Peace Of Mind Dog Training

01/24/2023

01/13/2023

A story of my grandparents I had never even heard until today. Love you Mimi and Papa Steve. I love a good story of shenanigans. 🇸🇪

01/13/2023

This will always crack me up 😂😂😂

12/16/2022

💯

No one is going to help you fix your dog for free, for 2 reasons:

1. We have bills to pay, too. Mouths to feed, overhead, heat and electricity to keep on… you get it.

2. The REAL work that TRULY changes behavior can’t be shown for fear of being “canceled”. Let’s dive further into that….

I post a video of around 2 minutes in length showing a dog overcome her fear of a kiddie pool with bottles in it. She’s on a Fur Saver collar… not a prong or choke, although I’d use those if I needed to. I put TWO SECONDS of light leash pressure on the collar, and spent the other however long in the video throwing treats at her. And still, I received an “angry” reaction and a lot of questions (on shares) about if I could’ve just done this without the pressure.

Why would I let a dog stay in a state of avoidance and stress for 20 minutes? 2 hours? 2 years? When I can add pressure for 2 seconds and get her out of that state almost immediately? I won’t.

Same goes for owners. I will not string you along and make you endure an unbearable, out of control animal for what seems like forever. My training is for dogs and humans alike. BOTH species deserve to learn and be happy and comfortable.

I do use corrections, pressure, and punishment with dogs. If you aren’t cool with that, it’s easy to unfollow or block me. I don’t intend to stop.

But if I showed a prong or ecollar correction on a video on Facebook, that s**t would make its rounds and garner more views than anything I’ve ever posted. I’d get bad reviews on every platform and probably have death threats in my PMs.

Hell, look how many people accused me of abuse and not letting dogs go p*e when I posted about not letting dogs chronically mark. 😂🙄

But do you know how many dogs I’ve saved by utilizing one good, fair, firm correction? I don’t know either because it’s a metric f**k ton. My personal dogs can all be included in that number, by the way.

We trainers would love to show more of the “dirty” work. The s**t that works, the s**t that makes sense to people AND dogs, the s**t that changes lives. I know some trainers who do, and they have serious kahonas. They also don’t tend to work from their home and have their address listed online.

But I see the disgusting feedback they receive and I don’t EVER intend to deal with the same hatred and disgust they deal with, especially for free. And I know I’m not alone on that one.

So, until you actually hire a trainer, please don’t expect to get full answers on stopping behaviors on some Facebook post, because we aren’t here to be hated for $free.99, and not all corrections OR rewards work the same. Dogs are not created equally. Period.

Lorcan being totally neglected, for comedic relief. 🙃

12/11/2022

Ready to play!!

12/11/2022

How do we prevent these tragedies from happening? 💔

12/10/2022

I could get used to this.
It's getting real folks.
It's time to use what Ive been given.
It's time to use what I've studied.
It's time to give back.
It's time to make heads or tails
Of the world ahead.
It's time to pursue.
It's time to learn.
It's time to feel joy.
It's time we ALL felt a little "Peace Of Mind"
It's time for Me.
It's time for Me.
It's time for Me.
To give and receive.
Happy Holidays guys, best gift I could buy for myself, I did. Look forward to you all this season. As always more content and stories of this journey to come. As Will Atherton says, "Love Is Leadership".

12/09/2022

Dogs that come from shelters or "bad situations" are the most most wired to be worked and feel normal. Take a 5 year old for example. I have to be careful when I make comparisons to small children because I think it's the biggest mistake we've made with our dogs, treating them like human children. That being said, a 5 year old needs adequate love and "SAFETY". They also need structure and a foundation of what's acceptable behavior. If they do not act within those guidelines they are given correction, redirection, or are managed so certain behaviors are not an option. Example, your dog chews up your shoes when you leave the house? Crate th dog or remove the shoes. That's management. Now back to the situation of rescues. Ask yourself what a 5 or 6 year old with a physical handicap or a mental shortcoming wants out of life? TO FEEL AS NORMAL AS POSSIBLE. TO BE TREATED LIKE THEY ARE NO DIFFERENT THAN EVERYONE ELSE. THAT THEY ARE CAPABLE. THAT THEIR DISADVANTAGES DO NOT HOLD THEM BACK. This is how you should view your rescues. You gave them shelter, you gave them love, you saved them from their dire situation. Now work them like they were bred for. They were born with instincts to work and have purpose. That purpose, and I say this with love, was not to make you feel like a virtuous dog owner. Quit making excuses for them, they love leadership. Take the reigns and rewrite both of your futures with it. They will thrive off of you.

While I get the attraction of the “rescue” story, the real question should be: is the story helpful to the dog? Will making a dog into a perpetual victim and a perpetual receptacle for pity improve their ability to healthily navigate their world; will it improve your ability to properly lead them?

Has viewing anything or anyone in this light ever been helpful? Of course not. It disables the one being labeled the victim, AND it disables the one doing the labeling.

