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About Our Programs
Responsible Dog offers private training exclusively! Why?
Because the more I learn about dog behavior and training the more I’m
convinced it’s not an easy task for most dog owners or one that should
be taken lightly.
Since I specialize in behavior, my focus is on the animals’ behavioral health and welfare as it relates to the developing human-canine relationship. There seems so much emphasis on training behaviors such as sit, down, stay etc. but rarely does one really learn how to appreciate their dog for who they really are a uniquely different species not furry little covered human surrogates. Certainly, this does not dismiss my philosophy of training with an emphasis on behavior as removing any of the social companionship characteristics we have come to enjoy from owning dogs. Rather my focus is more on understanding dogs are uniquely different from humans and with this difference comes different challenges in how to train dogs along with preventing undesirable behavior. Dogs simply don’t have the same capacity for learning in the same way as humans. It’s also a good idea to understand how our dogs communicate, especially since a lack of this understanding leads to many of our problems.
Owner relinquishment due to behavior problems and lack of training as cited by numerous research studies has led me to conclude owners need more from training lessons than normally available through most training classes. You may read more about this subject in my article The Human – Dog Bond listed on my website.
What does a behaviorally healthy dog mean? First, we like to assess a dog’s behavioral health by how many desirable behaviors the dog does possess, rather than by how many undesirable behaviors are present. We evaluate behavior you want from your puppy rather than focusing attention on behavior you don’t want. This also means you understand how to manipulate and manage your dog’s environment at the same time as training is occurring. In addition, when we focus on behavioral health, we don’t wait for problems to develop rather we take a pro-active approach and if necessary get assistance. This is why it’s helpful to find someone you can work with, is willing to explain what you don’t know or might need to better understand about your dog and relationship, but most of all your dog needs your commitment to maintaining his needs while at the same time getting him to understand how best those needs will be met.
What does a behaviorally healthy dog look like? The behaviorally healthy dog is affectionate, but not overly needy, friendly toward strangers and well-behaved children, enjoys the company of other dogs and has good social skills, enjoys being handled, including during grooming and vet visits, doesn’t panic or become too anxious when left alone, knows where the proper potty location is, isn’t overly fearful of novel stimuli, is adaptable without becoming overly stressed, has good bite inhibition, plays well and by the rules with people, loves their own toys and knows which items are acceptable chew toys, isn’t threatening to people coming onto your property or while riding in the family automobile, is content when crating is necessary, has reliable foundation skills such as sit, down, stay, walks nicely on lead, doesn’t bark excessively, is willing to give up control over locations and objects, and is capable of calming down quickly when scared, overly excited or startled.
This may seem like a long list but actually, all these behaviors are easily achieved with the right understanding, training and guidance you get when you work with someone who focuses on not only how to prevent problem behavior but most of all how to achieve what you want. I find training foundation behaviors easy along with the multitude of methods available to get them, its understanding how to maintain the balance between rewards and behavior expectations that sometimes presents the biggest problem.
This thinking behavioral training style is not breed specific, but rather is adaptable for all breeds. There may be times when certain breeds adapt more easily to certain behavior tendencies and more difficult for others but this by no means indicates we can’t achieve the same goals by adjusting our expectations to go along with our individual and unique dog. Breed characteristics present important considerations, but the learning environment and the dog’s experiences will have more effect on their future behavior.
Our training programs are offered at your home or in my personal training location. Home visits are often helpful for working on specific training needs, especially during the early stages of training. Please take the time to look through my articles, essays, and perhaps even try the behavior quiz. You might be surprised how wonderful your dog really is or you may find a few things that could be tweaked improving your dog’s behavior.
Please check out in more detail what our individual programs offer.
Behavior Wellness Program
Our behavior wellness program is designed to resolve behavior problems along
with relationship conflicts you may be experiencing. Behavior problems are
often complex needing individual evaluations and accurate treatment protocols.
When you select us, you receive someone who focuses on behavior not just
providing quick solutions that may be inaccurate or even ineffective.
The advent of the internet has enabled many of us to develop a do it yourself philosophy and an exorbitant amount of material offering us quick fixes for resolving behavior and training problems. Sometimes these materials can be helpful, but as I said earlier behavior problems can be complex and these cookbook type fixes may cause more problems than you started with, so it’s often a better investment in time and money to find someone who specializes in behavior to get you started in the right direction.
Our goal is to help you and your pet have the best opportunity to achieve successful and permanent behavioral change. We work on troublesome relationship issues, teach you through training and games how to get your pet to focus on you and not the environment along with offering management strategies that help you reach your goals. You will learn foundation exercises, how to achieve calm behavior versus out of control, how to manipulate rewards, how to communicate effectively while learning how to read what your dog is communicating.
