Dog Talk Training MN

06/17/2025

Lil' Miss and Pixie.

06/17/2025

Pixie's first Dog "girl friend", Tig!

06/09/2025

Teach you kids to see IF the dog wants to interact or not and they should be taught to respect the dogs choice. Doing this will increase their bond and the dog will learn to trust your child.

Just because your dog doesn't growl or bite when your child handles them roughly, it doesn't mean they should have to tolerate it. There are fallout effects to rough handling, whether it's from adults or kids. Dogs will tolerate things, until they don't.

People come to me after a dog bite and almost always say something to the effect of "we were doing XYZ and we've done that a million times before and he's always been "fine.""

But "fine" doesn't mean comfortable. Tolerating something isn't the same as actively enjoying something.

The onus is on the parent to teach children age-appropriate ways to interact with dogs.

The responsibility of safety is NOT on the dog. It is on the adults to supervise and to teach the kids, about safe interactions, about how to ask the dog for consent and to use management and barriers when an adult is not 100% actively awake and supervising. And to be clear, 100% active supervision means eyes on the dog and child, not just physically in the same room but on your phone or making dinner and distracted.

Let's reduce dog bites and increase safety for the sake of our kids and our dogs.
And as adults we need to model safe, appropriate interactions for children with our dogs.

Read more here: https://rescuedbytraining.com/2024/06/03/setting-good-example-for-children

06/07/2025

Yes, we can!

06/07/2025

I feel all of this!!!

06/07/2025

06/07/2025

😥 Why, if you say you love your dog would you do this?????

This is a little dog in a prong collar.

The strong metal spikes go into the dog’s neck and throat skin if they move fast or pull on the lead.

In fact they are poking into the neck at all times they just hurt more if the dog makes even the slightest of decisions that the human on the other end of the lead doesn’t want.

This is a dachshund.

A small dog breed not known for overt behaviour or emotional instability. If anything, little dogs suffer with fear or anxiety issues that affect their behaviour because the world is big and tends to disregard their need for agency.

Look at the dog’s eyes. See the slight glaze? See the lack of safety, the confusion, the kind of ‘deadness’ there?

That is a nervous system response.

When a nervous system cannot escape danger or fear related responses it takes the animal (and human) into a freeze response.

The freeze response can become functional. A functional freeze means the dog moves as we want them to, plods on, keeps ‘performing’ but inside is chaos.

Their immunity is off so their body cannot fight disease. Their digestion is low so they can’t digest their food properly. Homestasis is not there. This dog - even if functional freeze without the outward signs - is suffering.

Now the ‘trainer’ here might have initially seen hesitation or discomfort when this collar went on. They might have assumed the cessation of that outward discomfort as acceptance.

The dog hasn’t accepted the collar!

THE DOG HAS GIVEN IN!

This little dog will now - even if that collar is removed - will never feel fully safe. His nervous system may never come out of freeze state. Not without specialist and educated help.

This little dog needs rescuing from this dog ‘trainer’

Because they clearly do not understand the nervous system responses that anyone at all who works with dogs should understand.

Dogs in our homes should be celebrated for their choices, taught to be optimistic, helped through life with love and respect. Their life matters to them as much as our life matters to us.

No dog needs to look like this poor little mite.

We are better than this. We can do better.

If your dog is having trouble adjusting into a human world - that’s perfectly normal!

They are not bad or broken.

Please advocate for them and don’t let them be treated this way, no matter how charismatic or persuasive a dog trainer is.

05/24/2025

05/23/2025

Sniffing is how our dogs see the world!

Sometimes when our dogs are taking their time, they are also reminding us to slow down.

05/21/2025

Check out Pixies progress! She has stranger danger and it is more intense with men! Good girl Pixie! She's listed on The Bond Between as Trixie.

05/18/2025

Pixie checking out Tig at the gate.