Early Registration for 2022 Bark Commanders is open!

IF YOU WANT TO GET SIGNED UP EARLY YOU ARE WELCOME TO!

Can’t promise the site doesn’t have some little bits unfinished as I am still working on things. But the content that was there for the 2021 is now moved over. The zoom room and class schedules will be updated more.

TO JOIN US AGAIN FOR 2022

Hit this link or the link at the bottom of the main website and enter the password: 2021BCAaccess (case sensitive).

It will take you to a simple page with a sign up link where you can choose if you want to pay a one time fee or monthly option. You can also choose to sign up for the Academy if you want to that instead this year.

I want to thank everyone who entered the video contest!!! You had so many great videos and it made it so hard for me to pick. I honestly wanted to just give you all the winning prize, but the dogs reminded me I have to feed them and can’t give all my services away 😂.

I CHOSE TWO WINNERS FROM THE BARK COMMANDERS:

Yara & Aloy. Not only was the video beautiful and moving (go watch on IG if you haven’t yet - @aloyexplores) If you did regular Zoom Classes you know them well as Yara attended nearly every class, made every private zoom. I am so proud of this team, refusing to resort to the pressure, committed to helping Aloy over come her extreme anxiety and reactivity using kindness, patience and understanding. There were many triumphs and tears this year.

Lindsey & Raffles. You can see their adorable video on the Hiker Pup Website under Academy Programs. Lindsey & Raffles have attended EVERY course I’ve offered from day 1! They also make it to almost every live group class and all their private zooms. I am not going to say it helped their case sending us cookies all the way from England but…. 😉😂

Again I truly wanted to give you all the prize as the videos were amazing and I love each and every one of you! I am so proud of all the hard work you have all done to help your relationships with your dogs. I hope you all enjoyed the program and feel like it was worth the investment.

Lastly, I want to cry when I think about how amazingly supportive and sweet you have all been to us this past year as we worked to recover from the disaster and work to come home. So many of our sessions I was streaking in from the house build and it was the absolute best how you were all so supportive and wanted to follow all of our adventures this year. I am not blowing smoke up your …. when I say you really feel like family now! If you are not rejoining either program this year, please stay in touch, hit my DMs on FB or IG or email me dawn@thehikerpup.com if at any point you want to share updates. You better, that’s all I am saying. I mean I will let you leave the nest, but you better let me know how you are doing every now and again.

If you did like the program and found it worthwhile but were not up to making a video, if you care to help me keep growing I’d love if you wrote a short testimonial for me to use on my website or socials. You can message it to me on FB, IG or email it to me at dawn@thehikerpup.com feel free to send a cute photo of you and/or your dog if you want me to share that with your words 🙂.

THIS IS ME MAKING TO THE END OF 2021 😂😂😂😂

Remember the website for 2021 goes dark in a few days! I will cancel all subscriptions on Friday to be sure no one get’s charged again that doesn’t want to join again. So copy and video playlists or files you want to keep. You keep access to the FB groups indefinitely.

Information about the end of this year's program

Just a few reminders and details for anyone not sure how the end of this academy program and the start of the next one begins…

At the end of this month I will be canceling everyone’s subscriptions to the program, so if you don’t want to join again you don’t have to do anything. This way no one will be charged again if they do not wish to continue the program.

If you do want to join again, but want to do just the Academy program without the private zooms you can simply sign up for that program on the website when registration opens. Registration period is Feb 1-10th.

If you want to rejoin the Bark Commanders please let me know so I can save you a spot, as they are limited for the 2022 program, anyone of you wanting to rejoin can have a spot, but if I have any spots left I will offer them to Academy members.

Below is a recording of the Zoom class we did this past weekend talking about moving forward after the Academy with reactive dogs.

This upcoming Saturday’s Zoom will be a Q & A where I will field as many questions as I can that you might have left as we end this year’s program. If you cannot make the meeting but have unanswered questions please go ahead and put them on the FB group, or comment here so I can be sure to answer if I can.

I know some of you will not be coming back, many having major life changes, if your reason for not coming back is financial please check out the Academy Programs section on the main page of the website and scroll to the bottom to see a sign up for scholarships, I have a few available this year for the Academy and will be taking applications until the 20th. (scholarships are not available for the Bark Commanders program)

If are not coming back please know how much I have enjoyed getting to know you all. I am grateful for the opportunity to help you and your dogs better get to know each other and hope that you continue to grow closer as time goes on.

