Canine Karma Training

Diet is everything! DIET IS EVERYTHING!
What you put into your dogs body, dictates how long it lasts and how well it does.
-
If you’re looking to improve your dogs diet, health, and life… contact .karma.isabela for a Nutrition Consultation. Whether you feed kibble, canned, cooked, or raw… she will help you get your dog’s health and diet up to the highest level possible!
-

This is how Manic handles vet visits 🤣

Denim is finishing up his Board and Train with us in a few days and we couldn’t be happier with his progress. He’s an AWESOME dog with an insane amount of potential. Everyone here will be prettyyyyy sad to see him go!

Look. At. That. Face.
Oscar has one week left in his Board & Train program and at this point… he’s a very, very different dog. His good qualities are now GREAT. He is no longer reactive and aggressive towards other people and dogs (and he bit quite a lot of people, so this is a very big deal). He went from being incredibly defiant to Incredibly obedient. He started with no food drive, and now it is very high. He is an awesome little dog and just further proves the age-old adage, “it’s not how you start, it’s how you finish.”

Max is here for a pretty intense level of insecurity and fear, and sebsequently… reactivity and aggression. He’s not actually dangerous, he’s actually very sweet, he just acted like that because he was freaked out and didn’t know what to do. However, contrary to popular belief, his fear did not create his “aggression“. Fear simply creates fear. The backwards relationship that he previously had, where he thought he was responsible for the humans in the house, is the REAL reason he was reactive towards people. He simply thought it was his job to protect his owners.

So… fear of people makes him perceive them as threats, but being responsible and in charge… makes him think HE has to handle the problem. Fix the relationship = fix the problem.

We’re working on that now, as well as building up confidence and neutrality, and he’s doing great.

PLAY WITH YOUR DOG! PLAY WITH YOUR DOG! PLAY WITH YOUR DOG! PLAY WITH YOUR DOG! PLAY WITH YOUR DOG! PLAY WITH YOUR DOG! PLAY WITH YOUR DOG!

VERY few things, if any, can ever outweigh the benefits of playing with your dog!

Northwood is SO DAMN HANDSOME!
That’s all.

Happy 13th birthday Squish… I miss you more than I ever thought possible.

While everyone should properly train and prepare their dog for 4th of July fireworks and festivities… today is NOT the day to do so! So many people see social media posts talking and preaching about training your dog to be perfectly fine with fireworks (pretending their own dogs are totally bomb-proof), so they rush and scramble to do it… the day of the fireworks. I obviously agree that people should train their dog for this, but it also takes a lot of time, consistency, and hard work. If it hasn’t been done ahead of time, you are not going to work miracles the day the explosions start lighting up the skies.

If your dog is not ready for what’s coming tonight, that’s OK! The best thing you can do for a dog that is afraid of the booms and bangs, is to simply leave them alone, and let them sleep it off in their crate or kennel. If your dog has enough training and drive, play with them! Just stay away from rushed and hurried training. Stay away from soothing and coddling a fearful dog, which inevitably makes the problem worse. Simply let your dog sleep it off, and when tomorrow comes, and the skies are clear, you can start working on and preparing them for the future 4th of July festivities. “Rome wasn’t built in a day” and neither is a rock solid dog!

.karma.gaby is offering DAY TRAINS for the month of July only!! 🐾🇺🇸🐶 This service is available for new and existing clients!

We have wanted to offer a Day Train service for a while, and now we are doing a bit of a test run for the month of July! Day Trains are perfect for dogs who need more training than In-Home Lessons, but cannot commit to a longer Board and Train at the moment. This is also a great option for dogs who have completed a Board and Train or lessons with CKT and would benefit from a day of structured training to brush up on their skills or any problem areas. Day Trains are the ideal alternative to conventional doggy daycare to keep your dog’s training intact.

Day Train activities include: obedience training (sit, down, come, place, heel), place command training, structured walks, play time/free time, enrichment activities

Hours: Drop Off is between 8:30-9:00 am, Pick Up is between 4:30-5:00 pm. Aftercare available. No pick ups for Day Trains after 8:00 pm ! Dogs must be Dropped Off and Picked Up in DUMFRIES

Mandatory pre-requisites = CKT Consultation (In-Home or phone), UTD vaccines or titre tests (rabies, parvo, bordatella), must be crate trained, flea/tick preventative recommended

Contact: [email protected] for more info and how to schedule! .karma.gaby 🐾

Three of our favorite girls, back for a visit!

The absolute… mushiest.

Big man Ares looking extra handsome in pink

We wouldn’t be here today, without those who laid down their lives for us, yesterday. Happy Memorial Day.

This little girl is hands down one of my favorite puppies I’ve ever worked with. It helps that she has an owner that REALLY understands that what you put into your dog, dictates what you get out of them.
Never complain about the results you didn’t get, from the work you never did!

Welcome Gaby to the Canine Karma Team!

We are so excited to announce that the Canine Karma Training team is growing and will now be servicing Dumfries and the surrounding areas! By this summer, Gaby will be providing the following services to both new and existing clients:

-Board and Trains
-Day Trains
-Structured Boarding
-In-Home Lessons
-& more!

Gaby .dogs has been professionally training and caring for dogs in the Dumfries/Montclair area for years, and has legitimately owned and ran her business since 2022. She is exactly what we look for in a dog trainer: hardworking, compassionate, intelligent, patient, and fantastic with both dogs and their owners. Gaby has been working hard as an apprentice with us for some time now at our Stafford location in order to thoroughly learn our training system and philosophies. We are so excited to have another great educator and dog trainer changing lives under the Canine Karma Training brand.

