Hope Through Hounds

Call Directions Website Contact the business

Hope Through Hounds Hope Through Hounds is rooted in connection, compassion, and community. Owner and Trainer: Vanessa Hajek M.S., IAABC-ADT, CTC, KPA-CTP.
(1)

Offering in-home training covering manners, fear and anxiety, puppy training, and therapy dog training.

Welcome Vex to Hope Through Hounds!🎉Vex is your typical happy-go-lucky Golden, except for one thing: he struggles when l...
10/09/2026

Welcome Vex to Hope Through Hounds!🎉

Vex is your typical happy-go-lucky Golden, except for one thing: he struggles when left home alone.

Vex and his very dedicated humans started Separation Anxiety training yesterday to help him learn that he can be comfortable even when both of his humans are away from home.

I've gotten a fair amount of questions about how Separation Anxiety training works, and there are two aspects that people are consistently surprised by:

1. We don't use food.
Those of you who have trained with me, know that I use a ton of food when training - it's the quickest and most efficient way to leverage motivation. In Separation Anxiety training, we are using a different approach called systematic desensitization which means we will incrementally expose Vex to levels of the trigger he can tolerate and only move at the pace he can handle.

2. Sessions running separation anxiety training plans are virtual.
This one usually gets me a confused look. After all, how can I train the dog if I am not THERE to train the dog? In this case, because we are working Vex learning that being alone is okay, I can't be there to help - or he wouldn't be learning to be alone. Virtual sessions actually work quite well across almost all dog training, but for Separation Anxiety training they are a must.

Drop a comment below: Which surprised you more - no treats/food during training, or that the training takes place behind a screen?

🧠Body Language Quiz Time!Today, Lanna helped her friend Clyde work around distracting dogs by being her usual distractin...
10/02/2026

🧠Body Language Quiz Time!

Today, Lanna helped her friend Clyde work around distracting dogs by being her usual distracting self.

The question:

What 2 things in Lanna’s body language tell us Lanna is very aware Clyde is there and indicate she is about to look at him?

Winner gets imaginary cheese sticks thrown their way!

09/28/2026

When watching two dogs play, how do you really know if they are enjoying it? After all, dog play often comes with baring teeth, mouth-on, and sometimes things like growling.

I slowed down the footage in the attached video because dogs are pretty fast for human eyes.

These two dogs were playing quite contentedly when I filmed this years ago.

How to Tell
✅ Role Reversals - notice how each dog takes turns? Sometimes Lanna chases, and sometimes River (brindle and white hound) chases. Sometimes one is on the ground, sometimes the other is.
✅ Self-Handicapping - Lanna is much larger than River, and there are multiple times that Lanna could have over-powered River. Instead, she often allows herself to be over-powered or voluntarily rolls over.
✅ Bouncy movement - Dogs bounce when the play! Notice how Lanna bounces sideways, forward, and back, and River does the same? This is a hallmark of good dog play. You will often see them run in sort of a "rocking horse" style.
✅ Elbow Bends - Any elbow bends count here, whether it is the deeper ones resulting in a bow, or the slight ones just before the dog springs off one way or another. This is a classic dog play maneuver.
✅ Exaggerated "play faces" - Watch how many times both dogs open their mouth, and don't make contact, or open and close their mouths repeatedly with their teeth bared - this is a play face and a sign a dog is having fun.
✅ Brief Disengage - Toward the end of the video, Lanna goes to mouth the side of River's face, and River turns her head away and stares forward. Lanna takes that for what it was, a cue for the play to dial back in intensity for a moment. Notice how both dogs spend a second or so standing and staring? That's a break!
✅Mutual Shake - Off - often when dogs pause in play, you will see one shake-off and then the other. This is a way of releasing tension, and had I filmed longer, you would have seen play resume with one dog throwing a play bow to the other dog, and the cycle starting all over.

Stay tuned for more videos on dog behavior in general, as well as examples of play being enjoyed by all parties, and play that is not.

