Rapid K9 Solutions

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Rapid K9 Solutions

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Certified, professional dog training 🐶
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Personalized training packages
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Servicing most of the Black Hills🌲
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Obedience, behavioral cases, and more

11/03/2026

Meet Yenko, my newest training dog.

Yenko is a black lab puppy who will be doing a 3 week Board & Train program with me. We’re essentially going for the full puppy package. Manners, obedience, socialization, etc…

We’re wanting Yenko to be a bit of an “everywhere dog”. I’ll be posting lots of Yenko over the next 3 weeks.

11/01/2026

Being a Teammate + Negative Reinforcement with Fred & Jack (Part 2)

Continuing on with similar themes, we moved onto Jack with our picnic table exercise. For Jack, this worked a little differently. It was less about Jack dealing with the “scary” idea of climbing into something tall, and more about showing Jack that there are things he can do with people that are much more fun than lunging at them.

Similar to part one, what I’m doing with Jack helped a lot when it came to getting him to think that I was worth engaging with. Jack is interesting in the sense that he wasn’t super interested in me petting him. I say it’s interesting because where Fred was anxious about the idea of making physical contact with me, Jack seemed to be genuinely disinterested in it. Not that he was afraid of it, but that it simply didn’t do much for him. He did eventually let me pet him, but again, I wouldn’t say it was all that enjoyable for him.

We took a break from the picnic table, and took advantage of the park setting we were in. We worked on some of our walking skills and had lots of very good moments where the fellas decided it was boring to blow up on passerby’s. To finish out the lesson, we found a few more obstacles (a tall wall and another table that was different in texture/material).

at was different in texture/material).

11/01/2026

Being a Teammate + Negative Reinforcement with Fred & Jack (Part 1)

Fred & Jack have done four lessons with me at this point. The video you’re watching is from our third lesson. Fred was the focus in this part of the lesson.

Other than some half hearted barking, Fred had largely given up on the idea that he could threaten me into going away. Where he differs from his brother Jack, is in the emotional state behind the barking/lunging/biting. Fred is a fearful dog. But behind the fear, I can see that there’s a friendly and pretty social dog in there. This brings me to the big idea in this video.

Once I wasn’t concerned with Fred trying to grab at my legs, I needed a way to show Fred that I was trustworthy and worth engaging with. His mom had said something about Fred not liking to jump/climb on top of things. So, I decided Fred should jump & climb onto some things. We chose a picnic table.

Fred wasn’t open to taking food from me. That was obvious, and truthfully, using food can be a bit silly in moments like this. I opted to use negative reinforcement (leash pressure).

The picnic table served as an opportunity for a few things. We got to climb something, and physical movement is amazing for loosening up a dog. And, getting over the table was something I could do with Fred. Showing him that I was willing to overcome and confront stress alongside him. Plus, because I opted to use the leash rather than food (which for a dog like Fred would feel like a shallow business transaction), Fred was able to see that while I might require him to cope with stress, I would not ask him to do anything genuinely dangerous.

I will speak more on these big ideas in part 2 of this video.

10/31/2026

A little while ago I wrapped up training with Cinderella and her dog Nellie. These two were so pleasant to work with.

To finish out our training program, we took Nellie to Sole Perfection, where Marcia, the owner, very kindly let us use her space to work with Nellie.

Part of me hopes that Nellie starts messing around more at home, just so Cinderella might give me a call for some follow up, haha.

10/30/2026

Still in Colorado, and I’ve had some time to work my friend Patrick’s Beauceron named Ghost. The two sessions we’ve done have been with a focus on generalizing (I’m a relatively new decoy for Ghost), grip development, targeting, and some emphasis on Ghost “outing” off a decoy.

It has been a blast to be back in a suit for dogs that are actually supposed to bite me.

10/29/2026

How to break into your friend’s house

Step One: Don’t do it when they have a Doberman named Ronald Gator Schott.

In all seriousness, the family & I are in Colorado until next week, and of course we had to make time to see our friends at Mountain State K9 Academy. If you didn’t know, I worked at MSK9 for about four years, and it’s where I learned a large majority of everything I know about dog training.

My best friends in the world still work there, and we had to get in some protection work during our visit. Our first opportunity for me to “break in” to Gator’s house and see how Ronald would handle it. No surprises, he handled it very well.

Big thank you to my friends Dylan Near & Patrick Ostrander.

10/27/2026

Dog reactivity with Molly the Labrador Retriever

Some time ago, Molly was attacked by a random dog. Since then, she had been very active and defensive. Prior to this Day Train, we had already made some progress. Molly had been a bit more relaxed, confident, and comfortable around other dogs after we started training.

I decided to address some of the reactivity more directly. Initially, when Molly became aware of my Rottweiler, she hackled up and begin pulling towards him. However, there was none of the nervous, phony barking. At that point, I had her just in a flat collar, to see a more one-to-one comparison to my first day with her.

To ease the tension, I started with having Molly do some obedience (place), and just observe Kubrick, my Rottie. That was easy enough, and at that point Molly was clearly more interested in meeting ‘Brick than trying to ward him off. So, I shifted gears and decided to ask for some more neutrality out of her. I played with Kubrick using a ball, which is Molly’s favorite activity. Once again, easy enough.

To reward Molly, I had her and Kubrick trade places, and gave her some play time as well.

Kubrick wasn’t all that big of a deal at that point, so I added Doris into the mix. The combination of my two dogs was a little much for Molly, so I had both of them lay down, and gave Molly time to investigate them without having to deal with them being overly nosy with her.

After that, and because Molly had demonstrated she could be indifferent to my dogs if needed, we wrapped up the session by going for a walk and getting in some play time.

Address

Rapid City, SD
57701, 57702, 57703, 57704, 57709

Telephone

+16059394170

Website

http://rapidk9solutions.com/

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