It's PAWSible Dog Training Center

A hug thank you to my wife, Beth, for taking such good care of our kids. Beth got up at 4:30 this morning so she could schedule a chiropractic appointment for Batman. Despite Beth's very busy schedule she cooks for the kids, makes sure they have clean beds, non stop grooming, takes them for long walks every day rain or shine and she takes them every where, the list goes on. Thank you Elizabeth!

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Some pics of my crew from Friday afternoon. I was waiting for a class to start here and decided to try and get some group pics of my dogs. My plan was to have Captian on the Klimb and Sushi and Batman each on a fit bone. Well, maybe if I had someone helping me I would have gotten that. They had their own ideas.

Happy Fourth of July to all of my students! I hope you all have a great day!

Monday morning stress in the office then I look over and see this.

Thank you to shared instructions from Judge Kimberly Stumph, Wayne made this measuring wicket to be used to measure competition dogs before they go show. They still have to be measured by the judge but every detail of competing needs to be practiced and one of those details is being measured by the Judge. Buying the REAL device would be a $325 purchase. But using instructions by an AKC judge, Wayne made this out of PVC and a few other items. I love it!

Thank you to instructions shared by Kimberly Stumph, and the patient work of my husband Wayne, I now have a measuring wicket to help my agility students train for measurement by judges at agility trials! This pic is a little blurry but it came out REALLY good. I love it!
It's PAWSible Dog Training Center

Batman this past weekend at the Taconic Hills Kennel Club Trial:
1st Place in Novice Fast (decided it was time to start entering FAST so I entered and that was our first time in that class)
1st Place in Masters Jumpers on Saturday
2nd Place in Masters Jumpers on Sunday
1st Place Win in T2B on Sunday
3rd Place in Masters Standard which resulted in the ever elusive Double Q!
Love this Boy (as you all know)

Wayne has been busy doing some interior deep cleaning in the training center. With Sheila's help, he just finished washing the inside of all of the 34 windows and sills, deep cleaned the back walls and so much more. The other day they cleaned the 3 mini-splits which is our air conditioning out there. Most people don't clean them the way Wayne does! This service is also available to Wayne's World clients. NICE CLEAN air to breathe for the dogs and the people!

It's been a while since I've posted anything on our page. I have a lot to keep up with here with creating, teaching, website keep up and other admin, and of course keeping my training center clean.
Last August I updated my 2013 Mercedes Sprinter to a 2023 Sprinter. I planned to add advertising to it but I had specific ideas on how I wanted it to look and the dogs that I wanted to include in the pictures. I had help from my graphics design person, Kevin and finally it's done! I think it came out really good. I hope I selected the right message to help people know what I do.

More memory lane:

This is my first Doberman, Makana, (adopted at 1 year old). He was also my first agility dog. This was our first AKC agility Qualifier! Our first of many ribbons. He lived to be 13 and a half. He stopped wanting to do the dogwalk and the see-saw at 10 but he competed until he was 11 in AKC Masters jumpers with weaves.

Back in the day (this was either 1997 or 1998), you had your picture taken with the judge even with only Novice ribbons. Now pictures get taken with mostly with championships I think this was 1998 or 1999.
Such great memories. Makana was a Cadillac of a dog. Loved people and other dogs. Was a handful when I first adopted him but he was truly amazing and I loved him so much.

Makana was also my best teacher of dog training.

I often get questions about how I got in to dog training. It's a really long answer but these are the dogs that got me started, retired racing Greyhounds. I've had 5 of them. I also used to go up to the track when it was open in NH and bring some home with me and find homes for them.

I hate dog racing but I love the Greyhounds. No dog has been raised like a Greyhound, basically like farm animals.

Also, back in the day, no one secured their dogs in vehicles. So please no judgment there!

Jenna, the brindle Greyhound was our first. She lived to be 14.5 Then came Emily, Leader, and I had two different black Greyhounds. One I adopted out and then I had my fifth dog Harmony (not pictured).

Harmony has her own story.

My newsletter, coming out on Tuesday, will talk about managing multiple dogs out on an off-leash walk.

We are also linking Wayne's new FB page to that newsletter. For those of you that don't know Wayne, my husband is the "behind the scenes" co-owner of It's PAWSible!

Many of you have spoken to Wayne on the phone in the past about your dog, and now you get to see his face.

Wayne's handyman service is called "Wayne's World" (I picked that name out, not him!)

