Lola
Who Lola is
Breed
On film
yeah and she's a pity right so that makes us have like sensitive skin just like right off the bat
and she's always been like flaky ish like dry skin
just because there is an inherent dangerous quality of having like a bully breed out here for this amount of time. Because what ends up happening is that they can run out of air, you know, they don't breathe well in the heat.
don't know exactly we had no I have no idea what her life was before. We got her from the pound
As the trainers describe her
The nervousness is read as baseline temperament rather than as history. The trainer says outright that he does not know what happened to her before the pound, and then argues that for a great many dogs nothing did - that this is what they were born as. His evidence is that pound dogs are not the only ones he gets like this, that a littermate case (Finn) has the same problems, and that a year with a loving family did not shift it.
On film
It's legit just... They were born that way a lot of the time. There's like a baseline temperament. Because it's not dogs from the pound only that I get that have this.
i asked him about his like other like litter mates and several of them have very same problems so i and that's very typical a lot of times genetic
but if you spent a year with people who love her and like go oh my god yay yeah and she's still all nervous and stuff it's probably genetic
how long you guys had her a year
Yeah. She's still like a little And then like her her temperament just naturally seems to be a little like vigilant.
The nervousness is then split into two kinds with different prognoses. The environmental part is said to have cleared by the one-to-two-week mark simply from exposure; the genetic part is said to be permanent and a management job.
On film
she's got a little bit of genetic nervousness and environmental nervousness the environmental nervousness is pretty much gone that was pretty much gone i would say around the one to two week period but genetic nervousness is a lot more tricky because you do have to learn to manage it
with her it's definitely for some reason or another environmental or like small very like i don't see a lot of genetic nervousness because again she's opening up really fast and typically when it's genetic nervousness it there is like a period that takes a lot longer for the dog to open
If it's environmental, it's better, because sometimes they just go away. If it's genetic, then they do have to learn how to essentially get through all, power through all the noise in their head, essentially.
Sometimes, in very, very, very, very, very bad cases, you cannot get rid of them, but you can teach the dog how to manage it. However, I don't think that Lola is going to be one of those, manage it because you're going to be terrified for the rest of your life.
She freezes rather than flees. This is said as a flat statement about her at the handover, and it is the single most important fact about handling her: a dog that shuts down under pressure gives the handler no signal that anything is wrong. The freeze is also what is left at the end - the bolting had stopped before the locking up did.
On film
there's a lot of like nervous dogs who if their instinct isn't necessary to like run and scream immediately they like freeze up and she's one of those
her like she can walk with me and she won't bolt but she does have a tendency to lock up a little bit
It's uh it messes up her quality of life and as well the quality of the training.
The big thing with a nervous dog is that it's very easy to make a nervous dog look opened up, when in reality you've repressed them and aren't managing it well.
'Borderline suppressed' is the trainer's own phrase for where she sits, said to her owners in their living room as the reason they must not correct her hard. It is the quality bar of the whole case stated as a risk about this particular dog.
On film
in that case where you correct her if you kept it really intense after that she could probably start to like you know box up and get really just suppressed which i mean you don't want that with her she's already like kind of borderline suppressed enough we're trying to like keep her open
the other thing is like correcting her but after you do it make sure it's really fun and it's really like there's no like residual like i hate you energy going on um because with her pressure could shut her down really fast like she has that tendency
The reactivity the intake described - barking, lunging, growling - did not reproduce. The trainer says he has 'not really gotten much of that', reports having watched the owners at a park with another dog and seen her do nothing, and states there are no danger signs. He reframes what the owners saw as nervousness plus restraint, amplified by walking her beside an over-aroused second dog.
On film
i noticed also in the intake like there was some uh mentions of like barking and lunging and reactivity and stuff yeah right i actually haven't really gotten much of that i saw you guys at the park with another dog and she was just like okay she doesn't do anything
also I have not seen any danger signs from her so like one of the questions that people a lot of times have when their dog is barking or like like lunging or growling and stuff like that is like is my dog going to do something to someone yeah no very unlikely
everything that i'm seeing there is just from like uh the combination of two things one feeling a little bit nervous right feeling a little a little bit fearful plus being restrained yeah you have a combo of those two things and you gotta like what is what is their options
this it's walking the two of them together that look Archie gets excited and she's like oh my god excited what do I do it comes out it's like kinds of excited
Her obedience was never the problem, and three different handlers say so in almost the same words. The commands are fast, clean and smart; what stops her being trusted off leash is fear.
