WoofGang LLC

06/23/2025

As a dog trainer, people associate me with dogs, but I am also a cat person through and through. The handsome devil on my lap is Django, and he is a bit of a Casanova, skilled in the art of stealing hearts.

Today's post is a bit off the beaten path for me, celebrating my family members of the feline purrsuasion

06/20/2025

06/16/2025

This is Sunny, the Pug. At 3 years old, she is a crazy rapscallion when compared to her big "brother" Bongo, the 13 year old Pug. It's hard to blame her, really. She's just young and energetic, and she missed the memo describing what was expected of her.

Sometimes, when we have an older mellow, well-behaved dog, we forget the work it took to get him that way and so any new young upstart looks poorly behaved in comparison. We can't help but hope that some of the good behavior of the older will rub off on the younger. Unfortunately, it's more likely that bad behaviors, like demand barking or dog reactivity, will be contagious, not good ones.

Sunny is a sweet girl, ready to be her best self with just a little guidance! All it will take is training and consistency. WoofGang can help! We are offering online training as well as outdoor sessions. Find us on the web at www.myWoofGang.com or contact us at (646) 345-5116. Like this page for posts about all things dog! And sign up for the WoofGang emailing list... with tips, tricks, special offers and Mutt Morsels -- training tips that solve everyday problems. Simply click on http://eepurl.com/gQDqLX to subscribe and join! (You can unsubscribe at any time.

06/09/2025

This is Winnie, the Hound mix. She's learning very quickly how to offer polite behavior without even being asked! Here she is sporting her delicate down, having realized that it gets a LOT of appreciation from her humans

06/02/2025

This is Strudel, the BernaDoodle, and I think we can all agree that they don't get any cuter than this, right?! He’s just joined a loving family and he’s starting his puppy education. There are so many important things that puppies need to learn in these early months, socialization – to people, to dogs and other animals, and to experiences – chief among them. Other things that are important?... housetraining, bite inhibition, tolerating restraint and handling, resource sharing, aloneness training, and appropriate play. While there’s no urgency to train cues right away, the most important aspect is to develop good behavioral habits right from the start; it’s easier to build good habits right from the start than to break bad habits once they’ve developed. And cue training helps establish communication, expectations, and mutual respect.

Have you invited a new puppy into your home? It’s time to start the education! WoofGang can help! We are offering online training as well as outdoor sessions. Find us on the web at www.myWoofGang.com or contact us at (646) 345-5116. Like this page for daily posts about all things dog! And sign up for the WoofGang emailing list... with tips, tricks, special offers and Mutt Morsels -- training tips that solve everyday problems. Simply click on http://eepurl.com/gQDqLX to subscribe and join! (You can unsubscribe at any time.)

05/27/2025

This is Chip, the Cavapoo, mid-demand bark. He certainly has some opinions!

Demand barking, once it starts, all too often gets worse, and we are very often to blame... because consistency is essential when overcoming demand barking. If we say to ourselves, "I am going to ignore him if he barks at me" and then he barks for 2 minutes and we give in, Chip has just learned that barking for 2 minutes works. The next time, we say to ourselves, "OK, this time I'm really NOT giving in" and we hold out til 5 minutes -- but so does he -- and then we give in, now he's learned 5 minutes of barking will work. And so on. Add to that that barking in itself, once a habit, is self-reinforcing. In other words, Chip is getting his own pleasure from barking -- like people who like to hear themselves talk! Then we have ourselves a bad habit that's not easy to break.

It is always best to nip bad behaviors in the bud before they flourish to a full-fledge bad habit. WoofGang can help! We offer in person sessions as well as online training. Contact us at (646) 345-5116 to set up a session. Like this page for daily posts about all things dog! And sign up for the WoofGang emailing list... with tips, tricks, special offers and Mutt Morsels -- training tips that solve everyday problems. Simply click on http://eepurl.com/gQDqLX to subscribe and join! (You can unsubscribe at any time.)

05/19/2025

This is sweet Maya. She is shy with new people, and she's doing a good job of communicating that from this distance. You can see some tension and worry in her brows, her mouth is closed, and she's looking directly at me, keeping "an eye" on who worries her. The problem is that, too often, humans don't see, or maybe just don't heed, a dog's more subtle communications and so they may breach her threshold and get too close. Then, should she react at the closer distance, people blame her for her behavior.

So we want to help Maya feel better about new people, less threatened by them. And we want others' experiences with her to be positive, too! But until we can teach her to anticipate good things with the presence of new people, we need to keep them at a distance from her where she's comfortable. Because feeling safe is an important prerequisite for learning new things.

And there's another component to this. We need our fearful dog to trust US -- the human handler -- to keep things safe for her so that she doesn't feel she needs to defend herself. So our keeping new people at a comfortable distance from her means that she feels safe AND that she trusts us to keep her that way. SO, if someone should ask to pet her -- that bestie of yours who says that all dogs love her! -- you will say, "No. My dog doesn't want that. Thank you!"

We must be our dogs' advocate and keep them safe and comfortable while also training them so that they can live happier lives in the face of their challenges. WoofGang can help! We offer in person sessions as well as online training. Contact us at (646) 345-5116 to set up a session. Like this page for daily posts about all things dog! And sign up for the WoofGang emailing list... with tips, tricks, special offers and Mutt Morsels -- training tips that solve everyday problems. Simply click on http://eepurl.com/gQDqLX to subscribe and join! (You can unsubscribe at any time.)