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Obsidian K9 Academy ©

Obsidian K9 Academy was founded in 2017 and is the biggest international dog training family on the face of the planet.

Obsidian K9

The Lodge
Selby Road
Doncaster DN6 0ET
07401146598
gray@obsidiank9.com
Monday - Saturday: 9:00 AM - 6:00 PM

obsidiank9academy

One of My Favourites! Well those of you who know

One of My Favourites!

Well those of you who know me well, know I have a soft spot for German Short Haired Pointers, and Brams was no exception to that rule. What a cool dog and an absolute blast to train!

Brams came today after seeing SIX other trainers (One good, five terrible) with dog and traffic reactivity. Brams' owner spent over a thousand pound with a well known annoying duo in the dog world that are ABSOLUTEly awful and she did ten solid hours with them... Got nowhere.

Know why? Because they were selling a false problem. Brams isn't reactive at all, to traffic, or to dogs, or to anything for that matter. His owner today told me he would try and kill the ducks and geese at the duck pond... I knew he wouldn't and he didn't.

He walked around with Flak, Kodiak, Panzer and Hannya today with no issues, no reaction, no nothing. Many trainers make out that problems are far worse than they are so you go back for more sessions. They hold dogs back from being as good as they can be to line their pocket and today that ended.

The issue today was that Bram's owner had been told all these bad things about how viciously reactive he was, that she believed them and so she should! In reality, her opinion of him was causing half the reactions.

See, there's two ends to a lead... The end attached to the dog, and the end attached to the part that needs teaching. Owners have to learn much more than dogs when I train. They are almost always the weak link.

But, now we've said Brams and his owner straight, they are gonna continue to flourish in the Academy and I have FULL confidence that the don't need to spend anymore money on trainers from here forwards!

Another one sorted!
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I Don’t Have Time One of the many excuses that

I Don’t Have Time

One of the many excuses that we all use to procrastinate and avoid doing the things we really should be doing. Also one of the most common reasons people don’t get the results in dog training.

‘I don’t have time’ really translates to ‘its not a priority to me’. See, time is identical for all people. Twenty four hours in a day, seven days in a week, thirty (ish) days in a month, twelve months in a year... What we DO with that time is the variable.

Lets assume we all sleep eight hours, work ten hours, spend two hours doing life stuff, spend two hours with our kids, and spend an hour watching tv... there’s STILL another spare hour in everyday.

People do actually have time if they get a handle on where and when they are wasting it. Go on your phone now and find your screen time and look how much time you’ve wasted on pointless apps that are doing nothing for you.

How much time are you spending watching funny cat videos? How many episodes of Breaking Bad have you watched this week? How long have you spent sat doing nothing?

We’re all busy, I get it. I’ve got two businesses, a wife, a daughter, life rubbish to deal with everyday, I’m doing a PhD. I’ve got loads to do just like you do. But everyday my dogs get trained.

It’s Sunday now, and we’re heading out to get a few hours of tracking in. We’re chasing results, not excuses.

You HAVE got time to get your results. It might make life a little less comfortable but being uncomfortable never killed anyone.

Get it done. Get at it!
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Almost Halloween! Well Halloween is nearly among

Almost Halloween!

Well Halloween is nearly among us and big lad Ghost seems very apt for that! Ghost came today with a couple of issues that were linked to each other and being a young, bolshy, male Rottweiler his owners wanted to get them sorted as soon as they could!

His two biggest issues were reactivity to both people and dogs and he had them in equal doses so there wasn't really a preference in which got sorted first. He had a few other niggly issues too that most young, male Rotties go through but nothing too concerning and nothing that we couldn't fix with a bit of advice and a few tweaks to the training he was doing already.

We started out with his human reactivity around me and it was just driven by frustration and a little sprinkle of nerve so nowhere near the worst I have seen or dealt with, and then we moved onto his dog reactivity which was indeed about as bad and was also straight forward to fix. By the end of the session he was walking around me and my dogs no issues at all.

Really Ghost's owners were making a couple of fundamental mistakes which was allowing the behaviour to escalate and spiral into something worse than it needed to be. The main one was creating grey areas.

They were deciding on whether or not behaviour was right or wrong based on how they felt, what sort of day at work they had etc etc rather than making it a black and white answer for the dog to more clearly understand.