On film
I was working with her and I like went through a bunch of commands with her and I said like her commands are great but I don't trust her off leash because she's so scared you know. Yeah. So she might panic and do something dumb.
So, like basically all of her commands she does very quickly. They look really nice with her. She's a very smart dog. I just need her nerves to just like chill out
The main thing really is just that she's pretty smart and she's got a decent grasp of commands but Her nerves are getting the best of her
at least with me like she knows her commands it's really just like that at this point I think the obedience has opened her up as much as it's gonna open her
Extremely sensitive to pressure of any kind. She works on an e-collar level of 10 out of 100, which her handler says he cannot feel on his own skin, and he generalises from that to her whole temperament. On a recall failure another handler deliberately skips the collar because leash pressure alone is enough for her.
On film
That e-collar pressure is incredibly light for her. It's only on a 10 out of the 100 possible levels, which I actually, I normally can't even really feel the 10.
That's because she's a very sensitive dog to any kind of pressure at all.
she kind of blew off the recall i actually didn't use the e-collar yeah you just put well because in that case she's already so sensitive to stuff that's probably just pulling on the yeah just tuck them a little bit probably enough for her
and I'm saying them quietly because apparently she's really like receptive to them
A hider. On day one she ran circles round the room and wedged herself under a chair, and the furniture had to be rearranged to take the hiding places away. The same is said later of the house she boarded in. At the go-home the hiding reappears as hiding behind a person.
On film
when I first took her out you might wonder why the chairs are positioned like that because that thing looks weird um I actually had to put a crate in the middle here and then put the chairs there because she was doing a donut around the room and running away from me to the point where she hit under the chair
she at first was startled very easily uh when i first started working with her i had rearrange all the furniture in the house because she tried to hide under everything i had to make a place where she couldn't hide
rearrange the furniture in the room because actually she would like hide behind the stairs. And so, I was looking at her. I was like, I'll try to run away in a minute.
Yeah, so like she did this with me and Kelsey the other day where she'll hide behind somebody.
A velcro dog, and the closeness is read as a symptom rather than a bond. It is named as the reason her recall could not be honestly tested for weeks, and the two-handler drill exists specifically to break it.
On film
because she's like tied to me though cuz she's nervous. I really have a hard time testing on her recall.
Because what you don't want is her just get the idea like, okay, like I'm just stuck to this person and then that's like her coping mechanism all she does is just like like Velcro.
Because that's like one of the big things is like how are you supposed to train recall when the dog won't recall, right?
They just start using the handler as a way to manage their anxiety, night which is understandable from a dog perspective but in this case you have to be very detached
Physically affectionate once she opens, and this is treated as a training lever rather than a nicety - affection is prescribed alongside freedom and clarity as one of three things that will do most of the work for her.
On film
with Lola I think of like a third one for her is also she She likes, she's a very like physical dog, like she likes to be like very close with people and so I think like if you combine like giving her like love, rubbing on her, let her be free and doing her thing and being very clear with her, you probably would solve the majority of the nerves or at least.
She's She's more open than when I Well, Lord, she is way more open than when I first met her. You know, she'll come up with me and snuggle with me.
here's the other thing is like she doesn't have to like every person she sees yeah she just needs to not do something stupid
Fast, and treated as uncatchable. The flight risk is never discounted: two trainers independently say that if she runs at full speed nobody on staff will catch her, including the fastest one.
On film
because if this dog bolts at full speed I'm not gonna catch her we our senior trainer Kelton who happens to be quite fast could also not catch her so I know I can't either
Because she's way faster than all of us. Yeah. I mean, I'm pretty quick, but like that that's insane. You know, she can she can run probably about the same fast same speed as Usain Bolt. Probably 25 to 30 m hour for forever, too.
or you can get that moment where you put her on the long line and she looks behind and she's like nobody's holding me anymore and then just and you are not going to catch her if she runs.
Heat-limited, and physically fragile in ways that shape the schedule. Sessions are cut short for heat repeatedly, shade is sought three times in one session, and she is reported to have dropped three or four pounds and to have developed dry, scabby skin from being outdoors more.
