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A Better Dog

Personalized, one-on-one dog training designed to strengthen the bond between you and your dog. Free follow-up support included
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We help solve behavior challenges like anxiety, aggression, leash pulling, and more with in-home, walking, or virtual sessions. ABD seeks to improve relationships between dogs and their owners through focused, attentive training sessions to address a variety of issues including pulling, lunging, jumping up, resource guarding and aggression.

06/23/2026

A little longevity hack for your dog…..

This is a picture of our setup when we take our two dogs out and about.

Using the ramp/stairs has its advantages.

- No more poorly timed jumps that send the dog crashing into your vehicle or back to the ground.
- No more hard impacts to the dogs’ joints from jumping out of the vehicle onto the pavement.
-No more having to lift your dog in or out of the vehicle.

If you are considering using a set up like ours and have any questions about our experiences with either the stairs or the ramp do not hesitate to reach out. If you would like help in teaching your dog how to use either of these please let us know. We would be happy to help.

06/16/2026

Each dog has their own personality. Our 9 year old working line GSD Emma is fine just knowing where everyone is. She only cares about putting herself in a position to keep an eye on us. Then, there is Jango. Our 5-ish Dobie/Shep/Hound rescue that cannot get close enough to you. We would not have it any other way. Anyone else have these “personal space” issues? 😬

Sometimes you find a great dog and sometimes it finds you 🥰

06/09/2026

Tommy is a 1 %. His mom first messaged us saying…”We have a very well behaved dog until…”.

Now we hear a variation of this description weekly. In Tommy’s case, he has a great dislike of anyone coming up to his home especially when he is in on the deck which overlooks the street.

Something we do with almost every appointment is control the initial greeting. We do this by either having the dog in their crate, on a leash, behind a gate or some other accommodation that limits the dogs’ ability to directly engage. Why does this matter? The initially greeting (introducing a new stimulus) comes with a lot of stress or excitement which magnifies any underlying issues the dog is having. By controlling those first few minutes we get our relationship with the dog off to a better start. In Tommy’s case it was a couple of leash corrections followed by a couple rounds of controlled greetings and then the leash came off. With Tommy in a lower state of arousal his 1% side never showed itself. We did not leave the initial greeting up to him to figure out.

We identified a couple contributing factors to his previously poor behavior. First, when his humans are gone Tommy is left out in the home. As you can see Tommy has a favorite spot on the couch where he “scrolls” all day for targets of opportunity. The owners often come home to find the couch cover pushed back from Tommy frantically scratching at it when he sees something to get worked up about (introduction of a new stimulus). Second, Tommy is outside by himself with a view of the street. Both of these circumstances allow Tommy to do what he sees fit which is to become overly reactive to anyone near his house. When the person or dog he’s reacting to continues past the house Tommy takes that as a win which only helps to reinforce his behavior choices.

To address this we recommended two things. Keeping a closer eye on Tommy when he’s outside, but more importantly crating him when he is home by himself. This would eliminate the opportunity for him to continue to pattern his overreactive responses as normal. Since Tommy was making bad choices we had to reduce his options. Mom was the first to say that she did not feel super great about crating him but was willing to give it a try. I explained that often dogs like Tommy are overwhelmed by the freedom they are given and the crate may actually allow him to not feel the need to be so vigilant.

Follow up:

Over the next couple of days I received updates with pictures of Tommy in his crate. Here are a couple of those messages.

“I did it! It hurt my feelings at first but he seems quite comfortable.” (crate day 1)

“This is a cute one. He is hugging his sock monkey.”

If you have a dog that makes poor choices when you’re not around consider limiting their options. You both may be better for it.

06/08/2026

Another child safety consideration….

A couple of weeks ago we discussed child safety in the context of dog walking. Todays post is going to focus around another frequent source of child / dog conflict; a dogs’ meal time.

We have parents contact us regularly after their dog has reacted negatively towards a child during meal time. Sometimes its about growling and lunging and other times it’s much worse.

We advise ALL of our clients that a dogs’ meal time should be completely free of any human interaction. If you pet the dog while it’s eating, put your hand in their dish or even take the food away mid-meal you may think you’re helping to ensure the dog does not guard their food. What can happen is quite the opposite. These practices often cause the dog more stress around a high value item (food) leading to them making poor choices towards their human.

Two things to note…

1) As an adult YOU may be able to do all of those things without penalty but your child may not and because they tend to follow more of what they see from us than what we say to them you can see why a “no interaction” feeding policy is the best practice for all.
2) What your “normal” is at home with your dog can easily give your child the belief that all dogs will react as your dog does. Maybe your dog is ok with being petted while they eat or having you and your kids put their hands in their dish while eating but I can assure you that not every dog will be so forgiving.

For us summer break has officially started 🤦🏻‍♂️. For kids, this means more time for travel and hanging out with friends. This also means that your child will be around dogs that are new to them or dogs they do not interact with often.

Set them up to be safe around all dogs by teaching them to not interact with any dog while it’s eating.