The clearer we are with our behavioural input to dogs, the faster and more clearly they work out the correct answers and start dropping the bad behaviours.

It all sounds very easy in theory but the practice of it is much more complicated which is why I wish more people would consult a professional when the behaviour is mild.

Well done guys! Great work!
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Big Zeus! Today we had Zeus in for his first ses

Big Zeus!

Today we had Zeus in for his first session and what an amazing looking dog he is, but that's not what this post is about!

Zeus came today with a few problems but all of them were super minor so I've got to say a massive well done to his owner for being pro-active and not waiting for problems to get bad before getting help because it makes the whole process so much easier for me, for them and for the dog instead of waiting until you're at breaking point and wanting the dog fixed the next day!

Zeus' main issue was reaction to other dogs. When he saw them he would bark and lunge and there didn't seem to be any good reason for it because off the lead, he is really ignorant to other dogs and causes no issue at all... His issue was frustration.

Zeus became frustrated when he was on the lead which produced a conditioned response to the given stimulus so as soon as I saw this, I knew it would be really straight forward and no issue at all to fix and low and behold, within about half an hour, Zeus was walking around with my dogs no issue.

His owner was missing a few fundamental foundational principles but nothing that won't be hard to address quickly as we move forward so that's exciting to think how such small changes will make a huge difference to the dynamic.

Well done guys!
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Noticing Your Flaws Well we’ve had a great even

Noticing Your Flaws

Well we’ve had a great evening out training tonight! Shane, Adam and I decided to head to Junction 32 shopping centre to do some real world obedience:

I realised the other day that we don’t do enough of this because it’s so easy to train at home with the facility being literally my back garden so today I started taking action to do something about it!

Neither of the dogs were amazing but they both tried well and that’s all I ever want from them! We had fun, got some great exposure and got a few strange looks!

Sometimes we need to take a minute to notice where the holes in our training are and admitting them so you can take action is the difference between progress and stagnation.

Get out and get it done!!
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#dogtrainer #dog #dogsofinstagram #gsd #germanshepherd #business #dogtraining #businessman #rottweilers #rottweiler #k9 #k9 #dutchshepherdsofinstagramunit #protectiondog #StopAtNothing #family #kingk9 #children #training #doglove #obedience #dogstagram #RaisingTheBar #ObsidianK9 #dogtrainingtips #workingdogs #dogswithjobs #dogsonadventure #outdoorswithdogs #sableshepherd

Big Bronson (Video in the story) Today we had thi

Big Bronson
(Video in the story)

Today we had this big lad in for his first session and he was awesome. I've not seen a dog in a long time that was SO happy to work, SO happy to do things, SO happy to engage and that's partly genetic for sure but his owner has done a TONNE of work in the online Academy getting him this far too which is always awesome to see.

Bronson's issue was reactivity to other dogs but stemming from frustration to go and play with them because his owners stuck him in day care a couple of days a week when he was younger so he thinks dogs are the most fun thing in the world.

This is just another of the many reasons I hate day care - Dogs don't need to think that other dogs are the best thing in the world because one day they will run over to the wrong dog and cause themselves a world of problems.

We got straight to work setting Bronson up to WIN today rather than to lose and practice the behaviour that we don't want and he was absolutely amazing to train. Super receptive, super in tune, super driven... I really had a lot of fun.

Really the issue was that his owner wasn't providing him anywhere near enough mental stimulation to overcome the interest to the other dogs which left her nagging at him, which in turn made her even less valuable.

Once we flipped that on its head, you can see he was awesome. We had Khaleesi out, and Flak out, no issues whatsoever!

Massive well done guys!
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Traffic Reactivity (Video in the story) Today we

Traffic Reactivity
(Video in the story)

Today we had the lovely Lola in for her first session here at the facility and it went awesome! Lola and Jake are members of my online Academy, and dedicated members at that. They work hard, they get the reps in, they train every day and the results, as always speak for themselves.

The first thing they were having issues with was over excitement with other dogs which I didn't even bother filming because it took literally two minutes of just putting some fundamentals in, improving some timing, improving reward systems etc and that was squared away and won't cause any issues.

The second and much more pressing issue was that Lola was fairly badly reactive to traffic. If a big van, lorry, cyclist or motorbike went past she would lunge onto the end of the lead, kicking off and generally causing herself a problem.