What if instead of the sad, emotionally appealing story we’ve told ourselves (and others) we tell a story that our dogs are simply who they are and what they are, and are works in progress—regardless what state they’re currently in, and regardless their history…known or guessed.

What if instead of only seeing broken dogs—in need of only love, nurturing, and protecting—we see resilient, strong, and capable dogs? Dogs who could be so much more if only allowed, and if challenged to grow.

Might that simple switch in thinking create a profound impact on their ultimate outcome? You bet.

To be honest, it’s why good dog trainers are consistently able to help dogs with difficult pasts, or difficult genetic deals. While of course they’ll feel for the dogs, they won’t allow their emotions to override the work—the guidance, the rules, the accountability, the appropriate pushing—that needs to be done to actually help. This connected but healthily detached mindset is what so many well-meaning owners struggle with, and why so many of them with messy dogs only end up with dogs who become far messier.

It need not be the case. Not if you’re willing to not fall into the trap of living a story that somehow feeds your desire to nurture that which is broken—and thus requires it to remain in that state. And if you’re willing to let go of the attention that the sad story never fails to elicit.

In more direct language, if you’re telling a sob story about your dog—to yourself or anyone else—true or not, that story isn’t for your dog, it’s for you. And only someone deeply enveloped in delusion or dysfunction would deny the power of the stories we tell to create the realities we, and our dogs live.

What story are you telling?
——
PS, thanks to Be The Boss Dog Training for creating this cool graphic! 🙏

12/06/2022

Think of it like a car. I can help you get your permit and show you how to get your license. You spend the rest of your life learning how to drive. It gets easier, makes more sense, you gain more confidence on the road as time goes on. You learn to anticipate based on patters and behaviors. This is EXACTLY what dog training is.

The fancy sports car, the new computer, the pricey camera, the tricked out mountain bike…

Regardless how much you spent, or how much thought, effort and expertise went into making these and other amazing but complex items a reality—without specific, deep, and well-practiced knowledge about how to actually use them how they were intended, they will remain expensive/cool things with amazing potential…that you are sadly unable to utilize and enjoy.

And thus, it’s the precisely the same with dog training. The very best training in the world means absolutely nothing if you are unable to utilize/implement it due to lack of knowledge.

So what’s an owner to do? Simple. Demand that your trainer trains you at least as rigorously as they have your dog. And if your trainer is unable to provide this most critical aspect of the training process, it’s time to find a trainer who can actually do their job—the entire job.

12/03/2022

Stop!! Just stop dammit 🛑

12/02/2022

You want to give the dog you're working Peace Of Mind and the confidence to be vulnerable in all situations? You have to be ready to take control at all times. This is what leadership looks like and as Will Atherton always says, "Love is leadership".

12/02/2022

Some people think I'm hard on my dog with the expectations and the work that I put it. What they don't always understand is that it allows me to take my dog everywhere and give her even more valuables experiences in life. I trust her and she trusts me. It allows us to go and do as we please. Together. It allows us to work and show people what dogs are capable of. Together. It's allowed me to pursue my dream, and spoil her all along the way. Together.

I get that having a well trained dog is a lot of work. I won’t sit here and try to sell you some easy-breazy fantasy, because it wouldn’t be true. Yep, it’s a bunch of work, and the dog you have and the goals you have determine how much.

But as someone who’s tried “both options” with soft, medium, and very hard dogs, I’m keenly aware of the cost of not doing anything, and also the benefits of diving in. Even with the easy ones, the pain point might be lower, but the freedom and inclusion they won’t get to enjoy—if you honestly look at it—isn’t just hard, it’s sad. And when you get to the harder ones, man, the pain point is extreme (destruction, chaos, danger, stress, etc.), and you also get the lack of freedom and inclusion. So it’s a compounded loss.

I look back at how I lived with my dogs for the first 5 years of their lives and how we lived the next 10 or so, and it breaks my heart. So much unnecessary stress, anxiety, frustration, anger, limitations, and just an extremely poorer quality of life. Instead of enjoying life together, we got through life together. And that’s a monumental difference.

My point is simple. We all know good things require work and sacrifice. And if we’re going to share much of our lives with our dogs, it only seems logical to put in the work (the “hard”) that yields the the least stress, the smallest amounts of anxiety, the largest degrees of safety, the most enjoyment and connection and inclusion and freedom.

Of course it’s your choice either way, but even though doing nothing might seem like the easier “hard” I would posit that that perception is absolutely wrong. It simply means you don’t have to be proactive, only reactive. But it’s a mirage—and one made up by the lazy, rationalizing, excuse-making human mind. Reacting to problems rather than beating them to the punch and heading them off at the pass is always more painful.

We all know it. It just depends how honest we want to be with ourselves, and how much beauty, connection, joy, fun, and freedom we prefer to the other stuff—and the work we’re willing to put in to get it.