Z Dog Training Academy

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Z Dog Training Academy We specialize in reactivity

Dog Training in Simi Valley | Puppies, Family Dogs & Online Programs

Heather Mazahri (ABCDT, ABCSDT) and her team provide professional, science-based dog training in Simi Valley and surrounding communities.

A little puppy chaos is normal… but that doesn’t mean you have to live with the biting, jumping, and nonstop excitement ...
10/20/2026

A little puppy chaos is normal… but that doesn’t mean you have to live with the biting, jumping, and nonstop excitement forever! 😂🐾

Meet Sally! 💜

When Sally’s family first reached out, they were navigating some of those classic puppy challenges — lots of energy, jumping on people, and biting that was becoming difficult to manage.
And while those behaviors are common in young dogs, that doesn’t mean we should just wait for them to grow out of it!

Through training, we focused on helping Sally develop better impulse control, learn more appropriate ways to interact with people, and build the foundational skills she needs to make good choices.

But just as importantly, we made sure her family understood how to continue reinforcing those skills at home.

Because our goal isn’t just to have a dog who listens to the trainer. It’s to help families build the communication, consistency, and understanding that make those skills last. 🐶

We’re so proud of Sally and the progress she made in just a few short weeks! And a huge thank you to Corey and his family for trusting Team Z with their sweet girl. 💜

✨ Dealing with your own little puppy tornado? Send us a DM for our FREE Puppy Workbook, filled with simple exercises to help you start building a strong foundation with your pup!

“Sit” might look simple, but the way we teach it matters. 🐾Instead of pushing a dog into position or repeating the cue o...
10/19/2026

“Sit” might look simple, but the way we teach it matters. 🐾

Instead of pushing a dog into position or repeating the cue over and over, I like to break the behavior down so the dog can clearly understand what earns the reward.

We start by using a lure to guide the movement, mark the exact moment the sit happens, and reward while the dog is still in position. Then, once that pattern is making sense, we begin fading the food lure and adding the verbal cue.

That progression is important because I don’t want the treat to become part of the cue forever. The goal is for your dog to understand the behavior itself — not just follow a snack around. 😉

And one of my favorite reminders in this process is: quality over quantity. A few clean, successful repetitions are far more useful than drilling the same behavior until your dog is bored, frustrated, or checked out.

If you’re teaching “Sit” from scratch, save this guide and work through it one step at a time. Keep your sessions short, make it easy for your dog to succeed, and build from there. 💜

10/18/2026

Pool day = training day 💦🐾

For Wednesday and Rocket, this wasn’t just about playing in the water.

It was a chance to safely explore new textures, sounds, movement, and social experiences — all while building confidence and having fun.

For puppies especially, socialization is about so much more than meeting people and dogs. It’s learning how to experience the world without everything feeling overwhelming.

And just as important as learning how to play?

Learning how to come back down afterward.

We want dogs who can enjoy the excitement, engage appropriately, and then practice settling when the fun is over. That ability to switch off is such an important life skill.

So yes… sometimes training looks like splashing in a pool with a friend. 💜

If you’re interested in our Day Training program and want your dog to have structured opportunities to learn, socialize, and build confidence, send us a DM to learn more!

10/17/2026

Graduation week for Rocket! 🎓🐾💜

When Rocket started our 4-week Puppy Foundations Day Training program, the goal wasn’t to create a “perfect puppy.” It was to give him and his family a strong foundation they can keep building on as he grows.

Over the past few weeks, Rocket has been working on:
🐾 Down on cue
🐾 Loose leash walking
🐾 Place
🐾 Calm, happy handling
🐾 Sitting politely instead of jumping or demanding attention

But the biggest win isn’t just the individual skills. It’s watching him become more thoughtful, more engaged, and better able to understand what’s being asked of him.

Puppy training is about setting up the habits you want before adolescence hits and everything gets a little more exciting. 😅

Rocket still has plenty of growing and learning ahead of him, but he and his family now have a really great place to start.

Congrats, Rocket! We’re so proud of you. 🥹💜

If you have a puppy and want help building these foundations early, send us a DM and let’s talk about training options.

One of the biggest shifts I want people to make in dog training is this:Stop looking only for mistakes. Start noticing t...
10/16/2026

One of the biggest shifts I want people to make in dog training is this:
Stop looking only for mistakes. Start noticing the good choices your dog is already making. 💜🐾

When your dog checks in with you without being asked, pauses instead of rushing through a doorway, disengages from something exciting, or chooses to settle on their own — those moments matter.

That’s your dog practicing decision-making.

Choice-based training doesn’t mean throwing structure out the window and hoping your dog figures everything out. It means creating clear boundaries, setting up situations they’re ready for, and then giving them room to make a good choice within that structure.

And when they do?
Reinforce it.

Because the more often your dog discovers that choosing to engage with you, settle, pause, or disengage leads to something positive, the more likely those behaviors are to show up again.