On film
okay tomorrow i'll take her out more maybe uh i'll take her out earlier in the morning since she's so sensitive to the heat we can cool off
it's hard kind of like boiling frog, but I feel like she might have lost maybe three pounds
No, and she's got little scabby scabs. I'm not sure exactly why.
it could be just because she's spending more time outside than she normally does it you're
The anxious stare is her signature tell, and it is defined in her file more precisely than anywhere else: a dog technically inside a command but not in possession of herself. It is why distance, not duration, is the criterion she cannot meet.
On film
so right now what she's doing is an anxious stare it's a behavior that happens anytime like a dog is nervous and anxious there even though they're in the command they're not really in full control of their faculties in the moment so she can hold position but the second I get away her nerves take over and then she really can't she can't do the implied thing
so it's really the distance that she has a hard time with and that's just the nerves right so we do I think she needs to open up a little bit more
Her e her implied stay is really tricky for her. So, she's going to do like an anxious stare and I need her to stop doing that.
Adaptable - named on day one as the trait that makes her trainable, and offered as the basis for a prognosis that the nerves might actually go rather than merely be managed.
On film
Yeah, I'm not going to say a fast learner, but I mean he doesn't seem to be learning things fast, but he's very adaptable. He's not just nervous, but he adapts. It's absolutely wonderful.
so going from that to letting me touch her and not freak me out that's really good so she's clearly very adaptable and she has the ability to get through her nerves
i can't promise that because it's a little you know it's it's not a it's not a made-up character i'm writing or uh it's a life form
Called 'Lola Bean' by her family and by the staff, and renamed by the owners when they adopted her.
On film
good job lola good girl you said they call her lola bean lola bean
Hi, Lola bean
As her family describe her
Their goal, in their own words, twice: not obedience, not commands, just that she should stop being stressed. The trainer had been talking about military-style control and the owner cut across him.
On film
i just want her to not like stress
and it's interesting I don't need her to be like following German commands everywhere like
The picture they want is a place and an activity, not a behaviour: the park, camping, the beach, both dogs off leash, the family hanging out.
On film
I just don't want her to be stressed when we go yeah I just don't want you to be stressed we go for a walk in the park or we go camping or we go to the beach
that's what I'm thinking right like your dream would probably be like hey take both dogs off-leash hang out
i just wonder i want her and him to be able to come with us and enjoy and like have fun
You want to be able to take your dogs on a hike and not have your dogs do anything dumb. Yes.
you sent me a message of what you guys had said where it was like we don't want any like hunting or guarding dogs. We just want to take them on a walk
What the problem cost them, in concrete terms: walks had to be scheduled for when nobody else would be outside, and when someone did appear they apologised and shortened the leash to nothing.
On film
It was like we have to plan our walks around when there aren't people around.
Well, Lola probably, if I'm correct, she would just like would have gone park and barked aggressively at them and scared the hell out of them. Like jump up and Yeah. Don't come any closer.
And then we I would be like, "I'm so sorry, my dog. I'm so sorry." And like arm at full right angle, making the leash as short as possible so she can't go anywhere. She's freaking out at the end of the leash.
At home she barked at visitors and then ran away and hid, and she would not get on the sofa after new pillows appeared on it. Both are the owners' memories, offered unprompted.
On film
stuff with at home is like having friends over so she doesn't freak out yeah and like try she seems to just like bark and then run away
I think we put new pillows on this old sofa we had one day and she was like, "I I can't go up there."
whether it's outside or around we have like a like a half wall for the kitchen where you can almost hide she can hide in the kitchen
Their verdict, which titles the re-cut: ten out of ten, and the change they name is not obedience but that walking her is enjoyable again. The 'enjoyable' and 'relaxed' lines are from the second lesson.
On film
10 out of 10. 10 out of 10. Highly recommend.
I just can't believe how much more like enjoyable this is.
Yeah. They seem just like so much more relaxed.
Yeah. There it is. Look at that. 10 out of 10. 10 out of 10. Highly recommend.
Their own measure of her confidence is behavioural and specific: she went near water she had always refused. Their conclusion is the sentence the whole case is for.
On film
even that like before she would never even go near the water when we were She wouldn't go anywhere near it. She was kind of freaked out by it.
So, it just makes me really happy to see She's more confident. She's acting like a Yeah, she's a dog. She's a dog now. Yeah.
They summarise the program's purpose as being taught what not to do - and say they trust the process.
