For a number years I worked as a professional dog trainer. I loved teaching puppy, K-9 Fitness & Canine Good Citizen classes. But teaching 4-5x a week I was so drained when I left my facility I didn’t have the energy or passion to work with my own dogs. Unfortunately as my pack grew, their training suffered, and even a year and a half later after closing my facility my dogs are still in the same situation.
In November I had the option of renewing my CGC Evaluator status. Though I am not actively training other people and their dogs, I decided that I would start training again! MY DOGS!! So I am making a pledge to my dogs… we are all going to be trained to perfection (haha) and we will all take and pass the Canine Good Citizen Test! For a couple of dogs it may take a little while to be completely ready for the test… but hopefully a few will be ready in a few short months.
So here are my subjects:
Daisy – Age 10 Problem? Former leash reactive dog, needs a ton of exercise to calm down!
Sunny – Age 8 Problem? Knows basic commands, sit, down, stay. Will need to work on loose leash walking & heel.
Kyra – Age 12 Problem? NONE! Kyra is a Canine Good Citizen dog & former Therapy Dogs International dog! She will be getting in shape to compete in a few agility trials this year.
Riley – Age 3(on Jan. 17th) Problem? None. She works as my service dog. But I like for her to have fun so she will be continuing her agility training.
Katie – Age 5 Problem? It’s Katie! She’s perfect. Katie will be reviewing basic commands for Canine Good Citizen testing.
Chicky – Age 6 Problem? Can be aggressive towards other dogs, needs to learn basic manners including loose leash walking.
As you can see I am missing about 3 dogs from this list… but for right now these are the ones I would like to concentrate on. You will be able to follow Trixies weight loss triumphs on FitDog Friday & the new Move Your Mutt hop.
Training Techniques
I am a positive reinforcement dog trainer, and I believe that everyone else should be too. Why? Well, according to Dr. Ian Dunbar, punishment doesn’t have to be this scary, mean or a painful act. Withholding a reward is punishment enough and can be much more effective than physical punishment.
So here we go! Join my co-host Boingy Dog and myself for our weekly
Thursday Training Blog hop – A Trained Dog is a Super Dog.
Besure to grab our badge.
Wow you have a houseful. We have 3 here. I have my CGC and want to take the PAT test but there isn’t anyone even close that can give it but my fur sister and brother both could pass the test since we all train together.
I can give the CGC… but I want to get Riley ready for the PAT also, I know she would pass with flying colors. I am going to see a new service dog trainer to add on an alert behavior so hopefully she will test us too 🙂
When I taught Rally and obedience classes I thought it was going to make me a better trainer to my dogs but I experienced the same thing you did- I was wiped! I am not sure what our training goals are right now (I am not ready to spend a ton of money on AKC shows/titles again) but I know we need to get back into a regular training routine!
Bethany recently posted…Respect Your Dogs Brain, Train
You know… I have heard that from a lot of trainers. I thought the same thing you did too!!! But overall I think it taught me a lot by teaching others…. my patience and understanding of learning theory has grown exponentially by teaching others!
Cool! Nice introduction to all the pups.
Ruckus the Eskie recently posted…Keeping it Classy!
Thanks so much… I have a bunch of great girls… all very sweet and very willing to learn and do things for me 🙂
Is there a linky list to join the hop, or will that start next week?
Looking forward to reading the posts!
Hi Jen… yes there is a link right above these comments !! Join us!
Actually I meant a Linky Tools link list (I grabbed the badge already) for the “hopping” (or InLinkz/SimplyLinked/etc). Do you plan to add one of those so we can all link up?
Depending what browser you are using it is there. I did it through Linky list. Right now on my mobile it is below the thumbnails of me and Boingy Dog. But on Safari is was below the script for grabbing the badge . I think against my font it is easy to miss.
Hmm – that is so strange. It doesn’t show up in either Chrome or Firefox, but it is showing up in Safari (so I’ll grab it there! Thanks!). It’s definitely not visible in both of those browsers on my end (Mac). I haven’t run into a browser issue with the Linky before…I’ll test it on my post and let you know if there is a difference.
That is really strange because last night I was jumping back and forth between my PC and Mac and I use Firefox on my PC. When I get home I’ll shoot a message over to the linky guy and see what he says. Thanks for helping me out on this. I sooo love being a newbie to things!!! Lol
So strange – we’re both using wordpress and pretty much the same code, and it seems to be showing up on my blog but not on yours in the two browsers.
I searched for another blog hop post of yours, and it *is* showing up in Chrome. There is a slight difference in the Linky code you’re using – in this post, it has an extra break (br) tag, and the script type vs URL order. Perhaps format it exactly the same as this post and see if that might do the trick:
https://www.ohmyshihtzu.com/black-white-sunday-18-riley-remembering-the-summer/
I’m so looking forward to everyone’s posts. Having puppies in the house again, we need some guidance on training, because we forgot so many things. Our puppies’ have puppy class, but not for another month or so (after vaccinations are complete).
Kimberly Gauthier recently posted…Fur Mom Confessions | 7 Things I Gave Up to be a Dog Mom
awww… puppies are so wonderful! I wish I had one right now… you are going to have so much fun… I love molding young minds!
Well done on setting yourself goals and good luck on achieving them. We will be joining you today.
Thank You!! I can’t wait for your post!!