He is so good at this work because he is a perfectionist in anything he does for others, around here at home and of course It's PAWSible! We are creating the page now. So I wanted to take some pictures of him with our dogs.

In the meantime, if you have a project that is important to you to have done right, you can reach Wayne at 413-203-3189 or email him at [email protected]

Batman had a great day yesterday at an AKC trial in Rhode Island. He is now 2 years old. Sushi is eleven months old and Captain is 5 months old. I'm working a a newsletter now! Thank you for your patience!

Until then, I have some room in my Ultimate Puppy Class
https://www.itspawsible.com/index.cfm/product/252_24/puppy-training-classes-pioneer-valley-puppy-training-western-massachusetts.htm

Check it out!

I have so many pictures, but here are a couple more for now. It's a great pack of three as I'd hoped. Captain is my 5th Doberman. I love my herding group dogs so much but it feels good to have a Doberman again, too. I'm glad they like him a lot. Especially Sushi. Sushi is only 9 months old so she's very happy to have another puppy.

Good Morning everyone, I came across this post this morning and I couldn't agree more. As most of you know, I owned and ran one of the first dog day cares in this area. From 2000 to 2018. It was a safe, well-managed area that dogs could play safely with each other. Many day cares (not all) now have so many dogs and are run differently then my personal day care where we had no more then 30 dogs. I had 4 staff people managing them and making sure the groups were right.
All the dogs were also selected by me, personally, as being safe around other dogs. By 2018, I had just had enough of that very strenuous, stressful business.
This post is about dogs and how these days, dog day care is the dogs "work". So many dogs need so much more. I encourage everyone to keep training your dog in a group class here or some where. Get involved in a dog sport. Keep building a working relationship between you.

My goal for my own dogs is to find me to be the most fun being in the world. I work hard at that. Having said that my rules are clear and I don't ever have to raise my voice with them.

Read this and see if it might fit your dog.

Saturday classes are back for one 6 week session starting in January!

Basic Manners at 930 and Canine Good Citizen at 11!

Go to my website itspawsible.com for more info and to sign up!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone from It's PAWSible!

Last night in week number 5 of our Basic Manners class we worked on polite doorway behaviors using simulated doorways. This such a great group of students and all of these dogs are lively and adolescent. Everyone is learning.

Sushi graduates from Family Dog I at Tails U Win! Dog Training Center in Connecticut!
❤❤❤❤❤

This beautiful shot of Batman was taken at the Pioneer Valley Kennel Club Trial in Westfield a few weeks ago.

This past weekend, Batman earned his AKC Novice Jumpers With Weaves Title AND his Novice Standard Agility Title. He is such a good boy in every way. I love Batman!

This is Koda! Koda graduated from Ultimate Puppy Class at It's PAWSible! last week. Candice has been working really hard with Koda!

Look who graduated from Puppy School!❤️ Great job Koda!🐶🎉
Next stop Obedience School!

I may have shared this before, but this is so important for all my Ultimate Puppy Class students to read. Good for all to read!

This is something everyone should see. This xray is of a 2 week old puppy.

When you get your 8/10 week old puppies, please keep this image in mind. Their bones do not even touch yet. They plod around so cutely with big floppy paws and wobbly movement because their joints are entirely made up of muscle, tendons, ligaments with skin covering. Nothing is fitting tightly together or has a true socket yet.

When you run them excessively or don't restrict their exercise to stop them from overdoing it during this period you don't give them a chance to grow properly. Every big jump or excited bouncing run causes impacts between the bones. In reasonable amounts this is not problematic and is the normal wear and tear that every animal will engage in.

But when you're letting puppy jump up and down off the lounge or bed, take them for long walks/hikes, you are damaging that forming joint. When you let the puppy scramble on tile with no traction you are damaging the joint.

You only get the chance to grow them once. A well built body is something that comes from excellent breeding and a great upbringing-BOTH, not just one.

Once grown - around 12-18 months depending on their breed, you will have the rest of their life to spend playing and engaging in higher impact exercise. So keep it calm while they're still little baby puppies and give the gift that can only be given once.

Here is Sheila doing a selfie with my girl pup Sushi!

My distinguished guy. Batman.

Years ago I used to share the "only have 2 or 3 toys available at a time" philosophy.

Not anymore. This is only a quarter of what I have. My dogs don't destroy toys so I just hang on to them. I do wash those that can be washed though.