Confident K-9 Training Canada

12/09/2025

A few small changes keep Christmas merry, bright and safe for your pup.

12/08/2025

🎅📸 Pet Pics with Santa is HERE! 📸🎅

It’s officially that time of year and we couldn’t be more excited! Today and tomorrow (as well as Dec. 13 & 14), the staff and volunteers of the Timmins & District Humane Society will be at the Timmmins YMCA, ready to help you and your furry friends capture some truly magical holiday memories.

Bring your pets, bring your holiday spirit and get ready for some adorable moments with Santa! 🐾🎄

Best of all, every dollar raised goes directly toward caring for the animals at the shelter - helping them find warmth, love and forever homes this season.

Come out, say hi and let’s make some Christmas magic together! 🎁✨

12/08/2025

Miss Lexi’s therapy dog visits at the Fire station yesterday and at St. Mary’s Garden this evening.

12/07/2025

This big guy loves winter. Digging for and playing fetch in these frigid temperatures, is his idea of a perfect Sunday afternoon.

12/07/2025

Remember this when adopting a furry companion.

12/07/2025

Obedience Is Not Behaviour

There’s a fundamental misunderstanding in the dog-training world: obedience and behaviour are not the same thing. You can teach a dog a perfect sit, down or heel, yet still struggle with lunging, reactivity, chasing, guarding, or any other dangerous or unwanted behaviour.

Why? Because obedience commands do not change how a dog perceives a situation. And until that perception shifts, the behaviour stays firmly in place.

Unwanted Behaviour Must Be Addressed Directly

A dog indulges in a behaviour because, from the dog’s perspective, it works. It’s beneficial, rewarding, fun, relieving, or simply habit.

To change that behaviour, the dog must learn, through clear and consistent consequences, that the behaviour no longer improves the dog’s situation. Only then can the dog choose a different response or stop altogether.

This has nothing to do with:
• Luring with food
• Endless engagement games
• “Mental stimulation”
• Over-exercising the dog

None of these tactics erase the dog’s belief that the unwanted behaviour is necessary, effective, or enjoyable. You cannot bribe a dog out of a behaviour it finds self-reinforcing.

Why Most Trainers Avoid the Real Issue

Far too many trainers focus on everything but the problematic behaviour. Not because the alternative work is what the dog needs, but because they lack the knowledge, experience, or confidence to address the behaviour head-on.

So instead, you’re sold:
• Engagement training
• Food-based obedience
• Stimulation plans
• Multi-week “progress packages”

All of which keep you on the books, spending money, while your dog’s actual issue remains untouched.

The Real Concept Is Simple But It’s Not Easy

Stopping unwanted behaviour follows a straightforward principle:
1. Prevent the dog from rehearsing the behaviour for a period of time.
Every repetition strengthens it.
2. Reintroduce the dog to the context where the behaviour typically occurs.
3. Control the outcome so that performing the behaviour no longer benefits the dog in any way.

When the dog repeatedly experiences that the behaviour fails to achieve its goal, the behaviour loses value and begins to fade.

Simple in theory but ex*****on is where things get complicated.

Where Most Owners Struggle

The variables around behaviour modification are incredibly nuanced:
• The dog must make the correct association without you directly influencing or overshadowing the learning.
• Timing, body language, environmental control, and clarity all matter.
• The dog may need a conditioned alternative behaviour to fall back on (something incompatible with the problematic behaviour.)
• The transition from controlled setups to real-life environments must be done carefully.

This is where genuine experience matters. Behaviour is not something an “overnight expert” can fix with a handful of treats and a training package.

Work With Skilled, Experienced Trainers

If your dog is displaying behaviour that is unwanted or dangerous, you need guidance from trainers who actually understand behaviour. Not just obedience routines.

Professionals who can read a dog, shape outcomes, and engineer learning in a way that changes the dog’s perception, not just its tricks.

Because at the end of the day:

Obedience is optional.
Behaviour is not.

12/06/2025

12/06/2025

Let’s talk liability when you own a guardian breed, because some of yall are out here genuinely shocked that your Rottweiler … guards.
This is a dog bred for centuries to protect property, livestock, people, and occasionally your feelings when you’re having a rough day. This isn’t a doodle who picked up a side hustle. This is a dog whose entire ancestry is basically security detail.

So when your Rottweiler posts up at the window like a federal employee waiting for a vibe shift, that is not reactivity. That is employment. That is her checking her perimeter, logging sightings, and mentally filing the landscapers under “suspicious leaf-disturbers.”

And if you don’t train or supervise that kind of genetic power? The liability is yours. Full stop.

Your dog doesn’t care that you live in a quiet cul-de-sac or that your HOA wants everyone to behave like they’re in a retirement brochure. Guardian breeds don’t read HOA bylaws. They read body language. They read threat levels. They read energy in the room before you even enter it.

Training is not optional. Management is not optional. Understanding genetics is not optional unless you enjoy late-night incident reports.

If your Rottweiler growls, alerts, blocks, body checks, patrols, barks, shadows you, or gives someone the “I see you, buddy” look… that is not misbehavior. That is instinct. That is wiring. That is her showing up for her shift.

Your dog is not broken. She is doing exactly what she was built to do.

So be proactive. Teach her what actual threats look like. Reinforce neutrality. Give her jobs that don’t involve scaring your Amazon driver. Advocate for her. Train daily. And stop acting surprised when a working-bred dog shows up ready to work.

Because if you don’t give structure to a guardian breed, they’ll freelance. And trust me… you do not want a freelance Rottweiler making management decisions.

Author unknown- but ths is spot on!

12/06/2025

12/06/2025

12/04/2025

If your dog shows these signs, you’re providing a loving, healthy environment. And remember, every dog is different, some show happiness quietly, with gentle snuggles instead of big tail wags. 🐶💛

A happy dog is a healthy dog and a happy human too!

12/01/2025

Share if you agree. What a gift our canine friends are!

Quote from Thom Jones