Bringing retrieve to multiple objects

Once your dog will deliver one thing to your hand or to a spot, let’s add fetching multiple objects!

• Warm them up with a regular retrieve.

• Be sure they will retrieve each object individually before bringing them both out.

• When you add fetching two objects be sure to hide the first one while you reward them so they let go of that one existing so they can go find the other object.

• Keep the objects close so they easily find it.

• Never say “no” or “leave it” or any corrections if they don’t want to leave the first object, just make that one impossible to get and then help them see the other one.

• Once they are easily transferring back to the second object after giving up the first you can work on them getting the second object while the first one stays visible, be patient with this part as it is very hard for many puppies, if they are confused back up a step and move the first object away if need be to prevent frustration.

• Start with objects that have little to no meaning to your dog, using toys they can show some preferences towards certain toys and not want to get other ones.

Taking retrieve to deliver to a spot

Once my puppies will retrieve to hand I then want to also have them retrieving to a spot. This you can see more of in the “put your toys away” part of the clicks and tricks. You can see me working through this with Nick who was a lot slower to pick up the idea of fetch and was very possessive. Leo was naturally a very possessive puppy as well, but the difference of having him at 8 weeks old and imprinting sharing made it much easier to teach vs Nick who was 2 months older when I got him. With Nick I actually taught this first and then added in having him deliver to my hand as his possession made it easier for him to deliver to a place first where he kept some distance from my hands. Emily had no possession issues at all and was a puppy with a natural retrieve. So don’t feel frustrated or bad if it takes you some time to teach your puppy to retrieve as this can be very challenging with some dogs.

Using these techniques you can also shape your puppy to play with toys if they only like food and won’t play with toys. Since this is all about getting the clicks and treats you are using food drive. But once the dog associates these objects with the game they will want to fetch them and over time that develops into a real joy of fetching.

Contest Time!

I AM HOLDING A CONTEST TO WIN A FREE ACADEMY MEMBERSHIP FOR 2022, A $299 VALUE!

If you win and want to rejoin the Bark Commanders you can use the prize to deduct from your Bark Commanders tuition. The contest is a video sharing contest. To enter you would make a public video of less than 1 minute sharing what you loved most about the 2021 Program and why you want to participate again. To enter the video’s need to be public and shareable so I can show them to people thinking about signing up for the 2022 Program. Videos need to be shared between Jan 1st and January 22nd. (extra credit given if you post more than one 😉)

WAYS TO ENTER:

• you can upload a public Youtube video and post it to the FB group, or email me the link.

• You can make a post to your Instagram account if you have a public account and tag me in that post so I can see and share it. (stories don’t count as they need to stay available for me to share during January).

• You can email me the edited video files for me to upload.

WHAT I WILL DO WITH THE VIDEOS:

• I might showcase some of them as testimonials on the website.

• I mostly will share them to my IG & FB accounts to show people what the Academy is all about during the month of January.

I will chose the winners based on what you tell me in those videos and what the Academy means to you 🙂 It will not be a random drawing or based on popularity..

Be creative, you could show off some of your favorite tricks you learned this year. You could show clipping toenails you couldn’t touch at the start of the year, you could show your reactive dog walking now, you could share about things you’ve learned or how being a member makes you feel. Don’t be afraid to be honest and real, if you still struggle you can share about that too.

We have one more month of the Programs for this year! On January 29th I will be canceling the current subscriptions, that way it will not charge anyone who doesn’t want to sign up for another year who maybe forgets to cancel their subscriptions before the end of the program. Which means anyone wanting to sign up for 2022 will need to rejoin on or after Feb 1st.

I will be limiting further the number of people in the Bark Commanders for 2022 as I need to ease up my schedule after this super busy 2021. So I will be taking names of those who want to join again and then offering spots to Academy Alumni if I have any available after that, if you were a bark commander for 2021 there will be a spot for you if you want one, but will need to let me know by January 10th if you plan to join again so I can save you a spot. The price will remain the same for anyone who was a Bark Commander in 2021, both annual and monthly payments are still available.

I will be offering the same and also something different for 2022. I will offer Bark Commanders 2022 exactly like the current program where you have your monthly private zooms, and have your own FB group with guides for your own videos to organize. Then for those who like the personal feedback but don’t want to commit to a monthly meeting I will be offering by the month privates people can purchase & schedule if they are an Academy member. So if you like the zoom classes, the modules and all the aspects of the academy but don’t see yourself needing monthly meetings next year you can join the Academy and then just purchase a private session when you feel the need for one. The FB group with the individual guides is only for those opting for the full program again as that’s not doable for the entire Academy.

