AK9

09/04/2026

Medicating as a replacement for training

Something remarkable happened last week.

A local vet reached out to me asking to evaluate one of their client dogs. Due to certain training issues, the owner had chosen to keep their pet on anti-anxiety medications. This vet raised concern that medications were not a viable training strategy.

To say that I was pleasantly surprised is an understatement.

It is so, so common for vets to recommend medications as a replacement for training that I have already gotten used to the idea of segregation within the pet industry. Vets do their own thing, trainers do their own thing, and it is best that their worlds never collide. Collision tends to cause disagreements and conflicts.

In fact, my earlier post argued that vets should not make training recommendations, because unless they actually train dogs, they have no clue what they are talking about. This time was different, though, and I was genuinely impressed by someone's ability to recognize where the scope of their expertise ends and to refer a struggling owner elsewhere.

Why did medications become a stand-in for training? Good question. My best guess is that it is a by-product of a force-free cult, a group of people who believe in "ethical" training. This "ethics" follows human standards while often dismissing what it means for a dog.

As a consequence, many dogs fall through the cracks and are deemed untrainable. Once that happens, these dogs are often referred to vets who put them on perpetual medication. An absolute majority of these vets believe they are doing a kind and good thing. This is, of course, very questionable. At its core, the dilemma is this: show the dog that there are consequences for its actions, or avoid showing these consequences and cloud the dog's mind with medication so that it no longer knows what being a dog is. Put that way, the right answer seems simple. Apparently, it is not.

This is a very sad pattern to see. Some people question the medications route and come to me asking for advice. Many, however, are content to keep things as they are.

Seeing that at least one vet in the London area has the courage to do what is actually right felt like a breath of fresh air. There may be others. There is still hope that one day the worlds of veterinary medicine and dog training can actually intersect, and that something good may yet come out once that happens.

For anyone wondering who that vet was, feel free to ask in the comments. If I post it here, I am sure there will be attackers blaming me for making paid shoutouts :)

09/01/2026

Romanticizing dogs and kids

A house, a couple of kids, and a dog, all playing joyfully in a backyard. The ultimate life goal, the dream, the manifestation of happiness.

You have seen it a million times, right? In TV commercials, in movies and shows, in cartoons, in YouTube videos. Every fathomable and unfathomable form of media has tried to tap into this idyllic image of a family.

Here is what is wrong with it. Not that it is impossible, but that it plants fallacious seeds in people's heads. Seeds that grow into a full-blown delusion about the work with the dog and the kids that must happen behind the scenes; work that is never featured in those channels - suggesting instead that these things simply happen naturally.

They do not.

First, a reality check: many dogs do not like children. Children behave differently, talk differently, move differently. They lack impulse control, do not possess good judgment of a situation, and can easily, although often unintentionally, hurt a dog.

The problem with dog owners who believe in the dog-kids-house framework is that they tend to romanticize dog-children relationships, believing that a dog will be naturally gentle around their kids and able to assess a situation where a child does something unpleasant to it while still exercising calmness in response.

Dogs do not do that. They are animals, and no matter how gentle they might be, they will discipline anyone who behaves unfairly toward them, especially someone on the same hierarchical level as they are.

This discipline will often look like a growl and a snap, and sometimes, if a situation is left unaddressed for long enough, a dog will bite.

Most often, I meet people after their dog has already growled and snapped, and by then they are terrified that their dog is aggressive and are considering rehoming it.

While the concern is valid and understandable, everyone tends to forget how it started: with people believing that a dog will be naturally gentle around kids. A belief shaped by romanticized relationships seen so often on media channels that they come to be mistaken for truth, and then by the logical assumption that something must be fundamentally wrong with the dog because it does not adhere to those images.

What is actually wrong is the expectations.

You cannot expect a dog who was never taught what is allowed and not allowed around children to exercise kid-appropriate judgment. You cannot expect kids, who have not been taught to understand their dog, to be anything but oblivious around it.

Teach the kids. Teach the dog. Most importantly, no matter how well trained the kids and the dog are, never leave them alone together, and always be ready to intervene.

And let go of the romanticized fantasy. It was created for monetary purposes, not because it holds a grain of truth.

