This year, my husband got me something for Christmas that I absolutely love.
He got me a bullet journal and archival pens. In case you don’t know, a bullet journal is a plain journal that you fill in any way you choose. Most often, the journal ‘s pages have dots in a grid pattern. The dots serve as markers similar to lines on stationery or graph paper. What I love so much about the bullet journal is that I can design it any way I want to. I have spent so much time looking for a planner that will work for me, but nothing has ever quite fit. This journal will be a planner and habit tracker designed specifically for me. It’s the perfect time of year to be designing a new planner. As the new year approaches, it seems only natural to be evaluating habits and planning new ones. Anyone who does dog training sessions with me will hear a lot about habits. Dogs form good and bad habits just like we do. The problem is, they can’t use helpful things like journals and planners to help them break bad habits and build good ones. They don’t think about the upcoming new year and make plans to change. They don’t even comprehend that their bad habits are a problem. It’s up to us to help our dogs change. It’s up to us to help our dogs build good habits and break bad ones. Dogs are going to build habits. If we don’t do the work to train them and to lead them, we probably won’t like the habits our dogs build. The good news is, whether your dog already has bad habits that need correcting, or you just need a little help with getting your dog to build good habits, we can help. Let us show you how. The first step is to schedule your free, no obligation evaluation. Click here to schedule your evaluation online now. You pick a day and time that works best for you. A trainer will meet with you and your dog (and anyone else that you would like involved in training) and go over some history, find out your training goals, and discuss training options. We can usually provide you with some free tips to help you start seeing immediate results. You can find out more about all our training options and get any questions you have answered. There is no pressure or obligation to buy anything. Here is the link to schedule your free evaluation: https://www.cleverk9mi.com/schedule-evaluation-session.html Happy Training!
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This past Tuesday was average by most accounts. It was so average, we were having tacos for dinner at my house. We are divided on which of us prefers hard shells and which prefers soft. After twenty-two years of cooking dinners for my family, I just want whatever is easiest. So, I told my daughter to heat the hard taco shells in the toaster oven while I worked on everything else. That worked out well for a while, until my younger kids wanted someone to read a story to them and my daughter volunteered. That’s right - the same daughter that was heating the taco shells, took off to read a story to the little kids. A few minutes later, I started to smell smoke. A taco shell had produced a tiny little flame. I called for help as I unplugged the toaster oven and began to put out the fire. Older kids ushered the younger kids and the dogs to safety as my husband and I worked to make sure that the fire had been completely distinguished and then tried to rid the house of smoke.
It’s crazy how fast a fire goes up. As anyone who has had a dog with behavior problems likely knows, a dog’s behavior can be a lot like a smoldering fire. If you don’t stop the problem when it’s small, it can quickly get out of control. When an owner brings us a dog that has recently begun a nuisance behavior, we can often help solve the issue relatively quickly. If the dog has been given long enough to allow their behavior to become a habit, then it becomes far more difficult to deal with the problem. Instead of a small fire inside of a toaster oven, we now have a raging house fire. It’s not that a house fire cannot be extinguished, it is just that it is going to take quite a bit more time and effort. We can help you with whatever size problem you have, from a little smoke to a full on blaze, but the sooner you come to us the easier the issue will be to manage. Let us show you how. The first step is to schedule your free, no obligation evaluation. Click here to schedule your evaluation online now. You pick a day and time that works best for you. A trainer will meet with you and your dog (and anyone else that you would like involved in training) and go over some history, find out your training goals, and discuss training options. We can usually provide you with some free tips to help you start seeing immediate results. You can find out more about all our training options and get any questions you have answered. There is no pressure or obligation to buy anything. Here is the link to schedule your free evaluation: https://www.cleverk9mi.com/schedule-evaluation-session.html Happy Training! My teens, though seemingly normal, don’t always have the most traditional taste in artwork.
