Episode #100 Your Success Stories

I am excited to share with you things we received from YOU this week. My goal with Baxter & Bella - The Online Puppy School was and still is to better educate families on how to incorporate a dog into their home and life. It has been so fun and rewarding to read your successes you sent in this week. Puppy training takes time, patience and effort - all of which you give to your dog. I may provide the information, but you do the hard work so give yourself a big pat on the back! Today I want to celebrate with you. 

Transcript

Your Success Stories

We made it to 100! 100 episodes of The Puppy Training Podcast. Thank you so much for your support, for listening, for sharing the show and most importantly for taking the time to implement what you learn in everyday life with your dog! 

I’m excited to share with you things we received from YOU this week. My goal with Baxter & Bella - The Online Puppy School was and still is to better educate families on how to incorporate a dog into their home and life. It has been so fun and rewarding to read your successes you sent in this week. Puppy training takes time, patience and effort - all of which you give to your dog. I may provide the information, but you do the hard work so give yourself a big pat on the back! Today I want to celebrate with you. 

To start off, Carrie says, My puppy did a great job walking today to get kids from school. We will be working on her walking next to me….I have never had a puppy leash walk so early!!! 

Keep up the good work Carrie. Step by step successes build strong habits! 

I hope with all the training you are doing with your dog, that you use it. What are things you ask your dog to do so they stay out of trouble at home? Check out this email from Gail. 

She states Cooper is our 21 month old mini golden doodle. One of our favorite success stories is how we broke the habit of him wanting to lick the dishes when we are loading the dishwasher. When he gets near the dishwasher we say “crate” and he immediately runs into his crate and lays down. When we started training this , we gave him treats immediately but now sometimes we don’t even give him a treat and we forget he’s in there.  Most times he waits for us to release him. This is really the only time he goes in the crate unless he just decides to hang out there on his own. There was one incident one day that he did something naughty in the yard, I scolded him and when I opened  the door to come back in the house he went right into the crate on his own. 

If you have listened to our podcast for awhile, or are part of The Online Puppy School, you will hear me say a lot, build a relationship with your dog first. 

Michele sent in… Hi there, I have a 15 week old standard Goldendoodle named Bruno. The biggest win for me was learning to change my mindset to see if this as a partnership rather than command and control. I am learning to really pay attention to his cues rather than pushing him to do things that he might not want to do. It seems so simple... but seeing things from his point of view, figuring out how he’s feeling and building trust has improved every single aspect of training! 

P.S. think I heard in a podcast that Amy also has a dog named Bruno! Ours was named after Cinderella’s dog! (But we did like Encanto too) :) Yes I do have a Bruno Michele! He was named after Cinderella’s dog too, only he is small - big in personality though! 

For those of you trying to crate train your puppy right now, Jen and Matt can relate. 

Our success story involved our Australian Labradoodle puppy Maggie - we were struggling with crate training and with Baxter and Bella’s help- she screamed and cried and wouldn’t settle . With lots of patience and the training help from the wonderful trainers were able to successfully train her to be in the crate. It’s been the biggest blessing because many dog places won’t take a dog without being crate trained & we can take her anywhere! 

We also have been able to teach her shake, place, sit stay, down. wait, come, out and now working on relax with her! We can take her to the beach and parks and she’s been great off leash too!!

Thanks B&B for helping us help Maggie! 

Thanks Jen and Matt for sharing your success with Maggie! Sounds like a great life - Maggie is one lucky dog. 

Here at Baxter & Bella, we highly recommend preparing BEFORE your puppy comes home. We have a learning module dedicated to getting you ready. Judy wrote in….

I watched and listened to both your videos and podcasts prior to getting my puppy and also the first couple of months I had her whenever she was napping. I also ordered many of the recommended products. 

Crate training was a win! And the snuggle puppy was well worth the purchase; because of it she never cried in her crate at night.  And to this day, at 14 months old, still prefers to sleep in her crate. 

She also is very adept at doing impressive and fun tricks and the sit, stay, leave it, and come commands are lifesavers, as well as learning to walk properly on a leash with treat rewards. 

I can’t thank you enough for all of your help in raising a great puppy and making me a better dog mom. :)

From Judy and Dijon Mustard - love the name Dijon Judy! Thanks for sharing the advice to prepare early.

Carl & Faith sent in this - My name is Sir Winston, I am a Bernedoodle, I learned to sit on my first day at home. 

Can’t wait to follow along on your journey with Winston! Keep up the good work! 

Anyone have a reactive dog out there? Check out this email sent in by Emily and family. 

Our pup is a currently 17 month old, 60 lb F1B goldendoodle.  We've had him since 8 weeks and he is our first puppy as a family.  I knew it would be a lot of work, but it has been *quite* challenging to say the least!  A friend told us about B&B right before we got our puppy, and it has truly been a life-saver (or should I say puppy-saver?!) from the get go.  We had just moved to a new city right in the middle of covid, (the catalyst for getting a puppy in the first place - moving 3 tween/teenagers across the country unexpectedly, they needed some extra emotional support!!) and just didn't have a lot of local resources.  So the idea of an online puppy "school" was perfect for us!  We quickly learned through B&B different terms like "the zoomies" and "reactive dog" and "resource guarding," and realized we had a pup that especially seemed to deal with all of those things.  While we have been far from perfect in our puppy training, anything we have done right has all been because of B&B.  

