K9 Companion Obedience

06/17/2026

Coco is a 7 month old mixed breed (Belgian Malinois, GSD, Boxer, Bulldog and a few more that came up in her litter mates DNA test). She is doing a board and train with me to work on general obedience as well as a main focus on socialization with humans as she is a very classic shepherd type dog that wants to bark and act all tough and aloof anytime she sees people. We’ve started with focusing on her obedience and will soon start to move to more work both just neutrally seeing people without reacting as well as greeting people appropriately.

06/08/2026

This is a long one but worth the read! ❤️

A lot has changed for these two dogs since their mom adopted them just 5 months ago. Max and Ruby were adopted from a shelter with an unknown history other than they were a breeder release and a bonded pair. When I met them for the first time in February they were terrified and incredibly anxious little dogs (first photo). I couldn’t pet them without them flinching and running away and it took 3 lessons (each 1 hour long) before I could pet Max without the fear and a few more sessions before Ruby got anywhere near that. Today we went to Lowe’s for a training session and these dogs were LOVING it. They readily walked right up to people to get pets and attention. They were totally confident and it almost brought tears to my eyes when I watched Ruby walk right up to some employees who asked to say hi and happily accepted pets and even begged for more when they stopped petting her!

I’m so proud of how far they have come and our main focus at this point is truly tackling their biggest problem…severe leash reactivity to dogs. They love playing with dogs but when on a walk they will go insane and even redirect and start attacking each other. We’ve made big strides in the severity of their reactivity already but building their confidence and basic obedience was the initial big goal. We’ll get them there and their mom is committed to doing everything for them to do so!

05/21/2026

05/04/2026

Deacon has started working on some off leash skills in the last week and for a 19 week old puppy who just started this, he’s doing very good!!

04/26/2026

Kevin had another great session yesterday! He absolutely loves training and is a very smart boy!

04/22/2026

Kibby and Ayla start their transition of training back home today. They both have made a ton of progress and now it’s time to go back home and continue working!

04/19/2026

Kevin did incredibly well in his first training! I’m so excited to continue training him and watch him learn and grow his obedience skills

04/14/2026

Practicing our impulse control when going through doors/gates/etc. is a skill that every dog in my house learns and is expected to do. Regardless of if they are my personal dogs, foster dogs, training dogs or just a dog i happen to be pet sitting.

04/09/2026

Kibby and Ayla have been working really hard for the last couple weeks with obedience and confidence building. They have made huge strides in becoming all around better behaved dogs. We had our first Home Depot session the other day and they were both so good! I honestly expected Kibby to struggle even just slightly with her anxiety when there were so many loud noises and new people but she took me by surprise and knocked it out of the park! Today Kibby even started running around playing with Duke in the yard for the first time in her 2 weeks here!

04/02/2026

One question I get asked all the time is how to fix or stop resource guarding behavior in dogs. Technically, I don’t stop resource guarding behavior all together as it is a very natural/instinctual dog behavior but I do teach the dog some very strong obedience in order to manage the behavior and stop it from turning into a fight over a resource.

Duke will guard his food, high value treats/chews and sometimes toys that he is actively engaging with when another dog tries to take that resource from him. In order to manage this behavior and stop it from turning into a fight or him over correcting another dog for trying to take his resource, I taught him a very strong “leave it” command.

In this video you can clearly see that when Deacon comes to play with the toy Duke has, I say “leave it” and Duke immediately disengages from the toy and does not guard it.