Our methods focus on creating a positive relationship between you and your dog to improve your dog's behavior and obedience. Our expertise is in understanding how a dog naturally thinks, learns and communicates and then using this to show you how to be your dog’s leader. Once this relationship is established, behavior change is a natural next step. Our techniques work with any age, any breed, any issue. You and your dog get one-on-one attention, an individualized plan to suit your family AND guaranteed support for the life of your dog.
The cost of dog training varies by location, and also depends on whether training is one-on-one or group classes, and whether it is at a facility or in-home. Pet stores and non-specialized trainers cost between $70-150 for a multi-week beginner-training group class. Private training averages $60-70 per session. For dogs with aggression issues, private training costs may increase to $90-100 per session.
Because you get force-free, easy to understand directions, troubleshooting guides, step-by-step guides, and pictures and video demonstrations you can use with any dog to quickly unlock his natural intelligence and eliminate bad behaviors. Quite literally I’ve compressed years of study of hundreds of problem dogs into a ‘paint-by numbers’ system for creating the wonderfully well-behaved pet you desire. I will show you why the formula is structured the way it is without wasting a moment of your valuable time.
Punishment or aversive techniques will do little to stop these anxious dog behaviors in the long-run, because punishment does not address the source of the problem, which is the dog’s anxiety. In fact, suppression of these displacement behaviors, through pain and dominance methods, will make the problem worse, because pain increases stress and uncertainty.
We work Monday to Friday so durning the week my husband gets up and feeds her before he goes to work, then an hour later I take her for an hour walk and when we get back from our walk I go to work and she stays home for the day. When I get home from work we go for another hour walk or to the park (lately she won’t go for these walks but will go to the park if we drive there and she’s fine at the park). Then she has supper and in the evening another walk (again, lately she hasn’t been going for these walks, we have to drive her to a place and she only wants to go to the bathroom, no playing). We’ve been trying to get her to go to the bathroom in the backyard since she seems comfortable there, but we just got it done a few weeks ago so she’s still getting used to it.
No biting is more of an action taken to discourage puppy biting than it is an actual obedience training command. Puppies have a habit of biting anything and everything and this behavior should be discouraged from the beginning. Discouraging biting can be done with a variety of ways. One of the most used methods of discouraging biting is to firmly say “no” and replace the hand or fingers that are being bitten with a toy that it is acceptable to bite.
The Thundershirt is a popular solution for dog anxiety. It is a tightly fitting garment that wraps around your dog. The idea is that the feeling of continuous pressure can help calm a dog's nerves for things like travel anxiety and, as the name implies, noise anxiety among other issues. However, there isn't much definitive science-based evidence to show that these actually work. Some dog owners swear by it; others have found it hasn't helped. The effectiveness of the Thundershirt may also depend on when and how it is used, and the particular personality and needs of the dog it is used on. So, something like this could be helpful if used alongside other natural solutions with each helping to enhance the benefits of the other.
An abrupt change in schedule in terms of when or how long a dog is left alone can trigger the development of separation anxiety. For example, if a dog’s guardian works from home and spends all day with his dog but then gets a new job that requires him to leave his dog alone for six or more hours at a time, the dog might develop separation anxiety because of that change.
An anti-anxiety drug is designed to be given once a day and to keep your dog calm overall. It is not designed to be given at a particular time when your dog becomes overly anxious or excited. The best thing to do at such times is to speak calmly to your dog in a reassuring but firm voice. Keep your hand on your dog, providing your dog does not become aggressive. Some dogs may become aggressive and try to bite. If possible, remove the dog from the anxiety-provoking situation. Above all, remain calm yourself, because your dog will take cues from your behavior.
The Dog Obedience Club of Lee County offers monthly classes to show handlers how to track with their dogs. We meet at various locations to provide your dog with different scenting problems. Your dog will need a non-restrictive halter. Eventually you will need a 20 to 40 foot line, flags, flagging, inexpensive leather gloves, cloth articles and perhaps a GPS.
If you are not able to stay at home with your puppy, you should make every effort to return home to take your puppy out to the bathroom every few hours or hire a dog walker who can do this for you. When you are not home, you should crate your puppy to prevent accidents throughout the house. As a general rule, any dog will be reluctant to relieve itself in the area where it sleeps, but this should not be used as an excuse to make your puppy hold it. The bladder of an 8-week old puppy is large enough to “hold it” for only three hours at a time.
If you’d like to learn how to train your dog or if your dog has a behavior problem you’d like to resolve, don’t hesitate get help from a qualified professional trainer or behaviorist. To learn more about locating the right expert for you and your dog, please see our article, Finding Professional Help. Many Certified Pet Dog Trainers (CPDTs) and Certified Applied Animal Behaviorists (CAABs or ACAABs) offer telephone consultations, in-home private consultations and training sessions, and group classes.