On film
so you teaching us what to do to not mess it up that's the idea so helpful yeah yeah good i did i trust the process
a lot of Will depend on like following through like yeah, what we what I end up teaching you
you let me know how they are a week from now no yeah we will try not to to mess it up
The pair archie and lola
Archie briefly
Archie came from a breeder's farm in St. Louis and was kept two extra weeks around children and other animals, which the owners credit for his social ease. He is small, very fast, confident, and has no fear of anything.
On film
I got him from a breeder. where they owned a farm, had a ton of animals, a ton of taste with the animals, and they kept him. I got him in St. Louis,
But there's not really any fear here. No, no. He's not afraid of anything. Very sweet.
he's a smart little dude
His presenting problems are the opposite of hers: excitement, jumping on people, and a whine-bark loud enough that other dogs' training had to stop. He also had to be shut in another room before Lola would go into a crate.
On film
like super excited and we'll jump all over people
he'll start making like a whining barking kind of noise and the whining thing
holy crap yes that is loud as fuck he's so loud
When RT first got there, we actually had to move him to different places each time because if we took a dog out and he was in his area and we didn't pay attention to him, we were training another dog, he would vocalize so loud that like you couldn't get training done.
Okay. So, when we first got Lola to try and get her to go into the crate, uh we had to put Archie like in another room, bedroom, maybe close the door.
so what I cannot promise is that he will never ever jump on things or make noises however what I can give you is a reduction and an easy way to communicate to him in a way that is clear
His training was largely delivered by other staff.
On film
i didn't uh i didn't i didn't work with archie as much as with lola i think uh kelton and claudia did more with archie but i worked with lola a ton
which i've worked with him a little bit on down um i think jaden did too but archie down come on down
first of all, I worked with him outside We've had other trainers working with him But we try to get our hands on or try to get every train to get their hands on the dog
Handled as opposite problems
The two dogs are explicitly set against each other as opposite recall risks: Archie will leave the handler for something more interesting; Lola will not, because the handler is where safety is. Same command, two different failure modes, and the owners are told both.
On film
with her I'm not as scared of that because she's already got a baseline of like she doesn't trust a lot of things so if you call her over she's gonna be like ah safety right she's like this is my my safe harbor um but with Archie I definitely like I could see like you know he's at like a store or something and you're like come and then he's like sees something really cool and he's like just like walks away
we're gonna come out here and work lola too and that's a dog that you can be really delicate with
Archie's very confident. Lola's a little bit less confident still, but she's gotten better.
On the cots the contrast is stark and is used as the diagnostic: Archie has the exercise, Lola keeps coming off - and the cause turns out to be a child standing too close to her, not the command.
On film
All right, Evelina, give her a little space, okay? She keeps avoiding you. That's why she's trying to get off, right?
He's He's the easy part of the combo.
His problem wasn't running away from people. It was running. Yes. He wants all the attention
The pair itself was named as the mechanism of the presenting complaint. Alone, Lola does nothing at a park; beside an over-aroused Archie on a shared walk she ramps. The trainer warns separately that two dogs can wind each other up, using another household as the example.
On film
this it's walking the two of them together that look Archie gets excited and she's like oh my god excited what do I do it comes out it's like kinds of excited
Yeah. Well, cuz the thing is if if Archie's like riing her up, then that could be a problem
Like I said, Rottweiler went home recently. He was like 10 months, but he was like like he already looked like a fulls size dog. He's going to be huge. His name's Deuce.
Archie as an active ingredient
The confident dog is treated as doing work no handler can do. It is stated flatly during the second lesson while Lola trots back with a normal tail carry.
On film
Archie's good for her clearly. Yeah. Right. Because Archie's confident, happy to be alive and see people. And having her out with him does good stuff for her.
Good girl, Sola. Good job. That's good. Right. And see she comes trottting back looking all happy.
The decision to train both dogs came from the business, not the family. The owners had planned to send Lola alone; Christian told them it would be better for both, and they deferred to him. Sending a pair is uncommon and some places refuse it.
On film
Yeah. So yeah, the initial plan was just to send Lola and Christian's like, "If you send both, it's whatever and it's better for them." You're the man, dude. Yeah. You're the expert. I'll do it.
you get multiple dogs in dog training, but believe it or not, it's not too common for people to send both as like a combo
There's a lot of dog like a lot of places that they'll only take one at a time and they won't train both of them because it's harder.