Fetch

Once our dog understands how to target our hands with us sitting we need to work on getting our bodies into other positions as you cannot assume that because a puppy will bring something to you sitting means they will with you standing, so we need to teach them sitting and standing it’s still the same game.

So your next goal is to get your dog’s to deliver to your hand whether you are sitting or standing.

It’s Christmas week so you can play with the fetch games or you can just enjoy the holidays and have fun without feeling the need to keep up. I would love to see some photos on our Facebook group or tag me on IG of your pups enjoying the holidays! Maybe them in their holiday costumes, or opening presents. Let’s see you get creative with making their presents into an enrichment game! The recent zoom class we did on indoor games should give you some ideas 😉.

Adding distance and a start set up to fetch

Once our dogs are able to pick up and place an item in our hand we want to start to add distance between our hand and the object we want them to deliver so we will start giving it a little toss for them to go and get.

Once they are able to go and find the object with a little distance we will work on adding in a little start routine so we can set them up to see the object when we are making it move further away. And also adding in the fetch cue. You can see in the video at the end when I add the fetch cue (I use “bring”) he stops for a moment as the cue distracts him, I just wait and let him go back to the object rather than saying it more or moving, I just let him remember what we were doing.

A few things to keep in mind when you build behaviors like this. One is it’s a dance, you need to know what you want next so if your pup is moving fast you can keep moving with them. If you repeat the step too many times once they get it, that can impede their ability to move forward again when you want more since they think they already have the whole thing figured out. So if they do the step you are at consistently half a dozen times move on. If they get confused you can always step back to an earlier step.

If your puppy really has the concept, don’t keep rewarding lower steps as that can confuse them, so once he really gets the idea is put it in my hand I’m not going to keep rewarding dropping it near me even if I add on the movement to the object, as that might confuse him thinking he doesn’t have to put it in my hand if I’ve tossed it. But I will make that as easy as possible for him by making my hand easy to find and even moving it towards him as he comes in. If he stops offering the drop in my hand I would go back to placing the object down, so we don’t slide the already established criteria as we add steps, we just go back a step if we need to so we can get that criteria back again.

Retrieve to hand

As requested I am going to show the start to finish process I used with Leo shaping him to retrieve the spoon to my hand, and then target it to a place. Today we will look at step one which is putting the object in his mouth and then moving it towards my hand.

If you watch the series on the foundations and the trick session for “putting your toys away” you can see how I did this with Nick. With Nick I did this process opposite of how I did it with Leo and that is because Nick came in with a very strong possessiveness and reluctance to let my hands near his mouth when he has a hold of something, so with him I taught the put the object someplace first and then made one of those places my hands in a sneaky way. With Leo I took the more traditional route I take with a dog that shares more easily. So know that you can do these things in different orders depending on what your dog offers you. In fact some dogs i’ve started right with the object on the ground instead of holding it like I did with both Leo & Nick as some dogs are worried about biting something that is in your hands. So when shaping don’t be afraid to experiment and shift things around to see if your dog responds better to something differently.

Step 1 - putting mouth on object

Step 2 - picking up object

So let’s see if you can get your dogs to pick something up! If they already pick up toys and deliver to your hand, try it with random objects!

Alerts & re-finds in Nosework

With our nose work sessions we shifted our focus this week to beginning to set up an alert system for our dogs to tell us they have found something rather than just relying on us knowing where the hidden goods are and seeing subtle body language indicators. The way we start is by adding in a cue whilst giving the reward. So if you want your dog to give a passive alert like a sit or down, we simply have the dog sit as we go to reward after marking their find. We can also teach more active alerts like - touching it with their paw, holding their nose on it, barking, or any other behaviors that you want to. But I have always found it is easiest to work with something natural the dog might most easily offer.

We will also be building in a secondary indicator called a refund “show me” which is a pin pointing where once the dog has alerted we ask them to show the spot since most alerts can involve the dog pulling away from the source (this is essential for things like search and rescue or forensic type search where you would not want the dog interacting with the source.)

You can see in our weekend class, working on starting container searches and the beginning stages of adding in alerts by asking for the positions during feeding and me asking for the re-find.

