The relationship between you and your dog is the foundation upon which all of your training efforts are built.

How we interact with our animals in daily life, as well as the training methods we choose to use, can influence what kind of relationship we have with the animal.

If we choose adversarial training methods, we may find — much to our dismay — that we have curated an adversarial relationship.

If instead, we choose a training method that encourages willing cooperation from our animals, and make training an enjoyable experience for them, that same energy may be reflected in our relationships with them.

I train using methods that foster a healthy, enjoyable relationship with your animals. It’s more fun for us, and more fun for them. If you’re an animal behavior geek like me, you might have heard similar methods referred to with terms like “LIMA (Least-Invasive, Minimally Aversive),” among other phrases.

We only have so much time with the creatures we love. Let’s make the most of it, together.

As much as we often wish it were otherwise, our dogs aren’t born speaking our language, and we aren’t born speaking theirs.

Many natural behaviors that us humans would prefer our animals not do… may be perfectly natural behaviors for the animal, or may even be ways that they communicate.

An example we often run into is growling in dogs — to us, a growl may be startling, scary, or even seem “rude” in our language. In a dog’s language, though, a growl is simply communication. If a dog growls at us, we can choose to take it personally, or we can choose to take it as the valuable source of information that it is.

It is far better for a dog who is uncomfortable to inform us with a growl, than to tolerate a situation until they are uncomfortable enough to react more strongly. If we really pay attention, we can learn to notice what they are telling us with their body language, even without communication as clear as a growl.

We want our animals to trust that when they communicate with us, we will hear them.

If we learn what our dog is telling us in their language, and how best to respond to that communication, we can learn to become much better pet owners and trainers.

Many folks have heard the saying “practice makes perfect.” Perhaps more accurate, would be to say that practice makes habit.

When we would like to stop a behavior, or prevent it from happening in the first place, often, one of the first steps we take is to prevent the behavior from being practiced in the mean-time. We don’t want the pet to strengthen the habit through practice while we’re training them to do something else instead.

If you’ve ever put child-locks on your cupboards while a young child was around… you’ve practiced management!

Anything we put in place to try to prevent mistakes from happening until the better behaviors have been changed is management. Sometimes we might use a baby gate, a leash, or watchful supervision to prevent mistakes, and set our pet up for success. It can make our job — training a different behavior — go a lot more smoothly.

Consistency is important throughout your dog’s life, not just during training sessions when your trainer is in the room. You don’t want a dog who listens to me, you want a dog who listens to you.

I’ve sometimes been known to say that while I am a dog trainer, the majority of my job is actually teaching the humans who live with dogs.

When I work with a client, I teach them how to implement training into their daily life, and how to handle real-life situations with their dogs. Between sessions, clients put what we worked on into practice.

My goal as a trainer isn’t just to teach your dog — it is to teach you how to teach your dog, so that you can have the relationship and lifestyle you want with your dog every day.