The weather is cooling down which means it is time to focus on that leash-walking or outdoor recall (come when called) w...
09/21/2026

The weather is cooling down which means it is time to focus on that leash-walking or outdoor recall (come when called) we've been putting off while it felt like the surface of the sun.

Yesterday, I took my dog to a new (to her) park to practice.

There's strategy to training a solid recall.

A dog recalling when they see their owner holding food is one thing. A dog recalling when they can clearly see their owners (empty) hands and no treat pouch is another. A dog recalling and allowing their collar or harness to be grabbed is next-level.

A dog that knows through an incremental training process that their owner will call them, collar grab them, and move to a different location where the food lives is top-tier.

We don't need a recall from a sit-stay thirty feet away where the dog sits in front of us when it arrives, although it is admittedly fun to train.

We need the recall that functions when we step out the door to get a package and the dog bolts out...or we think we definitely have time to take the trash through the yard gate before the dog gets there...or the one that functions in a random parking lot when the dog jumps out of the car when we haven't had enough coffee yet.

If you, like me, have been putting off working on your dog's recall, reach out! I have a training plan for that.

This is Nova and her human, Meg.When I first met Meg, it was in the parking lot of a retail store where I was set to con...
09/02/2026

This is Nova and her human, Meg.

When I first met Meg, it was in the parking lot of a retail store where I was set to conduct an assessment to see if her current dog was a good fit for therapy work. We never made it inside. In fact, my assessment lasted about 30 seconds—the exact amount of time it took Meg to unload Poppy and approach the store entrance. For a session booked for a full hour, that gives you a sinking feeling as a trainer. Navigating how to let someone down gently while prioritizing the dog's best interests is never easy. However, Meg and her family reacted with nothing but understanding, compassion, and a genuine desire to learn how to better support Poppy and we pivoted the session to their house.

But Meg didn't give up on her dream of therapy dog.

A couple of weeks later, she reached out to let me know she had gotten a doodle puppy, and her goal was to work toward Nova being able to join her in the classroom. I agreed, and we began training. I'll admit, I wasn't entirely sure how it would go, and I was certainly worried Nova might not be the right fit either. I have never been happier to be wrong.

Nova had her official first day at Ferris Elementary yesterday💙

This journey took a few twists and turns along the way, including crossing state lines to earn her certification through Canine Inspired Change —an innovative, trauma-informed therapy dog program out of Minnesota. This initiative goes far beyond a traditional therapy dog framework, and Meg and I are currently working on bringing a similar program right here to Kansas. I’ll share more details on that as it develops.

For now, please enjoy these photos of one incredibly determined human and her doodle working to change lives. 🐾❤️

Everyone remember Clyde? He and his mom are working on some advanced training skills to maintain and polish up on skills...
08/30/2026

Everyone remember Clyde? He and his mom are working on some advanced training skills to maintain and polish up on skills he needs as a working therapy dog.

Yesterday, we worked on "proofing" behavior. In short, proofing is thinking of everyday situations your dog may encounter that could make it harder for them to get it right. We then incorporate those situations into training at gradually increasing levels of difficulty. In essence, Clyde is learning to generalize hanging out by his mom regardless of what was going on around him until he is cued to do something else.

Each time a distraction occurs, Clyde's job is to look back at his mom, or at the very least, watch the distraction and without approaching. Practicing in a public environment means we get built-in, unpredictable distractions for free, and it also means that as a trainer, I am able to help proof distracting scenarios in a more real-world setting than a living room.

In this picture, I approached Clyde and excitedly asked if I could take a picture and then knelt down. Kneeling humans are tough! Most social dogs think a human on their level is an instant cue to approach, and the first time I tried this, Clyde did just that. I got up and walked away, and his mom reset him before I returned and asked again. The second time Clyde nailed it.

If you look closely, you can see how hard this is for him.
-Upward weight shift (indicative of an interested dog about to go investigate)
-Shifting forward slightly
- Alert facial expression with raised ears
- Back legs starting to tuck up underneath his body in preparation to stand

Clyde got paid right after this, even though he didn't look back at his mom. Why? Those behaviors, and Clyde subsequently not moving were a decision on his part. Decisions take effort. At Hope Through Hounds, we pay for effort.

