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Punishment… it happens

Punishment... it happens It is one of my biggest pet peeves when people call clicker trainers permissive. I may not use physical punishments but I'm probably one of the "strictest" doggie moms out there. I have rules and expectations of my dogs and have no problem...

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Busy at Tugs By Tena

Holy cow, it must be coming up on agility season or some such fun because I've gotten lots of tug orders in the last week--6 orders for a total of 40 tugs. So, I've been braiding and braiding and braiding! Tug making is a surprising workout! I never realize the amount...

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Common Mistakes–trouble shooting pt. 3

It's been a while since I talked about a few common mistakes I see with dogs and their handlers along with some solutions to these problems. "My dog hates to sit. She'll listen to other things but hates to sit and won't when I tell her to." I heard this while out and...

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Get Creative With Reinforcements

Reinforcement--anything that, when added or removed, makes a behavior more likely to happen again. Although I use and suggest food as reinforcement during classes, it is not the ONLY type of reinforcement that exists. Since food is such a common reward, for this post,...

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Don't let your leash hold you back

Don't let your leash hold you back Believe it or not, I find that leashes very frequently become weights holding back the potential for training. The more one relies on the leash during the beginning stages of training, the more it hinders training at higher levels....

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You Don't Have To…

"I was told that a choke chain was the only way to control such a big dog." "That's surprising, the rescue said that we should get a choke chain because that's what any training class would use." "My trainer said that was the only way to deal with my dog's...

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Wordless Wednesday–Rio and Meika

SJC blog will return with REAL posts next week! I a dog hair in my eye the other day and it got really irritated while trying to remove the foreign object. Now my eye is all red/inflamed/irritated and it's difficult to type/work on my computer. So, I'm taking the next...

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Rio's Done It Again

This past weekend Rio did some agility demonstrations at a local "Bark For Life" fundraiser for the American Cancer Society. In between agility demos, he got to play some frisbee in a GORGEOUS park on the North Shore of Pittsburgh with the city skyline on one side and...

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New "Ready To Tug" toys

I've been really negligent with updating my ready-to-tug toys but no longer! Finally sat down and took photos of what is left of my Ready To Tugs. I'll be making more as soon as I can reclaim my table from all of our seedlings 🙂 In the mean time, here are six tugs...

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