DoggEd

23/07/2025

This is Goober in what looks like a completely ordinary picture of a dog wearing a muzzle and going on a walk. But this picture is anything but ordinary, it's a breakthrough!

He lived on the streets of Korea and now lives in an apartment in San Francisco. The change in his life was drastic and he's learning to adapt to city life.

I grew up with free-ranging street dogs in India and am acutely aware of the struggles they face when their living conditions change and they go from making their own decisions about where to go and what to do, to being tethered to a human every time they are out.

Goober, like most street dogs, also struggled with handling, restraint and proximity to people. His vet visits were traumatic and grooming at home was difficult. We have started working on all these aspects and the first step was to get him comfortable with a muzzle.

We don't know what happened in Goober's past but it took us many weeks to go from just looking at the muzzle, doing microsecond touches to what you see in the picture.

Goober and his dedicated guardians have shown again that time, patience and kindness go a long way in helping dogs, no matter the fears they come to me with.

03/07/2025

27/06/2025

LESS THAN 24 hours to go!!!

If you have always wondered "why does my dog guard tissue paper? That's of no value!"

"Is my dog broken?"

"Can resource guarding be resolved?"

Join me on a live webinar that looks at what resource guarding is and is not; what to do and what to stop doing RIGHT NOW to help your dog and prevent incidents; and how to once again create a trusting relationship.

Pay what you can. All webinar registrants get access to a replay. Live attendees get to participate in a Q&A session after the webinar. Bring ALL your questions!!

rgw.dogged.courses

25/06/2025

I'm super excited to host a live webinar on Understanding Resource Guarding in dogs on Saturday, June 28th at 9 am Pacific, 11 am Central and 12 pm Eastern time.

Please use this link to register! https://rgw.dogged.courses/

Join me as I dive into the causes of resource guarding, what you might be doing right now that is making things worse and how to help your pup who just has to guard that chew / food bowl / toy / bed / space / stolen object.

I'll be answering all your questions after!

Picture with my OG resource guarder!

"We started looking for a dog trainer after our 1 year old (at the time) Husky puppy was showing worse and worse signs of resource guarding, reactivity, and crate training. Although we had tried an e-collar, watched as many YouTube training videos as possible, and talked to many of our friends it ju...

15/06/2025

(2/2) See part 1 for where we started

We started working together to help Kitana, Buddy, Elsa and Sugar, and in a few months, the picture is completely different

💚 The dogs happily coexist together
💚 No more resource guarding and snapping
💚 The cat has started moving around the house again. Elsa is now fine if the cat is still. We're still working through her urge to chase when Kitana runs through the hallway
💚 Elsa can settle and chill inside the house and her and Buddy have even learned to ignore the sounds of people outside
💚 Walking all 3 dogs together is easy now because Elsa's reactivity has gone down and Buddy is hesitating less
💚 Elsa and Sugar have warmed up to Dad. Elsa is now lap queen 👑 and demands attention from Dad when all she did in the past was run up to him to threaten or actually bite him
💚 Sugar has learned to navigate the inside and no longer has spats with the little dogs

All of this was possible because Stuart, their dedicated dad, who has a full-time job and a side gig as DJ and many other endeavors consistently made the time to work with the dogs and play games. Cheers to all Dog dads today!

15/06/2025

Happy Father's Day to all Dog Dad's. Here's a Father's Day story and shout-out to one such amazing dad. 

Ms. Elsa, light colored Chihuahua mix joined darker boy, Buddy, and cat, Kitana in Andi and Stuart's household. She had her issues and then they had to take on another older dog in need, Sugar, and everything in the family dynamics just exploded. Let's talk about Elsa first.

She came from a dodgy rescue with a range of issues. 

🚨 She was reactive on walks towards dogs and people and pulled and lunged

🚨 She was afraid of people and had already landed a few bites. One of the people she had bitten and continued to threaten to bite was her new dad. 

🚨 She terrorized Kitana, the cat, and chased her around the house every time she saw her

🚨 She resource guarded her food and spaces from Buddy and Sugar

🚨 She also was extremely noise-sensitive and barked at every little noise, especially people walking past their house 

🚨 She could not settle inside the house, was constantly anxious and vigilant 

🚨 She had medical issues contributing to her discomfort and overall crankiness 

Sugar is an older shepherd mix and towers over the two little Chihuahua mixes. Her previous guardian passed away and Andi struggled to find a good rescue to take her and after one more disreputable rescue experience, they decided to take her in.