Benefits and goals using our training strategies include:
- Learn how to communicate effectively so your dog can reliably predict and control his environment
- Learn effective management and control skills
- Improve your dogs attention along with impulse control skills
- Learn how to achieve balance between being an effective leader while nurturing your dog
- We promote affection and mutual appreciation because dogs are different and uniquely dog!
- Learn how to establish reliable skills that will promote a harmonious relationship
- Learn how to establish social boundaries, while achieving cooperation and competence
- Learn how to relax with your dog using my mantra by remaining cool, calm and collected
- We like to build confidence and trust from both ends of the leash
In many instances, an in-depth behavior questionnaire will be necessary allowing us to evaluate your pet’s history, environmental factors and analyzing specific behaviors along with providing thoroughly thought out treatment plans. When we work up treatment plans, we take into consideration your lifestyle, goals providing options that will best suit you and your pet’s individual situation. I cannot emphasize enough how important one-on-one counseling is for successfully resolving behavior problems. Your pet deserves the opportunity to live a happy fulfilling life. If your present human-dog relationship is one of conflict and tension, you need to seek help right away and before you and your pet become a negative statistic.
Contact us for more information and to set up an appointment.
Training Wellness Program ~ Private Training
Our Training Wellness program offers private training focusing
on foundation behavior skills, general manners, and educating you not only
how to prevent unwanted behavior but learning how to focus your attention
on what you dog is doing right.
You might be interested to know why private training versus class training would be more advantageous. Actually, dog trainers and behavior consultants often recommend beginning training in distraction free environments that commonly include the safety and quiet of your home. According to Steven Lindsay (2000), the ease for acquiring newly trained behavior is both faster and easier when done in familiar environments as opposed to unfamiliar. When you are satisfied the expected behavior is reliable, it will be much easier to transfer to unfamiliar locations. This is referred to as generalizing newly acquired behavior. According to Lindsay, this opinion supports many professional trainers who say “…introductory training should be carried out first in the home and subsequently reinforced in a group setting” (Lindsay, 2000).
You should also consider your individual dog and whether you’re both ready for the experience of a group class environment. Often rescue and shelter dogs are not suited to class situations no matter how large or small. Before you make your decision give this serious thought, it’s possible that some dogs will learn inappropriate behavior and reinforce inappropriate behavior already part of their repertoire.
Socialization is an important consideration when training dogs, but in many cases as I suggested earlier, dogs are not always ready for fast paced, lively environments, especially if they have fear issues toward novel situations and events, humans and strange dogs. Putting your dog into scary environments before they are ready will do more harm than good. It’s not fair to the dog and it’s not fair to the other members in the class. Socialization is obtained in a variety of ways, if you think your dog would benefit from private training, your training instructor will be able to help you with solutions to achieve this goal.
When training a dog and being a responsible pet owner, you should give the same type of consideration and care toward your dog’s education and welfare you would provide your own children.
Additional benefits from private training allows one-on-one assistance, when you attend group classes over an expected 6-7 weeks, and one of 10-15 persons attending a one hour class, you can expect your investment to net you about 42 total minutes over a course lasting 7 weeks with 10 students attending. If your dollar investment is anywhere from $80.00 to $125.00 and using a $100.00 dollar investment as an example the course just cost you $100.00 for 42 minutes! Sometimes you really have to consider several angles when considering your best choice when it comes to investing time and money, but also consider how much education is possible during any length of time spent with the trainer.
A sample of what our Wellness Training program can offer
• You will have the opportunity to learn dog friendly training methods
including, luring, shaping, capturing and targeting
• You will learn the ABC’s of training and how to apply reward
and non-reward markers
• How to use games that are helpful in training
• Lessons include foundation behaviors and skills i.e. orienting and
attending responses, sit-stay and down-stay, controlled walking and reliable
recalls
• Manners at the door
• How to greet strangers and other dogs
• How to control incentives and reinforcement
• Understanding how to effectively communicate with your dog
• How to understand what your dog is communicating
• Understanding prediction control expectancies and how this is helpful
in understanding how your dogs thinks and views their world
• Tools that are helpful in managing your dog during training
• Management strategies that are useful in controlling the training
environment
• How to be pro-active to prevent unwanted behavior
This is a thinking style of training, easy to implement for everyone. I hope you considered your dog an investment in continued companionship, so why not also invest a little time each day (minimum 10-15 minutes) working on attainable goals that will insure his safety and welfare, rather then contributing to the negative statistics discussed in my article The Human – Dog Bond.
