Blog

You are driving down the highway the Friday before Christmas (or the Tuesday before Thanksgiving), on your 600 mile journey to your family's gathering spot. Somewhere along your drive you inevitably hit construction and miles of bumper to bumper traffic. You are in...

I am looking into adding the Freedom No-Pull Harness to my "store" (which will have a larger online presence soon). I am a big fan of this harness. There are two things I don't like about it but they are not huge issues: I don't love the martingale feature on the back...

Shayne here, seeing as Rio got to have the spot light last week, I'm taking my turn to share my Christmas list (and what's with him going first anyhow?). I have been a really really good girl this year--minus a few mischievous moments counter surfing--and think I...

I'm not sure how many of you know that before I came to dog training as a profession, I was an educator. I spent a handful of years assisting as a pre-k teacher, spent time student teaching in a an NYC elementary school and a NYC suburb school, then time as a 4-H...

Hi folks, Rio here, I have taken over communications for the day. I feel I do not get nearly enough time on here to advocate for my needs... because I am clearly suffering. I don't really understand this indoor-tree thing but I do understand presents. I like presents....

Many pet parents fall into the trap of over-managing and over-controlling their dogs. I see this most typically in terms of using force in training (using physical punishments, or threats of punishment, or physical molding), a handler's leash skills, and overly...

I do not yet have the photos of Rio flying over the A-frame so I have no 'action' shots from our agility trial but I do have some amazing photos of Rio sleeping. We worked hard on teaching Rio to have an 'off switch' and I suspect the whippet in him has helped...

This past weekend, Rio had his second CPE agility trial!  I knew going into the weekend that it would not be our best since we are SEVERELY out of practice.  In the last 5 months, Rio has had 3 agility practices--2 handling games classes and 1 session where I worked...

One of the things that sets professional trainers, experienced rescue folks, quality breeders, and “dog people” apart from the rest of the dog owning public is their commitment to using management techniques. It is definitely one of the struggles I have with...

When I brought Shayne home from the shelter, she was quite a mess.  She was still quite underweight, was terrified of getting into cars, terrified of stairs, REALLY terrified of thresholds (she STILL doesn't like being in doorways), was afraid of toys, was concerned...