The pair dynamic as an outcome
The change in how the two of them walk is tracked as a result. Archie used to want to be ahead of wherever Lola was - not in charge, just first to see things - and by the second lesson they simply walk together. Both the trainer and the owners say it.
On film
They're besties.
And walking them. It It was more like Archie just wanted to be in front. Yeah. Not necessarily in charge. He just wants to be ahead of wherever Lola is.
Yeah. Now it just seems like they're just walking together. Yeah.
Yeah. Cuz they're staying as a group, but they're not running all over the place.
The next step planned for the pair - settle both on cots, then call one off while the other holds - is stated as tomorrow's work and is never filmed.
On film
Now the thing is and I'll work with them tomorrow. And then have them settle and then call one off if the other one stays on the cot. But that's tomorrow's challenge for them.
But Archie did Archie settle here? Yeah. He did. He did.
The pair is also carried into the handover as a handling rule: both dogs walked the same way whether one person or two is on the end of the leads, so they never learn that the rules depend on who is watching.
On film
just because you don't want to get them in a pattern of like i have to listen when it's only me and him but then when we're together we can be acting a fool you know you don't want that
Yeah, trying to do both e-collars.
Yes. Yeah. The best way to take two dogs on a walk is to have them off
The program, stage by stage
Intake day: no commands at allTurning point
by 11 July 2026 at the latest (watch, published 07-17; Archie's before-training evaluation watch was published 07-11)
Her first session contains no obedience by design. Two things only: making leash pressure mean something other than a threat, and installing 'okay' as a release. He refuses to pet her, on the grounds that for a terrified dog a pet is not a reward. He runs about five reps with long gaps and names rep-stacking as the fastest way to repress a dog. She starts the session running circles round the room and wedging herself under a chair - the furniture has been rearranged into a barrier to stop it - and ends it lying against his leg with her eyes closing. He reads the speed of that change, not any obedience, as the finding, and offers a prognosis on the strength of it. Then a second problem appears in the last three minutes: she has begun using his body to manage her anxiety, and he says that has to be met with detachment rather than comfort.
On film
in this case, we're going to teach her that leash pressure is a good thing, right? So right now, if I pull on her at all, she says oh god he wants to eat me
The big thing with a nervous dog is that it's very easy to make a nervous dog look opened up, when in reality you've repressed them and aren't managing it well. To get a nervous dog truly opened up, you have to not repress at all
Now I'm not going to touch her because, um, you know, sometimes people think, oh, that's a nervous dog, you'll make her feel better. The thing is, if they're terrified and don't like the pet, the pet goes from a reward to actively either negatively reinforcing or turns into a positive point of view because you're adding in the pets, right?
you're not locked into i've marked it with a word and now i have to recondition up the word with a word right you know like if i told you one day like hey actually green is actually red and then you have to like relearn it it's possible but it'll take you some time
so going from that to letting me touch her and not freak me out that's really good so she's clearly very adaptable and she has the ability to get through her nerves
They just start using the handler as a way to manage their anxiety, night which is understandable from a dog perspective but in this case you have to be very detached
The recall contract, bought early at a park
about 26 July 2026 (watch, watch)
A handler on his second session with her takes her to a park and deliberately does almost nothing. He states the rule the rest of her recall is built on: coming back must not cost her anything, so every recall is paid immediately with release back into freedom. He extends the same contract to positions - comply, get the okay, get to run. He refuses to introduce more than a couple of things because overwhelming her or souring the session costs more than the coverage is worth. A ball rolled toward her frightens her, and he generalises from it to her temperament rather than to the object. A down takes a long silent stretch of work, and when it comes he credits it to how hard she resisted. The same day's second upload is forty-one minutes containing 373 words, almost all of them affection: one place rep, two down cues, nothing explained. It is the clearest evidence in her file that a large part of the early program was relationship rather than training.
On film
the main thing that i want her to see is that like coming back to me isn't a battle it isn't a fight it isn't something that causes her to like lose freedom or be restrained go go go go go instead she can come back to me and then get released right back into freedom so it doesn't close her world down it doesn't make her world smaller
Same thing with complying with, like, a position. Right? Like a sit. As soon as she complies with position, she gets to release the freedom. and she gets an okay and gets to run around
I'll see what working on a couple of positions I want introduce too many things at once and overwhelm her or ruin the mood you know because I want her to have a good time out here
She's definitely a little scared. Just overall, in her temperament, she's a little nervous.
