Chromatic K9

04/28/2026

04/20/2026

03/25/2026

Their lives are too short to waste. Go out there and spend time with your best friend before it’s too late

03/17/2026

This food refusal brought to you by and lobster 🦞 (yes she is spoiled-as she should be)

I don’t know how but the universe gave me a hairier version of myself when I brought Frank home. We had a lot of conflict in our early years-and a lot of terrible advice that broke our relationship and her trust in me. Curiously enough, this was happening at the same time that my relationship with myself was just as broken.

I’d like to believe both of those relationships are repaired at this point and so we are now both learning to navigate as ourselves-not our damage. And we are both an infuriating combination of high motivation and strong opinions. Meaning-we both have to fail over and over trying things our way before we will listen truly commit to trying things someone else’s way. But once we commit-we are just as stubborn and relentless doing things the right way as we were to failing doing things in our own way.

I learn these lessons about her over and over-and usually the easiest way to figure out what she’s thinking is to put myself in her shoes and imagine what would work on me.

She’s perfect.

03/08/2026

Not all “bad” behaviors need fixing.

Frankie used to bite people when she thought they were trying to “trick” her into excited behaviors so that her old trainer could light her up on an e collar.

She used to attack my other dogs because they would make her uncomfortable and aggression always worked to create space.

These behaviors were a problem because my dog was in emotional distress and posed a danger to those around her.

These problems have been solved. She hasn’t bitten anyone in years because she learned to trust that I will advocate for her and always be fair (and also that aggression has unpleasant consequences). She has become tolerant almost to a fault with her siblings.

Frankie likes to bark and snarl at people who approach my car because she finds the act of resource guarding the car inherently reinforcing. She thinks spooking people is kind of fun.

When she does, I tell her she’s a good girl (and sometimes to shut up when the person approaching is a friend).

Most pet owners would find this behavior problematic-she’s showing aggression!

Except Frankie isn’t upset. She’s not scared, nor is she confused about when these behaviors are or are not appropriate. And as a woman who spends a lot of time alone in her car-I’m not upset either.
📸

03/06/2026

2 videos of my favorite exercises and one of Frankie’s favorite exercise from our run at .ring.sport Mondioween Trial this past November

Thank you for the videos !

02/23/2026

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Post a review to our profile on Google

02/21/2026

I was teaching a lesson on nail trimming to a clients with a dog who hates paw handling and has been known to get defensive and violent during nail trims in the past. The owners asked me this past week, “what does your nail trimming routine look like with your dogs?” I figured I’d share our routine and my thoughts on teaching handling to the general social media sphere.

My dogs’ nail trimming routine is a perfect example of being clear about choice vs. must.

If given the option between nail trims and a different activity, not a single one of my dogs would chose nail trims.

Eli came to me with some pretty intense aversion to handling. The first time I tried to introduce him to nail trims at 12 weeks old he attacked both me and the Dremel to get the torture to end.

Sonny can be seen here starring at Frankie’s crate because she is already eating her reward and given the choice between stealing her chew or letting me trim his nails I think the choice is obvious.

My approach is simple:
1. I will make myself worthy of your trust and never ask you to tolerate anything actually dangerous.
2. If I am doing something to you, you must hold still and any attempt to flee or fight me will not be effective.
3. You will always get something really great after being asked to tolerate something unpleasant.

Why would I chose this approach over counter conditioning, working on my dogs “opting in,” working “under threshold”, etc.?

1. Time-if my dogs could speak English and I asked them “would you like to spend 20 hours over the next 6 months working on nail trims or would you rather get it over with and use those 20 hours to go hiking or play instead?” I think their choice would be obvious
2. We will eventually find ourselves in a situation in which I need my dogs to tolerate something they dislike that doesn’t make sense to them. Ask anybody with a senior dog, an injured dog, or a chronically ill dog. I want to reduce my dogs’ stress in that situation as much as possible. I need them to trust that if I say something is going to be ok-even if it makes 0 sense to them-it will actually be ok. They learn this through practice-weekly.

02/20/2026

If I could give one piece of advice to every single pet owner reading this-whether your dog is fearful, reactive, or just “naughty”-stop giving your dog false choices.

Let me present you with a scenario:
You are a seven year old child and it’s dinner time. Your mom says “would you like broccoli or a chocolate cake?”
You look at her with disbelief and excitedly say “chocolate cake of course!!”
Chocolate cake for dinner will eventually result in pediatric diabetes so your mom serves you broccoli.
I want you to imagine the absolute meltdown you would have at this point.

Would you have the same emotional response if your mom never gave you the choice and just said “we’re having broccoli?”
Probably not.

The food was the same but the expectation created was not.

We do this to dogs all the time:
We ask them “would you like to get in the crate?” We accept their “no” some of the time. Other times, we’ve got to leave so we shove them in.

We tighten the leash and we ask “would you like to keep moving with me or stay at this spot you’ve been sniffing for a while longer?” We let them sniff on a tight leash most of the time but when their leash tightens in the direction of a dog they’d like to go see and they refuse to move and maybe even vocalize their frustration we call them “stubborn” or “reactive”

We ask “will you please let me trim your nails?” And accept their no. But when the vet has to get some bloodwork done all of a sudden they have to hold still and tolerate restraint for the first time in their lives, we label them “vet aggressive”

The problem isn’t giving your dog choice. It’s also not taking that choice away in situations where there is only one correct answer.

The problem is clarity. Are you asking or are you telling?