With Leo and our foundation work this week I have been working on taking our pedestal work to full rotations and having him start to follow me around the pedestal. I’ve also introduced shaping fetching games. I have the whole series on video that I need to upload so stay tuned for that. But for now see if you can get those pedestal steps going!

Scheduling & Private Zooms

Hi Everyone!

So we are heading into our final two months of the 2021 Bark Commanders program 😢. If you have not already used your 1 hour Zoom session for signing up for the year you are running out of time! I have added scheduling options for both the monthly and the one hour sessions onto the calendar through the end of the program. So be sure to snag a spot and use your hour session. If you don’t have an hour’s worth of things to discuss it can be shorter or we can just talk about whatever you want to. Or I can just set the camera up so you can look at Leo for an hour 😂.

If you stopped your monthly sessions and life got busy and you feel bad about not keeping up please don’t let that stop you. We still have time to accomplish some things if you want to use up the sessions you have left. You can use the scheduling links in the zoom room to schedule your 1 hour if you haven’t used it yet, or the link to schedule a half hour for the remaining months.

If you do not see any times or days that work for you, let me know and we can talk about options to find you a spot!

Taking the box game to place work - pedestal pivots to heel

Here is a live training session with Leo where you can watch me transitioning his send to box game to a send and stay on “place” game. The foundation of that getting in the box and that being where all the cookies happen draws him to that spot. I put a mat inside his box for part of the session and then quickly during the training pull the box away leaving the mat there and he continues to go to that spot. You can see at first I mark and reward his first approaches to it and quickly rebuild up to the same criteria he had when the box was there. You can see me work a few spots where he comes off the mat (I just pause and wait for him to go on the mat to resume the game.

You can also see me working on his pedestal and pivoting to heel. I will now start working on pivoting to the other side as well. Admittedly he was super fast at picking this up! That is also because of my hand positioning before and during rewarding making it lead him quickly to offering that pivot. This will be the start of our heel work. I will be taking his heel work to competition level heel work so with him you will get to see a lot more precision as we move forward.

I’m not including Nosework homework this week to give people a chance to catch up as I know a few people have ordered supplies and are just getting started. Keep working your hides so we can begin moving into the alert side of the training. For people who do not want to train for the target odors but still want to just play and have fun you can keep playing along using food/toys as your search items 🙂.

Nosework & box games and pedestal

So in our Nosework Games we want to be transitioning to using our target odor and fading the food at the hide spot and marking & rewarding finds. You will see a natural drop in intensity indicating the find when we move the food away, this is normal so be ready to mark and reward immediately when you see your dog sniff the target odor. Keep the finds relatively easy for the initial hides without food.

For practicing your searches keep it short, it is surprisingly a lot of work for a dog to search intensely and we don’t want to risk them fatiguing and losing motivation for the game. I do 3-4 searches max in a session. Don’t think you need to keep making the hides harder, the idea is to make it fun and build drive for the game before you make searching hard.

You can work on nose targeting with your dog away from the searches to teach your pups to hold their noses on a find longer for you. Here is the class recording from the weekend where we worked on searches without food at the hide, you can watch me work Nick on several hides, his first searches without food at the hide.

For our foundation and puppy training this week I’ve been building my box game, you can see me working on sending to the box from different positions, as well as working on bringing his front feet out and backing back into the box. If you are on Instagram you can see on my IGTV channel another video of me working on the box game in a way that is going to build into an easy transition to teaching staying a send and a stay on a place.

I also introduce his pedestal for the first time, getting his front feet on the pedestal and getting him confident in that position. I’m working on having him get comfortable laying on his side in a down for future cooperative care. You can see me lure him to roll his hip while laying down, and then rolling onto his side.

As you can see I keep the sessions high engagement fast paced holding his focus the whole time. It’s important to have an idea what you are going to work on during your sessions so you can transition between them without losing your dog’s attention. This is how you build a relationship with training that keeps a dog engaged with learning!

Container Searches. Stays & Place

Setting up some container searches. One of the exercises in Nose work are container searches and if you want to do competitions you will want to be proficient at these types of set ups. What can be challenging for some teams is that many dogs when presented with objects start offering operant behaviors instead of using their noses.