08/30/2026

!!Last Tracking class of the season announcement!!

Spots left: 5

📅 September 10 – October 15 | Thursdays, 6–7pm
📍 Near St. Peter's Seminary, London ON
💰 $250
🔗 Registration link in the comments

Cool facts about tracking:
- Tracking is an activity that uses your dog's most powerful natural tool — their nose. It channels what already is there into a handy skill
- Tracking is amazing for anxious, reactive, or high-energy dogs: it is a slow, calming, and deeply satisfying work that builds confidence and demands focus.
- Tracking engages 1/3 of your dog's brain - a CPU dedicated to scent processing. This means, a tracking dog is a tired dog.
- In tracking, we only have one dog on a field at a time. No crowds, no chaos, no stress.
- There are no obedience prerequisites. Knowing "down" helps, but we can teach as we go.

08/30/2026

Win or lose - but do it with style 💪

Please welcome our ninth competitor at CWDF Tracking FH Nationals Championship 🐾🐾

Ala Krivov with Orca von der Leidenschaft ❗️
( FH1 )

08/25/2026

The importance of relaxed hands

One of the observations my clients are often perplexed by is why a dog instantly behaves better when I take its leash. What kind of voodoo magic do I possess to make this shift happen so suddenly, and why are they not able to take the leash back and achieve the same result?
The answer is super simple: clarity in communication.

This communication is not purely verbal. It does matter what intonation, duration, and frequency are used to give the command; but it matters much more what you do with your whole body in general, and with the hands that are holding the leash in particular.

Are you clenching it and tugging on it? Most people do.

Are you tensing up in your shoulders in anticipation of lunging? Most people do.

Are you repeating your “sit” seventeen times in a row? Most people do.

Are you feeling helpless and backing off when the dog decides to brush the command off? Most people do.

The core reason for these communication problems is that people believe they cannot relax until the dog is reliable enough to allow for that.

It would have made sense, except for one little thing: the dog will not let you relax if it does not see what your relaxing looks like.

That is, all the dog sees is tension in your body, panic in your verbal expressions, hecticness in your reward events, and, quite often, lack of consequences for unwanted behaviour.

In a dog's eyes, that becomes the default picture of you.

Therefore, it is absolutely unclear to a poor dog why you are always unhappy about something.

When I take the leash, I hold it in a way the dog barely notices. My shoulders and hands are relaxed. My pace is confident and brisk — typical for myself. My voice is calm, and my commands are only given once.

I give the dog a chance to perform the command and help only if appropriate. I am genuine and exuberant with my praise and reward. I am neutral and emotionless with the punishment event.

I make things easy for the dog to understand, and I always show the dog a picture of me — standing tall, moving confidently, talking sparingly, rewarding heartily — which I want it to understand as the default.

This understanding, in turn, leads to the realization that if, for some reason, I have to change something about how my body moves or is positioned in space, it means that the dog needs to adjust — either move slower, sit down, or run — so that I can return to my normal self.

This clear picture of what your relaxing looks like — the ultimate goal — is what the dog needs to see.

And this needs to happen BEFORE the dog is “trained.”

In fact, it needs to happen before the training even starts.

Because any training begins with the realization of the end goal, which, ultimately, is you being happy and relaxed when being with your dog.

08/19/2026

*Upcoming class: BITEWORK!*

(1 Spot left)

When: August 31st (6 weeks)
Where: Ilderton
Price: $250

This class will focus on developing prey and defence drive to help build a confident, engaged dog for dog sports, personal protection, or just for fun!

The class is suitable for:

- Dogs who love playing with toys
- Dogs who are wary of strangers and need help learning when to switch that behaviour off
- Dogs who love chasing things
- Dogs who could benefit from building confidence through play

Prerequisites:

- Solid obedience: heel, down, come, and drop it
- A handler committed to learning how to play and continuing that work at home

Not sure if your dog is a good fit? Feel free to reach out.

To register: PM, email, or enroll online (link in the comments).