While it is quite common to find posters of favorite bands, video games, pop culture icons, or sports teams hanging on the average teenager’s walls, my teens opt for a more educated look. One of my boys, who is a huge history and geography buff, decorates his walls with maps, flags, and historical posters. There was even a time that he was hiding photos of historical figures in our framed family photographs. So, I probably shouldn’t have been surprised when another of my sons came home from school the other day carrying a huge wall hanging of The Periodic Table of Elements. I was more than a little confused when I asked him where he got the thing and what he planned on doing with it. My son looked at me like I was crazy. The physics teacher gave the poster to my son and he had every intention on hanging his new treasure on his bedroom wall - of course. Isn’t that where you normally hang a giant poster of the Periodic Table? I believe I laughed and called my son a nerd. He knows that’s a compliment coming from me; I have been a nerd my whole life. I love to learn new things - to read, to study, to explore. Learning is a such a great adventure. I want to share the joy of learning with everyone I can - my children, my employees, my clients. This leads me to a topic we don’t talk about around here much, our education and credentials. Honestly, the important thing is whether the work we do is helping our clients, so that’s what we focus on. We don’t talk much about our training, certifications, ribbons or other accomplishments. But that doesn’t mean we don’t have them. On a rare occasion, someone might contact us and ask for our credentials and we send them. But, in general, that stuff just hasn’t come up. That is, until the other day when we received a random 1-star review in the middle of the night, from a person we had never heard of, claiming that our staff had no training. I spent the day laughing. If they had only asked. As far as I’m aware, we are the only dog training company around that offers not only paid internships, but we also pay for our staff members to earn their training certifications in a variety of topics ranging from agility and sports to nutrition. We require that ALL our staff, even our office staff, be trained in dog behavior and safety. Many of our staff know dog CPR and First Aid. We always encourage continued training and we hold staff training sessions to practice old skills or learn new ones. We take education very seriously - for both our staff and our clients alike. We Can Help You Does your dog not listen to you? Does he or she jump on guests every time someone comes to visit? Does your dog pull you down the street every time you go for a walk? We can help you. Let us show you how. The first step is to schedule your free, no obligation evaluation. Click here to schedule your evaluation online now. You pick a day and time that works best for you. A trainer will meet with you and your dog (and anyone else that you would like involved in training) and go over some history, find out your training goals, and discuss training options. We can usually provide you with some free tips to help you start seeing immediate results. You can find out more about all our training options and get any questions you have answered. There is no pressure or obligation to buy anything. Here is the link to schedule your free evaluation: https://www.cleverk9mi.com/schedule-evaluation-session.html Happy Training! The other day I made a fool of myself in public.
Yup, it was a stellar moment. Let me tell you a little bit about it. I was at one of my least favorite places, the Social Security Office. It never fails, no matter how much documentation I bring in, it’s never enough. Not once have I been able to walk in and have the process go well the first time. To be fair, I never bring a standard case to the Social Security Office. I have adopted several older children with complex histories. The list of documents that the courts and adoption agencies give you to know what to bring to the Social Security Office is useless. And finding a list online of what I need in my unique situation is difficult at best. Changing my children’s names and social security numbers isn’t as cut and dry as getting a replacement card. This time though, I was ready. I had documentation in abundance, above and beyond anything they could possibly ask for- or so I thought. I dutifully waited my turn and confidently handed my paperwork over to the staff member. Then the questions started. Another staff was called in to assist. Court documents were turned away as unusable. Something was wrong with the name I was providing. I needed to provide a letter from the school stating our child’s pre-adoptive name and new name. What? Since when is that necessary to get a Social Security card? How are the court documents not enough? My patience was gone. So was my usual cool and calm demeanor. I began yelling at the staff members standing behind the window. I knew that losing my temper wasn’t going to change anything, but it didn’t matter at that moment. We’ve fought long and hard for this adoption. It has taken so much longer than it should have. There’s a lot of painful history caught up in the battle. I was so relieved to finally be able to finish the last piece of this adoption and start life with our son finally sharing our name. That all crumbled in front of me and I was angry. I loudly complained the entire way out the door. Now, of course nobody could know the whole story of what really went on. All they knew was that some woman was leaving the building and making a scene the entire way out the door. Here’s the thing, outwardly I was angry. I was angry, true, but I was also disappointed, frustrated, fearful, and sad. Anger was just the easiest and safest emotion to show at that moment. Oftentimes, aggressive dogs behave similarly. Most of the time, dogs that show aggressive tendencies are actually fearful. It’s just safer to show aggression than fear. When we train an aggressive dog, we work to teach the dog alternate behaviors to aggression. Once a dog doesn’t have aggression to fall back on when they’re nervous we can start to see the root of the problem. Quite likely, it will be fear. That’s when we work on confidence building and relaxation training. Nothing is a quick fix. Training to overcome fear and aggression takes time and effort. But it is achievable. If you have a dog that has shown signs of fear or aggression, contact us. We would love to help you and your dog experience the world in a new, confident way. Let us show you how. The first step is to schedule your free, no obligation evaluation. Click here to schedule your evaluation online now. You pick a day and time that works best for you. A trainer will meet with you and your dog (and anyone else that you would like involved in training) and go over some history, find out your training goals, and discuss training options. We can usually provide you with some free tips to help you start seeing immediate results. You can find out more about all our training options and get any questions you have answered. There is no pressure or obligation to buy anything. Here is the link to schedule your free evaluation: https://www.cleverk9mi.com/schedule-evaluation-session.html Happy Training! My son Joe is home from college this weekend.