Things you can use for container searches: cinder blocks, cardboard boxes, plastic bins, etc. You can also use things like pieces of firewood that you can put your food/target odor under. Basically you need a line of the same looking containers/objects that you and your dog search through seeking the target scent. I suggest starting your container searches with objects your dog will be less inclined to want to interact with, so if you think they will see a cardboard box and think this is a food enrichment toy and start chewing on it than start with heavier blocks or bigger bins. Once they get the idea of searching and alerting it won’t matter what you use and you can transition to boxes as they will start thinking with their noses and settle into a routine about it. Container searches help to create systematic searching for your dog by isolating the search to these objects.

When you very first start your container searches you can start with just hidden food or toy. Ideally your containers will eventually require your help for them to access the food so we can start setting up the alert system. You can use containers within containers if not- for example if I use the open cinder blocks I could put my treats inside a mason jar with holes poked in the top so they can find the treats but need me to open them up. Needing our help will create a strong natural alert. (we will talk more about this in the weeks to come as we get deeper into the alert side of scent work). After I run the search a few times if my dog is getting the idea I will add my target scent tin into the place I’m hiding their food/toy. The progression will be: first the motivator- food/toy is paired with the search game, then we pair the target odor with the find the food/toy game, then we take the food/toy away from the hide and create the concept that odor still produces their rewards. Don’t feel like you need to rush, the stronger the dog’s motivation to find the hidden stash the more they will work through to get there. So keep hides fun and motivating, not hard and exhausting.

Here is a video example of introducing the dogs to a line of cinder blocks.

FOR OUR PUPPIES AND BACK TO THE BASICS CREW THIS WEEK WE ARE FOCUSING ON CONTINUING THE BOX GAME, STAYS AND PLACE.

Once my puppy is offering getting all the way in the box I want to know where I am taking this so we can keep moving the game forward. You can pick for yourself what things you want to create. Here I quickly introduce the concept of coming part way out and backing back into. I could also work on sends to the box from further away or laying down in the box, or staying in the box. You can pick whatever things you want to add but the point is- you should always know what comes next with behavior shaping because if you don’t keep moving it and just reinforce the same behaviors for a long time they have a harder time offering something new or different. So don’t reinforce the same offered behavior more than 3-5 times in one rep if you still want to move that behavior forward. From the demo as you can see, if they throw something you don’t want, don’t reinforce it, toss food and start over. You can see how often I toss food off to end the rep he’s on to keep the game active. I show him and lure a bit because at his age he is still not great at tracking food and loses it easily if I just throw it.

You can see my do his very first Place with a crate mat, it’s a combo of luring, prompting and shaping. The best thing about dog training is you can mix and match. You can use lures and prompts to get the behavior primed and then shift Into shaping once they have a vague idea to polish it up. This technique allows you to fade lures very quickly and can help prevent frustration. What do I mean by prompting and luring?

As you watch the video where I introduce the place, I start by holding his collar and tossing some food on the mat, then I let go and let him go get it. Throwing that food for him to target is a prompt. After he gets that idea I use a food lure to help him down once he gets on the bed to help him offer the down. After doing those things, I don’t throw the food on the mat and wait for him to offer going to the mat, then I mark and reward (shaping). I build these steps until he is offering a go to his place and lay down.

The stay introduction is a simple pattern game. I give a piece of food, move, give a piece of food, move and I keep the pattern that food keeps coming to where he is at a steady pace quickly enough he doesn’t have a chance to think about moving.

Nosework & puppy shaping

LET’S WORK ON IMPRINTING TARGET SCENT ODOR!

You need a container to hold your scent sticks, either a small tin, glass jar, plastic container with small holes.

You can begin by having the scent source in one hand and treats in the other, present the target odor, when dog checks the container switch your hands and feed a treat, then switch and present the target odor, and repeat 4-5 times.

You can also put the target odor under a colander and when the dog drops their head into the colander you drop treats into the colander. Keep feeding at a steady pace with the goal of keeping the dog’s head in the colander. Feed 8-10 treats, repeat 2-3 times during a session.

You can watch both techniques here:

HOMEWORK:

2-3 session imprinting your target odors

Try a few hides where you hide the target odor and treats together where the dog can reach the treats as soon as they make the find, place the treats directly on the target odor.

PUPPY TRAINING & SHAPING

Here you can watch me to a live training session where I introduce Leo to the box game. As well as me working on the Down Cue, Roll Over, Chin Rest and Play.

Homework If you want to follow along as I work with Leo:

• Introduce the Box Game (after you have conditioned the clicker if you have not done so yet.

