Perfect Companion K9

Q: l spend awesome quality time with my dog when we snuggle on the sofa watching tv together. Other than that, what else do you recommend l do with my dog? A: Spending quality time with your dog is not the same as coddling or snuggling with your dog. When l think of quality time, l think of spending time to train my dog, walk my dog, and play with my dog. These activities can challenge my dog, educate my dog, and encourage my dog. They are “quality” because they can e

Many owners tell me their dogs will not pay attention to them once they see another dog in public. Their dogs just totally ignore them. The owners would become totally irrelevant. Their dogs never come when called and are simply put, impossible to control. You have to be someone that your dog really wants to be with in order for your dog to love spending time with you. You cannot be that person if you hardly spend any quality time with your dog. Spending quality time is about

I like to take this opportunity to talk about the protocol of meeting a person or dog. I teach all my dogs to stay calmly by my side when a person/dog walks towards us. I also teach my dogs to engage in me. I teach them to wait for permission before they go say hi, if l choose to do so. Even if an off leash dog runs towards my dog in an off leash area and they want to play, my dog will stay by me until l give her the okay to engage. If l do not want them to say hi for whateve

Your dog has a personal bubble. It varies in sizes depending on where he is, how he feels, and what he is facing. As your dog's leader, you need to be very in tune with how big your dog needs that bubble to be at all time. If your dog sees a trigger and needs a bigger bubble (i.e. more personal space), you can creat that by staying further away from the trigger. Distance is the key. You can just walk around, turn 90 degree, or make a u turn, to increase distance. Lots of dogs

A dog is not a cat. If you want a well behaved dog, please walk your dog daily. I do at least 60% of my training and socialization when l am walking my dogs. I spend lots of time walking my dogs - I walk them in a pack, and l walk them one on one; l walk them on leash and off leash; l walk them structurally as well as unstructurally... During the walk, a dog gets to know me and build a relationship with me in an instinctual manner. He will read my body language and observe ho

Why should I train my dog? Why can't I just let her run in the park? Training is very important because it is the common language that both the dog and human can understand. Just like learning a new language in school, the more we practice, the better we will become. Similarly, the more we spend time training our dogs, the better we will understand each other. Training should be very fun, it is something the dog should really look forward to. By making it a lot of fun to list

Exercise is not just important because it can tire out your dog; structured play and exercise with your dog can build engagement and deepen your relationship as well. Engagement is about teaching your dog to look to you for what he wants and that includes when your dog wants to play. Teaching engagement can be lots of fun for everyone. In my case, whenever l go to the beach l always play some fun games with Anja so she gets into the habit of anticipating a fun game with me in