!

Thank you for subscribing to our monthly newsletter! We’re thrilled to welcome you to our growing community of dog lovers and training enthusiasts. Each month, you can look forward to receiving valuable training tips, behavior insights, and updates on our upcoming events and classes. We're excited to share this journey with you and your furry friend!

Dog of the Month: Josie

Name: Josie

Age: Between 2 and 3 years (she’s a rescue)

Breed: Pittie mix

Favorite activity: Snuggling and staring at bunnies

Favorite food: Stuffed bones and treats

Best personality trait: Happy and calm

Fun fact about Josie: She loves, loves belly rubs!

Josie joined our training program because of her excitement and reactions around geese and rabbits. Over the past month, Josie and her owners have worked diligently on her training, leading to remarkable progress in her impulse control and reactivity around those trigger. Josie can now walk past most rabbits while staying focused on her mom and dad, and she handles encounters with geese with increased focus and a bit more distance. Josie is an absolute delight, and we’re thrilled to watch her continue to thrive in her training journey!

Monthly Training Video: Marker Training

Training Topic: 5 Tips To Immediately Improve Your Dog’s Come When Called 

How reliably does your dog come when you call them? Many of our dog’s struggle with this behavior, but Come-When-Called is one of the most important behaviors for our dogs to respond to reliably because it could save their lives! We have all been in a situation where our dogs get loose. The gate was left open, we drop the leash, or they slip past us through an open door. If our dogs don’t come back in these situations, it could mean they get themselves seriously hurt. In this article we will go over five tips to immediately improve your dog’s Come-When-Called behavior. With a little practice, Come-When-Called could become your dog’s favorite and most reliable cue.

1: Get Your Dogs Attention First- Many people think they have a problem with Come-When Called when really, they have issues getting their dog’s focus and attention. Practice saying your dog’s name around different distractions and then reward them when they focus on you. Don’t cue your dog to come until you make sure they are listening and focused on you. Our dog’s name is the way we get their attention. Don’t use your dog’s name as a way to get them to come. Use the cue “come”, “here”, or “touch” as the cue for them to come back to you.  

2. Fabulous Rewards Equals Fabulous Recalls: This is not a behavior you want to withhold reinforcement. We expect our dogs to stop whatever interesting behavior they are doing and immediately come to us. We need to make this behavior pay off for our dogs. High value treats, play with a favorite toy, or lots of praise and attention will make our dogs love this behavior.

3. Don’t Only Call Your Dog for Bad Consequences- Dogs are very intelligent animals and quickly learn patterns. If we only call our dogs when we are taking them inside, are going to put them in the crate, or generally are just going to end their fun, our dogs will quickly learn Come-When-Called has bad consequences. Practice calling your dog to you, reward them, and then let them go back to what they were doing before. This will teach your dog that most of the time when they come good consequences will happen.

4. Don’t Call Your Dog if You Know They Won’t Respond: One of the worst things we can do when training Come-When-Called is repeatedly give our dogs the come cue over and over again without a response. This only teaches the dog to ignore us. If your dog is not responding, you need to change things. Get closer to your dog, move them farther away from the distraction, or go back to the basics and completely reteach the behavior around the distraction they were struggling around.

5. Practice Grabbing Your Dog’s Collar: If our dogs get loose, we want to be able to secure them safety. This means you need to be able to grab your dog’s collar, harness, or leash easily. Unfortunately, many dogs learn to play a game of keep away and avoid getting their collars grabbed. Every time you call your dog you should practice grabbing their collar before giving them a treat. If you do this your dog will learn to love getting their collar grabbed and will be easier to handle if you need to catch them.

Upcoming Classes and Events

8/12: 6:30pm- Good Manners I First Class 

8/17: 2:30 pm- Free training event for Glass City Dog Park all park members welcome!

8/18: 4:00 pm- Rally Intermediate First Class

8/24: 11:30 am- Good Manners I First Class

All of our upcoming class still have several spots available. Sign up today!

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