• Down

• Roll Over

• Chin rest

Here are more detailed videos on teaching these:

Nosework & Shaping

Ok so as we work through this last quarter of the Academy will are going to have two groups going, one for those who have been plugging along all year and one for those who are either starting new puppies or got behind and want to revisit the basics with me as I train my puppy.

For the first group we are starting to work on Nosework. Here you can see the zoom class from last weekend if you missed it.

If you want to work on nosework with us in the next class you will need to gather some supplies. First of all we need a scent source. The ones used in competition are: birch, clove and anise essential oils. You can either buy your one at health food stores or online, or you can buy kits that have the swabs already prepared for use along with some tins and containers to hold the scent that you use for hides. Here is a good source for buying supplies: https://k9nwsource.com

You can find most of what you need at health food stores, craft stores, hardware stores etc if you want to DIY it. You can use the website I linked to get ideas of what to look for. In the video above you can see some examples of how you can get started just using some hidden treats until you get set up with scent sources.

For those of you that want to follow me with the puppy training, hopefully you have polished off your clickers and loaded them up so your ready to do some shaping! I will be starting with some box games! As well as other basic behaviors.

Begin Again

So I know from talking to a lot of people that many of you had unexpected challenges this year and feel like you did not fully take advantage of the program. This is your opportunity to begin again! As you all know I have a new puppy and I will be sharing with you all how I raise my pup. So anyone who got behind or needs a little motivation to get going again, time to jump back in with me!

I will be adding on a new puppy program which you will see my advertising on IG & FB, don’t worry, all of you here will be getting access to the live sessions, you already have access to the foundation materials and group classes so you don’t need to join that program since as a Bark Commander you have access to the content until the end of the year, though you will have the opportunity to do so after the end of this year’s Bark Commanders if you want to keep going with that at the end of this year’s program if you don’t want to do the Bark Commanders again.

What’s included in that program?

Instead of recorded videos of specific exercises I will be sharing regular live training sessions of me working with my puppy, so you can see the entire training sessions and how I transition through things. (I will record the sessions for those unable to view due to time zone differences). I will not be interacting with viewers while I train, I will just work my pup and let you watch and then after will answer questions about why and what I did. I will be blogging and podcasting about what I am doing and why. Basically I will be taking you inside, in depth, how I raise my puppies and will let you watch me do so.

Then we will have group training sessions where you can do the same things you watched me work on and I can give you feedback on what I see you working on.

Another thing you will see in this experience is it will involve a LOT of shaping and clicker training, so last week I shared a refresher on getting back into shaping, so anyone wanting to follow along might want to brush off your clicker and find a good box 😉.

So get ready for puppy vision! I will of course keep advancing the materials for everyone who has stayed active, you are welcome to join in the puppy fun as well, but know I will keep the more advanced classes going too.

The shape of things

In this class we have spent a bit of time getting accustomed to using clicker training to teach our dog’s some fun and useful tricks, as well as some important skills. Let’s spend a little bit of time going into some more ways to practice your behavior shaping skills.

First a practical one that is shared in our clicks & tricks: shaping your dog to file their own toenails.

Making your Scratch Board

MATERIALS:

Piece of wood larger than a sheet of sandpaper, you can make your board longer and add a second piece below (be sure if you add a lower piece you lay the high piece on top of the lower piece so their nails don’t snag the lower piece)

Sandpaper: Grit 60- 80- 120 (the lower the number the courser the grit)

Dogs under 25lbs start with 120 grit and once they are trained you can lower your grit but move gradually to see what works their nails best. Most smaller dogs a 80 grit is sufficient to keep their nails filed.

Dogs over 25lbs - 50lbs I start with 80 grit and once they are trained you can lower the grit. I use 60 grit successfully with my collies.

Dogs over 50lbs I start with 60 grit and move down to a 50-40 grit.

You need to start with that higher number (finer grit) until your dog has figured it out as they might be wiping their paws rather than scratching at first and the lower grit can scuff up their pads. All dogs have varying density of nails so you will figure out as you train how course a grit you need, for example Nick’s nails are not as dense as Emily’s since he’s a younger dog so his nails file more quickly than hers.

Staple gun and staples:

For a quick starter board you can use double sided tape but to create a nice firm scratch surface a staple is going to give you a nice firm flat scratch surface which will lead to less ripping and and slipping of the paper and the firmer the paper is adhered to the board the better filing you will get.

You only need short staples (1/4)

When Stapling make sure you place them vertically so the dog’s moving nails don’t catch on them.

