Second Chance Dog Training

10/18/2026

Flirt Poles are a great way to help build drive in your dog while giving them an outlet for their natural urge to chase. As a tracking pup in training, I want Bucky to have high drive.
He’s a working line GSD so naturally he will, but this helps.

During this exercise I also practice the “Aus” (Drop it) command - which is what the treat trade was for in the video. It helps teach your dog to take a moment to calm down during times of high arousal/excitement which is a great skill for any dog to have. While drive building is important, it’s equally important for your dog to be able to bring it down a notch when you need him to.

10/12/2026

As with most skills, there are multiple ways to teach this. Marllow tends to learn best through shaping and thinking things through. Let us know what works for you!

dog

10/05/2026

The hand lure is faded out now. He’s got the verbal cue down. Every now and then he needs a little reminder but hey, my boy is 15 weeks old. He’s growing and learning more and more every day. Our next steps have been working on this in other locations like Home Depot, Michaels, outside parks (not dog parks) and anywhere else with distractions. We even did it in my kitchen with the blender running so he gets used to focusing on me even with loud noises in the background.

As I mentioned last video, his movements are a tiny bit slow, but I’m not training for speed right now. Thanks to everyone who has continued following Bucky’s training journey!

09/27/2026

This video shows our next progression: Adding the Cue. Stay tuned for Part 3, the complete removal of the hand lure.
I practice this in small sessions, 2-3x a day for about 10 minutes. It only took Bucky a couple sessions to get to this point. You’ll see in the next video where his progression has gotten to, but we still practice as much as we can and in different environments. Every dog learns at a different pace, and that’s completely okay. Move at your dogs pace, and remember that dog training is NOT linear. Keep training 🙂

Note: As he gets older, he’ll get faster and it’ll look more like a spin instead of him just moving himself into the front position. But for now, I’m not too worried about speed. He’s still a baby and he’s got lots of time to improve

09/22/2026

My original video is with my older Shepherd, Marllow. This one’s with my 13 week old Shepherd, Bucky. Check back for his progress! (Part 1 of 3)

09/19/2026

This one is one of my favorite things to teach. It’s so much fun when your dog starts to put the pieces together. I hope you guys enjoy this as much as I do!

09/17/2026

Hi everyone! I have a new tutorial coming soon - not puppy related this time to break it up a bit!

In the meantime, I just hit 60k followers (woot woot! Thank you all SO much!) and I’m hoping to spread Bucky’s mini commercial around a bit. If everyone could give this one specific reel one view or one share, I’d greatly appreciate it! 🙂 thank you so much!

09/16/2026

09/16/2026

At this stage I’m still practicing hand luring with him to build up his body movement and muscle memory of him walking next to me while looking at me. Eventually I’ll have to fade out the hand lure altogether, but since he knows “touch” as a hand target and he’s good at it, this is how I decided build up that muscle memory. Heeling is a process - I don’t expect him as a puppy to really start heeling until he’s older but it’s good to practice the movement now to build that foundation.

I don’t expect a lot of focus on me since he’s still so young, but he’s definitely surprising me with how much he does give me eye contact during this stage. He’s also staying next to me without a hand lure so I’m very happy with that!

I practice this with him about 2-3 times a day for about 10 minutes.

09/16/2026

Tracker Lauren and K9 pup-in-training Bucky at Chance Dog Training

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