I’m a happy mom. There’s something else. Not only is Joe home, but his best friend also came home this weekend. So, not only do I get to spend time with my boy, I get to see and spend time with a kid that has been a part of our lives forever. I couldn’t ask for more. We moved to the area right before Joe turned 5 years old. The same week we moved into our new home, we met a whole group of our new neighbors. One of our neighbors had a son the same age as Joseph. I encouraged Joe to go make friends with our new neighbor. It wasn’t long before Joe, uncharacteristically, informed me that he absolutely did not like the neighbor kid and they certainly were not friends. Instead, Joe befriended the kid’s older brother. Things continued that same way for a couple of years. Joe stayed friends with the older brother but had little interaction with the kid that was the same age. But slowly, things started changing. As the boys grew up, they went to the same schools, rode the same buses, played on the same sports teams, and began to share the same interests. Eventually, Joe and the neighbor kid not only became friends - they became best friends. They have been for years. I almost forget that there was a time that they weren’t friends. I guess school can do that. It brings people together. Friendships form and things change. I have the pleasure of teaching some of the classes here at Clever Canine. Each of my classes is special. I get to love and play with puppies and share the joy of new puppy ownership with many new puppy parents. I watch puppies play together and listen to owners share their ups and downs. It’s a job that many would love to have, and I am very thankful to have it. I get to teach older dog parents how to train their dogs to be good citizens. I show families how to teach their dog to have manners both at home and in the community. And again, I hear the echoes of the people who tell me I have the best job, and I’m thankful. Then, there’s my older group of dogs and their owners. These are the dogs and families that have been training with us for a while. Many have been through private lessons with me or have been through my other classes. One of the great things about this group is how welcoming they are to newcomers. I love to watch new people join the group and be accepted in. It’s great to watch the friendships grow. It’s hard to describe how much I love each one of the dogs that I have spent so long working with. They and their families are special to me. Many people comment on how much they like the perk of lifetime group classes that comes with our private lesson program or boot camp. The secret we keep is that we benefit too. We become attached. We love the dogs and enjoy spending time with our clients. It’s our little incentive to get our clients to come back and visit. We Can Help You Have a Great Dog! Do you have a dog that doesn't listen? Does your dog pull you down the street when going for a walk? Are you embarrassed to have guests over because your dog jumps on them and wont leave them alone? We can help. Let us show you how. The first step is to schedule your free, no obligation evaluation. Click hereto schedule your evaluation online now. You pick a day and time that works best for you. A trainer will meet with you and your dog (and anyone else that you would like involved in training) and go over some history, find out your training goals, and discuss training options. We can usually provide you with some free tips to help you start seeing immediate results. You can find out more about all our training options and get any questions you have answered. There is no pressure or obligation to buy anything. Here is the link to schedule your free evaluation: https://www.cleverk9mi.com/schedule-evaluation-session.html Happy Training! If you follow our Facebook or Instagram pages, you may have already seen posts about Archie. If you haven’t, let me tell you about this little guy. He’s mine. I’m absolutely in love. He’s a spunky little bundle of fluff. Being the crazy dog lovers that we are, my husband and I decided to add another dog to our pack.