Gorilla Tape:

This is an extra step I take that many folks skip, I find It makes my board last longer. By taping the edges and over the staples the paper doesn’t snag or rip as quickly and again keeps that firm flat surface longer. But you don’t have to do this step if you are just wanting to check it out and don’t have any handy.

Once your board is ready it’s time to train. You want to start sitting where you can comfortably and firmly hold the board as your dog touches it. It’s important in the beginning stages that you are able to hold the board so the dog is doing a controlled scratch. If they knock the board over it can startle them so you want to make sure you are keeping it from falling. If you use your legs to brace it against, one hand to steady the board, and have treats in your other hand to reward the dog for scratching. Watch the video for some tips on teaching it.

To shape the back feet, work on having your dog standing up with their front feet on a pedestal or table, placing the scratch board lower on the table, click and reward any movement of the back feet, even if they do not hit the board. As the back feet movement gets more purposeful begin to wait to click until the back foot makes contact with the board and move to clicking for scratching.

Transitioning to off leash heeling/LLW

You need to work the foundation exercises to get ready for this exercise, only work on this if you have decent loose leash walking at your side.

• Work in a low distraction area, with a dog that has already been exercised.

• Tie your leash around your waist or shoulders, you need a long enough leash that they still have a bit of slack.

• Do not start walking until your dog is sitting at your side and focused on you.

• Give them your walk at your side cue you have trained for heeling or at your side loose leash walking.

• Start walking.

• As soon as the dog starts to leave your side stop and help them come back to your side WITHOUT TOUCHING THE LEASH.

• You can pat your leg as you step back, pet your dog, gently guide with your hand in the collar (don’t yank them).

• Give them some good affection before moving on.

• You can give treats once they are in position but do not use the treats to get them into position.

• The whole goal of this is to help our dogs feel like our hands on them is a good thing and nothing to avoid, if your dog is jumping away from you as you reach, SLOW down and be gentle! This is not a manhandle your dogs exercise.

• Your dogs should think this is affection not correction.

• Don’t move on to the off leash exercises until you can do this exercise for at least 100yards without needing to touch them to help.

After you can go for nice long walks like above and you feel like you are ready to begin off leash heel/LLW work first think about setting up for success! Don’t gamble and risk your dog, if you don’t feel ready for this step and don’t have a safe place to work, don’t do it. Work with your dog on a long line with the line dragging so you are not guiding them physically and practice that way. Why work on this if you plan to always have your dog on leash? Because sometimes we drop leashes, leash snaps break, etc. We want to be able to have a dog stay with us without being physically forced to.

• Is the area safe? You can always drop the leash, use a long line, etc.

• A nice big fenced yard or park?

• An area far away from roads.

• Low distraction- go at off hours.

• Your dog is exercised.

• You have high value rewards.

Using toys to reward Heel & LLW

Many dogs will connect so much better with you if you use toys to reward their engagement. But for LLW and Heel people often struggle with knowing how to use the toys and not just have the dog jumping all over you and just staring at the toy and not connecting with you. So let’s look at how we can use toys to make focusing on us a part of the game.

Watch the video to see the groundwork I do with my dogs before I bring the toy into the game!

What does a leash mean to your dog?

Many dogs and owners only know a leash as a means to control. But if we work on changing that a leash is simply a safety net that keeps our dogs safe when out in the world. If we work our leash walking and engaged connection when walking together outside than the leash is simply something that is there and doesn’t affect their behavior.

Does your dog head for the hills when the leash comes off? Does your dog see the leash in your hand at the dog park and avoid coming back over to you? Let’s work on changing that. Let’s work on changing our dogs associations of what a leash means.

Have some fun with it! How good is your dog at letting you put their collar and leash on before a walk? Here is a fun way to test that!

Teaching loose leash walking should not be about power and control. It should be about understanding how to hold your engagement and connection out in the world. Keep in mind it is not easy for you or your dog to do this. Think about how many times on a walk you find your mind wandering, are you thinking about what’s for dinner, what someone at work said, about that thing on social media that bugged you? If you are thinking any of these things, in those moments you have disconnected from your dog. We cannot expect them to stay connect to us, if we can’t stay connected to them. Their noses and ears take in so much more information than we can, their senses are being bombarded with information when they walk, it takes a lot of concentration for them to handle all of that and keep track of us. So be patient and know your progress will eb and flow. Know some periods of their life will be harder than others. Stay at it, keep working on staying connected!