08/18/2026

*Upcoming Group Obedience class!*

Spots left: 3

When: August 31 (six weeks), 6-7pm

Where: Ilderton

Cost: $250

Appropriate for:
- Dogs and fully vaccinated puppies
- Anxious and fearful dogs
- Reactive dogs
- Dogs with selective hearing

We teach YOU how to train your dog. Skills covered:
- Recall
- Heeling
- Positions and stays
- Play

To register: PM, email at [email protected], or follow the website link (in the comments)

08/18/2026

And that’s a wrap-up for our July-August class!

We had a very diverse group of dogs and, as always, have thoroughly enjoyed every minute of our time together.

Some of them will continue building on the obedience foundation and train for higher levels. Others will continue practicing what they have learned. Regardless of the plans, we are happy to see so much progress in as little as 6 weeks.

Next class starts August 31st, the announcement will be posted this afternoon. Stay tuned!

08/06/2026

Thresholds

Despite the fact that there are as many training approaches as there are dog trainers, when it comes to thresholds, there are only two camps: the ones who use thresholds as an excuse to keep their dog in a state of perpetual fragility, and the ones who do not believe that a healthy and resilient creature, which most canines are, has to have one.

The idea of a "threshold" is an elegant metaphor that represents the lack of capacity of a dog to process certain stressful events. The word itself originates from an Old English word "prescold" which means "entry point," which basically referred to a piece of wood one steps over when entering. When used metaphorically and in dog training, it implies that every dog has this point at which they start struggling to "cross" and move on.

While it is true to some extent — after all, the human world is full of things that a young and inexperienced dog might find scary — there is little value to working "below" those thresholds in hopes that one day (a day which may never come) the threshold will be pushed further and then eventually disappear. Because, if a dog is not taught how to cope with a briefly stressful event, it will find other "thresholds" to be anxious about.

I am not sure how this obsession with a dog's psychological comfort overrode common sense, but I very often see owners who patiently wait for their dog to unfreeze and move forward because a particularly scary butterfly was getting close to it. Owners who do not punish barking and lunging because they believe that this behaviour is their fault for not keeping the dog under "threshold." I have even had people reach out specifically asking whether there will be an opportunity to step out of a group class in case they feel the dog is getting too close to this imagined "threshold."

I call bu****it on it.

Abiding by the idea of keeping a dog under a threshold is stressful, complicated, ineffective, and, ultimately, abusive. Do you want to enjoy a life with your dog, or do you want a lifestyle that revolves around catering to your dog's perceived "special needs" — and, in doing so, stripping your dog of the very freedoms that come with the absence of those "thresholds"?

If you want the freedom to go places with your dog, start acting like it. Do not indulge fears. Help the dog move through the things it perceives as scary, instead of freezing, turning around, and trying "another time" or choosing different routes.

What does that look like in practice?

Remain emotionally neutral when a dog shows discomfort. Example: a dog is hesitant to walk past strangers. The closer you get, the more nervous the dog acts. At some point, the dog starts backing up, trying to get out of its collar, throwing a fit — you got too close to what the dog perceives as dangerous, or, as threshold advocates will claim, you pushed beyond its "threshold." You have two options: a) Emotionally engage — try to calm the dog with your words and touch, then remove both of you from the situation by increasing distance. Or b) Remain emotionally neutral, wait for the dog to be done with its fit, and move on without acknowledging it with so much as a raised eyebrow.

To speed things along, you can even — o horror! — punish the reaction itself: take hold of the collar, apply pressure, and tell the dog to knock it off.

What happens to the "threshold" then? It ceases to exist. Your dog won't suddenly love strangers, but it will absolutely stop acting like an idiot when strangers approach. You will not traumatize your dog. It will not hate strangers more. It will not hold a grudge. There will be no suppressed emotions, no hypothetical fallout — none of the imagined consequences perpetuated by people who have tremendous compassion for animals but have never actually trained one.

What you will do is teach your dog something about resilience, coping with stress, and confidence. And you will learn something about "thresholds" too. That is, they exist only insofar as you insist they have to.

08/05/2026

Corners - first time!

There are three different dogs in these video, who have completely different breed make-up and backgrounds. The only commonality is that they are canines. That and the fact that dogs’ - all dogs’ - sense of smell is a superpower that never ceases to amaze.

Next (and last for the season) tracking class will start in late August - stay tuned for the announcement.