Probably the biggest help for us has been learning that some pups get more easily over-stimulated and can be more reactive than others, and that we needed to just take a step back and learn to nip the zoomies and craziness in the bud before it started.  SO many people told us we just needed to take him for longer walks or runs or play more in the backyard with him to get his energy out, but through B&B we learned that actually he needed LESS of all of that.  We could barely walk him down the street or around the block for months and months without him going crazy, jumping and biting us, as well as barking & pulling any time we passed another dog or person.  My kids had to stop walking him b/c he got too big for them to control and there were just a lot of tears and frustrations. BUT, thanks to B&B, we learned over time that it was ok to take him for super short walks, even just walking the sidewalk in front of our house to practice leash training.  We learned that the puppy stage lasts a good 2 years and that it just takes a lot of patience and practice and time for our pup to master skills.  He still isn't perfect when walking, but he is SO MUCH BETTER than he was the first year of his life!  We have learned to read his body language and pay attention to things like the weather (who knew wind could be SO stimulating for him!) and how many dogs/people we pass to know how long of a walk he can handle.  And he can often walk for a good 20-30 minutes now if he's rested and we time it right.  I used to dread walking him but now I look forward to it!

We are still in the puppy stage & learning, but are specifically SO thankful for all the crate training, leash training, resource guarding training and basic manners training we have gotten from B&B!  The facebook group, emails and phone calls have been SO helpful.

Thank you Salz family for sharing and helping others to see the possibilities! Great work! 

Elaine sent in a story about her dog Shamrock, doing therapy work. She says…

Just before her 2nd birthday, Shamrock passed her Therapy Dog test and this summer she will be the Reading Dog at a local library.  She previously passed CGC and AKC Star Puppy on the way to Therapy Dog.

We started listening to your podcast before Shamrock was born.  We've never had a pet before and had no idea what to do.  You convinced us of the importance of training so we started classes 9 days after we brought her home and took every available class for 2 years.  

At almost 3 years old, everyone comments on how well behaved Shamrock is.  She still has her puppy moments, but we are very proud of her and take her almost everywhere!

I'm so glad we listened to your podcast, purchased the online puppy school, and took her to classes.  They've added up to a great dog!

Elain - so proud of you and Shamrock! Therapy dogs are needed in our communities and what a blessing you are to those around you. 

Jess and her dog Rocket wrote the following…

Bailey helped coach me and my very car-anxious puppy, Rocket, through some tough months. When we started working on his car anxiety, I couldn't even get him near the car without him shaking, panting and trying to run away. Over the course of a few video coaching sessions, Bailey helped me create a plan for desensitizing the car and making it a more neutral place. After about six weeks of very consistent and very slooooooow drives to the park two blocks away from my house, lots of treats, handfuls of wet salmon dog food (so gross!) and anything else it took to make the car less scary, Rocket began to actually get a little excited to approach the car. 

We continued very slow, very positive and very short drives to meet up with dog friends, sniff new places and play fetch. Now, six months later, Rocket happily rides in the car almost every day to drop off my kids at school and is so calm, he sometimes drifts off to sleep. Major victory (and a huge relief!) to be able to take this fun puppy more places with me now. 

Thanks,

Jess Coppom + Rocket (newly one old goldendoodle)

Gwen is working on stay with her dog. She says, 

Hi Team B&B-

I’m not sure if videos are really relevant to the podcast, since listeners can’t actually SEE video, but our most recent win is practicing patience. One of our doggo’s favorite treats is banana, and he of course loves peanut butter. He was able to sit and stay until given a cue to go and enjoy his treat. 

See video. 

Have a good week,

Gwen 

The video you guys was great! What a cute puppy and he stayed so patiently to go get his treat. You are doing a great job Gwen. 

We love coaching you all via video and enjoy how technology can connect us with people all over the world. Training is so fun when we do it together! I feel like I’m friends when we meet via zoom for coaching. 

Mike and Lori wrote in, 

Hi Amy,

Our puppy Rapha has been with us less than a week as of today (4/29) and she is pretty much crate trained thanks to our breeder. She is also well on her way to being house-broken, but we know that will still take some time.

Rapha is a Pomsky weighing in at a whopping 3 lbs. We are so excited to learn more and teach her what we've learned from Baxter and Bella. Thank you for the great training program you have!

We work with amazing breeders, shelters, vet clinics and trainers. There is no substitute for a good start with a dog. Thanks for sharing MIke and Lori. We wish you the best on your training journey. 

That was so fun! Thanks for sending those stories in. Here’s to 100 more episodes. AGain, thanks for listening and supporting our show. Have a great week and happy training.