Good Sport Dog Training

Good Sport Dog Training 🐾 Helping your dog become a good sport!
📍 Martinsburg, WV

05/26/2026

Hope everyone had a wonderful Memorial Day weekend! We had some fun with our dogs, working at our training goals!! Share what you did below!

05/11/2026

I did a motivation Monday post on my photography business page, so I thought to do one here as well.

My personal dogs train for a sport called mondioring. Shown in this reel is the defense of handler exercise, where the dog must discern and react to a “threat” (a decoy hitting me) and stay neutral to all the trickery a decoy is going to do.

The video starts with my newest dog and flips back to my older dog (and first dog I pursued mondioring wjth). The biggest contrast you’ll see is that the new dog is quiet and the older dog is barking. In mondioring, barking can be a huge waste of energy, and it can cost the dog their attentiveness. When I first started training this exercise, I didn’t know how to create calm focus… so my dog resorted to barking.

Just like pet owners, trainers have things they’re working on. And sometimes it’s hard to see the progress in your own understanding… but if you stay grounded in a growth mindset, and practice some reflection, you might be surprised how far you’ve come!!!

05/08/2026

Doing something a little different here: no fun audio, or flashy editing!

Here’s the first session of my dog learning to go through a hoop. For context, this is a new-to-me dog, without a lot of experience with shaping. She arrived just over 6 months ago non responsive to the clicker, so part of my prerequisite work was to charge the clicker. I also use bowls a lot in my foundational training, so another pre-requisite was that she would approach a bowl on her own.

I use shaping a lot in my foundational training because I like a dog who thinks on their own. It’s especially helpful for less confident dogs because they learn to control their environment and the consequences they experience.

Before recording the session, I stood near the hoop without bowls. She got into heel position and stared at me 😂 and was not inclined to offer other behaviors. For that reason, I placed the bowls to give her a focal point, and myself a target to throw her kibble rewards. I clicked for looking at the hoop initially, but very quickly progressed to clicking for momentum in movement towards the hoop, with my tosses drawing her all the way through. Then I shifted to clicking as her body made its way through the hoop.

My assistant, Alex, who I was so fortunate to have helped me start to remove the bowls with a ping-pong approach between reps. There was one rep where she didn’t perform the behavior and I withheld the click. But miss smarty pants figured it out quick!

Have you tried shaping with your dog? Share your wins or points of confusion below, if you’re so inclined! 👇

03/23/2026

Dog sports are one of the best ways to work with your dog toward a complex set of goals. They push you to grow as an owner, and challenge your dog to think, adapt, and perform.

My primary sport is mondioring, but I also cross-train in others like scentwork and agility. While the exercises look very different, all of these sports build the same core traits:

🌟 Athleticism
🌟 Fitness
🌟 Teamwork
🌟 Independence
🌟 Tolerance to pressure
🌟 Control
🌟 Problem-solving

These are the traits that create dogs who are capable, adaptable, and ultimately Good Sports. 😜

Whether it’s sport obedience, flyball, agility, nosework, dock diving, or protection sports… there’s something out there for every dog.

👇 Tell us below: what sport(s) do you do (or want to try) with your dog?

03/18/2026

Dogs are built to follow scents, navigate varying terrain, and explore the world around them.

So, why limit them to the same familiar spaces?

With the right training and by careful location selection, most dogs can safely experience the world off lead, and without disturbing wildlife or other people.

That kind of freedom isn’t just a nice to have.
It’s part of building a capable, safe, and adaptable dog.

Reliable off-leash behavior doesn’t happen by accident. It’s our responsibility as owners to teach it.

03/16/2026

It’s time for a weekend recap with our Good Sports!

We kept ourselves busy by:

✨ Making time for snuggles
🦅 Soaring to new heights
😎 Not taking ourselves too seriously
👌 Making room for breed-specific fulfillment
👃 Trying some new hobbies (scent work)
🤗 Meeting up with some friends - both new and long-standing

This is what being a *Good Sport* is all about: building teamwork, new skills, and expanding the life you and your dog share together.

Now it’s your turn: tell us what YOU did with your good sport this weekend!👇

03/11/2026

One of the sports that inspires me most as a trainer is Mondioring.

From the outside, bitesports can look intense, and they are often misunderstood as creating dangerous dogs. In reality, good training in sports like Mondioring is about channeling a dog’s natural drives into something structured, thoughtful, and controlled.

When training for Mondioring, I am paying attention to how the dog is feeling, how clearly the dog understands the job, how accurately each behavior is performed, and how engaged the dog is in the work.

The goal is clarity, control, and a dog that is confident in what they are doing.

Sports like this remind me how complex training really is, and how much responsibility handlers have to do right by their dogs.

Plus the content usually pairs really well with my favorite elder emo songs 😏

What sport inspires you most to be a good sport for your dog?

03/10/2026

Teaching sports is a great way to get better at working with your dog, even if you never plan to compete.

In this clip, the dogs are working through obstacles from a few different sports that highlight different agility skills. These exercises help them build strength, grow their confidence, and deepen our relationship as a team.

The best part is that those skills do not stay on the agility field. They carry over into everyday life, helping dogs feel more confident and ready to take on the world with their person.

We have a variety of agility equipment you can rent on your own through our Sniffspot, or you can schedule a lesson if you would like a little more support getting started.

If agility foundations might help your dog become a good sport, send a DM to schedule a session. 🐾

It’s been a week since our first seminar with Joaquim Dovat, and we’ve finally gotten a chance to catch up with things. ...
10/26/2024

It’s been a week since our first seminar with Joaquim Dovat, and we’ve finally gotten a chance to catch up with things.

We would like to thank everyone who came or shared the event - it wouldn’t have gone as well without you! It was a ton of fun and we’re so appreciative of our dog sport community for coming together to learn together!

We’re looking forward to what the future brings and hope to be able to put an event like this on again!

Enjoy a few photos from the event; additional photos are being processed (keep an eye on this page for updates).

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Martinsburg, WV
25403

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