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Crate training for sport dogs tends to get lumped into the "basic life skills" category, something dogs are expected to already know before they ever step into a trial environment. But when you really look at what's happening at trials, the ability to relax in a crate is not basic at all. It's a performance skill, and for a lot of dogs, it's a missing one.

If your dog is pacing, whining, staring at everything going on, or staying in a constant state of arousal between runs, that's not just a crate issue. That's something that is going to follow you into your warm-up, into your start line, and ultimately into your performance. The crate is just where we see it most clearly. 

There is nothing more frustrating than putting time into training, seeing your dog perform beautifully at home, and then watching that same behavior fall apart when it actually matters.

At home, everything feels solid. Your dog responds quickly, performs the behavior correctly, and gives you every reason to believe they truly understand what you are asking. Then you change the environment, add a little pressure, or step into a more real-world situation, and suddenly the behavior disappears.

Instead of responding with confidence, your dog hesitates, slows down, disengages, or simply does not do the behavior at all. It can feel confusing and, at times, discouraging, especially when you know how well your dog can perform.

It is very easy to assume that the problem is distraction, stubbornness, or a lack of focus. In most cases, though, that is not what is actually happening.

It's common to ask, "Does my dog understand the cue?" — especially when a dog performs a behavior perfectly at home but struggles anywhere else. Often, we assume our dogs have a deeper understanding of a behavior than they actually do. When a dog can't perform a cue to criteria, it usually means a building block in the training process was skipped, not that the dog is being stubborn or uncooperative. 

You've put in the time. You've taught your dog how to sit, down, stay, come when called—maybe even a few fun tricks. At home, everything looks great. Your dog responds eagerly, watches you closely, and seems to love training time. But the moment you step outside or walk into a more distracting space, things start to fall apart. Suddenly, you're back to waving food in front of their face, digging for a cookie, or repeating cues as your dog's focus drifts.

If this sounds familiar, you're not alone. And no, your dog isn't being stubborn. They're simply not yet equipped to handle the real world. 

If you're involved in dog sports or looking to strengthen your bond with your dog, rally training might be the perfect fit. Whether you're dreaming of agility titles, excelling in obedience competitions, or simply wanting a well-behaved pet, rally training lays a solid foundation for achieving your goals. Let's explore why this versatile sport is beneficial for every dog and handler team—regardless of their goals and aspirations.

Effective dog training techniques for success are all about building your dog's confidence through small victories. When your dog experiences consistent success, they become more motivated, eager to learn, and confident. Achieving these small wins makes training feel rewarding for both you and your dog. Our goal should always be to train in a way that sets our dogs up for success and ensures they know how to "win" during each session.

While perfection isn't always possible, rehearsing correct behaviors as often as we can is key to developing a solid foundation. By learning to read your dog's abilities and responding to them, you can ensure each training session is a productive one.

For many dogs, stillness is a challenging concept to grasp. Especially in sports-bred dogs, which are highly motivated by movement, training methods often focus on encouraging and rewarding action. As a result, teaching stay behaviors can be more difficult. However, introducing the concept of stillness can help your dog remain calm, composed, and focused in various situations, benefiting high-energy or anxious dogs in particular.

Chin rests are useful for so many things! It's one of my favorite behaviors to teach. I use chin rests for obedience behaviors, such as teaching a close front and getting a quiet hold, but it's also useful for cooperative care, consent, and start button behaviors. In addition, chin rests help the dog be still, so it's helpful to settle the dog and lower arousal.

Position changes are a skill needed in both rally and obedience. Taking the time to teach a good foundation will make the more advanced position changes much easier. In this blog, I'm working with Excel, who wasn't quite two when I videoed these sessions.

Excel is a dog who finds movement very reinforcing, and therefore, stillness is difficult. For this reason, I spend a lot of time reinforcing him for doing nothing. This helps with anticipation and also helps him keep his body quiet and still. If your dog is like Excel, reinforce for waiting for the next cue and stillness even more than you reward the movement behaviors.

Dogs like us, dogs can experience frustration when they are not part of the action. This is commonly referred to as FOMO (fear of missing out).

Staying in heel position is a fundamental behavior in rally and obedience training. To ensure your dog maintains heel position throughout a course, building value and enthusiasm for being in that position is essential. In this blog post, we'll explore engaging games to increase your dog's excitement and success by finding and staying in the heel position. You'll enjoy happier and more successful performances by teaching your dog these games!

Generalization is a crucial aspect of dog training that enables dogs to apply learned behaviors in various situations. When teaching a new behavior, the environment and cues significantly shape the dog's response. However, if the cues are too closely associated with specific contexts, the dog may need help generalizing the behavior. In this blog post, we will explore the concept of generalization and provide practical tips on teaching dogs to respond to cues regardless of the environment or contextual cues. 

