Hello Fellow Dog Lovers!

Thank you for subscribing to our monthly newsletter! We’re thrilled to have you be a part of our ever-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(s)! 🐾

Table of Contents

• Featured Upcoming Class: Beginner Good Manners

  • Monthly Training Video: 101 Things to do with a bo …

  • Why Choose Ready Set…Train! for Group Training Cla …

  • Dog of the Month: Lucy

  • Can Your Dog Speak? A Closer Look at the Dogs Usin …

  • Follow us on Instagram

Featured Upcoming Class: Beginner Good Manners

Ready to transform your dog’s focus? Our Beginner Good Manners class is designed to teach your dog the essential skills they need for real-world success.

Before tackling advanced training or busy environments, every dog needs a strong foundation in focus, attention, and impulse control. Each week, we safely introduce new distractions to help your dog stay calm and engaged with you.

What your dog will learn:

• Walking on a loose leash

• Polite greetings (no more jumping on guests!)

• Reliable cues: Sit, Down, Stay, and Come when called

• The "Leave-It" command for safety and boundaries

Whether your dog is brand new to training or just needs a "focus tune-up," this class is for you! We utilize a large training space and keep our class sizes small to ensure you and your dog receive plenty of individual attention.

• Duration: 5-Week Course

• Price: $180

• Sign Up Here: Book Online Now

Monthly Training Video: 101 Things to do with a box.

Why Choose Ready Set…Train! for Group Training Classes?

Dog of the Month: Lucy

Name: Lucy

Age: 4

Breed: Golden Retriever

Favorite Activity: Taking all here stuffies out of her toy box.

Favorite Food: Hotdogs

Favorite Trick: Roll over

Best Personality Trait: She is very smart. She loves learning new tricks with her mom

Fun Fact: Lucy knows over 20 tricks!

Meet Lucy! When she first started training with us, she struggled with a "fear-to-friend" conflict. She was initially very scared of new people entering her home, but once she felt safe, her excitement would skyrocket into jumping and over-arousal.

To help Lucy find her balance, we implemented a Predictable Greeting Routine. This structure gave Lucy the confidence she needed to build trust quickly without feeling overwhelmed.

Once she felt comfortable, we shifted our focus to polite greetings, practicing with family and friends to replace jumping with calm behavior. Today, Lucy warms up to guests beautifully and stays much more composed! We are so incredibly proud of the hard work Lucy and her family have put in. Way to go, Team Lucy!

Can Your Dog Speak? A Closer Look at the Dogs Using Talking Button Boards: By Elizabeth Tuohy

Did you catch the recent Nova episode, "Can Dogs Talk?" (February 2026)? This fascinating documentary explored how researchers in the US, Italy, and Hungary are uncovering the true depth of canine language and word recognition by following dogs especially skilled in their abilities to recognize words.. https://share.google/BDHxzLM8iZOfFnNj1

One study, with a dog who can retrieve over a hundred toys by name, showed the dog was also able to differentiate two toys by function-whether they were a tug toy or a fetch toy. This occurred even though the owner had not named those two toys or named the two activities ahead of time. Another study showed increased activity on an EEG of a dog’s brain. The activity increased when the word ball was mentioned but a phone was shown to the dog instead. Researchers felt this showed the dog recognized the word ball and knew a phone was not a ball.

By far, most segments of the Nova episode involved dogs interacting with their audio
buttons. Viewers witnessed many of the world’s most proficient, button-pushing dogs
demonstrate their abilities with human language. The buttons used by dogs (and cats) are battery-operated. Each individual button is slightly bigger than an inch to 4 inches in size depending on the brand. Most come with a foam platform to keep the buttons in place while the dog presses with its foot. Owners record their own voice to say a word like “outside”, “eat”, or “play” on each button.

Most of these animals used the buttons for indicating wants or needs like food, going outside, or going for a walk. Researchers designed an experiment testing the reaction of one dog when she couldn’t get into a latched container with food. The dog went to its owner and pawed her legs and then pressed a button saying “help”.

Another dog seemed to create a substitute for a broken “beach” button by pressing three alternative buttons “help”, “water”, outside”. Researchers wondered whether proximity of the buttons to the broken one was a factor.

Taking advantage of the many people using audio buttons with their dogs (and cats) Professor Frederico Russano, director of the Comparative Cognition Lab, UC San Diego has partnered with FluentPet, an audio button designer to create an app for interested pet owners to record their animal’s use of buttons to communicate. https://share.google/ucULnDOKkV6tsjoFc The website offers advice on setting up audio buttons, training pets to push the buttons, and community support.

Whether dogs are actually using language in the ways humans do remains to be seen.
Researchers are very cautious trying to explain what the various studies show about canine language. However, every person who has ever been nudged by a dog to ask for more petting or scratching knows dogs are able to effectively communicate their desires.

Further reading
https://share.google/JdFVokk0P8Nn3iNtn Can Dogs Use Language? Scientific American article
https://share.google/hrytYvjphVkU8BCnS Dogs May Understand the Meaning of Words. AKC article
https://share.google/yjDq9YNyNO0BX2wz6 Nature article

Upcoming Classes/Events

3/1: 10:00 am- Puppy Start Right Preschool | First Class

3/11: 7:15 pm- Beginner Good Manners | First Class

3/20: 6:00 pm- Triggered Class | First Class

3/22: 3:00 pm- Novice Agility | First Class

3/28: 1:15 pm- Triggered in the Wild | First Class

3/29: 11:30 am- Beginner Good Manners | First Class

4/12: 10:00 am- Puppy Start Right Preschool| First Class

4/12: 1:00 pm- Out and About | First Class

4/15: 7:15 pm- Beginner Good Manners | First Class

All of our upcoming class still have several spots available. Sign up today! https://www.readysettraindogs.com/group-training-classes

Follow us on Instagram