I don’t just want a dog who responds because I told them what to do.
I want a dog who has learned how to make thoughtful choices even when I’m not micromanaging every move.

That’s where confidence, communication, and trust really start to grow. 🧠✨

Save this one and start watching for the good choices your dog makes today — you might be surprised how many you’ve been missing.

10/15/2026

Puppies are really good at teaching us what works… including the behaviors we didn’t mean to reinforce. 😂🐾

With Rocket, we’re working on demand behavior — the barking, vocalizing, pawing, or otherwise saying, “HEY, I want that!”

The goal isn’t to punish him for communicating. It’s to help him learn a more useful way to get what he wants.

So instead of immediately cueing “quiet,” we can:
Create a reset with “Find It.”
Use movement to break the cycle and give the puppy something productive to do.
Walk away from the demand.

If barking or demanding makes us move closer, give attention, or hand over the food, it can accidentally become the strategy that works.

Mark the moment of quiet. The second Rocket pauses, THAT is information we can reinforce: “Yes! That choice worked.”

And sometimes we also have to look at the reward itself. If the food is creating so much excitement that the puppy can barely think, we may need to adjust what we’re using or how we’re presenting it.

Puppy training is less about stopping every annoying behavior and more about teaching the behavior you’d rather see instead. 💜

Want more simple games you can use to build better communication, trust, and engagement with your puppy?

DM us “PUPPY” and we’ll send you our FREE Puppy Workbook! 🐶📘

10/14/2026

This is what progress actually looks like. 💜🐾

Baylee has been in and out of Day Training with us since June, and at this stage, we’re not just asking, “Does he know Place?”

We’re asking:
Can he still do it when the picture changes?
Can I stand farther away?
Can I sit down?
Can I kneel?
Can I move differently?
Can he stay on Place without relying on constant hand movement or help?

That’s where a learned skill starts becoming a reliable, functional behavior.

Dogs are incredibly good at noticing patterns, which means sometimes they learn the whole picture around a cue — where we’re standing, what our hands are doing, how close we are — instead of fully understanding the behavior itself.

So we change the picture.
Same skill. New context. New repetition.

And watching Baylee work through those changes with more independence is exactly the kind of progress I love to see. 🥹

Training isn’t about getting one perfect rep. It’s about building a dog who can understand and use the skill even when things look a little different.

If you’ve been thinking about Day Training for your dog, reach out to us! We have limited availability remaining for 2026, and we’d love to talk with you about whether our program could be a good fit for you and your dog. 💜

This one hits right in the heart. 💜There was a point during Teddy’s early puppy days when his family genuinely wasn’t su...
10/13/2026

This one hits right in the heart. 💜

There was a point during Teddy’s early puppy days when his family genuinely wasn’t sure if they could keep him. Things felt intense, overwhelming, and very different from the life together they had imagined.

But instead of expecting Teddy to simply “behave,” we focused on helping his family understand him, communicate with him, and build the skills they needed to grow together.
And this is why we talk so much about training being bigger than obedience.

Today, Teddy isn’t just a dog who learned some skills. He’s a deeply loved member of the family who has “fully integrated into our home and hearts.” 🥹🐾

Knowing that I was able to be a steady source of support during those difficult early days — and seeing where Teddy and his family are now — means more than I can say.

Thank you for trusting me with Teddy and for sticking with him through the hard parts. Stories like his are such an important reminder that the puppy in front of you today isn’t necessarily the dog you’ll have a year from now. 💜

Even now, Teddy’s training has been completed for about a year, and I’m still being entrusted to board him while Teddy’s family welcomes a new baby into their household.

Taking a moment of appreciation and gratitude for the community we’re all building together 🥹

10/12/2026

Sometimes the hardest part of dog training is realizing that the dog isn’t the only one being asked to change. 😅🐾

So much of what I’m talking about here comes back to looking at our own habits first.

If I keep responding the same way, setting up the same situations, reinforcing the same patterns, or expecting my dog to magically make a different choice… I can’t be too surprised when I keep getting the same result.

That doesn’t mean blaming yourself when something goes wrong. It means recognizing how much influence we actually have. We can change the environment. We can change how clearly we communicate. We can adjust our expectations, timing, reinforcement, management, and the opportunities we give our dogs to succeed.

Sometimes the most productive question isn’t:
“How do I get my dog to stop doing this?”
It’s:
“What can I change on my end to help my dog make a different choice?”

And, speaking of things I apparently could have changed on my end… I probably could have put my phone on silent. 😂

Between Cole playing in the background, him literally running into the tripod, and my phone providing its own notification soundtrack, this video became a pretty accurate representation of life with an adolescent puppy.

Could I have waited for a perfectly quiet moment to film? Sure.

But honestly, the chaos feels appropriate for this one. Dog training doesn’t happen in a perfectly controlled little bubble. Things go sideways. Puppies puppy. Phones ding. Tripods get assaulted. 😂

We adjust, we learn, and we keep going — which is kind of the whole point. 💜

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