Pawsome by Jen

I am dedicated to making dog training a tail-wagging adventure, all from the comfort of your home.

05/18/2026

It's definitely never boring 😂

05/12/2026

I've seen a lot of missing dog posts lately, and I thought it might help to share something that surprises a lot of people:

If a loose dog is running away from you, PLEASE don’t chase them.

Even friendly, loving, well-trained dogs can panic once they’re loose. Chasing, repeatedly calling their name, making eye contact, or rushing toward them often turns it into a game or increases their stress, which usually makes them run farther and faster.

Instead:

🐾Stay calm and make yourself as boring as possible. Any attention--yelling, chasing, bribing is rewarding at that point, giving them even less reason to want to stop the fun and go back to you.

🐾Turn your body slightly sideways instead of facing them head-on

🐾Avoid direct eye contact

🐾Sit or crouch down if it’s safe

🐾Toss treats away from you at first

🐾Let the dog make the choice to come closer

🐾A calm, quiet, “boring” person often feels much safer to a scared dog than someone loudly trying to get their attention.

And one more REALLY important thing:

If your dog doesn’t come the first or second time you call them, there’s zero chance they’re suddenly going to come the 800th time you yell their name.

At that point, you dog will either tune the sound out completely or become more excited and aroused by all the noise and energy. 'What gets rewarded gets repeated' and the more attention you give them, the less incentive they have to stop this new super fun game.

A reliable recall isn’t built during an emergency. It’s built at home, in tiny steps, under very low distractions first, and then slowly practiced around harder and harder distractions over time. Make coming to you the BEST thing in the world every single time.

No judgment at all. Panic makes humans do human things. But knowing what actually helps can genuinely save a dog’s life someday.

05/11/2026

He's FINE. He was hungry and I was making him go for a walk 😭

05/05/2026

One of my favorite parts of doing drop-ins with Miss Dixie every week is getting 30 minutes 3-5 times a week to just teach her stuff.

So, fun fact that I didn't know until I tried to do this with Dixie and Westley is that teaching a dog the names of individual toys is pretty easy... Asking them to differentiate between two toys, not so much.

But Dixie nailed it today and I'm SO excited and proud of her!

04/10/2026

Cattle dogs: one of the smartest breeds in the world…
until their emotional support human steps outside.

You guys, I'm not being dramatic when I say this dog has booped open this door with his nose every single time we've left the house for 5 years. Every. Single. Time. The only difference between that and this is I'm always in the house with him, not already outside.

03/11/2026

I love this giant goofball moose dog.

02/27/2026

She's a moose and I love her.

09/17/2025

Hanging with Miss Dixie.

❤️

09/08/2025

This is Hudson. When I started working with him, he was a very stressed out, crazy boy. You could see how much he loved his momma and how much he wanted to be a good boy, he just couldn't get past the noise in his head to get there. Every dog on every walk was a potential new bff, except for small dogs who are sworn enemies, of course. And what are people here for if not for jumps and pets--AFTER he's sure you're safe. Which could take awhile.

Because he didn't know what to do when he was stressed or excited or bored, any small trigger was sending him so far over threshold there was no pulling him back and asking him to listen.

So, my plan was simple. Confidence building, trust strengthening with his people, and impulse control.

For the last five weeks, we've gone back to basics with him--proofing cues like sit and heel and watch inside and in low distraction settings until they were instinctive and then we worked on applying them to real world situations. And then we started the hard stuff, but probably my favorite thing to train because I've seen how life changing this can be for dogs, including my own: desensitizing and counter conditioning to triggers. Basically, it's working at the dog's pace to see a trigger at a distance and remain calm/neutral, and rewarding (always rewarding!) their decisions to look away.

So this text is HUGE for Hudson and his person and I can't tell you the sound I made when I read it and saw his beautiful, goofy face and read how calm he was at the beach. Because this good boy and his human have worked so hard to get here, and I'm so freaking happy and proud of both of them.

08/12/2025

I love my job.

featuring:

🐾Prezi the Dignified Collie
🐾Dixie the weet Dane
🐾Westley (aka Sassypants)
the Heeler
🐾Hudson the Brave Mutt
🐾Taffy the Cavapoo puppy
and
🐾Lola the Energizer Bunny in
a Boxer form.

Address

Chesterton, IN
46304

Website

http://pawsomedogsbyjen.com/

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