🚨 She was mostly an outdoor dog and had very little understanding of personal space 

🚨 Was overly attached to Andi and scared of Stuart

🚨 Would attack Elsa if she started chasing the cat or barking at the door or reacting on walks

In the midst of all of this, longtime residents Kitana and Buddy were struggling too. 

🚨 Buddy started resource guarding from Sugar and snapping at Elsa

🚨 Buddy started hesitating on walks with Elsa

🚨 They could no longer have the dogs and the cat together on the bed at night because of squabbling and the potential for more serious fights. Andi and Stuart had to sleep in different rooms with separate sets of animals to keep the peace 

🚨 Kitana started hiding in the closet and not eating because of stress

We started working together and in a few months, the picture is completely different (1/2)

06/06/2025

Mango came to me very fearful of car rides, people and other dogs.

🚨 She could not ride in cars because she refused to get in and once she was in, she would be an anxious, panting mess and would throw up a lot during the ride

🚨 She would run up and bark at people, jump on them and if they were sitting, snap at them half an inch away from their face

🚨 With dogs, she would get very upset, whine, bark, show her teeth and snap if any dog came close. If she had her precious ball with her, she was louder, meaner and hotly contested proximity to her and the ball

🚨 Because of all these issues she could never be let off-leash

Using games and play, we worked on helping Mango to self-regulate in stressful situations, we taught her to relax in the presence of strange dogs and people and we helped her relax in the car.

These days, Mango is doing amazing.

💚 She can calmly hang around other dogs and people even in the thick of action and play with her ball and not be upset with those around her

💚 She has started playing with other dogs and actually enjoying their company

💚 She loves going on car rides, even with dog friends and has not thrown up again. It turned out that all the throwing up was happening because of anxiety

💚 She goes on fun off-leash walks with her guardians and other dogs

💚💚💚 And not to brag but this is Mango during her downtime. She has a full-time job as her guardian's service dog which she does beautifully.

These pictures and videos fill my heart with joy because even I did not think so much progress was possible when we first started. Her world has expanded so much and she gets to be a dog. All of this was achieved with kindness, fun, games and play. No prong/shock/choke/electronic collars or other tools or techniques that cause pain and intimidation were used to train her.

My learning in working with Mango and her family is that a solid training plan that takes into account the individual dog, dedicated guardians and lot of fun and play can create miracles.

31/05/2025

Dottie's guardian came to me for help with her fear with strangers, some dogs and walks that were no fun at all. She'd been to other training classes where she was recommended to be on a prong collar but her guardian did not want to use it for obvious reasons.

With her guardian's diligent efforts and some fun games, Dottie soon blossomed into a confident girl who now does international trips and meets new people with no fear and walks like a dream.

Dottie's guardian just shared this amazing news with me, "Hi Mayuri! I took Dottie to do an evaluation for recreational agility class. She passed and the trainer there said Dottie is so well trained! I’m so happy and proud of her progress and wanna share the happiness with you 🥳"

Helping Dottie overcome her fears has helped her expand her and her guardian's world so they can do many fun things together.

All this was achieved with food, toys, fun and games. I am beyond proud of Team Dottie!

16/05/2025

Fun, play and games change lives, no pain and hurt needed.

https://www.facebook.com/reel/1266415628388633?mibextid=9drbnH&s=yWDuG2&fs=e

15/03/2025

People often wonder if an old dog that's beginning to have mobility, hearing and eyesight issues is worth expending training efforts over.

Thirteen year old Gerdy's brother came to me with human aggressive behaviors that were very concerning to his guardians. As we worked on his issues, I taught them games to teach Gerdy to resolve her very high prey drive and unreliable recall.

Gerdy not only got great about checking in frequently on off leash walks and stayed closer to her guardians which is great for a dog that cannot hear very well. She is also learning to temper and think through her prey drive.

In fact, she's become so good at it, that she recently encountered a cat (!) on her on leash walk and the cat was just 4 feet away! In the past, this would have meant her lunging and chasing until she reached the end of the leash and trying to drag her guardian after the cat.