Traffic reactivity is no doubt the most dangerous stimulus for dogs to react to because the lorry isn't going to stop if they slip a collar, so this needed fixing today and today only... Which we managed just fine.

Lola did indeed bark and lunge at the exact cars that Jake said she would but we got to work with some focus and engagement principles and stuck some operant conditioning to run alongside that and she was awesome as you can see in the video.

If you have a dog that is any type of reactive you really should be getting help but if you have a traffic reactive dog you NEED to get onto that. Someone in the comments will mention that their dog is the same and then do nothing about it and the dog is at huge risk every single day. Get it fixed and go about your life.

These things often don't take long!!
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Step Outside Your Comfort Zone Nothing at all int

Step Outside Your Comfort Zone

Nothing at all interesting or exciting will happen within your comfort zone and you HAVE to get outside of it because that's where all the amazing things are. Train above and beyond whatever you already need.

All I really NEED from my dogs is to be good off lead, be good on lead and be nice to other people and dogs, but there's no point in ending my training there. I get ten, twelve, maybe more years with these animals and I want to make the most of them.

So we trained all the stuff we needed for life, then trained all the fancy obedience, then trained and competed in protection trials and the next chapter will be to put a couple of IW titles on them too.

Constantly keep moving forwards and pushing but make sure you have goals in place. Without goals you don't have direction and it can cause real problems in dog training if you start training a behaviour that conflicts with a later goal.

The clearer you are, the easier the journey is. So decide what it is you want and then do absolutely everything in your power to get there. Spend your days off travelling to see trainers... I do. Friday I was off and I was down in Melton training and today I have been off and we've had club day here. Training training and more training.

Without the repetitions you will not get where you want to be. Dog training is a game built on repetition whether you like it or not and if someone else is doing the work they will get there and you will miss out.

Stop wishing for better, stop hoping for better, take action and get moving!

Today I will do what others won't, so tomorrow I can do what others can't.
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Are You Having Fun!? I've discussed this before b

Are You Having Fun!?

I've discussed this before but I think it's a really important point to make in training, especially for those of you with fairly serious behavioural issues or those of you really working to get your dogs to the highest level possible.

Dog training is a long, often lonely, often demoralising road and if you aren't enjoying it then there really isn't much chance of you ever getting to the end of it and achieving the things you want to achieve. Sometimes behaviours can take years to get to where people want them and that's years of day in and day out.

Of course there are times that can be stressful, hard work, worrying and that's just part of the game but for the most part you need to make sure you AND your dog are actually enjoying it. We train our dogs so we can both have better lives and if one of us is miserable then what's the point?

The best way I have found to have fun with training is to make sure that you are training for you. Make sure you are training the things that are important to you and not things that a trainer on Facebook has said you SHOULD be training.

The second thing is to fall in love with the process, not the results. As soon as you are training because you actually love training you will have fun almost every day. The main reason people are miserable is because they are chasing the end, not enjoying the process.

So check in with yourself and make sure you are actually enjoying it because if you're not, then you're doing something wrong!
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Environmental Conditioning Today we had Kaia in f

Environmental Conditioning

Today we had Kaia in for her first session at five months old and I am pleased to say she has the best owners who are super dedicated to their dogs progress, they are active members of the online Academy, they've been to see me with their other dog and they are constantly striving to improve no matter what hurdle they run into.

Kaia came today with a bit of nerve reactivity to various external stimulus. She was reactive to dogs, people, and even the environment itself. A lot of this nerve is genetic and some of it has to do with her age, but there's also another variable that a lot of people forget about and that's the environmental conditioning aspect of training.

Environmental conditioning is something I put super high in my dogs training criteria ESPECIALLY when they are young dogs. My puppy at the moment is working on this every single week without fail.

In short, what people should be doing is taking their dogs out to every single place they can imagine, from as young as is realistically possible. Train stations, car washes, shopping centres, farms, lakes, airfields, busy streets, dark places, back lanes, absolutely anywhere you can think of.

This allows dogs to find normalisation in these strange areas so when you go back to the truly normal areas, there's no adverse reaction at all.

This was the biggest hole in Kaia's training and something her owners are going to put as important moving forward but she was amazing today and really settled down with minimal work.

