I believe in creating an unbreakable bond and a trusting relationship between you and your dog through the use of positive reinforcement, interactive games, structure, consistency, proven and safe scientific training techniques, excellent timing, and understanding that each dog is in individual. I customize my training programs to fit your dog and your lifestyle and train dogs of all ages and breeds.
My work is my life mission and I am confident that when you choose to work with me, you will not only be happy with your decision in choosing me but you will enjoy the outcome of a truly well trained dog.
All dogs learn to love to train because I make dog training fun! I utilize each dog’s individual strengths, genetic make-up, and natural desires to better understand them and guide them on a path to success. While dogs are our family members, I help bridge the gap of understanding that they are also still canines and not humans. Reward based training is and always will be the foundation of my philosophy. Outside of my teaching methods and styles, I also teach the importance of physical and mental stimulation and body language interpretation. Communication is key and when that is lost, your dog is lost.
Methods explained:
Luring is a hands-off method of guiding your dog through a behavior. For example, a food lure can be used to guide a dog from a sit into a down. This is a common method of getting more complex behaviors. Lures are typically food, but they may also be toys, tugs, a target, or anything else your dog will willingly follow. Understanding how to introduce and utilize a lure isn’t very complex but knowing how to properly phase out the lure is very important and the difficult part of luring.
Shaping is a powerful tool that allows you to build a new behavior, step by step reinforcing small approximations of that behavior until you achieve your final goal. Each step represents a piece of the behavior and when your dog can achieve the first step, I gradually increase the difficulty and so on until the final goal is reached. This process is called reinforcing successive approximations.
Capturing a dog’s behavior is a highly effective method to utilize when training a dog. It requires the animal to “think” about the situation and it uses only behaviors freely offered by your dog. It also depends upon your patience and skill. Basically, you will need to wait for your pup to do the desired behavior and then instantly reward it. The key is to have great timing, be very consistent and repeat this many times. Once I have successfully captured a behavior, I can then pair it with a verbal or hand command. It is an amazing and fun process and likely one of my favorite styles of training.
Positive Reinforcement (R+): The offering of desirable effects or consequences for a behavior with the intention of increasing the chance of that behavior being repeated in the future. Dogs learn good behavior by being rewarded for doing well. Providing your dog with a treat following a behavior is an example of using this method. I teach new behaviors primarily with R+
**All my training methods are force, fear, and pain free. They also comply with LIMA standards.**