She looked at the cat and got excited but then remembered to think through it and turned to her guardians for a treat instead! My mind was just as blown as her guardians.

All this was accomplished with food, toys and play. No choke/pinch/prong/electronic collars or techniques which cause fear or intimidation were used.

Gerdy is a happy puppy at the grand age of 13 and her dedicated guardians have shown that anything is possible regardless of the age of the dog.

10/03/2025

Daylight savings time, clock changes, and forgetting about the time can cause disruption. It disrupted my client's schedule when she accidentally booked a grooming appointment for Dottie at the same time as she had a fitness session with her trainer. Dottie had to wait for her grooming appointment so she suddenly had to use the skills we had been teaching her anxious Dottie to relax no matter the situation.

"Somehow I had to take Dottie to my fitness training class today because her grooming appointment time was messed up by the daylight saving time 🫠 （I originally planned to drop her off at grooming salon and then go to the training class)
Dottie comes to the new environment and with new people (my trainer); she kept whining and wanted me to pay attention to her. I randomly grabbed a fitness platform and gave Dottie her boundary cue.
She successfully stayed on the boundary while I was working out. When I was taking breaks between repetitions, I let Dottie break from her boundary and gave her verbal compliments + patting as rewards. (Because this was unplanned and I had 0 dog food with me…)
Dottie did it so well! She successfully stayed at the boundary for the rest of the class. My trainer was amazed. I’m amazed too; she seems to be able to transfer the boundary concept and stay on a boundary really long now."

Dedicated clients and a solid training plan give results in the real world!

15/02/2025

A fitting love story for February. I'm grateful to have amazing, dedicated clients. Koda lives in New York State, I live in California.

(Lightly edited for brevity and to protect their privacy.)

"~Claiming the Progress~
We became a client of Mayuri Panse who is a dog trainer that specializes in behaviors of reactivity March 2023 with our German Shepherd Koda that was 1 1/2 at the time. We rescued him from Alabama and he had quite the history as a puppy.

Koda had difficulty adapting especially to people he did not know in or around our home and became very fearful and reactive. He bit several people and my husband B twice. It seemed when B would move around the house Koda would chase after him snarl and bit him a couple times. Yet at the same time, B said, “Koda has reached his forever home and we will work through helping him and that is what we committed to doing.”

My husband unfortunately was diagnosed with Parkinson’s in 2018 and also Macular Degeneration that same year. His eye disease was so advanced that today he is legally blind.

I really became very concerned and questioned if we were going to have to give Koda back to the adoption agency. The health of my husband was declining and Koda was getting more reactive. It was an awful spot to be.

Through Mayuri’s guidance, positive dog training games, understanding, compassion, help and time; Koda stopped doing those reactive behaviors towards my husband and improved his behavior around others away from our home.

It wasn’t until recently that Koda really started bonding with my husband.

Parkinson’s is such a cruel disease. It not only affects a persons mobility but truly changes every aspect of a person. To watch the cognitive decline is absolutely awful. To see the anxiety and altered state of reality in B at times is even worse.

Yesterday when we got home my husband was crying and felt absolutely hopeless. I did my best to let B know it would all be okay but, what happened next was what really surprised me. In the past Koda would pace, run back in forth, be visibly upset, act very anxious and just would not be able to settle.

Yesterday, when B was so devastated; Koda came right next to B and firmly pressed against him (like he was holding him up) with his eyes just watching B. What happened next, was something I witnessed that I thought would never happen. Koda very delicately raised himself up on his two hind legs and wrapped his paws around B's arm. Koda made this very quiet whimper I have never heard before but, instead of it being an anxious cry it was more of a consoling whimper. He saw that his Daddy was upset and it is like he wanted him to know he loved him very very much. Koda has pretty much not left B's side this afternoon and has been snuggly with him. I never thought these two would ever have this relationship together. In the past Koda’s bucket 🪣 would become so overfull with such experiences, that it would take him days to calm down.

Today that bond between them both was absolutely remarkable! It is like Koda is saying, it will be okay Daddy and I am here for you. B leaned over and kissed Koda and said, “I love you buddy!”

Thank you Mayuri for making that difference. Miracles truly do happen.
🐶🫂🐾❤️"