It feels because of how hard you were, because you kind of resisted a little hard on that down.
Wait, wait, wait.
First time out with her own trainer: the collar goes on dead, the heel is refused
second half of July 2026, before 27 July (watch)
Her intake trainer takes her off the property for the first time, to a public park, on what he calls her second or third outing. The work is narrow - down, repeatedly, on grass and then on concrete, and one assisted recall - and everything else is diagnosis. He classifies her nerves as environmental rather than genetic on the evidence of how fast she is opening. He puts the e-collar on her and leaves it switched off for the entire session, so that when the sensation eventually arrives nothing about the equipment will have changed. Mid-session he catches his own mistake out loud - he repeated the word 'down' - and turns it into the clearest statement of the command window in her file. He is honest about the gap: she knows the position, she has no reason of her own to do it, and the reward that would fix that has not been found. He ends by refusing to teach a heel at all, and explains that refusal in terms of dogs being put down.
On film
I have the e-collar on her I will not be using it this whole session in fact it is not turned on I just have it on her because I want her I just want her to be used to wearing it
so right there I made a little mistake there okay what was my mistake well I kept saying the word over and over
there's your window of opportunity right and like a window of opportunity doesn't open every single time you say i want a new opportunity there's a window of opportunity and once it closes it does not come knocking again sometimes
the fact that if i keep pulling she'll go into it perfectly tells me she knows the position so what's the issue well there's never a real reason to do it
the important thing is would you you rather have a nervous dog that pants for a little bit right you get some you're gonna get a little bit of panting through the learning process or you never make the dog pant but the dog never really learns
you he'll grind and then all of a sudden nips at like a four-year-old it's not a great look for you or your dog that's how dogs get put down all the time
The collar goes live at 10 of 100, and the obligation comes off the leash
2026-07-27 (watch)
A short outdoor session in which the e-collar is used on her for the first time in this set, at a level of 10 out of 100 - a level the handler says he cannot feel on his own skin. The purpose is not to add pressure but to let the leash come off before the leash becomes part of the cue. He spells the word D-O-W-N aloud while narrating so as not to fire it at her by accident. Reps are folded into a walk rather than blocked, sniffing is the paid reward, and at 11:41 he calls out the milestone as it happens: a down on the word alone with no help attached. A startle mid-session is attributed to the line catching rather than to her nerves, and is not made into an event.
On film
I'll just add in a slight bit of encouragement from the e-collar, start getting the pressure off of the leash, so that there's not residual leash guidance, I'm gonna do sniffies
That e-collar pressure is incredibly light for her. It's only on a 10 out of the 100 possible levels, which I actually, I normally can't even really feel the 10.
That's because she's a very sensitive dog to any kind of pressure at all.
The verbal only down right there. Good job, mama. Good job.
Oh, I'm sure that freaked you out. Probably just got a little caught.
The first in-program lesson: the case is reframed in front of the ownersTurning point
2026-07-30 (watch), ninety-six minutes at a park with both dogs and both owners
The trainer opens by checking the intake against what he has actually found and says plainly that the barking and lunging have barely appeared for him, that there are no danger signs, and that what the owners saw was nervousness plus restraint amplified by an over-excited second dog. Then he rebuilds the owners' model of what they are doing. The pressures in a dog's life exist whether or not the handler picks them, so the only question is whether you author them - and the owners' own habit of shortening the leash had been authoring the wrong ones. One owner reaches the conclusion herself out loud: their role on the walk had become restrainer rather than source of freedom. He answers the question owners are most afraid to ask, about whether a corrected dog becomes an afraid dog, with the speeding-ticket argument, and names the thing that actually damages a dog as non-contingent pressure. He gives three strategies for a nervous dog, sets the success criterion as good judgement rather than obedience, pairs their e-collar remotes for two-dog use on the spot, forbids heel grinding, and closes with an oil-change warranty. Lola, two weeks in, solicits him for affection - which he contrasts with how she met him - and the owners say she is more chill than they have ever seen her.
