Eastside Dog Services

05/26/2026

BIG news: Greta has been 100% breastfed since last Monday and is gain weight! 🎉🥳👏🤱

Now we need to work on bottles 🍼so that I can have surgery and go back to work. So her feeding therapist made some suggestions today about how to do that -
1) change the environment 🌳
2) make it predictable and low key 🦴
3) make it positive 🍗👍

Sounds like dog training work to me! Esp reactive work!!
1) get out of the neighborhood 🏡
2) low key - keep a good distance 📏
3) see a trigger get treat (predictable and positive)
🍗

Other big news - I’m heading back to very limited clients next week and I can’t wait to see some doggies!! Obviously once there’s some bottle progress I’ll be back more more! I’m itching to get back to it! 🐾🐕🦮🐕‍🦺🐩🦴

05/12/2026

Greta’s eating journey continues, and the longer it goes on there are a few things that have become more clear and more parallels to dog training emerge➡️
✴️ she has continued to improve in the necessary skills to eat on her own.
✴️she wants to suck on pacis or fingers or anything really
✴️she will take a bottle, wants to take a bottle when offered.
✴️she’s incredibly inconsistent from 2 min to 15 min, one good day or week and plenty of bad.
✴️she seems uncomfortable within minutes of eating
✴️often needs to be held upright to settle down
✴️gags on everything from pacis, to bottles to nothing at all. It’s heartbreaking and impedes her ability to eat.

All of this is important to note bc it’s not just about practice or skills. Greta has all the skills, and has gotten tons of practice, she CAN feed on her own SOMETIMES.

This is incredibly frustrating, right? 🤨

Sure but I know lots of dogs that preform skills sometimes and we think oh look they can do it! Why don’t they all the time??? The main reasons this happens with dogs I think have an overlap with my daughter too -

1️⃣ Pain & discomfort!! No one does their best work when they are in pain. Greta seems to have painful reflux and that seems to be contributing heavily to her eating challenges, even though she tries and can can do it, if she’s refluxing, she gags way more and can’t latch or eat for very long. Always investigate Pain! Pain doesn’t obvious to change behavior, behavior changes often indicate pain.

2️⃣ environmental factors like distractions & noise. I see this with young dogs a ton, and Greta a bit, if her big sister is going crazy as 2 year olds do, she will struggle more.

05/06/2026

Progress isn’t linear, set backs are part of learning. Emotionally these can be incredibly hard to deal with, confusing and overwhelming but remembering that they are normal can help. What to do? Go back to a step in the process where you and your dog can be successful, kind sounds like start over, and it sorta is BUT it almost always goes faster than the first time. It’s more like reminding & reviewing than starting over. In order for it to be successful reminder you have to start back where you and the learner can be successful together and then progress through the steps again and hopefully past the point that tripped you up! Is that upsetting, sure in ways. But the good news is, you know the steps, and you know how to progress and if done with patience it leads to overall progress! Keep going you got this!

04/30/2026

Toddlers and dogs have pretty similar brains. In fact most dogs are about as smart as a 2 yr old. And my two year old is doing her best to keep my trainer brain sharp while I home on leave! So all these apply to your dogs or kids… but I’m not certified to advise on the two leggers 😉
1) catch them being good and reward it!
Call it out 📣 Give it attention ❤️
If bad behavior gets more attention then good, you’ll get more bad behavior. On the same note, ignore minor/harmless unwanted behaviors. Attention is valuable and behaviors that get attention are likely to be repeated!
2) they need exercise, no behavior training works without proper exercise! A dog or toddler without enough exercise is not fun. Start with exercise. 🚶‍♀️🏃‍♂️🏃‍♀️🏃‍♀️
3) enrichment, mental stimulation is a foundation for any training. It’s not optional. 📚🌳
4) 🛑don’t repeat yourself, it’s frustrating and useless. Only ask for things you are ready to help them execute. They’re not capable of being help accountable, their prefrontal cortex isn’t developed to the level ours is so help them be successful after your first ask and you’ll get better outcomes on your first request soon! ☝️
5) play builds bonds and is an important tool for learning! 🛝⛹️‍♀️Don’t overlook it! For dogs it can teach drop it, impulse control, settle & sharper listening! 👂
6) they are doing their best, we are the caregivers and should be helping them be successful! If they’re struggling we should make environmental changes to help make them successful and build from there.
7) punishment feel good for a minute but they and just reinforcement to the punisher, they’re not effective teaching tools. 📏
8) management is important! The more a behavior is practiced the better it gets! Prevention is best! Use gates, leashes, other enclosures or just distance to help avoid rehearsals of unwanted behaviors. 💃🕺
9) don’t try to get rid natural behavior, for kids silly play for dogs things like digging or chewing come to mind. These are normal and you should provide outlets for them rather then try to get rid of them. 🐾🦴🐕

