The Dog's Way Podcast: Dog Training for Real Life

I love this heartwarming story! Today's episode features Beau Maxwell, owner of Love for Senior Paws. Her focus is on care and adoption for senior pets. Her love and dedication started with a cocker spaniel she rescued from a disreputable breeder. Since then, she's dedicated her life to rescue and adoption of senior dogs for all through her group.

She talks about the primary goal of Love for Senior Paws. Some of the areas of focus are;

• Raising awareness about the needs of senior pets
• Specific challenges related to their care that the organization faces
• Foster care / adoption
• Working with underfunded shelters
• Providing assistance with medical care while they wait to be adopted
• Incredible success stories and positives for adopting senior pets
• Their focus on continuing support for families that take on these pets

We talk about what the first steps are for people who want to be involved. We also share some general stories about relationships with dogs, and contrast them with the unique elements that mature dogs bring (whether it's pain management, rules and obedience, family connection, etc.)

There are options for sponsoring animals (more details about becoming part of "the pack" here).

You can visit Beau's website as well at LoveForSeniorPaws.org.

Also, I'd like to thank our sponsor P.U.P. Dog Rescue, and talk about their featured dog! Cocoa is a 9-year-old Chihuahua - she's a black, brown, and white short haired Chihuahua that is very sweet and calm. For more information, click here.

In this episode we're going to jump into another obedience skills challenge. This one is focused on the 'down' command.

This is an important lesson for small puppies as they develop, and even rescue adult dogs in instances where they may not have received much training, or were last trained years ago when they were puppies themselves.

I answer an email from Rachael asking about her puppy and (based on her age), whether she should stick to just the introductory training or if she's ready to move to some of the more intermediate and advanced training. I'll talk about the three phases for training puppies to use as a general guide for your dog.

Enjoy the episode! I have included some links below as well for other sessions that may be related to this one.

Session 18: The overview of what to teach a puppy and when, and teaching two dogs to not go after each other’s fetch toys

Session 22: using an air sprayer to stop barking and stubborn puppy “downing”

SESSION 27: How to coach a new dog to play better with your existing dog and how to get a puppy out of crate calmly

Session 31: Preventing resource guarding in puppy raising and what to do about a dog’s mid-life crisis?

Session 32: What are the best chew toys for puppies? And, how to stop an older, larger puppy from

Session 44: Prevent Your Puppy from Chasing Your Kids

Session 57: Train your Puppy to get along with Baby better

Session 58: Fetch! – Teaching your Puppy the rules

And another quote/thought about resilience. I mentioned the author, Carol Dweck earlier in the episode, so I thought I'd quote her here. It's about the best thing you can teach your kids about resilience. Here's a link to her book. MINDSET, Carol Dweck.

Enjoy,

Sean

In this episode we move to phase TWO of the "down" challenge for food motivated and non-food motivated dogs. I'll talk about an interesting discovery from listeners from the Czech Republic and Sweden and how their "crazy stay in place" situation is nothing like that! Life is proceeding pretty much the same there as it was before March.

So we we talked about sweeping the leg and your proximity to the floor in the phase one of the training. The goal in this phase is to wean yourself off of that proximity to the floor. We'll go back to those phase one elements of time first, then distraction.

• Train in different contexts
• Train through the whole arc of behavior with distractions
• Use natural transitional rewards as you do small snippets of practice throughout the day

• Cheryl from Ann Arbor, Michigan - She got her dog Oscar introduced well to the sit and the down. But he is confused between both sit and down. I'll talk about how to help your dog distinguish between them.
• Sandra from Texas has an interesting question - and apparently has my voice from the podcasts in her head (Sorry, Sandra!)

"Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees the others."

Click here for a closer look at the book on Amazon.

On today's episode I talk with Cat Matloub and Dr. Judi Stella of Good Dog, Inc. We'll talk about some of the reasons that the company was founded, and what the company mission is today.

Cat Matloub is the Head of Partnerships and Community Legal Affairs and talks about the overall mission of the project and what their focus is to date.

One challenge that they found was that families were having difficulty finding reliable information online when trying to add a new dog to their family. Between disreputable groups who were trying to sell something and the difficulty navigating between responsible information and an enormous amount of disinformation, the founders decided to apply their experience from the technology field to create a resource that was available to the public.

Dr. Stella is the Head of Health, Standards, and Research, and discusses healthcare treatment options, socialization practices. One of her key objectives includes knowing what the standards are for their listed breeders, and maintaining accountability to consistent standards.

Among many interesting insights in this interview is what they learned during this process about how many truly extraordinary dog breeders there are, and how they are in a way some of the unsung heroes of the process.

I hope you enjoy!

Sean

If there's one consistent thing that owners put at the top of their list for behaviors it's to keep their dogs from jumping on their owners and other people. I will discuss options and how to create the right environment for it.

I'll also talk about the modes of communication, starting with postural and vocal methods and their place in this type of training. These are essential in understanding the communication between you and any dog and is important when assessing feedback.

I'll talk about a loose leash technique and what things you'll look before that happen before your dog tries to jump.

First, today's rescue pup is Maia! Thanks to P.U.P. dog rescue as always and to get more information about Maia, visit the website by clicking here.

By the way, for training sessions like this one I’d recommend going back and listening to episodes 2, 3 and 4, if you haven’t listened to those already. Those episodes give you foundational understandings of my relationship-based method and some of the theoretical constructs that I refer to in training episodes of the podcast.

• Free downloadable e-booklet about create structure around the house
• Leash pulling article and video clip
• Session 2: Starting Out: Are you having some “policy” disagreements with your dog?
• Session 3: Learn how to structure your dog’s lifestyle more
• Session 4: Follow up on homework from Session 3 & switch gears to learn how to train younger puppies