While Gaby finishes up her apprenticeship with us, give her page a follow: .dogs, and keep an eye out for future exciting announcements!

YOU HAVE TO WORK FOR IT!!!
•
Want a good dog? You have to work for it!
Want a big house? You have to work for it!
Want a nice car? You have to work for it!
Want a nice body? You have to work for it!
Want an amazing relationship? You have to work for it!
Want a successful career? You have to work for it!
•
So… what are you doing to work for it? If you know your goals, do you know all the steps needed to reach them? Have you started taking steps towards these achievements? Regardless of your goals or what you need to work for in life, there are several things that should always be done to further prepare you for success:

Introspection and reflection. Look in the mirror and start working on your areas of opportunity as a person. Work on the things within yourself that you’re unhappy with. Work on yourself in ways that promote happiness, success, love, and respect. We all have faults and it never hurts to put some focus into changing them.

Habits that promote a healthy life, such as; eating right, working out, waking up earlier, going to bed earlier, going on walks, meditating, etc.

Self-investment. Always bet on yourself, even if nobody else is. Build yourself up through further education and personal growth. Invest time into expanding your skillset by learning new things that help promote success.

Nothing in life is free and anything worth having is worth working for. Now you just need to get up and do it.

Adler, one of our favorite former Board & Trains, is back for a visit. We looooove this sweet dog (and not just because he looks like the GSD version of Manic).
-

I use my hands A LOT. Never for discipline, my touch is always positive. My hands and touch play an integral role in teaching things like: holds; retrieves; muzzle training; accepted restraint/touch; grooming of nails, teeth, and coat; environmental desensitization; sensory desensitization; and I also **start playing 1980’s horror movie music** use my hands and touch to calm my excited dogs down. (Please do not confuse this with… soothing a terrified dog.)

Now… there is a massive difference between TOUCHING a dog and specifically PETTING a dog. Petting requires touching, but touching doesn’t require petting. How you touch, where, and for what purpose... will always yield different results. That touch could also amp them up or calm them down. For example: Karma, Manic, and Zero will all get notably more stimulated and excited from having their backs or sides pet… but all three will calm down significantly if those same hands are used to calmly but firmly rub the sides of their faces, jaws, neck, and head, much like a massage.

For Manic specifically, my touch is easily the most effective tool I have for calming him down. Nothing else works quite like me simply touching the sides of his face. Even as a baby… even when over-stimulated… even during bitework… There is something so soothing about that touch, that his fluffy little face immediately melts into my hands, his crazed noises fade into silence, and the wheels in his little brain slow down, allowing him to think clearly again. For him, that touch is like a tranquilizer. My reward events have always involved a lot of this because it allows me to bring him back down a notch after the dopamine dump he received from the reward.

However, every dog is different, and I do absolutely none of this with Zero because it simply doesn’t have the same effect in the same situations. So... PLEASE do not take this post as some sort of instruction to start touching and petting and massaging dogs all the time. There is clearly more to it than that… I simply made a post about it because I think it’s a interesting topic of discussion.

Karma hopes you all had a beautiful Christmas.

Roman might be a Shih Tzu, or he might be an Ewok… we’re not 100% sure yet. However, he’s pretty damn fun to work with.
-

If Zoey’s face doesn’t melt your heart, you probably don’t have one.
•••

•••
•••
•••
•••
•••
•••
•••
•••
•••

There is something that is incredibly rewarding about getting updates on former clients/dogs. Like this beautiful picture of Big Ernie, just randomly letting us know how awesome he’s doing, post Board & Train. It’s a rough thing to invest so much energy and time in a dog, and then not really hear about them once they go home. So we absolutely love and live for these updates. It is so amazing and fulfilling to see them thriving at home with their owners!

New legislation is being passed in various counties in Virginia that are now banning dogs with intense levels of handsomeness. Please, if your dog suffers from an extreme case of handsomeness, you should exercise extreme caution. Rumors and whispers tell tales of such handsome dogs being dognapped in the middle of the night, never to be seen again... don’t let YOUR dog become a victim of over-handsomeness! Please... please... don’t take your dogs handsomeness for granted, cherish it, and protect it!!

The incredibly derpy and droopy Tyson.

One of our freakishly adorable Board & Trains, Scout.

Very few things could ever make our day better - faster - than seeing the dogs we’ve training doing absolutely amazing at home! Here’s Maverick (easily one of the most beloved Board & Trains we have EVER had) just chilling with his feline friend at home. Such an amazing dog.
-

Sometimes we put our trust in the most untrustworthy hands. Sometimes we confide in the most two-faced of confidants. Sometimes we reach out and help the most ungrateful around us. Sometimes we get close to the ones with knives at our backs. Sometimes we befriend those that are truly the enemy. Sometimes we misjudge, mistake, and misread. Sometimes... these are our biggest regrets. It happens. However... the beauty of the human spirit is that... it doesn’t roll over and submit until we choose to. ITS A CHOICE. You can let the whispering words weasel their way into your hearts. You can let the malicious murmurs meander their way into your mind. You can let it get to you. You can let them get to you. Or you can choose to keep your head up and keep moving forward. Only the strong survive and letting the words of the weakest around you, bring you down, makes you - just as weak as them. It’s a choice: cry and quit... or raise your fist and resist. Your footsteps, one in front of another, will only slow down if YOU do. You control your path. You control your thoughts. This is your journey, don’t let ANYONE derail you from the road you have chosen.