61k9 Dog Training

06/10/2026

🚨2 Must-Do’s for a Perfect Puppy 🐶

👀 Engagement

Use treats, movement, and praise to make yourself valuable. Reward your puppy for choosing you. Let them follow you, check in with you, and learn that paying attention to you is always worth it.

📢 Recall

Start with a long line or flexi leash and high-value treats. Call your puppy, reward heavily when they come, and make coming to you the best part of their day.

Too many people focus on obedience first.

🤝 Connection before correction.

🗣️ Communication before obedience.

Build engagement and recall early, and you’ll create a puppy that wants to listen, not one that has to. 🐕✨

06/09/2026

06/03/2026

Your dog isn’t always trying to attack another dog. Sometimes they’re just trying to create distance.

Dogs have two natural survival responses when they feel stressed, threatened, or uncomfortable: fight or flight.

For many fearful, insecure, or under-socialized dogs, their first choice is flight. They want space. They want an escape route. They want the ability to move away from whatever is making them uncomfortable.

The problem?

A leash often removes that option.

When a dog feels trapped and can no longer create distance on their own, frustration, fear, and anxiety can build. The barking, lunging, growling, and pulling you see is often the dog’s attempt to make the scary thing go away.

The reaction isn’t always aggression.

More often than not, it’s communication.

A dog saying:

“I don’t feel safe.”

“Give me space.”

“I don’t know how to handle this situation.”

This is why simply correcting the behavior rarely solves the problem by itself. The goal isn’t just to stop the reaction. The goal is to change the emotion driving it.

Build confidence.

Create clarity.

Reward engagement.

Teach neutrality.

When a dog learns they don’t need to fear the world around them, the behavior begins to change naturally.

The reaction is the symptom. The emotion behind it is the real issue.

Stop focusing only on what the dog is doing.

Start understanding why they’re doing it.

04/24/2026

Overstimulation doesn’t just happen… it builds.

And once it starts loading, it doesn’t come back down on its own
It only goes up until you get a reaction

That’s where most people get stuck

In this session, the dog wasn’t “randomly reactive”
You can literally watch the loading process

First the dog
Then a person on rollerblades
Then a skateboard
Then more people walking

Stacking stimulation one after another

That’s not disobedience
That’s a nervous system getting overwhelmed

So instead of correcting the reaction
We addressed the build up

We slowed everything down with a down
Not for obedience… but to help the dog process

At first the brain was still moving too fast
Still scanning, still loading

But then something changed

The dog started using his nose
Started actually taking in the environment instead of reacting to it

Nose goes → brain slows

That’s the shift

That’s when learning actually starts

A dog that can smell and observe
Is a dog that’s thinking, not reacting

Stop focusing only on the explosion
Start paying attention to the load up

That’s where the real training happens 🧠🐕

04/23/2026

If your dog gets overstimulated in new environments… barking, pulling, freezing, scanning everything
You’re not dealing with an obedience issue first
You’re dealing with a regulation problem

The environment is too loud for their nervous system
Too many smells, sounds, movement
So the brain goes into survival mode instead of learning mode

This is why commands “don’t work” outside

It’s not that your dog doesn’t know sit
It’s that they can’t access it

So we change how we approach it

Start with engagement
Before asking for anything, make sure your dog is mentally with you
Eye contact, name recognition, small wins
This tells you they’re under threshold and able to learn

Then use sit

Sit is not just obedience
It’s a grounding tool

It helps lower arousal
Slows the dog down
Gives them something clear to do instead of reacting

Now here’s where most people go wrong

They only reward commands
But ignore behavior

If your dog notices a trigger and stays neutral
That’s the rep that matters

That’s where you reward

Because you’re not just teaching “sit”
You’re teaching
“I can see something new or stressful and stay calm”

That’s confidence

Work under threshold
If your dog is locked in, tense, not taking food, or exploding
You’re too late

Create distance
Reset
Try again

If they break command
Don’t correct out of frustration
Guide them back and help them succeed

That repetition builds clarity

Exposure without structure creates more chaos
Exposure with guidance creates confidence

Behavior over obedience

Obedience is the tool
Behavior is the outcome

A dog that can regulate, disengage, and make better decisions
That’s a trained dog 🐕

04/22/2026

Reactivity isn’t random… it’s a build up.

What most people see is the explosion
Barking, lunging, pulling

But what actually matters is what happens before that

This dog didn’t just react
He showed the full sequence 👇
Leash pressure
Whining
Checking in
Then going right back out and reacting harder

That check in isn’t progress if the dog goes right back to reacting

That’s a cycle
Engage → disengage → re engage → react

And if you’re only rewarding the check in without addressing the build up
You’re managing… not training

Real training happens before the reaction

When the dog is thinking
Fixating
Loading up

That’s the moment to step in

Slow the brain down
Interrupt the pattern
Create clarity

Because once arousal takes over
The dog isn’t making decisions anymore
He’s just reacting

This is why dog training isn’t one size fits all
Every dog has a different threshold, different drives, different reasons behind the behavior

Stop chasing the reaction
Start working the moment before it happens

That’s how you actually change behavior 🐕

04/18/2026

Behavior first. Obedience second.

Most people jump straight into commands
sit, heel, down
without ever addressing the state of mind behind the behavior

But here’s the truth

If the dog is overstimulated or fearful
they’re not choosing to ignore you
they physically can’t process you

That’s why you see pulling, barking, lunging
it’s not disobedience
it’s a nervous system that’s too elevated

You can’t build obedience on top of chaos

You have to slow the brain down first

Give the dog time to observe
to breathe
to take in the environment without reacting

That’s where regulation starts

Once the dog settles
that’s when communication actually lands

Now your leash has meaning
now your commands have clarity

This is why so many dogs “know commands” at home
but fall apart outside

Different environment
higher stimulation
no regulation

So the behavior takes over

Train the state of mind first
then layer obedience on top of it

That’s how you create reliability
not just compliance 🐕