Contact us for more information and to set up an appointment.
Puppy Wellness Program
Our puppy wellness program helps you raise a behaviorally
healthy puppy by developing a positive relationship between you and your
family. We use a positive proactive training plan taking into consideration
your individual dog. Our five-step program provides:
- Training your puppy to do the right thing
- Being proactive while preventing unwanted behavior from developing
- Making sure you meet your puppies behavioral and developmental needs
- Teaching you how to discourage unwanted behaviors
- Make discipline the last option and if necessary how to use if correctly
We help you to achieve socialization goals that are vital for your puppy’s development, while training you how to manage these rewarding opportunities. Socialization is probably the most important goal for raising a behaviorally healthy puppy, but the socialization period is over when the puppy is between 14-16 weeks, which means you have a lot of work to do. We help you with guidance on how best to achieve this goal. It’s not entirely achieved by attending puppy classes, but instead should be continued on a regular basis for the first 1-2 years. An important consideration when trying to achieve your socialization goal is keeping your puppy safe, not only from diseases but from bad experiences. Sometimes all it takes is one bad experience to ruin your puppy’s chance of success. Our community offers several options for meeting strangers and other dogs. We will cover these available options to assure you of success.
If there are children in the home it’s imperative you understand not only the benefits dog ownership provides children but also risks that occur when children and dogs get together. .
We cover everything from socialization, crate training, housetraining, acclimating your new puppy to other resident pets, the importance of chewing behavior and what’s safe, bite inhibition, how to handle introducing your new puppy to guests and strange dogs, how to accept gentle restraint and the foundation skills i.e. relax, sit, down, stay, coming when called, the importance of exchanging objects and how to teach your dog to walk nicely on lead.
Not only are we there to help you learn all this, but we also provide training booklets containing all this information so you have something to refer to if necessary. We demonstrate all the skills you will need to accomplish these goals, the decision is up to you to be proactive now or wait until your dog has already developed behavior problems that may put him at risk of becoming a negative statistic.
Contact us for more information and to set up an appointment.
Rehabilitating the Discourteous Dog
Rehabilitating the Discourteous Dog program is for dogs
that lack necessary socialization skills enabling them to interact harmoniously
with other dogs or humans. If you are interested in improving your dog’s
ability to change his current responses in these situations and providing
your dog with possibly a more enriched life and you’re up to meeting
this challenging opportunity that can potentially change the quality of
your current relationship then this program is meant for you.
Contact us for more information and to set up an appointment.
Boarding & Day-Care as of 06.01.07
If you are thinking about boarding or using a dog-sitting service, you may want to read the following. It may be helpful in making your decision. There are varieties of services available now to the pet owner; it is wise to make the appropriate choice that best suits your pet and expectations
You will also find several methods for housing and caring for pets available. My background in dogs was provided by completing advanced, in-depth challenging certificate courses of study in professional dog training and behavior consulting and in-depth research and studying play behavior in wild species and dogs. Dogs are unique because they are a domesticated species and many remain playful for most of their lives; however, I have concerns about leaving dogs outside unsupervised all day in large groups. Even though these groups may be divided into small and large dogs, not every individual dog has the same personality. Some dogs are assertive some timid and some in-between, mixing these personalities into the wrong groups can be stressful leading to increased arousal levels sometimes leading to aggression as well as increasing cortisol levels that could be detrimental to your pets overall health.
Dog Boarding Effective June 1, 2007
| Dogs weighing over 100 lbs. | $ 35.00 per day |
| Dogs weighing over 20 lbs., but less than 100 lbs. | $ 30.00 per day |
| Dogs weighing less than 20 lbs. | $ 25.00 per day |
Dogs who board with us enjoy unique care that includes supervised dog day care (socialization & playtime) with a minimum of four outside potty opportunities. We also provide a clean environment with a large securely fenced yard.
Since we specialize in training while promoting behavioral wellness, we try to ensure; your dog does not learn bad habits while under our care. In turn, we also let you know if we notice anything that might improve your dog’s behavior and always willing to share materials that might be helpful in achieving that success.
Grooming and baths are optional but we encourage that you consider having your pet bathed and/or groomed after any stay longer than a few days. We do not make grooming or baths mandatory but dogs can be dogs and given the playtime opportunities, they will get dirty. Otherwise, please do not expect your pet to be as clean as you brought them.
We use and recommend Precious Furs (941-927-7387) for baths and/or grooming that exceeds our ability or capacity and do not charge extra for their services. We make all the arrangements for appointments and bill you at time of pickup. Please let us know if you choose to include this service.