We have adopted dogs into our family in a lot of different ways. Half of our dogs are rescues, and the other half are from breeders. This time we decided to go with a purebred, Mini Australian Shepherd (American Shepherd) because we knew what traits we were looking for, and Archie is it! I’d be lying if I told you this past week was easy. We are back in the throes of young puppy days. That means whining and crying in the middle of the night, potty accidents on the floor, sharp puppy teeth nipping at our hands, and inconvenient trips outside to teach the little guy where to go potty. Archie is a smart little guy. He’s picking up on training quickly. It has been a week, and he has learned to be quiet in his crate- sometimes. He knows to relieve himself outside, though he doesn’t always make it. He knows how to sit and down on command. As trainers, we know that teaching Archie all that stuff is important, but the most important thing we can do for Archie is to make sure he is properly socialized. The thing is, puppies have a very short window of opportunity when it comes to socialization. Puppies are open to accepting new things when they are between 3 and 16 weeks old. After that window, training a dog to accept new things becomes much more difficult. For the next few weeks, our most important job will be to make sure Archie has positive interactions with as many different people, places, and friendly animals as possible. It’s our job to make sure Archie can be confident in new situations so we will be setting a strong foundation through proper socialization. Dogs that don’t get the chance to get out and learn about the world when they are very young often develop fearful behaviors. They don’t have to have ever had a negative interaction with something to develop a fear of it. Just lack of exposure is enough for dogs to be afraid. The problem is that fearful dogs can develop aggression. In fact, fear-based aggression is the most common type of aggression that we see. It’s sad for everyone when a dog is fearful. If you have a young puppy, now is the time to prepare your dog for the future. Make sure your puppy gets to meet tons of friendly, new people of all ages, ethnicities, and backgrounds. Make sure to take them places where they experience an array of new sights, sounds, and smells. Introduce them to unusual things. Build their confidence and their world. It’s exciting to see the world through the eyes of a young, playful puppy. Enjoy it. If you have a dog that has already shown signs of fear or aggression, contact us. We would love to help you and your dog experience the world in a new, confident way. Let us show you how. The first step is to schedule your free, no obligation evaluation. Click here to schedule your evaluation online now. You pick a day and time that works best for you. A trainer will meet with you and your dog (and anyone else that you would like involved in training) and go over some history, find out your training goals, and discuss training options. We can usually provide you with some free tips to help you start seeing immediate results. You can find out more about all our training options and get any questions you have answered. There is no pressure or obligation to buy anything. Here is the link to schedule your free evaluation: https://www.cleverk9mi.com/schedule-evaluation-session.html Happy Training! I am a bit distracted today.
I guess that’s not all that unusual. But today, my firstborn son is home visiting from college. Honestly, it’s hard to think of anything else. It’s apparent by the smile on my face and the distracted responses I’m giving to the simplest questions, that my mind is somewhere else. Suffice it to say, I am not going to be making any life-altering decisions today. I am not going to put myself in a situation that requires a ton of concentration because I know that a few seconds into whatever I’m doing, my mind will drift off again to thinking about spending time with my precious son. I think most of you can relate to my situation, even if it doesn’t involve a son going off to college. Most people can think of a time that they were so distracted that they were unable to perform tasks that require the slightest amount of concentration. More than that, if you’ve ever spent time praying or meditating, you know that it’s much easier said than done. It takes an effort to build the stamina to keep at it for any length of time. Our minds wander, we get distracted, we lose focus. Now to dog training. Often as trainers, we see owners who get frustrated when their dog doesn't listen to a common command in class or out in the community even though the dog knows the command well. We hear comments like, "He knows this! He just won’t do it!" Well, here’s the thing, performing a command at home is much easier for your dog than performing a command out around new distractions. It takes a tremendous amount of stamina for a dog to focus around distractions. Not much different than you or I. That’s why we recommend training in quiet, familiar locations first and then building the training to incorporate distractions slowly. Help your dog succeed by building distractions slowly into his training routines. If you find that your dog is really struggling with getting it right, then step back in training. Reduce the distractions. Dogs do want to succeed. It’s our job to help them. Do you get frustrated when your dog doesn't listen? We can help you. Let us show you how. The first step is to schedule your free, no obligation evaluation. Click here to schedule your evaluation online now. You pick a day and time that works best for you. A trainer will meet with you and your dog (and anyone else that you would like involved in training) and go over some history, find out your training goals, and discuss training options. We can usually provide you with some free tips to help you start seeing immediate results. You can find out more about all our training options and get any questions you have answered. There is no pressure or obligation to buy anything. Here is the link to schedule your free evaluation: https://www.cleverk9mi.com/schedule-evaluation-session.html Happy Training! Let me tell you about what happened to one of my clients last weekend.
