Sasquatch Dog Training

08/02/2024

Congrats to our newest graduates of basic obedience class! These guys put a lot of hard work into 6 weeks of their private basic obedience class and it shows! We are so proud of them all!

06/13/2024

Today Ariel helped her new friend Meach prepare for the CGC! Meach of course was the perfect pupil! We are so proud of all of the progress she has made in such a short amount of time!

10/20/2023

Boo! Halloween is coming up quickly and can be a rather spooky day for our dogs! There are these constantly changing faces and hats and masks and crazy creatures, and before they have time to get comfortable with one of them, another one pops up. Therefore it can also make it very difficult for us as pet owners to work through and desensitized them because you don't have 20 minutes to sit down and work through every creature they are uncomfortable with.

Here's some tips to prepare before we get to the day of scary costumes!

- Make sure if your dog is a flight risk or doesn't like costumes, you have a special space set up ahead of time for them. A room where they can't see the costumes and have plenty of stimulation to keep them busy (Kongs, toys, the TV on, etc). Even if you don't know how your dog will react it is never the wrong idea to keep them separate from the stimuli if you don't have plenty of time to work through things.

- If you do have your dog out in your home or trick or treating with you, make sure they have a good fitting collar or harness on and it has your contact information should they become afraid and manage to get away. I always recommend having them on the leash indoors and outdoors when working on new commands/situations.

- If you do decide to use this as a training experience make sure you have plenty of high reward treats and that your dog is on the leash! Do not punish or reward during any kind of nervous behavior, but instead calmly reward good behaviors you want to see.

06/13/2023

"He's afraid of X, so he must have been abused by/with X."

In rescue, a lot of dogs come into care with unknown histories. Many of these dogs present with specific or generalized fear and anxiety.

It can be easy - so, SO easy - to attach a story to their behaviour. In fact, it's becoming increasingly common for people to adopt dogs BECAUSE of their story. The more tragic, the better.

The problem with this is that it tends to freeze dogs into their neuroses. Their owner becomes so attached to the story, so emotionally invested, that they themselves cannot move past it. When the owner gets stuck, so does the dog.

Then the story becomes an excuse.

He's aggressive to the postman because one must have abused him.

He's leash reactive to other dogs because he was a 'bait dog'.

He runs from us when we grab the fly swat because someone has hit him with it.

In most cases, these behaviours are caused from a lack of experience in the critical period of socialization. Their inexperience can present itself as fear, anxiety, stress and aggression; mechanisms they develop over time to cope.

But what exactly caused their rescued dogs behaviour is irrelevant. It's a fools errand to try to figure it out; an addictive oxytocin-fueled quest to justify a lack of action.

He's afraid of men? Make men = good things. He runs from the fly swatter? Pick the damn thing up and throw the dog a handful of steak a few times. See what happens.

When we adopt a dog, we're making a commitment to BETTER their life. Holding on to their past is doing the opposite. Show them they're in a better place by overcoming their problems, not nurturing them.

05/04/2023

Happy 9th Birthday to the Sasquatch that started this whole adventure! She may be 9 years old now but we're still continuing to learn new things and grow together in our training!

03/23/2023

Congrats to our amazing class last night on graduating! They really put a lot of hard work in!

03/18/2023

A lot of our dogs are very nervous about having their nails trimmed. How do we overcome this and get them as comfortable with the clippers as Ariel in this picture?

The very best thing you can do is introduce them when they are young! The more you touch their paws when they're younger, the more comfortable they will be when they get older! It will be an every day/week occurrence rather than something traumatizing that happens once a month.

Whether or not you start when they're young or old there are a few nail trimming games you can work through to help desensitize them! These games don't involve actually trimming their nails so the exercises can be shorter in time, and you don't have to try to trim your dogs nails every time you practice with them. Whether you trim your dogs nails at home or the groomer does it, it's important for your dog to be as comfortable as possible during this activity.

1. Pick up their feet routinely and give praise for not avoiding having their feet picked up.
2. A lot of dogs aren't comfortable with the metal of the clippers hitting their toe nails. Get something like a metal spoon and touch their toes once a week so they get used to the feeling.
3. If you're going to use a Dremel tool, make sure to turn the dremel on several times and get them used to the sound before you try to touch their feet. Again give praise if they don't avoid the sound.

Happy Training!

02/27/2023

12/26/2022

Happy Holidays everyone!

Now that we are getting consistently colder weather both us and our dogs are getting a little stir crazy. It can be hard for our dogs to get enough excerise as we don't want or can't be outside for extended periods of time. So what are we supposed to do? The phrase a tired dog is a good dog does hold some merit. So if we can't stimulate our dogs physically, then we need to do so mentally!

Mental stimulation doesn't get near the credit it deserves. Think of kids in school learning new things - they're not physically active all day, yet when they come home from school they can be worn out because they've been so mentally stimulated. The same principle applies with dogs. So what can you do to mentally stimulate your dog? There are a myriad of different things - puzzle toys, snuffle mats, food bowls, or the good ole fashioned training session.

Ariel and I try to do at least one training session a day and I'm constantly trying to teach her new things! Here you can see our newest skill. I found an old aerobic step and am teaching her to step up, down, and back! It's nothing fancy but we are both having fun working together and she is worn out by the end of our session!

Happy Training!

10/27/2022

With Halloween fast approaching we're going to start seeing some ghosts and ghouls walking about! So how should we approach this with our dogs when they come knocking at our door?

There are multiple options, however the safest and most effective is to keep them in a separate room behind a closed door, or in their crate. A lot of our dogs get very concerned every time someone new comes to the house and can have issues with threshold greetings - pair that with opening the door multiple times for scary trick-or-treaters in masks and costumes and you have a recipe for disaster! Not to mention the numerous pets that end up getting out of the house and getting lost on Halloween - it only takes 1 chance for them to get out and with the amount of times you open the door...you do the math. So for everyone's best interests - keep them occupied in a separate area with their favorite long lasting treat, toy, or a TV show playing to drown out the noise.

That being said those who want to work with their dogs on Halloween, here's a few tips for success!:

-Tighten your dogs' collar so they can't slip out and ALWAYS have them on a leash even if they're just in the house.
- Have some of their favorite treats handy and praise for good behavior especially in high stimuli situations.
- Do not inadvertently reward bad behavior. If they are hiding behind you, growling, barking, etc. do not tell them it's ok and pet them. In dogs' brain you are praising them for the behavior they are displaying.
- If possible have one person open the door, while the other person is with the dog several paces away from the door. If they are observing the chaos rather than being a part of it, this exercise will go much smoother.
- If they start showing signs of stress, don't push it. Let them have a break, or the rest of the night off in their crate or separate room.

Witch-ing you all a spook-tacular Halloween!