Well done guys!
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Dealing With Fear (Video in the story) Today we h

Dealing With Fear
(Video in the story)

Today we had Lilly in for her first session and these guys drove down all the way from Edinburgh after having no luck with other trainers. Lilly presented with pretty bad fear reactivity that was causing her to kick off at people and at dogs but when the driving force is such a negative mindset you have to be very careful how it's dealt with.

Lilly has been to three trainers before me, one of them was a pack theorist who corrected her into a wall every time she kicked off which obviously made things a load worse, as she was already scared. The other was force free and wanted to throw food at her which wasn't doing anything either and I can't remember what the third was but it wasn't working!

Lilly didn't have a behavioural issue as much as she had a psychological issue. Her internal perception of the outside world was warped. If there were strange smells, strange noises, really any stimulus at all, shew was not happy and that needs dealing with at its root cause, not as a surface behaviour.

We decided the best way to counter condition this behaviour was to internalise her attention back to her handler rather than allowing fixation to send her into a downward spiral of emotions and as you can see from the video she did great, walking around another dog no issue.

We had the lorries going by, we had all three of my working dogs out with her and no kicking off whatsoever so now it's a case of her owners solidifying that and continuing to condition the response to various stimuli. Until today, every other trainer told them that Lilly was not ready to be around other dogs, which was an outright lie... She was great.

Well done guys!
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Why Tips Don’t Work So I probably get at least

Why Tips Don’t Work

So I probably get at least ten messages a day for people wanting tips and if they want tips on a better food for their dog, that’s fine. But they often ask for tips on super advanced behavioural issues and it’s just not how it works.

Let’s flip the industry for a second and you can see why it doesn’t work.

‘Hi mr Surgeon, I’ve got a tumour in my stomach, do you have any tips to take it out at home?’

‘Hi there mr Pilot, any tips on how to fly a passenger jet to Turkey for the week?’

‘Hi there zoologist, any tips to get the lion out his enclosure?’

People dedicate years and years of their lives to becoming proficient in an area of knowledge. There’s no quick tips they can give you to share the entirety of that knowledge. If there was, they wouldn’t have had to spend so long learning.

I still, to this day read a book every week on behaviour, psychology, neurology, nutrition, epigenetics etc etc. I’m constantly theoretically learning.

And to this day I train dogs six days a week, which means I’m practically learning.

It was almost eight years ago I went to live in America to pursue this and I’ve been learning ever since to refine my skills. I’ve done my qualifications, I’ve won competitions, I’m chasing my PhD. It takes a long, long time to refine a single skill.

Tips aren’t a thing. There are no tips. I think the dog training industry is categorised with fairly low skill because there’s so many terrible trainers around. I’ve seen trainers say psychology isn’t important when it’s literally psychology we address every single day.

We’re adjusting behavioural tendencies in dogs. That’s what dog trainers do all day long. You need to go see one and spend time with one for them to help you.

There are no tips.
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Constantly Improving Well for the last two days w

Constantly Improving

Well for the last two days we've had Jack down from J&P Canine Academy for a two day retreat, and guess what... He hasn't even brought a dog down because his whole goal was to learn more, to be a better trainer, to improve his business, to work on his goals, to just generally improve as a dog trainer.

I absolutely loves these kinds of clients where people make a solid effort to improve themselves. I think as dog owners and professional trainers we can often get into this rut of thinking we know what we need to know and that just becomes that, when in reality there are ALWAYS more things that can be improved or learned.

Jack doesn't have any issues with hid dog, he's a professional trainer but we've still spent two FULL days going over principles of training, psychological learning principles, application of sport training etc etc. The list really has been endless.

I've trained my dogs, he's picked my brains on why I do what I do and when and we've just generally had an awesome time. Now we are about to head off to Junction 32 shopping centre to delve into the world of Environmental Conditioning to see if there are improvements he can make to allow his clients to get better as well.

We also spent a good few hours delving into his business to try and create a better structure for it and I will always be happy to do this for people. I've made 101 mistakes in my career and if I can stop someone else making them then that's just great.

The biggest problem in dog training in general is that people wait until they have a problem and then they ignore it for a few months, then they eventually contact a trainer.

Get better BEFORE the problems start and you will save yourself a massive amount of money and headache!
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Work For What You Want! We currently live in a w

Work For What You Want!

We currently live in a world of instant gratification and it's killing peoples abilities to hit their goals and get the things they want in life and that's super sad but it's the reality of the situation right now.

