Erie Pet Training

Happy Halloween from adoptable boy, Widow! Be safe and stay warm tonight everyone .

Tricks are fun breaks for our dogs and useful too! Our level 3 graduation routine includes a fun trick. Maggie the Golden fetches and puts her toys away, Kingsley does a beautiful hand vs paw target combo, and Chesty gets his dad's his keys! Way to go puppers!

Our first group sessions in the new training center! Zuri, Bella, Duncan and Lucy started their level one classes today! Chesty, Kingsley, and Maggie graduated their level three class and will be moving on to level 4!

Checkout some training sessions with Loki. He is my partner for Karen Pryor academy and has been learning so many new techniques with me!

Run to the Humane Society today for the grand opening of our training center! Erie Humane Society is hosting a ribbon cutting ceremony from 1-3! We will be featuring our clinic, grooming, and of course training services! Come out for some hot cider, raffle baskets, and to checkout the new crib!... Past, current and future students are always welcome!

It's Karen Pryor workshop weekend! Today marks halfway through the program. Currently we are working on behavior chains and back chaining. I learned so much from the first workshop, I can't wait to do this one. Our class is a wonderfully supportive group with an awesome instructor. I hope one day we do get to meet them in person! For those of you who don't know, Karen Pryor Academy Dog Trainer Professional program is a 6 month long course where you can earn your Certified ...Training Partner (CTP) designation. It is about 10-15 hours per week that I do computer and hands on training work. I honestly thought this was going to be a relatively easy course, with 9 years experience training +R. The work is so technical though, it really highlights the science of training. It almost makes me miss getting my biology degree.. almost.

A big day today! Thanos, Phoebe, and Draco started puppy class! Birdie and Louie will also be in their group! Sadie, Duke, Arthur, Ozzi, Coach, Angel, Chopper and Hope finished up their level 2 classes. ... Charlie, Hope, Tucker and Gracie finished up their level one classes!

Group sit stays with Kingsley, Chesty, and Maggie!

Burger, Jordy, and Honey graduated their Level 3 class last night. All three will be moving on to our Canine Good Citizen class! #levelup

Congratulations to Laika, Titan, and Paisley for graduating level 1! All of these pups and their dedicated owner will be taking level 2 to continue training!

A lot of times our dogs get good at sit really quickly. We think they know it from 10 weeks old, but are they really fluent with the cue? In the first video Loki and I are working on cue discrimination. We have been working on making sure he understands paw (touch an object with his paw) and touch (touch an object with his nose) for a month and a half. We started in different training sessions with different objects. Then moved on to the same training session with different o...bjects. He can now do fairly well with the same object in the same training session, with just slight height variation and other cues mixed in. We will know he fully comprehends the cue when a stationary fixed object can be cued with 'paw' or 'touch' with accuracy. The second video we are working on cuing as well, specifically waiting for the cue. Sometimes dogs get so excited about a new behavior they offer it immediately! That's a wonderful step that allows us to name our cue, because we're willing to bet $20 they're going to offer it. Eventually however, we don't want him closing every door I open as soon as we open it, that wouldn't be helpful at all. So here we are marking and reinforcing eye contact and front station. A few times the reinforcement is late and you can see he goes to the pantry, noses, and even paws it out of frustration. A lot goes into full comprehension of a cue. Does your dog really know what you think they do? Call or text 814-315-2454 to find out!

We love the puppy Rule of 12 worksheet to keep yourself accountable in exposing your puppy to lots of new stimuli . Remember all of these activities should be a positive experience for both you and your pup!

Level 3 dogs, Honey, Jordy, and Burger working on group stays with distractions. The whole goal of this exercise is to practice with criteria. In order to keep your training successful you can either raise, maintain, or lower your criteria for marking. If your dog is doing well and needs the next step, maybe we add some more distance in our stay, or lose some distance between our dogs and the next. If our dog is not succeeding, we lower criteria by marking smaller distances away.

Gracie, Ellie, Oakley, Atlas, Bodhi, and Riley started their level one class today! Nothing like the start of a fresh class!