For those who have just brought your new puppy home, this lecture is for you! Puppies need some time to get settled into their new homes, get acquainted with human and pet family members, and become accustomed to their new routine.

I find that often, we are really eager to get our puppies started on socialization - and forget that everything in their life is already really new to them during this stage. Before you start taking your puppy out and about, we want to make sure that he or she is comfortable in their new home first! Puppies are hard wired to have a 'home base' and going from one home to the next—cold turkey—isn't really something we can avoid, but we can make it a bit easier by giving the puppy some time to adjust, and develop their new comfort zone in their new home base, before expecting them to deal with more and more new things.

Consider the puppy's first week with your family as 'orientation' week. During this week, the priority is to help the puppy get settled in and become accustomed to their new world, family and routines. This week does not require any road trips or excessive adventuring (perhaps you'll need a trip to the vet for a required checkup, shots or meet and necessary trips like this shouldn't be avoided—but you can definitely avoid extra or frivolous adventuring during this time).

What we want to establish during this orientation week are things like: Who are the puppies' family members? Who will do the puppy feeding and what time do meals occur? When is it time for bed and time to wake up? Where will puppy sleep and where will they be during the day? Who are the other pet members of the family and which ones can the puppy interact with, and which might need some separation for now? Which doors lead to the outdoors for potty business? How often does puppy need to potty? What are some of the regular sounds and smells in the neighborhood?

If you want to learn the sport of K9 Rally, there are so many great resources out there! I see this question all the time: "I want to learn rally, where can I start?" There are YouTube videos, phone apps, free blogs and articles, and so much more. So why consider taking a rally class or working with a coach? 

Do you have a new dog or puppy? Are you struggling to find opportunities to train with them because your older dog kicks up stink? When a second dog is added to a household, things can change in unexpected ways. One of those is that training stops. 

Why is that? 

Usually it is because the first dog objects strongly to being 'left out' while the new addition receives attention and play/food.

This is both difficult to deal with and causes us to feel guilty. Training is no longer fun and rewarding for us so we stop doing it. Rest assured, the guilt thing is totally normal. If you've not had two dogs before it can be a bit of a shock and the dynamics certainly get turned upside down.

Clear communication and clarity are really important in dog training. The more clear we can be with our dogs, the faster they can learn what we want. One area that can sometimes get a little messy is marking behaviors. Most trainers understand that the correct behavior should get some kind of marker, like a click or a verbal marker such as "yes". But often, novice (and sometimes advanced, too!) trainers will mark and move all at the same time. However, it's very important that we isolate that marker cue!

While doing a chicken camp with Terry Ryan, she would always say "click THEN treat." What trainers often are told is "click and treat" or "mark and treat", but if you specify "mark THEN treat", it makes sense to put a pause in there.

So why is this important? Does it really matter?

Well, yes, it does.

Host Melissa Breau with panelists Jessica Hekman, PhD, DVM; Kim Brophey; and Sharon Carroll to talked about "It's All In How They're Raised (Or Is It?)" during our lunch break for the Lemonade Conference on February 12th, 2022 — and we've shared it here for those who missed it live!

I watched the dog and handler carefully. They were practising their heelwork and it looked lovely! The handler strode out, confident and sure; her dog trotted along next to her, attentive and happy. Then I noticed the fly in the ointment…

"Can you do that again for me please?" I felt bad about breaking into her 'happy place' but that's what I'm paid for, so that's what I was going to do. 

"This time, can you do it without food on you?" Her face fell. Yep, I'd found the problem. Her dog looked lovely because she had food in her left hand. Oops. 

Fear and anxiety underly many of the behavior issues in dogs. Understanding the subtleties of how fear works can help us prevent and address it more effectively.

First, it's important to understand how fear develops in the first place. Certain things are innately frightening for animals. This is controlled by genetics (by definition, innate refers to behavior that is not learned). MacLean et al. 2019 found evidence for heritability in a number of traits in dogs including fear. Exactly what individuals are innately fearful of will vary from species to species. The sensitivity to stimuli and intensity of fear will vary from individual to individual. 

As we know, dogs also learn to become frightened based on their experience. Dogs that have higher levels of innate fear will be more susceptible to learned fear as well because there are more things that are frightening to them in the first place.

The development of conditioned fear occurs through the process of classical conditioning where the dog learns to associate a previously neutral stimulus (such as a white lab coat) with an innately frightening stimulus (such as restraint and pain at the veterinary clinic). If we want to get technical, the lab coat becomes a conditioned stimulus (CS) for the unconditioned stimulus (US) of pain and restraint. Eventually, the CS of the lab coat comes to produce conditioned fear, which is the conditioned response (CR). The context that the US occurs in can also come to produce the conditioned response. In this example, the veterinary clinic itself can trigger fear, since that is where the pain and restraint are occurring.