Consider clicker training. Clicker training is a method of delivering immediate praise with the help of a clicker. You can click faster than you can give a treat or pet your dog's head. As such, clicker training reinforces good behavior fast enough for a dog's learning speed. It works by creating a positive association between the click sound and rewards. Eventually, your dog will consider the sound of the clicker itself reward enough for good behavior. You can apply the principle of clicker training to any dog command.
Obedience training usually refers to the training of a dog and the term is most commonly used in that context. Obedience training ranges from very basic training, such as teaching the dog to reliably respond to basic commands such as "sit," "down," "come," and "stay," to high level competition within clubs such as the American Kennel Club, United Kennel Club and the Canadian Kennel Club, where additional commands, accuracy and performance are scored and judged.
Just remember that your dog is relying on you as well. They need you to provide guidance and help. Take an active role in teaching and practicing obedience. Generally, they are willing to learn and eager to please. However, so often, it is us who have not done any kind of studying and research on how to best teach a dog. After all, you would not think of going into a kindergarten classroom and trying to teach those students without any kind of training. Or would you? God help those brave souls who answered yes to that one!
For a puppy, they should not be removed from their mother any earlier than about 8 weeks old. This is also just about the perfect time to start training. The best way to teach this skill is by taking the puppy (or dog) outside any time you think they may need to relieve themselves. This should generally be when they first wake up in the morning, after playing, after eating, after drinking and the last thing at night before going to sleep.
The first and most important obedience lesson for many dog owners is housebreaking. Puppies should begin housebreaking at approximately 7 ½ to 8 ½ weeks old. Ideally, puppies should not be separated from their mothers until at least 8 weeks of age so you should not be faced with a puppy younger than this anyway. Sometimes older dogs need to be housetrained too when they are rescued from a shelter or rescue organization, housebreaking an older dog involves the same process as housebreaking a younger dog.
Owning a dog can be really rewarding, but also really scary! There is potential that you will have to deal with stresses and anxieties that your dog has. Anxiety in dogs is a tricky thing to navigate through. It is important for you to recognize if your dog has anxiety and what type. Dealing with it then becomes much easier. There are steps you can take to help and we’ve put together a guide for you to find out how.
Often, the sit command will be one of the easiest for your dog to learn first. Next, you can train your dog to lie down. At the same time, work on teaching your dog to stay. In addition, your dog should be trained to come when called as soon as possible. This is one of the most important fundamental commands. Once your dog has mastered these dog obedience basics, you can move on to fun tricks and advanced commands.
Positive-reinforcement is the methodology suggested by humane organizations, veterinary associations and dog trainers alike. This type of training focuses on rewarding desired behaviors using something that the dog values (typically treats), removing the reward for undesired behaviors and not using physical punishment or fear to bring about behavioral change.
What you have described are exactly same symptoms as my dog. Lady came to my mom’s house one day from the desert. It was clear that someone had abandoned her because she still had on a dusty pink collar with the tags removed. My mom adopted her immediately and kept her for about two years before her she lost her house and partner to a fire. While in transition, my husband and I took Lady in and became so attached to her that she ultimately became a wonderful part of our family. We took her to the vet and found out that she is a German Shepherd/Lab mix and that the closest they can guess her age is “over ten”. She has been “over ten” for four years now. Due to her situation, she has always had some degree of separation anxiety. She also would get nervous during thunderstorms. However, during the last two weeks, her anxiety increased significantly. She started pacing around frequently. My husband and I are both teachers and were on break so we were rarely, if ever, away from the house at the same time. There are rarely thunderstorms in the middle of the winter here. Her anxiety seemed to come from somewhere we couldn’t identify, and it was constant. She has had a very hard time sleeping for the last couple of weeks. She gets into small spaces (corners) and shakes. She positions herself almost on top of me and just trembles. I took her to the vet earlier this week and she tried to find a source of pain that could be triggering the behavior. She couldn’t find any kind of issue that could be the cause of the increased anxiety. Lady does have arthritis, but she has been on pain medication for over a year now. The vet prescribed some valium and instructed me to change her diet slightly. She also administered a drug test and found that one of the kidney levels had jumped from the low normal range to the abnormal range (16 points) in the last year.
Finally, it’s okay to admit that you need a cheerleader to support you as your train your dog. A good trainer will help you troubleshoot setbacks, give you a gentle push if you get stuck and most importantly, help you achieve your goals. Having someone hold you accountable is a great way to ensure that you and your dog get all of the training you need!
