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In this beginner level class you and your dog will learn the foundational concepts of trick training while learning fun and functional tricks! Trick training is wonderful enrichment for your dog and increases your relationship through teamwork and enjoyment.

This class is for dogs who may show behaviors such as barking, growly, lunging or whimpering, hiding and running away from triggers. Triggers may be: other dogs, strangers, children, cars, skateboards and so on. Dogs with big feelings are often fearful. They either want to make the scary thing go away or they want to get away from the scary thing. Occasionally, the dog is frustrated with being on a leash and not being able to go visit the trigger. No matter the reason for the behaviors, we can help. With combined experience and education, Lisa and Elizabeth will demonstrate in each class new skills to help your dog perceive the trigger in a different way and behave in a different way. We focus on concepts such as: Confidence building, safety, relationship, relaxation, engagement with games and much more.

Do you have a newly rescued dog that is fearful to the world, or you?! Does your dog bark and lunge at other dogs, people skateboards and more…or guard his/her food, objects? Let us help! We have extensive experience and education working with PTSD, aggression, fear and reactivity. In fact, we love working with dogs like this and watching them flourish into confident, happy, family dogs! We have 4 phases as we approach behaviour and create behaviour plans: Assessment: This is the initial session where we get all of the information needed to best help your dog. Background, health information (many behaviour issues are pain related!), past training experience, what your dog loves etc! We also begin simple skills if possible. Mitigation: This includes environmental management. Trying to help prevent your dog from getting into situations where he/she feels threatened, fearful etc. We want your dog to stop practicing the emotion and the behavior as best as possible, by setting up the environment to help him be successful. This helps her feels safe and reduces all of those hormone levels that remain escalated every time there is a reaction! We also talk about how to build confidence with enrichment and other skills. Training: This is the phase where we learn many skills that will begin to help your dog learn to feel different about the things that scare, frustrate or otherwise cause stress when he encounters them. We use force free, positive methods of course and work on the root cause of the emotions causing the behaviour. We begin at levels your dog can handle, setting them up for success. Then slowly, we build on the skills from indoors, to outdoors, adding triggers and decreasing distance. Implementation This is real life implementation! This is where we take you into real life situations and help you learn how to use the new skills you and your dog have learned!! This is an incredibly important step, otherwise you have the skills (or your dog does too!) but knowing when and how to use them needs to be learned too!!

Our one hour consultation is best for learning about our session packages or assessment for a decision to re-home, emergency risk management etc. The one hour consultation is not appropriate for learning and emotion/behavior change.