04/22/2026

Soul dog - Your soul mate in dog form. I’ve also heard people call this heart dog. I remember when I first heard the concept; and thought there was no better description of my connection to my Emilea.
I love all dogs, of course, but this was SO much more. So deep, so easy, so immediate.

When she was happy it lit up my world, when struggled I was anxious even when I wasn’t with her. Traveling without her wasn’t fun it was just an anxiety inducing experience. I had a unique ability to understand her needs and was happy to cater to them. She was my best friend and as soon as I met her I was obsessed, that obsession never ended. Our friendship endured moves and bites and injuries and eventually children! I miss her deeply everyday but I’m grateful that I got to meet my soul dog and spend 15, nearly 16 years with her. I know it’s unlikely that my next dog will be able to fill that role.

I hope you all get to meet & spend a decade or more with your soul dog it’s one of the most profound experiences of my life.

Tell me about your soul dogs ❤️

04/11/2026

Mammals are all wired pretty similarly. And when it comes to eating, if we are calm, feel safe and healthy we like to eat. When dogs (or babies) won’t eat or aren’t motivated by food there’s always an underlying reason.
1) Ruling out medical issues first is a crucial step, making sure the GI systems are working properly and there’s no pain associated with eating.
2) make sure it’s not scary or poorly associated in some other way
3) eliminate stress - cortisol suppresses our appetite and when we don’t feel safe and calm, we don’t like to eat. or in the case of dogs look into anxiety treatments with a vet.

None of these are mutually exclusive!

So if your dog doesn’t take treats on walks or doesn’t really work for treats, it could be worth looking into the underlying causes.

04/09/2026

It’s been a long road and we have more to do but being home is always making a difference. Endless thanks to anyone that has helped and any support we have gotten. It’s hard to know when I can go back to work due her feeding challenges at this point but although I’m itching to get back to it, I’m grateful to have a supportive community and flexibility of self employment to be able to focus on training this baby to eat without a tube for now. And of course just enjoying our family together finally 🏠❤️

03/30/2026

We are all mammals our brains work in remarkably similar ways. We respond to stress similarly and find it to be a negative experience. Modifying that, requires time, patience, grace and positive reinforcement and most importantly an understanding that the learner, in this case Greta decides what’s reinforcing, what’s stressful and we must work under threshold to see good progress. This is all behavior science and these are things I have told clients and experienced with dogs many times. But to go through it with my baby is emotionally difficult but also I feel uniquely suited for the role.

Tiny steps is all you need Greta, I hope you’re eating and off that tube soon, but until you are we will keep working on it and celebrate every small win and listen to you. Your in charge for now baby Greta.

On going thanks for all the free babysitting for Emme, , (and others)
I’ll make it up to you all! ❤️❤️❤️

02/27/2026

All of these events deserve their own space but I don’t have the capacity for that right now. I just wanted to thank everyone that’s been there for us.

Greta is getting stronger all the time but still has a ways to go before she can come home.

Emilea is missed dearly and truly deserves her own post honoring her amazing life with us but I’m not ready for that yet. My heart is broken.

02/11/2026

Important UPDATE:
We had baby girl Greta joined the world via urgent C-section yesterday. She is nearly 8 weeks early and we will be in the NICU for a while.

Things that could be helpful from y’all right now -

1) Donate for meals/ food $ -
https://mealtrain.com/8lwd51

2) Rochester friends if you have space to host Dans mom in the coming weeks (she lives in Florida and hotels are expensive) please let me know idk if it can work out but gotta start somewhere.

3) tell my husband how awesome he is for taking care of me and our girls ❤️

Important Update - Baby Greta joined us 2/10 by urgent C-section. We have about month in the NICU ahead of us. We really could use your help! Thanks to anyone that has donated already. I’ll as much as I can❤️