Pawsome by Jen

I am dedicated to making dog training a tail-wagging adventure, all from the comfort of your home.

03/11/2026

I love this giant goofball moose dog.

02/27/2026

She's a moose and I love her.

02/02/2026

My favorite Sassypants being his happy, goofy self on our first hike in over a week.

11/16/2025

Two months ago, Oswald
had two vicious encounters
with a neighbor dog that
took his baseline leash
reactivity to pure panic.
The first week,we made no
progress at all. I focused on
getting a read on his body
language, triggers, and stress signals.

Week two, we went to his
family's farm where he's
very comfortable and feels
safe. We worked on loose
leash walking and auto
stops, before establishing
a check-in habit. I don't
cue it because I want it to
be his choice. (Choice is
as important for dogs as it
is for humans!) There's no
pressure, we just sit and
chill quietlv and every time
he looks up at me, I mark it
with a ves! and give him a
treat.

And then we played.

Week three we moved
back to the park from week
one. He was calmer so we
built his confidence with
more rewards for checking
in, then moved on to
progressing our loose leash
walking and auto stops.

And he checks in on me for
the first time mid-walk. My
heart, you guys.

Week four, I enlisted my
husband and Westley to
introduce another dog at
a speed and distance I
could control at Oswald's
comfort level. We started with more easy wins--fine
tuning his With Me cue,
his auto sit, and This Was.
Then I asked my husband
to start walking West
towards us slowly, but from
the beginning, Oswald
stayed relaxed, choosing
to voluntarily check-in with
me unprompted. We kept moving closer until they
were parallel walking within
feet of each other.

So in case anyone
was wondering, don't
underestimate how much
dogs need choice and
consistency and positive
reinforcement.

09/17/2025

Hanging with Miss Dixie.

❤️

09/08/2025

This is Hudson. When I started working with him, he was a very stressed out, crazy boy. You could see how much he loved his momma and how much he wanted to be a good boy, he just couldn't get past the noise in his head to get there. Every dog on every walk was a potential new bff, except for small dogs who are sworn enemies, of course. And what are people here for if not for jumps and pets--AFTER he's sure you're safe. Which could take awhile.

Because he didn't know what to do when he was stressed or excited or bored, any small trigger was sending him so far over threshold there was no pulling him back and asking him to listen.

So, my plan was simple. Confidence building, trust strengthening with his people, and impulse control.

For the last five weeks, we've gone back to basics with him--proofing cues like sit and heel and watch inside and in low distraction settings until they were instinctive and then we worked on applying them to real world situations. And then we started the hard stuff, but probably my favorite thing to train because I've seen how life changing this can be for dogs, including my own: desensitizing and counter conditioning to triggers. Basically, it's working at the dog's pace to see a trigger at a distance and remain calm/neutral, and rewarding (always rewarding!) their decisions to look away.

So this text is HUGE for Hudson and his person and I can't tell you the sound I made when I read it and saw his beautiful, goofy face and read how calm he was at the beach. Because this good boy and his human have worked so hard to get here, and I'm so freaking happy and proud of both of them.

08/12/2025

I love my job.

featuring:

🐾Prezi the Dignified Collie
🐾Dixie the weet Dane
🐾Westley (aka Sassypants)
the Heeler
🐾Hudson the Brave Mutt
🐾Taffy the Cavapoo puppy
and
🐾Lola the Energizer Bunny in
a Boxer form.

Address

Chesterton, IN
46304

Website

http://pawsomedogsbyjen.com/

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