Out Of The Bark

Out Of The Bark Behavior Consulting, Private Dog Training, Puppy Socialization, Puppy Classes, Group Classes, Control Unleashed Classes, East Bay Area

08/30/2026

This looks easy. It’s not.

Both of these dogs are herding breeds, dogs selectively bred to notice movement, environmental changes, and respond quickly to what’s happening around them.

That sensitivity can be incredibly useful. It can also make neutrality around other dogs much harder.

The Border Collie in this session is learning that seeing another dog doesn’t have to mean staring, pulling, barking, or escalating. We’re creating controlled repetitions where they can notice Milo, reorient to their handler, move through the environment, and make increasingly better choices.

And Milo isn’t naturally some perfectly neutral dog.

He was reactive too.

After being attacked by other dogs, his behavior changed significantly, and eventually he bit someone. A lot of the calm behavior you see from him now was deliberately trained.

Today, he can lie there and act as the neutral dog while another reactive dog works around him.

That’s why this looks easy.

You’re seeing the result, not all the repetitions that created it.

08/25/2026

The hose is Milo’s biggest reward and his biggest distraction.

So I figured… if I can teach him to disengage from the hose while he’s actively attacking it and run to his bed, I can build some serious impulse control around almost anything.

The important part is understanding what Milo actually wants.

His end goal isn’t food. It isn’t praise.

He wants the hose.

So I use access to the hose to reinforce the behavior I want.

If I cue “go to your bed” and Milo keeps barking at or biting the water, the hose immediately stops.

That response moved him farther away from the outcome he wanted.

The moment he disengages, runs to his bed and lies down?

The hose turns back on.

Now the consequence of going to his bed is getting exactly what he was working for in the first place.

Rinse and repeat.

At first, I also strategically used the movement of the hose to help guide him toward the bed. He follows the water, notices the bed, gets on, lies down… and earns another opportunity to attack the hose.

That guidance is just a temporary lure that I can gradually fade as the behavior becomes stronger.

With enough repetitions, Milo starts making the connection:

Disengaging from the thing I want doesn’t mean I lose it. Disengaging is how I get it.

And eventually, he’s able to break away in the middle of attacking the water and run straight to his bed.

This is why I’m always looking for the functional reinforcer behind a behavior.

Find out what your dog is actually working for… then make the behavior you want the pathway to getting it.

08/22/2026

This dog had shown intense fixation on their newborn baby since day one, which raised some serious safety concerns for Mom and Dad.

I was called in for a consultation to help the family create a safer plan and begin carefully teaching their dog how to live around this brand-new addition.

Here we are during just our second lesson.

I advised the owners to purchase a baby doll, record their actual baby crying and cooing, and even dress the doll in clothing their baby had already worn. The goal was to mimic the real baby as closely as possible while allowing us to practice without unnecessarily involving the baby.

I think we fooled him. 😂 What do you think?

In this session, Dad is holding the doll while the recording plays and practicing sending Bandit to his bed. From there, we can create all kinds of realistic setups: walking around with the “baby,” tending to it, moving through the house, sitting down, standing up, and returning to reinforce Bandit for remaining settled.

This gives us lots of opportunities to practice the skills we actually want him using when the real baby is present while keeping safety at the center of the process.

The goal isn’t to rush the dog into close contact with the baby.

It’s to rehearse predictable, appropriate behaviors over and over so everyone in the home has a clearer and safer way to navigate this major life change.

Safety first. Management always. Skills built gradually.

08/21/2026

Darcy is a service dog I had the privilege of working with several years ago. This experience was both a pleasure and an honor, and I learned a lot working with Darcy and her family.

Retrieval was an important task for the family, and this was one of the ways we generalized the behaviors she had learned.

Before we could build this entire chain, we first taught each piece individually:

• Take it — generalized across objects with different shapes, sizes, and textures
• Drop — delivering an object directly into our hands
• Grab and pull — used to open the refrigerator door
• Nose and paw targets — generalized to different parts of the refrigerator so she could close the door

Once Darcy was fluent with each behavior independently, we began combining them into the complete behavior chain you see here:

Open the refrigerator → retrieve the drink → deliver it → return to the refrigerator → close the door.

Complex behaviors are often just a series of smaller, well-trained behaviors carefully chained together.

Thank you Kim, Jim, Ashley, and Darcy for giving me such an incredible training opportunity. ❤️

08/19/2026

The cheeseburger is just the test 🍔

What I’m actually teaching is orientation: when there’s something you want, look to me first.

That “something” could be food, a ball, a toy, access through a door, or anything else your dog values.

Instead of jumping, barking, grabbing, or rushing toward what they want, your dog learns a much clearer way to communicate:

Orient toward your person → earn access to the good stuff.

Here’s how I teach it:

1. Start with a bowl of treats up high on the counter.
2. Wait for your dog to voluntarily orient toward you and look toward your face.
3. Mark it with “yes,” “good,” or a click, then place a treat on the ground.
4. Repeat until your dog is quickly orienting back toward you after eating the treat.
5. Now make the food slightly more accessible. Move the bowl from the counter to a chair and repeat.
6. Gradually work toward placing the bowl on the floor.

As your dog becomes successful, you’ll start to notice something pretty cool:

You can eventually walk away from the food entirely, and your dog still understands that grabbing it isn’t what makes it available.

The goal isn’t just “leave my cheeseburger alone.”

It’s creating a clear line of communication between you and your dog that can transfer to all kinds of things they want.

Save this one and try it with something your dog loves. 🍔🐾

08/18/2026

Part 2: Duration + Distractions 🐕

When distractions get harder, make the duration easier.

A big distraction might mean I only ask Milo to stay on his bed for a few seconds before paying him. With a lower-intensity distraction, I can ask for much more duration.

The goal is to keep your dog successful.

When I build duration, I also don’t just make every repetition harder than the last. I like to alternate easy wins with harder reps:

4 sec → 2 sec → 6 sec → 3 sec → 8 sec → 4 sec

That variability keeps the dog in the game while still gradually increasing the overall difficulty.

And if you push things a little too far and your dog gets up? That’s okay. That’s information.

Go back to an easier repetition, get them successful again, and build from there.

Over time, those successful reps allow you to ask for more duration around higher-intensity distractions.

Higher distraction = lower duration.
Lower distraction = higher duration.

Adjust the criteria to the dog in front of you, keep the wins coming, and gradually make the job harder. 🐾

Like and follow for Part 3.

08/15/2026

One reason dogs became so valuable to early humans was their ability to alert us when something approached the camp.

That is not something I want to eliminate.

Dogs bark to communicate, and I want Milo to tell me when someone is here. But I also want him to disengage when I let him know that I have it handled.

So instead of simply trying to stop the barking, I teach him when barking is appropriate and when it is finished.

“Go check” turns the barking on.

“That’s enough” turns it off.

Then I can direct him into another behavior, even while he is highly aroused.

Follow along. In the next reel, I’ll show you how I taught Milo the barking switch.

Address

2960 Pacific Avenue
Dublin, CA
94550

Telephone

+19254097600

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Out Of The Bark posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Business

Send a message to Out Of The Bark:

Shortcuts

Share