We are flexible in our pricing structure and can negotiate for extended stays and number of dogs. However, we feel quite comfortable in our current pricing structure considering all the benefits we provide to your dog that many other facilities charge extra.
We also offer pick up and drop off at an additional charge.
To arrange an evaluation appointment Contact us for more information
There is a minimum charge of $30.00 for a 30-minute evaluation and consult.
Check In Time - anytime between 7:00 A.M. and 11:00 A.M. and 4:00 P.M. and 7:00 P.M.
Check Out Time - anytime between 7:00 A.M. and 11:00 A.M. and 4:00 P.M. and 7:00 P.M.
Exceptions are considered but additional charges may apply. The day begins when you drop your pet and ends the following day at 11:00 A.M. Any pet picked up prior to 11:00 A.M. will not be charged an additional day.
Proof of rabies vaccination is required (applicable per Florida & Sarasota County Law) for boarding and day care and must be provided prior to the scheduled boarding time.
Contact us for more information
Dog Day Care
Dogs who are social and well behaved can participate in our dog day care program |
$ 20 per day |
We offer this service for dog owners who pet may need or benefit from continued socialization opportunities. We also understand what it is like raising a new puppy so we provide help during those critical first weeks when you are trying to establish good housetraining skills while meeting critical periods, establishing location and substrate preferences. We can also help with dogs that may have issues related to separation distress but since we know how difficult and complex this behavior is, we prefer a private consult and evaluation before making any commitment to this type of care. We can offer some holistic advice and we are willing to work with your veterinarian to help you get through these difficult times.
Proof of rabies vaccination is required (applicable per Florida & Sarasota County Law) for boarding and day care and must be provided prior to the scheduled boarding time.
Applicable trip charges may apply for pick up and drop off according to the needs of a dog or cat guardian. Proof of rabies vaccination is required (applicable per Florida & Sarasota County Law) for boarding and day care and must be provided prior to the scheduled boarding time.
Contact us for more information
Telephone Consultation
You may want to consider a preliminary phone consultation if you are unsure whether you and your dog would benefit from training or whether the problem is more complex requiring more serious consideration.
I have added this service because I often receive calls from distraught pet owners uncertain how they should proceed in resolving behavior problems. In some cases, training may be the answer, but often once communication begins, we learn there are many more issues that may be of concern. When this happens, it’s best to consider a behavior consult (Behavior Wellness program) because behavior problems are often complex and giving out information over the phone may prove counterproductive in solving the problem.
In many cases what we consider behavior problems are determined through our point of view and are often natural to the dog or cat. It’s important for pet owners to recognize this fact, otherwise our pets well being may be compromised due to our lack of understanding and education.
**Our goal is to assist pet owners in making appropriate decisions regarding their pet’s welfare. A phone interview may be helpful in determining the best course for treating your individual problem. **
Method of Payment:**
A $50 deposit is required when you schedule the telephone consultation appointment. If you decide to cancel, you must do so 48 hours before the appointment in order to obtain a refund of the $50 deposit. If you decide to continue using either the Training Wellness Program or Behavior Wellness Program after this initial consultation, your $50 deposit is deducted from the total fee charged at the time of the scheduled Training or Behavior Wellness appointment and the balance in full will be required at that time.
Payment for the telephone consultation should be made with Paypal and upon receipt of payment you will be redirected to a consultation questionnaire. Please fill out the questionnaire and submit.Book an In-Home Consultation
Method of Payment:**
A $50 deposit is required when you schedule an in-home consultation. If you decide to cancel, you must do so 48 hours before the appointment in order to obtain a refund of the $50 deposit. If you decide to continue using either the Training Wellness Program or Behavior Wellness Program after this initial consultation, your $50 deposit is deducted from the total fee charged at the time of the scheduled Training or Behavior Wellness appointment and the balance in full will be required at that time.
Payment for the in-home consultation should be made with Paypal and upon receipt of payment you will be redirected to a consultation questionnaire. Please fill out the questionnaire and submit.NOTE: We provide the most effective training and behavior plans based on your individual needs. This is provided based on my education. We promote dog friendly training keeping your dog’s behavioral wellness in mind.
Training, behavior consultations and behavior assessments
are not guaranteed. It would be ethically ineffective to guarantee or profess
an ability to predict future behavior of any living animal. Behavior is
not static but is always under the influence of one’s environment
and environmental conditions are always subject to change. It is for this
condition that we cannot guarantee any training or behavior outcomes.
We carry general liability insurance to protect the public and us.
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