Spirited K9s

Happy Spooky Season

Going back to work and worried about your best friend being left home alone? Have no fear, Spirited K9S is here! Message us to find out about our competitive prices and packages. Every walk we focus on leash manners, basic obedience, and having fun! We take the time to give your pet a positive experience around scary everyday things because we believe a confident dog is a happy dog.

Clear Expectations - Teaching the Release Cue. Throughout my training, I have noticed one of the many things in common between dogs struggling with Obedience, is the lack of a release cue. What exactly is a release cue? It is a verbal, visual, or auditory signal that tells the dog ‘Exercise complete’. Some people use it to mean the dog may checkout, this can be achieved by tossing a treat away from yourself or by ignoring the dog once they have been released so they understa...Continue reading

Taily Tidbit # 31 This is me in '06, having the full attention of a group of dogs. Three of them were ours: The Aussie not sitting cause even back then I didn't... care, Will on the right end and only the tip of her ears are showing, and the Spanish water dog pup who lived with us at the time. The collies belonged to our friends where the photo was taken, so it wasn't a training situation but I had food and all the dogs experienced that their humans share, so they asked for it. You might call it begging - I call it attention. This kind of undivided attention signals that our dog is mentally connected. There is no ambiguity when a dog looks at you like that: She is paying attention. Studies showed that dogs are most responsive when they have direct eye contact with their handler. However, as much as I like eye-attention, it's not the only way dogs signal that they’re tuned in: They might shift their body closer to you, twitch an ear in your direction, wag the tail when you talk, wait at a trail cross paths till you catch up, halt in mid chase when you use your interrupter cue, or follow you when you change directions on a hike. All of these convey togetherness, and if your dog does that don’t trade it in for a mechanical and artificial watch-me prompt. In fact, "watch-me" is another action I don't teach any longer. Trained attention is not commitment to you, but an artificial glance bits and pieces behaviour. You can coerce your dog to look you in the eye, but you can’t force mental connection. That has to be offered freely for it to be genuine. Even delaying the reward to get eye contact for a few more moments only means the dog learns to stare at you for longer before he gets the cookie. Granted, with a dog who has unlearned to directly look at a person because he, in the past, was punished or ignored often enough, you might have to re-teach that it is wished now, and the first step might have to be to lure the quick glimpse, and click and reward it, but as soon as possible respond to more fluid and real eye contact with providing what your dog needs from you at the moment. Pay attention when your dog naturally shows an interest in you in your day-to-day routine, for example when you prepare food. Toss her a tidbit when she asks with their eyes for a piece. Another time when chances are high that your dog pays attention to you is when you rise from a sitting position, when you become active. Capture that, acknowledge your dog, give him information what happens next. Talk to him. If he is not included in what you’re about to do, tell him that with a later or all-done cue, but don't just ignore him. Other ways to orchestrate moments that grab your dog’s attention is to whistle, skip, dance, sing, be animated and snappy, or look at something intensely. Then keep your dog’s attention on you with your voice and interaction. Keep your dog interested in you. Let him experience that his attention to you is appreciated. Starting this in the house will form a foundation to build on outside, around distractions. Once your dog experiences the benefits of connecting with you, you will get attention freely more often and more prolonged, and eventually everywhere whether she is on or off the leash. Someone in charge responding sensibly to offered eye contact gives a dog a powerful tool she can use to signal that she needs something: information, social interaction, help. I want my dog to look at me as default for that.