Shady Tree Canines

Dog walking is such a huge topic!

It is a very deep and elaborate one also that we could talk hours about!

First, consider: who is the walk for?

Is the walk for you, because you had a hard day at work and want to get some fresh air? Is it because you’re trying to exercise more? Or any other reason we go for walks as humans?!

Or is it for the dog to get exercise?

Here at ShadyTree we preach a lot about “margin of error” , margin of error for training is any time something happens that you don’t want your dog to do, but they do it and get rewarded in some way by their environment; something like pulling hard on leash…

So keep in mind, every time your dog pulls hard on leash and you move forward with them, you have just reinforced their pulling, any time your dog pulls on leash and someone pets them, they’ve been reinforced, if they pull and eat something off the ground they’ve been reinforced, etc!

So one of the best things we can say is to pick your walks carefully if you are in the brunt of leash pressure training with your dog, and try not to bring them on big crazy walks where they will fail the whole time and you end up just frustrated together. Don’t bring them to sports parks or public fields and expect them to learn leash pressure there for the first time or to walk perfectly and ignore everything around them….

Please start at home, around the yard, two houses down and back, around the block and then maybe the field for 15 minutes eventually?!

You’ll have faster progress and less failures, this will give everybody better success and better feelings towards leash walking!

That being said , if you’re not going to take them out on leash, exercise them at home!!! There are so many different ways to exercise a dog in a living room, full house or backyard! Mental and physical stimulation are both needed to tire a dog out!

Before a walk, consider also burning some energy at home first with tug, “find it”, fetch, hide and seek or many other exercises!

Once slightly tired, give them a bit of water, and then go on your little adventure! You’ll have a much higher success rate!

We could go on but we’ve run out of space so, follow us for more!

Part Two: After the dog has been positively conditioned to the muzzle going on their face, you can slowly start work on one of the three D’s.

• Duration: As you increase the time the muzzle is on, the likelihood your dog will attempt to pull it off. We want to avoid that. This is why the purpose of this next step is critical before fully clipping.

In this video Shade is working on duration by elongating the time that the dog has its face in the muzzle. The longer the dog can hold its face in the muzzle the closer you are to having the muzzle clipped on.

The following D’s (distance&distractions) will be considered in part three. In step two you really want to make sure that your dog is completely comfortable with the muzzle approaching and going on their face.

Make sure you focus on the dogs emotions. Never push them if they’re too uncomfortable. Takes things slow and approach it with positive energy and lots of rewards as it will be a naturally stressful situation for your dog.

Be careful with too much excitement as sometimes it can effect the training. Notice how Shade had to calm down his excitement when marking “yes”, and Jasper was able to complete the task. Consider this in your training.

Muzzle Training can be a difficult, stressful, and an overwhelming task to achieve on your own.

Shade is demonstrating the beginning steps of muzzle training. Take things as slow as you need in order to train your dog to feel comfortable with the muzzle. The muzzle can become associated with negativity if it’s forced too quickly. It also has the potential to be associated with positivity if done gradually with rewards.

In the first week of Jasper’s training he refused to stand still or sit in new spaces. His behaviours displayed overstimulation and a lack of desensitization.

Recognizing that he just wasn’t ready for spaces that were new and exciting, we took a few steps backwards and started with some basic obedience at home/in the front yard.

Cues like “sit” and “down” are considered positions and should be held until a release cue is used. These words were considered tricks to Jasper. He thought he could just sit for a few seconds and then get up and go.

Along relearning what those cues mean’t, we would capture moments where he was relaxed at home or in the front yard. We would tell him “good relax” and sometimes sit beside him. Knowing Jasper, we never rewarded him relaxing with a treat. This would heighten his excitement and likely be counterproductive for him during that training.

After having success with implementing more structure in his obedience at home, we decided to take a step forward and learn how to simply exist in new spaces.

Things we considered before working in public spaces:
• Weather
• Day of the Week
• Time of Day
These determine if it will be busy or not. The nicer it is, the more likely people will be out. On weekends people are more likely out and about. For morning people 10 am - 11 am is a sweet spot. For evening people 8 pm - 9 pm is a sweet spot. This is what seems to be accurate where we are located. The overall objective is to work on desensitizing your dog slowly to new places. The more people and dogs that surround you, the more challenging and overwhelming it will be for your dog.

In this video Jasper was challenged but we weren’t having any setbacks. This allowed me to recognize that this was the perfect level where we could have success.

In order to continue progressing consider gradually moving closer to the distractions without entering the failing zone.

Happy national pet day! Here’s a few of our favourite videos of ShayTree dogs 🐾💛🌲

Let’s please hold each other accountable and do better dog world! We can chose to be responsible adults respecting nature and leaving it how we found it!

I want to challenge each of our followers to pick up the next p**p bag that’s sitting in the forest. I know it can be gross so bring some hand sanitizer. I sometimes use a new bag of mine to pick up the stepped on exploded p**p bag.

Nature deserves better! We can do better!

Long leads are a great tool, allowing freedom for your dog while still having control. However, I would certainly do research in learning how to work with a long lead in order to prevent my mistake from yesterday.

I have lots of experience with long leads and let me tell you, I still get hurt sometimes. Ideally I’d never want a dog to get to end of the lead as that can be hard on their necks in the long run and also potentially injure myself. Thankfully we we’re both okay! This situation was a big oops on my behalf as I got too excited with filming these two cuties running together and neglected to run with them. Poor little dexter had to come to an abrupt halt and I ate dirt, literally. This sweet boy looked back at me “like what happened?”.

Hiking with your dogs off leash seems like a great idea, but have you considered the following?

• Does my dog have recall skills?
• Does my dog have check-in skills?
• Does my dog understand “leave it”?

Letting your dog off leash on trails before practicing these skills at home first, is a big mistake and can lead to dangerous situations!

Start in a level one environment practicing these skills and then gradually increase distance, duration, and distractions to allow yourself to get to the next level!

If your dog is highly reactive and you’ve practiced the skills above, consider a 15 foot long lead in order to continue having success and not possibly run into scenarios that lead to regression.