Calm On

What could be sweeter than these two pups? Merle on the left is a 12 week Cockapoo and on the right is Max a 6 month old Chihuahua cross. Sweet as they look two high energy pups like this can cut a swath of chaos throughout your household. They feed off each other’s energy and will only stop when they drop of utter exhaustion. As soon as they awaken they are right back at it right where they left off. ... As young as these pups are you can start teaching them what calm is all about. You can start to manage and control their play/rest cycle. You can start to ingrain positive puppy behaviours. You can easily start to teach about boundaries and rules. Structure for short. You can start basic obedience if you so choose. All of this starts with a calm puppy. Started working with these two and their ultra committed owner about 12 days ago. There have been minor bumps on the road but there has been significant positive change that creates a balanced dog. A dog that is confident, calm and capable. See more

Once upon a time there lived the most wonderful family. Father-a stalwart provider Mother-doting and nurturing Baby- the apple of their eye Zoe-the wondrous labradoodle ... Mylo- the little black undisputed ruler of this unit. After time went by Mylo’s style of managing his little family became more and more oppressive. All too often the family felt the wrath of his little doggy tongue, giving them non stop orders. Mylo was particularly harsh on Baby, sometimes perching himself on high unleashing a verbal torrent just because he felt like it. Mylo didn’t take any orders from anybody and was often fit to bouts of over excitement, often causing Zoe to respond in like manner. Mother became both concerned and anxious about Mylos inappropriate behaviour and feared for the worst. In desperation she sent word to a strange old guy in the village that had taken to surrounding himself with dogs, and was sometimes seen muttering either to himself or the dogs while out and about. The strange old guy received this word and set about creating a potion that would allow Mylo to see the error of his ways. Unfortunately because of hoarding issues created by the ongoing plague he was unable to complete this potion. The next option was to involve Mylo and owners in a heart to heart conversation trying to drill down why Mylo was being such an asshole. When owners had the opportunity to hear Mylos side of the story and vice versa, an understanding was reached. With owners holding up their end and Mylo holding up his, they all lived happily ever after.

Hello. Today I worked with 16 week old Golden Retriever, Chloe, and her family. There were a number of issues that were dealt with, but the one I would like to focus on is teaching the dog/puppy how to calm themselves. For some dogs it comes more naturally but for most it is a behaviour that needs to be learned. Once learned however it clears the way to quite easily help the dog to learn new things. I like to start with teaching the dog calming techniques before we get int...o any behaviour modifications or training. I find then that I can then work with a dog far beyond what would be considered his usual time threshold for learning. Today’s session was about 3 hours. See more

I delivered Pepper to her owners in Bonnyville today. Pepper is a 16 week old Lab/Golden Retriever cross. As is often the case with puppies Pepper was very high strung and prone to a very high degree of excitement literally bouncing off walls. My work with Pepper centred around helping her to learn to instill calm as her default behaviour. She was prone to jumping up on people, counter surfing and wanting to lead while on walks (pulling). ... These behaviours were all addressed as well as a few basic obedience commands. I believe that a well behaved household pet trumps any obedient but sometimes ill behaved dog. After bringing Pepper home and working with the family providing them with the operating instructions for Pepper we sat down and reflected on Pepper.