Flexible Pet Solutions

09/01/2026

Ori's progress on "flop" - doing well transferring her weight completely. Not ready for a cue yet! Once we have a little more clarity in the motion, it'll be time.

09/01/2026

Beginning chin to hand touch with Ori. Notice how quickly she moved from luring to offering the behavior? That means she got a clear idea of the game. For a precise behavior like this, I've put away the other "helpers" and I'm using a lower value treat (kibble) so we get the best focus possible. The session is still short, though!

09/01/2026

Goosey is learning to light saber spar, in the goosey-est way.

08/31/2026

Sunday drop-ins always end in play, for those who want to play! Puppy class 1030-1130 (20 weeks or younger), and all ages 12-1p

08/28/2026

Trying her paw at "flop", better known as "play dead" - this is a great trick for cooperative care!

08/28/2026

08/19/2026

Kaylee brushing up on her hold and starting a door/drawer open with a tab.

08/17/2026

Sokka cat is very food motivated, so we're working on some more advanced tricks with him. "Take it" leads to "hold" which provides some adorable photo ops. I've already started this trick with him, but he's still new to it, so my goal for this session is to see him open his mouth and fully enclose around the chopstick. I started with a wooden chopstick because it's easy for him to fit in his mouth, it has a texture he doesn't mind putting in his mouth, I can replace it regularly to prevent risk of bacterial build up (cat mouths are gross), and it's light enough he can carry it when we get to that step. We started by rewarding any movement toward the stick, then touching it, then licking it, and now mouthing it. It's harder to train new behaviors with so many distractions (his brother Groot, buddy caramel, and bestie Goosey), but that's our life so we just stick with a very short session and end on a successful rep. Grootie wanted a treat but I don't think he's "into" treats enough to fully learn this trick, so I accepted his offer of pawing the "target stick" to earn a snack. I want the cats to enjoy training, and recognizing their intrinsic level of interest informs my individual goals for them. No one wants to play a game they always lose. It's important to tailor our training to our pets both in what they find fun and in what they can realistically achieve without becoming stressed.

08/17/2026

Today we worked on 'take it' which is the beginning of retrieving non-toy items, pulling open doors by a tether, and lots of variations of holding cute things for pictures. We start the pattern with something the dog wants to grab with their mouth, like a favorite toy, build a little momentum on the pattern, and swap the toy for a simple item that's not a toy but is the right shape and material to be comfortable in the mouth. I like to reward "take it" without a firm grip since some of the items I want my dog to retrieve eventually are delicate (eg phones, key fobs, glasses). Rewarding rapidly for a gentle mouth approach can lead to a trickier transition to holding on to items later, but to me that's an acceptable compromise. Ori does a great job here, and we only want a few repetitions before a real break to keep it fun and engaging.

08/14/2026

Threshold practice is an important life skill and sets up our pets for success when mistakes happen.