06/06/2026

I was in the middle of a DIY project in the garage yesterday when I saw our dogs Emma and Jango, in the doorway. I was pleased to see they did not come into the garage without permission but I had could not shake the feeling that Emma was judging me either for the quality of my work or the repetitive use of foul language 🤦🏻‍♂️. Anyone else ever feel their dog is judging them? Animal Rescue Project Zhang Animal Rescue Center

06/02/2026

Sometimes you have to adapt….

Being an in-home dog trainer means working in a variety of different environments. Helping our clients get the most out of their dog and their relationship is the goal. Not every client wants or needs the same things.

Sometimes there are unique situations that we have to adapt to. For example, working with a client who resided in an assisted living facility (posted May 19th) or helping a client navigate living with two high energy dogs after losing a leg in a motorcycle accident.

In the case of this 6 pound, 8 year old dynamo (name withheld for privacy) it was helping the family to improve the daily interactions between the dog and a their special needs (SN) son.

This toy poodle had been with the family for about three months after being rescued from a hoarding situation. In that time she had already started to guard her mom and bark and growl whenever the SN son was around. This ramped up the stress level for all involved.

As a trainer, working with a dog in the home environment affords me the chance to see the dog how it truly is and in this dogs’ case it was very nervous/anxious.

We spent time talking with the entire family about how the dog processes both verbal and nonverbal interactions from each family member (because the dogs’ reactions can vary from person to person). We specifically addressed the dogs’ relationship with mom to eliminate the guarding behavior that they have been dealing with.

We practiced how the family can best handle the dogs’ poor choices around their SN son. This included a food/treat based protocol that the SN son used to start the process of redefining his relationship with the dog.

Progress with dogs in sometimes slow and that will be the case here but this family is up to the task. Fortunately they reached out early which increases the chances for a favorable outcome.

05/21/2026

The following is an email from a client after only having a brief phone consultation.

Hugh Thanks from Olive.

Phil, your advice made all the difference! Unfortunately, we weren’t able to record a video, but we did train her on the step inside and outside the house. Then we used the horizontal leash method—and roast beef, which she never had before and only got during car training.

Please feel free to use the following review…

Phil from A Better Dog was so helpful to us in getting our rescue puppy Olive house trained. His method was different from anything we had heard of before, and it worked.

Two years later, 55 pound Olive refused to get into the car, no matter what we tried—for months. We were desperate to board her, so we could go to our granddaughter’s graduation in Orlando. Again, Phil came to the rescue.

We worked with Olive for a few weeks, following Phil’s advice. Eventually Olive very reluctantly got into the car in time for our trip. Two weeks later, she started getting into the car by herself. Now, we can take her for walks in the park and get her to her vet appointments.

I don’t know what we would have done without Phil and A Better Dog. We highly recommend them! —Susan Wilkinson, Jackson, MI

05/20/2026

Let’s talk about child safety…..

As some of you may know our GSD Emma and I have done safety presentations for the last couple of years to Elementary school children. During this sessions we hear about negative encounters the children have had with a dog that often results in injury. These are almost always the result of an issue with the family dog. I also learned something that genuinely surprised me. A number of these small children had negative encounters with other dogs (outside their own home) while they were out walking their own dog or puppy BY THEMSELVES. I’d like to share a recent personal experience as to why letting your child walk their dog by themselves might not be the best idea.

Last week my two dogs and I were attacked by a large breed (deliberately vague) off-leash dog where I sustained a bite injury and one of our dogs received a minor injury.

Before you send your child(ren) out to walk the family dog or puppy please consider….

*We have little to NO control of the environment we walk our dogs in.

*The dog that is out walking with that child may serve as a target for any reactive or aggressive dog they may pass by.

*A child is going to be less situationally aware than an adult and may not recognize a dangerous situation before its too late.

*A child will serve as less of a physical deterrent to a reactive or aggressive dog than an adult might.

Please realize that the dog that attacked us was fully intent on taking on an adult human with two dogs. How do you think a small child would have faired?

Experiencing a dog attack can have life long physical and emotional consequences for both human and dog alike. Please think carefully before putting either of yours in a situation they are not prepared to handle.

05/19/2026

There is a first time for everything…..

We were recently contacted to assist a client residing in a senior living facility. Their dogs’ overly excited behavior had led to the staff getting scratched often while providing care to the owner. Additionally, the staff would occasionally have to be “hands on” to assist the owner in a variety of situations which was made more difficult by the dogs propensity to guard the owner.

The staff was already doing a great job walking the dog multiple times a day to assist the owner but the dog was starting to wear out her welcome.

Did I mention the dog in question was a 69 lb Dogo Argentino named Pinky.

To best address the issues at hand, we coordinated with the facility to schedule two separate visits so we could see the dog interact with a variety of staff members on different shifts. Luckily Pinky is a sweet, slightly cautious girl at heart so that made working with her that much easier.

We discussed and demonstrated best verbal and non-verbal communication practices to give clear yes/no responses to Pinky’s behavior choices. We also discussed the times when using a food reward or the leash would be the best option.

I am told things with Pinky are much improved. We feel very fortunate to be able to help in such a unique situation.

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Centre Avenue
Portage, MI

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+12697200722

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