I was helping a client teach their dog proper manners in a community setting. We were enjoying the day and the beautiful weather. The morning had been a success. The dog was doing well. She had been focused on her owners, ignoring temptations and distractions. There were adults, children, and dogs all around. We were about to wrap up. That’s when she came by. She was a little girl around seven or eight years old, as cute as can be. But she was not nice. You wouldn’t have known to look at her. She was well-dressed, and her hair was done up. She looked so innocent and sweet- until she thought no one was looking. As the little girl walked by, she crouched down, snarled, and growled at my client’s dog. When the dog didn’t respond the first time, the little girl hid behind another person and then jumped out at the dog and again snarled and growled. This time, the dog barked at the little girl. Of course, the girl jumped back and acted innocent. Everyone looked at the “aggressive” dog. Thankfully, I had seen the whole thing, and I was not about to let it go. The mother did not look impressed when I lectured her daughter on dog safety and manners. I didn’t mind the dirty looks she was giving me. If my lecture stops the child from repeating that performance and saves her from getting bit, then it’s worth the mother’s anger. If my words help someone think before scaring a dog, that well could be the saving of a dog’s life and someone’s face. What concerns me most is that this is the third time something like this has happened to my clients’ dogs in the past month. I’m sending this out as an important reminder: be vigilant when you have your dog out in the community. Be watchful and advocate for your dog. We expect our dogs to have good manners. We need to be mindful of the situations we put them in. It’s ok to ask people not to pet your dog. It’s ok to ask people to keep their dog away from yours. It’s ok to ask children to stay back. It’s ok to speak up. It may save a life. If your dog needs help with his manners If you cannot take him out and enjoy a beautiful day because you are worried what he will do around others We can help you. Let us show you how. The first step is to schedule your free, no obligation evaluation. Click here to schedule your evaluation online now. You pick a day and time that works best for you. A trainer will meet with you and your dog (and anyone else that you would like involved in training) and go over some history, find out your training goals, and discuss training options. We can usually provide you with some free tips to help you start seeing immediate results. You can find out more about all our training options and get any questions you have answered. There is no pressure or obligation to buy anything. Here is the link to schedule your free evaluation: https://www.cleverk9mi.com/schedule-evaluation-session.html Happy Training! These last couple of weeks have been an exercise in self control for those of us here at Clever Canine. That goes for the humans and the dogs. For these past weeks, we have had a nest of baby bunnies by our back door. They are so stinkin’ cute! The problem is, every one of us here, human and dog alike, wants to get to those bunnies. We all have our own reasons. Most of us just want to watch the little ones grow, though I have a suspicion that some of the dogs have other ideas. And I’m fairly certain there are a few staff members here that would LOVE to sneak in a baby bunny cuddle, against their better judgment. What can I say, we are huge animal lovers here. Many of us even have certifications to prove it. To keep the babies safe, we set up cones around the nest site. That way we wouldn’t accidentally let any of the dogs get too close. We also worked on the "Leave It" command whenever we had dogs (or overly-interested people) that were close to the cones.
"Leave It" is one of the most important commands to teach a dog. It is the command we use whenever we want our dog to completely ignore something: whether it’s another dog, a person, a treat, a toy, or a baby bunny. The thing is, we don’t always have the luxury of having bright orange cones around the forbidden object we don’t want our dogs to have. It’s so very important to have the command instilled in our dogs when it doesn’t matter so they will follow the command when it does matter. Getting that level of obedience takes proper instruction and practice. It certainly doesn’t happen overnight. But, with consistency and practice, it does happen. We can help you. Let us show you how. The first step is to schedule your free, no obligation evaluation. Click here to schedule your evaluation online now. You pick a day and time that works best for you. A trainer will meet with you and your dog (and anyone else that you would like involved in training) and go over some history, find out your training goals, and discuss training options. We can usually provide you with some free tips to help you start seeing immediate results. You can find out more about all our training options and get any questions you have answered. There is no pressure or obligation to buy anything. Here is the link to schedule your free evaluation: https://www.cleverk9mi.com/schedule-evaluation-session.html Happy Training! It’s that time of year again.
Time to send our eager students off to their first week of school. As for me, I just sent one of mine off to college and another one off to Kindergarten. Plus, I have several staggered in between. I have always loved the start of the school year. It’s full of so many new and exciting possibilities. It’s full of promises to learn new things and become better than what we were. Many years ago, one of my friends told me that she saw me as a lifelong learner. I always want to know more, to learn new things, to see improvement from where I was. The exciting thing is, you’re never too old to learn something new. "You can’t teach old dogs new tricks" is definitely not a true statement. We teach dogs and people of all ages! Maybe that’s why I love training dogs. There’s always more to learn. Always more that can be done. It’s so rewarding to watch dogs and owners grasp new concepts, to see them master a new technique, to watch the progression as they grow. I get to share my passion for learning with my clients and their dogs. I get to see them enjoy learning too! How great is that? We can help your dog overcome the problems you are experiencing. You too can have a great dog! Let us show you how. The first step is to schedule your free, no obligation evaluation. Click here to schedule your evaluation online now. You pick a day and time that works best for you. A trainer will meet with you and your dog (and anyone else that you would like involved in training) and go over some history, find out your training goals, and discuss training options. We can usually provide you with some free tips to help you start seeing immediate results. You can find out more about all our training options and get any questions you have answered. There is no pressure or obligation to buy anything. Here is the link to schedule your free evaluation: https://www.cleverk9mi.com/schedule-evaluation-session.html Happy Training! |