In this episode, I dissect some of the reasons why "balanced trainers" use the tools they do.

Every pressurized system needs a relief valve. There has to be a way to find relief, because if the pressure doesn’t find a way out...it will explode. Ok, no lie but I got that from Grey’s Anatomy, Season 7 Episode 8🤣 . But it served as really great inspiration! . She was referencing about humans and how we are similar to a pressurized system and without finding outlets to relieve pressure, we explode in unpredictable ways (anger, anxiety, depression, irritability, addiction, etc) . Couldn’t...

Something I personally struggle with when it comes to dog training😞 and it may be impacting you too. Extreme empathy. I’m a highly empathic person. It’s served me well through my life and has acted as a survival mechanism during my childhood, but as an adult it can cause more harm than good for me emotionally at times. As a dog trainer I am manipulating, teaching and un-teaching behavior. Dogs come to me for a reason. By the time a dog comes to me, their behavior has reached a precipice...

One of the reasons “WHY” your dog does what they do. What does nail picking, pacing, foot tapping, leg jiggling, exercising, stalking, gambling, etc all have in common? . The answer: they are self reinforcing. Meaning: you can control your own behavior and the behavior in and of itself is rewarding. Nail picking is your own choice in behavior, and simply doing the behavior of nail picking is rewarding. Pacing is your own choice in behavior, and simply doing the behavior of pacing is...

One of the TOP pieces of advice I now give to people. Over the course of my dog training, owning and handling career, there have been (or are currently) a lot of things I’m passionate about. Crate training your dog Boundaries in the home Structure for your dog Accountability and consequences for behavior On and on. But most recently to add to the list is this: . TEACH YOUR DOG HOW TO HANDLE FRUSTRATION Teach your dog how to handle the frustration of being contained. At some point in your...

Too many choices are scary. Not enough information to make those choices are even worse. Who here has overthought a new relationship?🙋🏻‍♀️ . Maybe one day something feels off, you read a message that makes you think something is wrong and you get it into your head that they’re going to break up with you. You have all of this anxiety and panic because you don’t know if it’s true or not. You also don’t have enough information to make choices. Do you break up with them first? Do you confront...

Honestly, there would be significantly less poorly behaved dogs in the world if people treated their dogs like toddlers. “Whaaa? Omg is this trainer saying to anthropomorphize dogs?!” No. Dogs and humans are different. The mental and emotional capacity that dogs have is extremely different than a human. The way they communicate, process information and biological needs are different. I’m saying that the principles and fundamentals of rearing a child are extremely similar to proper owning...

Hard truth: protection dogs are built. Your dog being “protective” of you is unhealthy. It can be quite a sinkhole of explaining this concept during a phone consultation. Frequently, I’ll take a phone call or a virtual training session of someone explaining behaviors from their dog, that at first glance, look protective of their owner. They go on to explain how they like certain behaviors, saying things along the lines of “if someone breaks in he’ll protect us.” . But then continue to say...

PILLAR 5 CHALLENGE: Contest Rules & Prize Info Below If you’ve followed along on my account, you should be very familiar with my “5 Pillars of Dog Training” and know that the last and fifth pillar is Relationship+Leadership. So, we are launching this challenge to encourage our community build a stronger relationship and become a better leader for your dog(s) over the next 30 days. We designed the rules of the challenge to be simple, but not necessarily easy. You see, it’s all too...

Erick Innis is the founder of Coastline K9 and Rescue 22 Foundation based in Naples, FL. After an extensive special forces military career handling and training K9's for various military contracts, Erick found a training niche that was perfectly suited for him Personal Protection K9's.

We're ecstatic to have Matt Fiala as a part of the Canine Performance Team. Expect to see and learn a lot from Matt in the coming months!

You have to be strongly committed to your goals, more than your dog is committed to their goals. Obviously, we want to be on the same page and working towards the same goal with our dogs as often as possible. But that isn’t always going to happen. You’re going to have friction at some point. You’re going to have pushback. You’re going to have conflict. My goal as a trainer is to minimize how much conflict we have with dogs during training. You can minimize a lot of conflict during...

Crates are IMPORTANT!!! . I will fight anyone on this. Ok, not actually, raise your dog however you want it’s not my dog. But color me livid if I hear a story about how a dog destroys items in the house, barks at people constantly from the window and someone’s priority in the dogs life is to “get the dog out of the cage and free-roam” . There is zero benefit to free roaming. Zero. Can some dogs do it? Yeah for sure. But just because a dog CAN do it doesn’t mean they SHOULD. The...

