A Day in the Life
a somewhat periodical journal of events, achievements, learnings and epiphany's in dog training, and my life with dogs
Looking Back to Move Forward
16 Jan 2025
...This relationship, this connection, this bonding is unquestionable and true. From our initial crossing of paths to this day, there is no union stronger than that with our dogs.
As the world around us changes socially, politically, economically, EVEN intellectually... dogs remain our constant unwavering companions. They have aided us through troubled times in the past, and I believe they will remain by our side now. Better equipped with science and healthier foods and medicines and better understanding of our dog's behaviors... let us be the better leaders our dogs deserve.
The food water shelter Vet-care and family to belong too? A sound investment, indeed.
Just before Christmas 2024...
The future of things is uncertain with such a warped administration on the horizon. But let me earmark the concern and enjoy the day.
The most broken dogs I could assemble, and their turn around, and their companionship loyalty and unconditional love...
They are the Christmas present I enjoy every day of the year.
THANKSGIVING DAY 2024
Take a dog never given the chance to connect with a human, never given a chance to exercise its "domesticated", shunned and alienated to the point it bites...
Then take in that dog, connect with it, let it be a domestic dog, train and rehabilitate, and make part of your family... and watch it thrive.
THAT is what I am thankful for on this day.
(ps... part of the domestication is sharing our
turkey dinner. Lena just 🤯)
After the election on November 5th, 2024, the future of things, the world we know, right and wrong are uncertain.
I'm glad it is with dogs that I face that future.
A certain duality... somewhere between grieving and wailing for the past and everyone we have lost, and a deliberate excitement and anticipation of the future and where Team Pit-a-Full may lead us.
October 1, 2024
We lost Darius tonight (RIP). Though I feel a deep sense of loss and I will grieve, I also feel a great sense of satisfaction and a sense of "a life fulfilled" for him.
A "Bait Dog" survivor, his whole back end (hips, TPLO's and ACL's) rebuilt at age 5, Darius helped train MANY of our dog training trainees as well as the Team Pit-a-Full generation his junior. Darius LOVED food, naps, hugs and more food.
Darius was surrounded by love when he passed.
Going into my 35th year of working with dogs, Ive never stopped learning. Whether it be a text book behavior with an impossible twist to it, or pet parents who presents challenges I've never encountered before... the learning curve has and will continue to be a long one.
Today... I learned that a service like dog training is not always best served with velvet gloves. Sometimes, pet parent (just like some dogs) need a little muscle, they need a little shove.
Now I must master a perfect balance. Yikes.
September 12, 2024
It is with great sadness we announce the passing of our Matriarch... Lily.
Lily lived to the ripe age of 16 years old, and never left her mama's side. Lily was the last of the 1st generation of Team Pit-a-Full, and will be loved and missed forever.
Not exactly Pit Bull, and not quite Belgian Malinois either...
Welcome "Lena" to the Team Pit-a-Full Family of former felons, losers, b!tches and thieves.
Lena was unwanted in Roswell, NM, unwanted in Denver, CO, went through a few fosters and bit a few trainers on her way to us. SHE'S PERFECT!!!!
I wonder if dogs know how much us humans
adore them?
July 31, 2024
The older I get, the more normalized and stable and domesticated I become... it is dogs who I choose to accompany me on this strange and horrifying and wonderful journey.
Still grieving the loss of Roger to some degree, it is I who is the one in the group playing catch up.
Are we finally making our mark on the community through dog training? Our calendar is looking very nice, thank you.
You work with a trainer, you practice with your dog, and all of the sudden when you need your dog at his/her best:
they are.
May 8, 2024
With very little warning and at lightning speed... we lost Roger to a ruptured cancerous growth at 530am this morning. He was and always will be loved as family.
Meanwhile... the scales tip, the door spins, and we close ranks (and grieve) in preparation to move on.
...the basic math:
1) we subtract or shut off nervous aggression using basic language of treat training
2) bad energy is gone, yet un-used energy remains, so...
3) every other aspect of the dog (social-ability, prey drive, play, scenting, etc) is re-introduced and reinforced with
4) we fortify the dog with both confidence building and tolerance building exercises
4) with consistency and a little practice, the new calm behavior becomes the norm (with safety nets included)
the difference between a dog owner and a
dog leader...
March 14, 2024
Collectively... all the dogs, their ages, their different speed's and MO's.... they create this custom fit.
And this moment of absolute fit may never come again, but what a moment it is.
“Dogs are not our whole life, but they make our lives whole.”
– Roger Caras
“If a dog will not come to you after having looked you in the face, you should go home and examine your conscience.”
– Woodrow Wilson
“The dog is a gentleman; I hope to go to his heaven not man’s.”
– Mark Twain
March 2024
Call them my family
my employees
my companions
my personal rehab techs
my teachers
... and you would not be wrong.
February 13, 2024
Since 1990 when I started working with dogs, I've been in a constant pursuit of the perfect explanation of our training and its result. I'm not sure if this is it, but:
"Our approach to training does address individual behaviors, but more accurately, it changes the relationship between human and dog resulting in a calmer, more confident dog who is far less likely to act out in the first place."
The math: A loyal dog will do anything (or nothing) we ask.