The 1980 television series Training Dogs the Woodhouse Way made Barbara Woodhouse a household name in the UK, and the first international celebrity dog trainer.[25] Known for her "no bad dogs" philosophy, Woodhouse was highly critical of "bad owners", particularly those she saw as "overly sentimental".[26] She described the "psychoanalyzing of dogs" as "a lot of rubbish".[27] Her no-nonsense style made her a pop-culture icon, with her emphatic "sit" and catch cry of "walkies" becoming part of the popular vernacular.[28]
Jeff Lustman is from Carbondale, Illinois and has been a Dog trainer for the past 5 years. He trained and interned under Behesha Doan, one of the most well-known trainers/dog behavior specialists in the country. He has been a part of and led multiple training academy’s and dog behavioral training lectures back in Illinois. He has also trained service dogs for veterans with PTSD and led 4 different Veteran classes. Jeff Specializes in aggression and anxious dog behaviors and can train any dog that enters our building. With his vast knowledge of dog behavior and training, you can be confident that your dog will get the training you want and need.
My dog often gets stressed when there is a lot of uncertainty in his life. Therefore, I try to create as much certainty as possible by setting up a fixed routine, consistent rules, and making him work for the things that he wants (Nothing in Life is Free). In this way, he knows exactly what to expect from me, from the other dogs in the household, from other people, and also what I expect from him. I also try to be very calm and decisive when interacting with my dog, so that he will pick up on that energy and know that he can count on me.
I don’t want her pretending to like me for food. As it is, she only shows affection through snuggling or licking to get close to items she isn’t allowed to have that are placed behind me so she can’t get them. When she is close enough, she disregards me and grabs the item and tries to run with it. Occasionally, “leave it” works when she gets her teeth on something she shouldn’t, but most of the time I have to take it away and she she immediately begins to try to get it back with force or sneaky behavior.
Most dogs will instinctively act in a protective manner towards their master and the rest of the family. In some instances, they will even act in a protective manner towards close family friends or others who are frequent visitors to your home. But, at the same time, you can also train your dog to protect your children from harm. Bear in mind that training your dog to protect your child is not quite the same as training him to behave like the traditional guard dog all the time, they can also take on other roles.
I am trying to find a solution for my 11yr old female Husky, Blitzen’s night-time anxiety. This has been going on now for a few months. It’s as if she’s become nocturnal. Around 1a-3a every night she is wide awake and pacing, pawing at the bed, whining, almost hyper ventilating. We have a doggie door and she will go outside and whine the most pathetic sounding sad cry. I try to bring her into my room, but she paces and pants and can’t settle. I am becoming sleep deprived since I cannot sleep a whole night with this behavior. My vet suggested Sam E and Benedryl, both of which had the opposite effect and made her wired instead of calm. I am desperate for a solution for both of our sakes.
Lately, however, people are coming to realize that completely calm, bombproof dogs are closer to the exception than the rule. Many dogs have something they’re not good with, whether it’s alone time, storms, cats or children. This increased awareness has translated into more and easier tactics to help anxious dogs than walking them at 5 in the morning. Here are eight ways to make life with your anxious or reactive dog better for both of you.
When his anxiety begins occurring we keep him to a very regular schedule and walk him around a cemetery nearby where he is almost always comfortable. When he does become nervous we employ the abrupt stop and change direction since it distracts him from his anxiety and forces him to pay more attention to us. We’ve tried having him give cued behaviors & rewarding that to distract him but he will refuse treats when anxious. We also try to do the majority of his exercise (dog park trips & 3-5 mile runs with me) in the morning so that his evening walk can be shorter. HIs anxiety only occurs in “neighborhoods” where there area people & houses. We frequently take him camping & hiking & he has NEVER had an episode at these places. That is the one thing that has me stumped-he does not like being in the direct line of campfire smoke but exhibits no anxiety and will even sleep 10 feet away from it. The only thing I can come up with is that he sees the source of the smoke smell. The few times I have walked him past the neighbors barbecuing he seems to calm down. Do you have any thoughts? Have you come across a dog with a smell anxiety before? I should mention we got (rescued) him from a family that kept him confined to the kitchen 24/7 and he had never walked on a leash until 7 months old. Thank you for any input on this.
Your dog must finish our Basic Obedience Package before we will teach them advanced lessons! We offer numerous advanced lessons! Some are: extended distance obedience (your dog will be sitting/downing on command from 50+ yards away from you), heel command (they come running, go around you and sit down right beside your left leg), watch command (stare at you until you release them), through command (go in between your legs and sit down), stand command (they will assume a standing position on command), front command (they will come running and sit directly in front of you no matter where they are), focused heeling (will stare at you the entire time they heel), touch command (they will run up and stand up against anything you point to), and many more!
BASIC & ADVANCED OBEDIENCE: $950 – Want to take your dog’s obedience to the next level? This program includes training equipment and 8 private lessons. The first 4 lessons will cover our Basic Obedience curriculum, and the last 4 lessons will cover advanced commands of your choice! Basic/Advanced Obedience is ideal for owners who enjoy working with their dogs on a consistent basis and want reliable control off-leash around distractions. ***Be prepared to practice daily for at least 30 minutes and schedule lessons 1 week apart.***
