Onyx
The Adventure Begins: 02/24/25
What is the Humane Hierarchy?
Addressing behavior from a professional lens means approaching change from a systematic and humane process. While you can read a little about my training philosophy on my Frequently Asked Questions and in this blog post, generally speaking when looking at behavior change I will recommend you review the Human Hierarchy of needs for your dog.
This structure emphasizes physical and mental welfare, and changing behavior by setting up successful interactions with positive reinforcement driving preferred behaviors. I am always cautious before including any behavior in a training plan that may exacerbate frustration or distress for your dog, and will work to avoid creating fallout and mistrust in your training program.
Coaching Resources
Start Here
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Start Here 〰️
The Handbook is a lengthy read, but has just about everything you might need to know when starting a program. This is the absolute best place to start with your training package.
Start Here
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Start Here 〰️
Guild Hall is a client portal within my website - you’ll find classes and events available only to past and present clients there, as well as discounts on certain future services. You’ll also find recommended outlets for your dog, including sports, events, and sniffspot information.
Your google drive is available to you to reference your contract and contact and care form, make updates to your dog’s care information, upload vaccination records, as well as share videos and photos with questions or for feedback!
Character Sheet
Onyx
Session Zero: 02/24/25
Recommended Training Package: Character Creation Private Lessons
4 45-minute in-person sessions at your home*, a nearby park, or virtually
Recaps and Resources provided on your personalized webpage to keep you on track between sessions
Lifetime Access to relevant online training course
Everything that the client portal Guild Hall has to offer - including nearby classes and events, discounted services, additional troubleshooting and coaching, and more!
…$740
Onyx has had some improvements in behavior since we last worked together as well as some setbacks - she gets along well with the cats now and is overall more settled at home. She does still have incidences of resource guarding from the cats, but that’s been well managed. However she is also still struggling with reactivity out and about, especially after additional incidences of being charged or injured by other animals.
During walks, Onyx is hypervigilant but able to check in except in higher stress situations - including one specific house with a reactive dog, as well as any visible dog out on walks as well. While she can’t be distracted in the moment, she does seem to recover from reactive moments well and is able to resume her prior level of attention.
The primary goals with Onyx are:
1) To increase overall endurance for training as part of her reactivity work - one of the challenges with Onyx is that she is not especially biddable, and can lose interest in extrinsic reinforcers easily.
2) Manage reactivity on walks and in real life scenarios.
3) Adapt more readily to visitors coming over and settle once they’ve arrived.
While it sounds like overall Onyx is still a pretty chill girlie who gets opportunities for exercise with mom and her chosen friends, I do want to emphasize the advantage of decompression walks and using Sniffspots as spaces where she can have supervised time on or off leash with the absence of triggers. Even with having her own yard, Sniffspots give dogs a chance to explore different smells and stimuli without the risk of triggers. Ideally if she can have intentional decompression time weekly, I think she will be better set up for working on her triggers in the neighborhood.
While not the end of what we want to do, continue to provide Onyx with management to avoid rehearsing behaviors. One thing I might add to her barking at the door - especially as you are okay with her initial alert barking - is helping her learn to recover from the behavior on cue by adding “Thank you” as a verbal interrupter and cue for her to settle back down. This will be helpful as we move towards working on incorporating guests into her behavior plan and goals!
02/24/25
It was so good to catch up on Onyx and brainstorm about how to continue to widen her circle and improve everyone’s quality of life. I want to see how we can work on giving her both the distance and the interruption that she needs to disconnect from a trigger, so want to see about practicing her “look at that” cue with her favorite squeaky toy and incorporate that into her repertoire when she’s out and about. Remember that “look at that” is a “note and report” skill - personally I prefer being flexible in my criteria with it, meaning that if the distraction is easy, I may wait for the dog to both note (look at the distraction) and report (look back to me) before clicking - or squeaking - and rewarding. However, if the distraction is tough, I’ll take just “noting” the distraction and then using the squeak as an interrupter and my reward placement as a way to enforce the “report” part of the behavior. So what that might look like in the neighborhood:
See a dog from a distance, ask Onyx to “look!”
Onyx looks but does not look back to you.
Squeak her toy and when she turns towards the sound, mark and jog backwards with the toy, allowing her to grab and play as she does.
At a more workable distance, try the exercise again or switch to a treat scatter if she’s capable of taking food.
Let me know how this is working - I think we will need to be creative with Onyx’s rewards - both in type and variety - to make these exercises meaningful for her. We can make a point during private sessions of using the environment and spotlighting other behaviors she might enjoy since food likely won’t be sufficient all of the time.
For next steps, I agree that especially since she’s not been introduced to someone new in quite some time, private sessions are going to be the most purposeful as we can both work on her comfort with me as well as reactivity in the neighborhood with the two of you. My introductory private session package is $740 and includes:
4 45-minute in-person sessions at your home*, a nearby park, or virtually
Recaps and Resources provided on your personalized webpage to keep you on track between sessions
Lifetime Access to relevant online training course
Everything that the client portal Guild Hall has to offer - including nearby classes and events, discounted services, additional troubleshooting and coaching, and more!
Let me know what questions you guys have and if that works well for you both, and we can go ahead and get next steps together to get started!
Skill Tree