Logan of Team Pit-a-Full
Winter 2023-2024
These freezing cold temperatures keeping us indoors is like the isolation we all faced during covid 2020.
So is the cabin fever or manic behavior that can accompany it.
As a Dog Trainer: Engage with your dog indoors, with both physical and mental stimuli, for at least 20 minutes a day.
As a dog owner: Treats, movies, get' em out when ya can.
One, absolutely uncontestable fact about dogs, is their loyalty, their sense of group, and their "unconditional" is unwavering.
Period.
In bringing a deaf dog into our group, I not only hoped to recruit a new dog, but to also pull this particular dog out of her secluded world and into ours. What I've learned along the way: 1) Bentley never was secluded, she just experiences the world from a slightly different point of view. 2) It was my own limitations that were in the way of figuring this out. 3) Bentley's lack of audio is replaced was a highly keen sense of smell (well beyond our other dogs) and eye sight, but it is her sense of touch/vibration/even sensitivity to air pressure change that is EPIC. 4) Bentley is 99% otherwise all Great Dane... a ham, very vocal, mouthy/play biting, sleeps with her butt in the air, and is a lover.
Dec 6, 2023
In dog training, using a dog-teaching-dog-technique... there is no pride or ego or ulterior motive beyond acquiring the treat/ positive response for the trainee. Just a simple observe, mimic, treat-in-the-belly procedure.
If only humans were so simple.
"The old saw about old dogs and new tricks only applies to certain people."
~Daniel Pinkwater
Nov 26 2023
Empedocles, Aristotle, and Darwin... they all theorized evolution, "survival of the fittest", and adaptation. The ability to change to meet the need, and what that can sometimes look like. 🐾
And then along comes Bentley! A living, walking, breathing example of adaptation and changing to meet a need. Bentley is deaf, and is also expected to fulfil her part within our group. With the right tools, training, practice and patience... Bentley now thrives seamlessly in that group.
... and her mega-sense of smell lead us.
Nov 12, 2023
Nothing new, but a wonderful reminder...
Working with a brand new client and their quite human aggressive/ reactive Pit Bull Labrador Mix, we came across yet another Bermuda Triangle of Dog Walking. For those who are not familiar with the BTDW... it's when 3 or more negative stimuli occur all at once, in one spot, with a dog walker in the middle. Could be traffic on one side, a barking dog on another, and a skateboard whizzing by on the third. Botton line: it's a sh!t-show to deal with.
Not even at the end of our first hour together... we found ourselves in the middle of BTDW. We not only survived it, but made it into our first introduction to tolerance training. A+ Ending.
At the end of MY DAY, it reminds me that our Dog Training program is highly effective. It also reminds me why I ❤️ what I do.
May 13, 2023-
Sure sure sure... dog training is about getting a dog to respond to our wishes, when we want them to.
But to connect with a dog, to bond, to trust, to become an extension of one another?
Priceless.
“The poor dog, in life the firmest friend. The first to welcome, foremost to defend.”
~Lord Byron
<the many> "We want a dog for companionship, for exercise motivation, for protection, for unconditional love and loyalty, no matter what."
<the one> "Is it mutual?"
“The one absolutely unselfish friend that man can have in this selfish world, the one that never deserts him, the one that never proves ungrateful or treacherous, is his dog.”
~George Graham
“A dog is a bond between strangers.”
~John Steinbeck
June 11, 2022 -
Before we brought Bentley up from Houston, we got her disco lights (see June 6, 2022). It just made sense to cater to her, visually. The night we got home: Herb and Spice Therapy!!! Because we noticed Bentley not really committing to scenting or letting herself immerse in a scent. So, at 2'o'clock in the morning... we did just that. I pulled down my entire stock of herbs and spices (maybe 200, 210 varieties) and we sat and went bottle by bottle. 3 kinds of Sage, Organic Cumin (vs the cheap stuff), Fresh Nutmeg, Lemon Rind, etc... The lesson: "Your sense of smell is not a fault, rather, a Super-power. USE IT!!!!"
"If I could be half the person my dog is, I'd be twice the human I am."
~ Charles Yu
June 6, 2022 -
In preparation of bringing Bentley (a deaf 7 mo old Fawnequin Great Dane) into our fold, we thought outside of the Box.
@ $10 on Amazon, we got sound-activated lights bars/ disco lights. Our thinking: Bentley will "SEE" everything we can hear. It worked, extremely well.
October 2020 -
When you have a dog that is one-part German Shepherd and that part has been stifled, simply cultivating and release the GSD in the dog. The dog will show you an entirely New Gear in Loyalty!
“If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and man.”
~Mark Twain
Summer 2020 -
Building trust with our dogs? Absolutely. In asking dogs to accept and follow our leadership, we must address their need for trust in their leader... to be able to count on their leader... no matter what.
So we practice on the kid's playground equipment, we have them learn basic slalom/ agility, we assist them walking on a log or low wall/ curb and other trust/ confidence building exercises.
...And when we really need our dog to trust us, to comply... even under extenuating circumstances: they do.
[Summer 2014]
with time, patience and practice...
they too will teach another.
February 2011
This over-powering sense of group and belonging and balance... like I've never had before.
Circa 1995 or so...
This revolving door, the dogs they come and then they go. And every time, my heart gets broken... until the door turns again.