The Blog

Today we are going to talk about the task “Block”. Blocking is when the dog is positioned to provide a physical barrier between the handler and most often, other people. This physical buffer and the additional space the dog provides allows handlers to have reduced hypervigilance and anxiety. The dog doesn’t do anything but hold position.

This blog post is going to read more like a diary entry then my usual posts tend to. This is a journey of BIG emotions and I’m sharing them because while I don’t have all the answers right now, in the future this experience is going to serve me to help my clients when they are ready to go through this experience too. I’m sure when it is all

Today brought me a lovely reminder about why I choose to work with owner trainers rather then place pretrained assistance dogs. While I do agree there is a time and a place that a pre-trained assistance dog may be more appropriate, I firmly believe that the bond that develops between a handler and their assistance dog when owner training can not

As a dog trainer I have learned many people consider professional dog training a “luxury service” as opposed to an essential investment. I believe if you are brining a dog in to your life that investing in some professional advice as early in the process of adding the dog to your family, regardless of if it is a new 8-week-old puppy or

To be covered by federal law, the dog must meet the legislative requirement of being trained in the behaviour and hygiene for an animal in a public place. You might not have task work solid yet, but your obedience and toilet training needs to be up to scratch. Your dog must be fully toilet trained, able to heel on a leash and complete a 5 minute

There are lots of great trainers out there, but very few with experience training assistance dogs. While they may be great at training pet dogs, or even competition obedience or agility champions, the skill set required for an assistance dog is quite unique. Most dog schools train with the goal or guidelines of competition obedience in mind.