Later that same day paying for effort paid off. Clyde was at another store with his mom and an elderly gentleman approached and asked if he could take a picture. Clyde rocked it and it didn't move.

This is the importance of training dogs for the situations they are likely to encounter. If we want them to work in the real-world, or even just hang out on a dog-friendly patio, we have to prepare them for what they may encounter.

Well-done Clyde and mom!

Happy National Dog Day!One of the best parts about this job, is collecting stories of how dogs have changed lives, somet...
08/26/2026

Happy National Dog Day!

One of the best parts about this job, is collecting stories of how dogs have changed lives, sometimes in small ways, and sometimes in big ones. Comment below with one way your dog has changed your life. Please, feel free to answer however you wish.

I'll go first!

This is my Treeing Walker Coonhound, Lanna. I rather impulsively adopted Lanna from KHS at 10 months of age...while living in an apartment (not recommended, by the way). Roughly one month after adoption, Lanna began exhibiting signs of Canine Compulsive Disorder in the form of chasing lights and shadows.

Early on, watching her struggle with repetitive behaviors and anxiety was heartbreaking. At times, she couldn't eat because she was too busy watching for lights to appear.

As someone living with CPTSD (although I didn't know it at the time), the struggle felt familiar. I recognized the hypervigilance. I knew what it felt like to have a nervous system stuck in overdrive, in an attempt to get a handle on a world that felt overwhelming.

I also watched her get better, and played a direct role with training, medication, and management.

Lanna gave me hope for my own journey, and she's also the inspiration behind this business.

Thank you Lanna, you are still the bestest coonhound in the whole wide world of coonhounds, yes, even 11 years later.

Clyde and his mom signed up to brush up on their more advanced training skills around distractions. Clyde already works ...
08/24/2026

Clyde and his mom signed up to brush up on their more advanced training skills around distractions. Clyde already works as a therapy dog, but around distractions, those skills become difficult for him to access. Known behavior is harder to access in novel situations (including distracting ones), and known behavior slowly degrades over time, especially if we aren't using it often. We see this in the human world all the time.

If you game, have you ever sat down to play a video game you haven't touched in a while and realized you don't remember the key combinations? Similarly, have you ever tried to use a skill set you were a pro at in a former job that you haven't used in a decade? It's never seamless. There is a re-learning curve, and you have to practice a skill to maintain it.

In Clyde's case, he is working on choosing to engage with his mom over distractions like a dog food aisle by leveraging the distraction as motivation. Similarly, we are brushing up on something that often becomes a struggle for therapy dogs: wanting to greet everyone. In most cases, they can, so it makes sense that Clyde thinks all humans might be greetable. By putting the behavior on a cue, we can begin teaching him when greeting is and is not something we want him to do.

If you want to learn more about what that means and how this process could help you and your dog conquer things like recall, visitor manners, or working in public, let me know!

Please welcome three new learners to Hope Through Hounds!Ella, Scrunchy, and Rainier had their first Day Training sessio...
08/19/2026

Please welcome three new learners to Hope Through Hounds!

Ella, Scrunchy, and Rainier had their first Day Training session with me today.

We worked on hand targets, sit and down. Rainier also began learning new (also fun) ways to approach humans in the yard that doesn’t involve a full-body leap💕 (Yes, a full-body leap is what happened about .2 seconds after I snapped that picture, but the photo was worth it). By the end, Rainier would run up to me and choose to sit💕

If you are wondering whether a day training program is the right fit for your dogs, feel free to check out our website (link in comments).

Address

Wichita, KS
67201-67221, 67223, 67226-67228, 67230, 67232, 67235, 67260, 67275-67278

Telephone

+13162850274

Website

, , , ,

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Hope Through Hounds posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Business

Send a message to Hope Through Hounds:

Shortcuts

Share

Category