10/02/2026
THIS is what we mean when we say training in the real world. 👏🏼
Apologies in advance for how far we are from the camera- working out the kinks with our new tripod 🤣
We’re at a park with lawn mowers, people walking, children running and screaming, other dogs, vehicles..the distraction list goes on and on.
Obedience in a quiet room is one thing. Being able to communicate with your dog when the chaos around them is another.
Luna 🖤
Luna is working through a lot of fear and today she started out pretty worried about the riding mower.
This is exactly why we build foundational skills in lower distraction environments first and gradually increase the difficulty as the dog becomes more confident and reliable. We aren’t expecting a dog to magically know how to handle every new environment but we give them skills they understand and then teach them how to use those same skills when life gets harder.
Luna did fantastic working through the mower, a child screaming nearby, another dog, and everything else happening around her. Even when she was unsure, she tried her absolute best to stay engaged and focus on what her handler was asking of her.
P r o g r e s s 😄
Paisley ✨
Paisley is a VERY young dog at only about 20 weeks old & a week and a half into her board and train.
We’re taking the foundation she already has started on and beginning to sharpen those skills in higher distraction environments because well…she’s a baby! 😂
Young dogs have short attention spans and the world is incredibly exciting. Teaching Paisley to check in with her handler, stay engaged, and work around distractions now helps build neutrality and lifelong skills her family can use when they want to take her places as she gets older.
You’ll notice items in the field we used for today’s sessions- multiple places board and cones
Place isn’t just something we practice inside the house. Bringing the boards into new environments gives the dog a clear, familiar job when everything around them is unfamiliar or distracting. Over time, we can generalize that skill to benches, mats, patios, vet offices, breweries, parks, or wherever life takes them. The goal is for “place” to mean the same thing regardless of what is happening around the dog.
We used cones to work on leash skills. The cones give us intentional patterns for turns and direction changes rather than simply walking in a straight line. The dog learns to pay attention to where their handler is going, follow changes in movement, adjust their pace, and stay connected instead of dragging the handler from point A to point B.
The more unpredictable our movement becomes, the more the dog learns that paying attention to the person holding the leash actually matters.
Both of these girls did SO well today
training like this isn’t about expecting perfection. It’s about taking the skills we’ve built, adding distractions little by little, helping the dog work through them, and creating something their families can actually use in everyday life.
