by The Crunchy Canine | Jun 9, 2016 | TESTIMONIALS
Lisa and Matt contacted us to help with their young and energetic working line German Shepherd.With two young kids in the house, a senior Chocolate Lab, and busy lifestyle they needed some extra help getting Bear trained so they could enjoy him rather than be frustrated with him. They signed Bear up for our 8 week Freedom From the Leash program to get him trained and able to be off leash. Bear is a lovely young dog who simply didn’t know how to calm down. You can see in the below video the stages he went through to learn the art of “calm on command” by just relaxing on place. Many young and high energy breeds never learn how to “turn off” that energy and their owners think they need more exercise. While exercise is ABSOLUTELY important, some dogs even with all the exercise in the world still don’t know how to relax. So we taught Bear how to relax, as well as taught him to walk nicely on leash and gave him new found freedom by training him to be off leash so he can run and burn some of that energy off!
Bear learning the art of being calm
Bear learning to walk nicely on leash
Bear off leash
“Katherine is hands down the best dog trainer we have ever met and we have met many over the years. She loves dogs and they love her! She transformed our crazy, strong willed german shepherd puppy into an amazing family dog we can finally enjoy! If you want the best, you need Katherine! She is wonderful to work with and goes above and beyond to help you succeed. I would give 10 stars if I could.” – Lisa (Bear’s owner)
If you need help with your young energetic dog, we’d love to help!
by The Crunchy Canine | Jun 8, 2016 | BLOG
What you feed your dog matters!
Before you begin training, make sure your dog is eating a healthy diet. They learn best when the
y feel their best, and it will only make training easier. No different than sending a kid to school on a diet that consists of only fast foods, dogs require a healthy and balanced diet to thrive. Unfortunately, the big name kibbles (ie. Purina, Iams, Hills etc.) are not quality foods. We suggest that you visit www.dogfoodadvisor.com and check to see how your dog’s food ranks. Anything lower than 4 stars needs to be thrown away, as that is the McDonald’s of kibble. Some brands of kibble we suggest are Acana, Orijen, Nature’s Variety, or Carna4. However, we feed our own dogs a complete raw diet and strongly suggest looking into it. Dogs who are fed a raw diet tend to see the vet less often, have shiny and healthy coats, shed less, have clean ears and eyes, and less likely to suffer from allergies.
by The Crunchy Canine | Jun 8, 2016 | BLOG
Fearful Dog Training
Fear is a common problem among pet dogs these days. I get plenty of calls regarding dogs who arefearful or nervous of all kinds of different things, and some are just scared of life in general. When it comes to fear, dogs are fight or flight animals…so when they are scared either one of t
hose instincts will kick in. The majority of dogs go into fight mode, which is where you get what looks like “aggressive” behaviours starting to happen. When a dog who is “fear aggressive” lunges, barks, or bites they are not biting because they want to. They are biting because they feel they have to in order to get whatever they find scary to go away. Dogs who go into flight mode are simply fleeing from whatever makes them scared. Either way, both the dog who fights and the dog in flight lack one common thing and that is confidence.
When helping fearful dogs, the number one thing we have to remember is not to coddle our dogs. Almost always when I get a client with a fearful dog, they are petting them and telling them “it’s OK” whenever they get scared. When we do this, we are literally validating that the dog should be afraid of whatever it is that is scaring them. We are also reinforcing a state of mind that we actually want to change. Pretty much at any given time during the day there is an opportunity to train, and if you look at all the times your dog gets nervous and you reinforce that by petting and coddling then your dog will always be in that state of mind in the presence of whatever scares them.
The next component to helping your fearful dog is to take things slow and never force your dog into a situation that they are uncomfortable with. Dogs who bite out of fear do so because they are in a situation that is too much for them to handle and feel they need to bite to get out of it. Let’s say for instance your dog is fearful of other dogs. Usually looks like dog aggression when on leash, typically the dog is lunging and barking when they see another dog. Whether that dog is 10ft or 50ft away from you, you need to give the dog more space. You will need to figure out your dog’s threshold and stay below it. So if at 20 ft your dog reacts then you need to be more than 20 ft away from the other dog to stay below threshold. Work at this distance for a few weeks. Show your dog nothing happens when another dog walks by at a distance he is comfortable with. Once he is successfully walking past other dogs below threshold you can slowly start closing in the distance.
Next, you will want to think outside the box when it comes to training for fear. Instead of directly dealing with whatever scares your dog, focus on building your dogs confidence in other ways. A great example is teaching your dog the place command and have them do place on all kinds of different objects. Confident dogs naturally are not afraid of to many things. So by building your dog’s confidence in general they will be able to handle more situations that would have been scary to them prior to training.
If you are looking for help with training your fearful dog please contact us today at [email protected]
Happy Training
Katherine
by The Crunchy Canine | Jun 3, 2016 | BLOG
Make training your dog fun!
Everything your dog does depends on you. YOU let him out of his crate in the morning. YOU feed him. YOU let him outside to play. [Hopefully], YOU walk him and play with him. YOU control your dog’s daily activities, resources and environment. Essentially you are your dogs whole world. Not only does your dog deserve to have some fun with you, but dogs who get out and have fun with their owners are overall more well rounded and well behaved dogs. Dogs who are bored, don’t get enough exercise, and have owners who never get out and have fun with them often have behavioural issues. Having some fun with your dog is also great for relationship building, and a great opportunity to do some training! So get out there and find something that you and your dog both enjoy doing together. Go for a hike, hit the beach, go for a bike ride, strap on the rollerblades, or simply enjoy a nice long walk together. If you make a goal of getting out and having fun with your dog every day, you will have a much happier dog.
Your dog may not be your whole world, but you are certainly his!
by The Crunchy Canine | May 24, 2016 | BLOG
Off Leash Dog Training – Burlington, Ontario
Bear is a 9 month old German Shepherd Dog who is with us for a 2 week board and train. By the end of 2 weeks he will be off leash reliable. Today was only the second day and I was able to drop the leash while working on our off leash heel command. We are using low level remote collar training to teach Bear to be off leash. He is working on a level 3 of 100 (the average human does not even feel anything until at least a level 10 on the collar). We use the collar to communicate with the dog and give him information. We are not correcting him, we are motivating him. As you can see he is not in pain, nor is he upset. In fact he is quite happy and enjoying his new found freedom!
For more information on our Freedom from the Leash program please contact us at [email protected] to see how we can help you and your dog be fully reliable off leash too!