Reward more so you have less to correct. During a phone consult yesterday, one of the things I said was: . “I say “good” and “bad” choices -quote in quote- because the dog doesn’t see what he’s doing as bad. To him, all choices he makes are good because he’s doing exactly what he wants to do. It’s “bad” to us because WE deem it “bad.” But he is not a human and doesn’t inherently understand OUR “good” and “bad,” we need to teach him both.” . The key word being BOTH. We need to teach what’s...

I mark and reward at the wrong times. I use a marker and grab food at the same time. I mess up my leash handling. I miss opportunities to correct behavior. Rookie mistakes. Yup. I do it occasionally. And I bet many other trainers do as well from time to time. I bet you do too. Every time I rewatch videos of myself, I can pick out like fifteen different things I did wrong or could have done better. It’s hard to put out content honestly because I want so badly for everything to be...

Off-leash dogs and on-leash greetings. On Facebook today, in a dog mom group, a woman posted an emotional post about how she feels targetted that other dog owners won't let her pit mix come and say hi when they're out walking. Another woman posted a link to a news story of how a dog was mauled to death (screenshots on the last picture. WARNING: GRAPHIC) and explained that she would rather be safe than sorry, so she does not allow any dogs on-leash or off-leash to approach hers. I chimed in...

Ok, so you did the thing. You established boundaries, rules, and structure in the home. You’ve been consistent in training. Your dog's behavior has significantly increased, and all is well.🥳 Except for the fact that you kind of miss having your dog up on the couch with you. You miss having them sleep in the bed and snuggle. You are kind of tired of continually having them on their dog bed or in their crate. So what can you do? I tell my clients this all the time. My goal for my dogs...

Your dog’s breed is not an excuse🗣 . “Huskies can't be off-leash.” . “Chihuahuas are just yappy” . “Labs are always going to be overexcited around people and will never be calm.” . “Bulldogs can’t be trained because they’re lazy.” — Well, you better tell my husky she’s doing the off-leash thing wrong. Or the Frenchies and the bulldogs I’ve trained. Heck, that lab that learned how to be calm and polite around people better figure his stuff out Sure, breeds have stereotypes around them and...

Embarrassment. Guilt. Frustration. Owning a dog surprisingly came with a lot of those emotions. When I first experienced them, I wasn't sure how to handle it. At first, it was embarrassment over my dog's behavior before they had training. Then when they were trained it was shame and guilt for the tools I used in training. Over time it turned into a mixture of guilt for not training enough, then shame when I did train because of the tools I used, embarrassment when people would make...

Some truths are harder to accept than others. In the dog world this is especially true and unfortunately, a very hard blind eye is often turned. Like most things, I believe this comes down to a lack of knowledge and education. Because I work inside of the dog training industry, I have more education and knowledge about dogs than the everyday pet owner. So while some of these things are not shocking to me, they can be shocking to other people that hear them. So shocking, to the point that...

Setting boundaries are hard or near impossible when we have emotional illusions tied to them. These illusions are often created from other people’s criticism, comments and opinions. (“You put your dog in a cage” “Spikes on her neck” “Shock her into submission”) . They can also be formed from inaccurate education and knowledge. (“If you punish your dog you destroy your bond”) . Or when we emotionally tie ourselves to dogs in ways that are unhealthy (“My fur baby”) . Sometimes it’s difficult...

“Energetic” “Can’t calm down” “Hyper” “Zoomies” - Most commonly heard words during a phone eval, virtual lesson or DM message. What’s a dog owner to do? Well, obviously, the first step is to make sure that you exercise them to the point of exhaustion. Doggie daycare needs to happen at least 5x per week while you’re at work. Dog parks on the weekend so they’re adequately exhausted before you leave to go out with friends. Several miles of walks if doggie daycare and the dog park don’t...

You could do everything right...and these 4 things could set you back in training😣 The single most frustrating thing to happen when training your dog is to have events happen outside of your control. An off-leash dog being able to get around you to your reactive dog you’ve been working on rehabbing for months and a fight breaks out. Your mother (or family member/guest) coming over and when you ask her to not address the dog when she first comes in, to avoid him getting excited (because...