Whenever you want something in life you have to sacrifice, and hustle and grind. You have to spend a period of time living in the dirt bleeding from your eyeballs to get some traction on the road to success whether that be in your training or in your life.

When I first opened this business I had absolutely nothing. Everyone laughed at me and told me it would never work and that I should go and get a 'real job' but I chose to ignore them and follow what my heart said to me. I knew this was the right path but I also knew it would take an obnoxious amount of sacrifice and work to get where I am today.

Dog Training is no different. Everybody wants a dog that is well trained, easy to live with, no hassle, yet very few people have it because very few people have the minerals required to get down that garden path and stick at it.

I have some people that message me from fifteen minutes down the road who say I am too far away to come for a session and I have others that quite literally cross oceans, from different countries to train. The only difference in those people is willingness to do what is required.

How much you want it is up to you. If you can't afford a trainer, cancel your subscriptions, stop buying coffee from Starbucks, stop getting take away. If you don't have time, then stop watching Dexter and Grey's Anatomy on repeat.

There is always a way to get what you want in this world, the problem is that people often don't like the answer.

There's only one way you are reaching your goals and that's with good old fashioned hard work. No supplements, no tricks, no tips, no smoke and mirrors... Just hard work.

Train insane, or remain the same. The choice is yours!

Fear Aggression (Video in the comments) Second ha

Fear Aggression
(Video in the comments)

Second half day of the day and we had this lovely Staffy in for her first session at the facility and I had a great time!! Jess is six years old so here's some good proof that you can teach old dogs new tricks and you can rehabilitate long term psychological issues if you are willing to do the work!

Jess had bad reactivity to other dogs, resulting in her having to be put in a harness because she was throwing herself so hard into her collar that she was sending her eyes bloodshot on every walk.

We got Jess out to have a look at the stem psychology behind this behaviour and looking at linking behaviours it was super clear that it was driven by a rooted nerve which makes things a bit more tricky and a bit more time consuming but we can always help dogs with this!

Jess' owner brought her whole family along to the session which was great to see because it's super handy to have everyone singing off the same hymn sheet when it comes to rehabilitating psychological issues.

We got stuck in with Jack and Kodiak for this one because Jess' biggest issue was with small dogs and she was so good. She was stood three feet away from Jack without any issues and walked around with them both beautifully.

There's definitely more work to be done here to solidify her psychological responses to other dogs but I have NO doubt that she can get there!

When training anything to do with fear it's important to actually reprogramme the dog's brain rather than masking it with quick fixes that a lot of trainers use to get themselves a great before and after video for Social media.

Well done all!
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Hyper Fixation! Today we had big Titan in, travel

Hyper Fixation!

Today we had big Titan in, travelling all the way from Oxford so as with most of my clients, the dedication is absolutely there! Titan is a massive Shepher which just seemingly worsens the problem he presents with but to be honest, this was a really easy fix.

The problem he came with was dog reactivity but it all stemmed from a hyper fixation problem that his owners knew about. They've not had the best start with trainers though!

The first trainer wanted nothing to do with Titan as soon as he got above knee height and told them to throw food on the ground throughout his whole walk.

The second trainer put him on a prong collar at fifteen weeks old which is absolutely abhorrent and I cannot ever see a time or place to be doing it.

And the last trainer thought he was Cesar Milan, walking round the class screaming at the dogs telling them he was alpha... Mental.

Then they joined the online Academy and we got some proper work done which is how they knew about the hyper fixation.

Anyway we got straight to work reprogramming a better response and really it was just a case of appropriately interrupting the fixation whilst occupying his brain with something else and then just conditioning that response.

He trained today around Flak, Khaleesi and Kodiak without any issues at all so why this took four trainers I do not know!

Super well done guys!!
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Why 'Tips' Don't Work So everyday, I get (I kid

Why 'Tips' Don't Work

So everyday, I get (I kid you not) at least fifty messages from people wanting tips or tricks. Said behaviours are usually extremely advanced stuff as well.

Unfortunately, Dog Training isn't a game of tips, or tricks, or quick fixes. It's a grind and it's difficult. What you are trying to do, is understand and change, the psychology of another animal that doesn't even speak your language.

I've been at this game over seven years now, and I train over three hundred and fifty dogs a year in person, and another thousand or so come through my online Academy doors per year as well.

