Dog Talk Training MN

10/16/2026

Lil' Miss loves her walks at the cabin. In the last couple of years we've been walking her on a long line trying to avoid her accessing skunks. She only needs it to prevent a skunk encounter. We unclip the leash on the way back because she's like a little homing pigeon and makes a beeline for the cabin. She has never once run off on our walks because running to the cabin door is always reinforced. Could you trust your dog in a 10,000 acre forest?

09/23/2026

Yes!! And, they don't learn from punishment; all that does is suppress the behavior not change it!

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/18CfcNnuhL/

❤️𝔻𝕠𝕘𝕤 𝕒𝕣𝕖 𝕤𝕖𝕟𝕥𝕚𝕖𝕟𝕥 𝕓𝕖𝕚𝕟𝕘𝕤.

🤔That shouldn’t be a controversial statement, but recognising what it actually means should fundamentally change the way we live with, care for and train them.

➡️Sentience means dogs don’t simply respond to the world like biological machines.

✅They have subjective experiences.

✅They can experience pleasure, excitement and comfort, but also fear, frustration, distress and pain.

✅Their emotional state matters to them.

💯And that has enormous implications for dog training.

↘️When a dog growls, freezes, hides, barks, lunges or tries to escape, we shouldn’t only be asking:

“How do I stop this behaviour?”

We should also be asking:

“What is this dog experiencing that is causing this behaviour?”

⚠️Because behaviour is information.

🐾A frightened dog isn’t giving you a hard time.

🐾A frustrated dog isn’t deliberately being difficult.

🐾A dog who growls isn’t being disrespectful.

🐾A dog who cannot cope isn’t being stubborn.

🙌That doesn’t mean we simply allow every behaviour. Of course dogs need boundaries, guidance and skills that allow them to live safely in a human world.

💯But how we teach those skills matters.💯

If we ALL accept (including balanced trainers) that dogs can experience fear, pain, distress and anxiety, then deliberately using those experiences to change behaviour deserves serious ethical consideration , particularly when we have humane, evidence-based alternatives available.

✅Good training shouldn’t simply produce obedience.

🩵It should consider the emotional state of the dog while learning is taking place.

Sometimes the most important question isn’t:↘️

“Did the behaviour stop?”

It’s:↘️

“How does the dog feel now?”

⛔️Because welfare cannot be separate from training.

𝐈𝐭 𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐛𝐞 𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐜𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐢𝐭. 🐾

09/10/2026

Can I get an amen!!!

Chasing turns a stolen sock into the best game in the house, and he wins that game every time because he is faster than you.

Trading costs you a scrap of cheese and buys you a dog who carries things toward you instead of under the bed.

Practice on boring objects while nothing is at stake. That is the only reason it will be there on the day he picks up something that could actually hurt him.

What has yours run off with that turned into a chase?

09/10/2026

Thank you Doggone Safe!

https://www.facebook.com/share/19GsEyGnNA/

You have probably been told that if you let your dog "get away with it," things will get worse.

That they need to know it's not acceptable. That you have to interrupt it. That you have to be firm, be consistent, be the one in charge.

And here is the part that gets missed entirely: the barking, the lunging, the growling, none of that is the problem. It is the communication about the problem.

Your dog is telling you they do not feel safe.

Punishment does not touch that feeling. It never has. What it does is teach your dog that showing you how they feel comes at a cost.

When the growl disappears, the warning disappears.

The dog look calmer.

But the fear is still sitting exactly where it was, with one fewer way to reach you.

We see this in the research, and we see it in practice every single week. Confrontational approaches are consistently associated with increased fear and aggressive responses, not fewer.

A dog who has stopped telling you is not a dog who has stopped feeling.

Safety is not something we can enforce. It gets built, slowly, through predictability, through choice, through recovery time, through a guardian who notices what their dog is asking for and answers.

That takes longer than a correction. It also actually works.

And if you have used those methods before, please hear this: you were following advice from people who sounded certain. That is not the same as being wrong-hearted. You are here now, and your dog gets the benefit of that. ✨

📌 Share this with someone who was told they were being too soft.

08/22/2026

Great post from your dog
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1CAankauif/

There's a reason behaviorists call a growl a gift.

Dogs escalate in steps: a look away, a freeze, a lip lick, a growl, and only then a snap. Every step is a request for distance. Punishing the growl doesn't remove the feeling underneath it, it removes the step, and a dog who learns that growling gets him in trouble may skip straight to the bite.

So when you hear one, don't scold. Notice what he's asking to get away from, give him that space, and ask your vet about the rest.

08/11/2026

Another great post from our friends Doggone Safe!

https://www.facebook.com/share/18czefKKkh/

The Doggone Safe Mission Statement:
✅To promote education initiatives for dog bite prevention and increased child safety around dogs.
✅To provide tools and resources to professional dog trainers, behavior consultants and pet care professionals to support dog bite prevention education.

08/09/2026

Another great post from

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1HHubVYP7N/

Hackles up doesn't automatically mean a fight is coming.

Piloerection, when the hair along a dog's back stands up, gets read as an aggression warning almost every time.

That's not quite right.

Hackles are an arousal signal. Not a verdict.

They mean a dog's nervous system just spiked. Something in the environment caught their attention.

That could be excitement.
Could be uncertainty.
Could be escalating tension.

The hackles alone don't tell you which.

Look at the whole dog. Ear position, tail carriage, mouth tension.

One signal in isolation is a clue, not a conclusion.

Tag someone who needs this body language refresher.

08/07/2026

A great tip from our friends Doggone Safe! You can have your dog eat dinner behind a gate when you and your family is eating.

https://www.facebook.com/share/19GYzLcVC9/

Support dog bite prevention education.