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Featured Class: Puppy Kindergarten
March 26, 2015 by
This is Harley! He is a three month old miniature poodle. A common misconception is that training your dog can only happen after six months. The truth is that dogs are constantly learning from the first moment you adopt them. That is why it is important to start training and socialization at a young age to have a happy and obedient dog in the future. Determined to start off on the right foot (or paw I should say) we started Puppy Kindergarten at Puppy Love Training.
The first week of class was a ‘people only’ day where we learned some tips and tricks to keep our puppies healthy, 
happy, and most importantly TIRED! We also had a ‘homework’ assignment to introduce our puppies to the clicker. We were instructed to click and treat at least 10 times in a short period (two minutes) to have the dog associate the clicker with a positive reward. The clicker is used a marker that lets the dog know that it has done something correct. Your voice can be inconsistent and change depending on your mood, the words you use, the inflection, etc. The clicker is consistent every single time.
The second week was the first time we brought our puppies to class. It was very exciting to get to meet the puppies we had heard so much about during the first session. The first behavior we learned was ‘attention’. You reward your dog for looking at your face. While this might seem very simple it is an important foundation for other behaviors and obedience. If your dog is paying attention anything besides you (another dog, squirrel, child, etc.), how can you expect the dog to obey a command? By rewarding your dog when (s)he focuses on you, you are also making the obedience class more effective by helping your dog to concentrate during class.
At the end of class the puppies were allowed to socialize with each other in a controlled manner. There are many different sized dogs in the class as well as different personality types. Having the introductions be controlled was important to avoid fights and boost the confidence level of insecure dogs. We look forward to class every Wednesday to visit our new friends (on both four legs and two) and to see what we will be learning next! For more information about Puppy Kindergarten click here!
Training Dogs and their People!
September 24, 2014 by
Over two years ago, I took my miniature poodle, Harley, for puppy kindergarten at Puppy Love Training. Dr. Kay Stephens is a veterinarian who worked full time in private practice until deciding to devote her time to dog behavior and training. The puppy kindergarten class was filled with socialization, basic obedience, and tips to solve behavioral problems. Kay noticed that I was very interested in dog training and got me involved by training her puppies during class, improving my skills as a trainer. I am now teaching an Intro Agility class, private obedience lessons, as well as substituting for Kay in her puppy kinder classes.
Harley’s First Day at Puppy Kindergarten
One of the most important lessons that Kay taught me was in order to be a great dog trainer you not only had to be able to teach dogs, but their people too! When you are teaching classes, you get to spend time with the handler and dog for one hour a week usually. In order for a dog to really learn something, they should be practicing those behaviors every day. To do this, we have to teach the training skills to the handlers so that they can be successful at home.
At Puppy Love we use positive reinforcement to train dogs, and specifically use a clicker. A clicker is a fast, effective way to communicate to your dog that the behavior was correct. One difficulty that people encounter is bad timing. We want to capture the moment in which the dog is performing the correct behavior—almost like taking a picture. Sometimes we can click too early or too late and miss the behavior entirely. Using positive reinforcement means that nothing bad will happen to your dog due to poor timing, although they may become confused! We try to help our handlers improve their timing so that they are capturing the great behaviors of their dog.
Harley (middle) and Duke (right) practicing their sit-stay while the other puppies play
One of the hardest parts while training is breaking down behaviors into small pieces, or approximations of the goal behavior. Let’s apply this to a down stay. Your goal is to have your dog stay down for 1 minute. You can’t go from asking the dog to stay for 10 seconds to the entire minute. Chances are that you are not going to be successful, and the dog will get up. Increasing the time in smaller increments (3-5 seconds) will make your training sessions more effective and actually improve the behavior faster.
You don’t have to be a professional to have fun with your dog; training in short, five minute sessions a couple of times a day will work wonders! So get out there and train your dog!
Harley doing the weaves!
Featured Classes
February 16, 2012 by
Puppy Kindergarten
We specialize in Puppy Kindergarten classes where puppies from 9 weeks to 6 months of age learn to be well behaved members of the household. Early training is the single most important factor in your dog becoming a good companion.
Basic Obedience
We teach Basic Obedience Classes for dogs 6 months and older with the emphasis on every day household obedience exercises. We believe you really can teach an “old” dog new tricks, and that it is never too late to make your dog a better companion.
Agility
Agility classes are a great way to exercise your dog, build up your dog’s confidence, and for you and your dog to just plain have fun. We offer introductory classes that any dog of any age can enjoy as well as more advanced classes for those interested in competition.
Why?
November 8, 2011 by
People often ask me why a veterinarian would become involved in dog training.
I practiced veterinary medicine full time for years and trained my own dogs as my hobby. As I became more serious about training my dogs, I studied and learned more and more about animal behavior, learning theory, and science based behavior modification.
What I learned both excited and depressed me. It was exciting to study the elegant and precise methods available to train animals. It was depressing because I saw the local “training classes” using rough and ineffective methods and then blaming the dogs when those methods failed.
As a veterinarian, I would see those dogs come into the veterinary clinic either out of control or slinking around in fear. The owners were angry and frustrated because they had “tried everything”, and the dogs were still misbehaving.
I finally decided that someone had to help these people and these dogs. So, in 1992 , we started Puppy Love training. In those days, we were really considered radical because almost no one in this area was using positive reinforcement or clicker training. But the methods worked and dogs learned how to behave, and people learned how to communicate with and train their own dogs.
Now, nearly 20 year and thousands of dogs later, I still get a thrill out of helping someone learn to communicate with their dog. I love seeing the “lightbulb” moment when the dog understands what we are telling him.
Today, there are quite a few trainers in town, many of whom learned to train here at Puppy Love. I think that is great. The more people we can educate about the science of animal training and the more people we can get to use positive reinforcement, the better for the dogs.
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