This game is hard my friend and people need to take that into consideration when they are trying to resolve behaviours, especially the more advanced behaviours like separation anxiety, reactivity or aggression.

If you needed your house re wiring, you wouldn't ask an electrician for tips, if you needed a surgery doing you wouldn't message your surgeon for some quick advice, you would book to go and see them.

Dog Training (especially advanced behaviour adjustment) is no different. There are trainers that have trained literally thousands and thousands of dogs, and they are still learning every single day to become better.

As trainers we devote our lives to understanding the psychology of dogs, so stop trying to cut corners and get the real help that you need and it'll save you a LOT of time in the future.
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We've Got To Work Together The dog world is full

We've Got To Work Together

The dog world is full of some absolutely amazing people and it's one of the places I have called home for just shy of eight years now and I love it... But it also has a hell of a lot of toxicity in it as well. Clubs not working with new people, others who won't entertain anyone that's not doing the same sport as them, others who just hate people they have never met... It can be a tricky world for sure!

It baffles me too, we all got into this game because we love training dogs, we love progressing, we love improvement, we love being better than yesterday and there's still so much headache between sports, between breeds, between individuals and there's literally no need whatsoever.

If we all started working together more we'd have better dogs, a healthier industry and more fun! Take today for example. I drove up to see Lewis Hartley at @finchparkk9 again to get some work in with him.

See, I am now just over four weeks away from competition day and I wanted some pre contest help because Lewis puts it together better than anyone else in the UK... We aren't training the same sport and yet there he was, helping, training, getting the work in, because he understands the game!

Ultimately it would be great if the dog world became more community driven but I don't see it happening anytime soon so I guess the best thing you can do is pick your people. Pick the people who clap when you win and stay around when you lose.

Competing dogs is hard work, its a lifestyle and we all have our own journey. So where you can, help each other, get stuck in together. We are all in the same game here so this clicky behaviour really needs to be left at the gate!

Today we had a great afternoon, loads of people on the field talking dogs. It's the best part of it!

Big thanks to Lewis today for the advice... Time to start implementing it now!
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Kodiak Updates So I’ve been getting a tonne of

Kodiak Updates

So I’ve been getting a tonne of questions every day about Kodiak and how he’s getting on! In short he’s doing great but in long, I’m posting all his updates in regular videos in the Academy!

We’ve started a series called ‘Raising the Perfect Sport Dog’ and we’re three episodes in already which is crazy! Also Adam is doing another series about raising pet puppies!

I didn’t want to post all Kodiak’s videos to my social media for a couple of reasons:

1 - My Academy members will always be rewarded for taking action and getting it done.

2 - I just wanted to get my head down and train for improvements without worrying about doing posts all the time.

Every week at the moment I’m posting a video discussing what we’ve been training, how and why and then the clips that I’ve filmed over the week so it’s super cool!

Enjoying the journey so far!
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Fitzy! (Video in the story) Today we had this cr

Fitzy!
(Video in the story)

Today we had this cracker in for his first session here at the facility and he did great! His owner Daryl actually came to see me a few months ago with his other dog Quinn who was terrified of the world and today, Quinn was a thousand times more confident so that was lovely to see, but today was about Fitzy, not Quinn!

Fitzy was a rescue dog, like all Daryl's dogs and to start with he just wanted a nice dog to live in his house but as more months have passed of Daryl being an Academy Member, he is starting to fall in love with the more advanced parts of dog training.

Daryl decided a while ago he wanted to try and put a GT title on Fitzy so today we were working on that programme. We looked at his competition heel work first and noticed a few flaws with duration of position and engagement as well as skipping some steps to try and get ahead so that was an easy fix.

Then as you can see in the video we worked on his down stay in the presence of another dog which is a compulsory exercise for the GT title. We did some work on that with Khaleesi being the stooge dog for the exercise and as you can see, Fitzy was awesome!

Lastly we did some work on position changes between sit, down and stand and that's definitely an area Fitzy needs more work on because the value in the behaviour just isn't there, but it will come and you can expect to see him competing in the next six months or so!

I absolutely love this higher level work and wish more people would keep getting help beyond the behavioural or basic problems because it's so, so rewarding to do more with your dog!

Well done guys!
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Raising The Perfect Sport Dog | Episode 5
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