On film
and so the question is whether or not we shake those negative reinforcers or we just let them be whatever they're gonna be
and so then what what is it what is your role end up being in the walk restrainer restrainer exactly restrainer um and so then you're not a source of freedom you're a source of restraint
non-contingent that one too if you do nothing then yeah that's even worse or non-contingent pressure pressure that they have no way to avoid because they don't understand why the pressure's happening if it's unclear then that's majorly problematic
so then like with the nervousness there are three like S tier strategies three S tier strategies the first S tier strategy is this literally walks in the park with something like this this is 26
I will say don't heal heel grind. If I find out you're heel grinding your dogs, I'll be super mad. Heel grinding is when you go on a walk and make your dog heel for like 45 minutes. It's icky, don't do it.
and then if you come back six months later and I ask you if you've changed the oil and your engine has blown up and you say you have not changed the oil that it's not covered in a warranty
The cot block: the pair on place, and the vocabulary pinned down
Both dogs are put on cots indoors and deliberately ignored while the staff get on with other work - that inattention is the exercise, not a lapse in it. It is the one block where Archie is plainly the better dog and Lola the one who keeps coming off, and the diagnosis is the most transferable thing in her whole file: she is not disobeying, she is avoiding a child standing too close, so the adult moves the child rather than correcting the dog. In the second half both settle and are released together, and the next step is named - settle both, then call one off while the other holds - which is never filmed. A separate cot session pins down the vocabulary the rest of the curriculum uses loosely: a settle is the dog lying down of its own accord, a down is the handler putting it there, and the dog should be able to do both. The same session contains the honest warning that adding pressure to a known command makes a dog look worse before it holds. A third children-present session shows her being held in commands around playing children with the adults occupied elsewhere, and the handler saying on camera that he feels mean doing it.
On film
We're going to ignore the dogs because here's the thing, this is, I mean Archie's got it down pretty good, but we want to let Archie settle and I believe Lola too.
All right, Evelina, give her a little space, okay? She keeps avoiding you. That's why she's trying to get off, right?
We've down and settled as two separate things. The settle was I put them on there and wait for them to lay down on their own. I call that a settle.
I was driving out with, like, an ECOG, with negative reinforcement sometimes. And it will make the command, it will look like they're depressed, like they did worse with it. And it's because there's more pressure out of the puzzle that they have to solve.
Now the thing is and I'll work with them tomorrow. And then have them settle and then call one off if the other one stays on the cot. But that's tomorrow's challenge for them.
I feel mean that I have to keep giving Lola commands, so that she doesn't end up bumping into her cheeks.
The heat weeks, and the low point: the commands are finished and the dog is not
about 4-8 August 2026 (watch 08-04, then watch, watch and the cut-off fragment watch)
Four short sessions in heat, and the morale floor of the file. One is abandoned at ten minutes with the trainer saying on camera that he does not feel he accomplished a ton. Another is capped at fifteen or twenty minutes with the reason given as not wanting her to learn that coming out here is miserable. Across all of them the same finding accumulates: her obedience is done and it is not the problem. The commands are fast, clean and smart; she is closed off, tied to the handler out of nerves, freaking out at random things, and the implied stay collapses the moment he adds distance because of the anxious stare. The trainer says the opening-up is taking longer than he expected but that she is still on track to go home on time and they will specialise things for her. He names why it is urgent - a dog that cannot open up around him cannot be taught to open up around anyone else. Twice he abandons the exercise mid-rep and tells her out loud that he is not asking for anything.
On film
that's pretty much going gonna be the training session for today um which it was a lot of it was more reinforcing i don't feel as though we got to accomplish a ton today
she's working hard too so like not there's not a reason for me to be like oh she's like in a currently overheating state but she's in a state where i might only have a couple more minutes with her before she's like all right i'm like i'm tired right and i don't want to work her to her like threshold of like smooth brainer
basically all of her commands she does very quickly. They look really nice with her. She's a very smart dog. I just need her nerves to just like chill out because really she's just like freaking out over random stuff
Main thing is I need to find something that just really opens her up. If I have to, I just have to sit. If if cuddling is the only thing that opens her up, I guess I'll just have to sit in a room for two hours and just cuddle with her, right?
if she can't open up around me, I can't teach her to open her up. I cannot teach her to open up around other people, which could be a real problem.
try to get a try to get progress in without you know scarring the dogs it's always a good idea but just you know just i don't want her to learn that coming out here training is a miserable experience and i'm gonna drag you along in the heat right uh we don't want that
her like she can walk with me and she won't bolt but she does have a tendency to lock up a little bit
The long line, the bolt into the woods, and the quit that drilling causedTurning point
The program changes shape. A trainer states that obedience has opened her as far as obedience can, and builds a session out of doing nothing: a long line, no pressure, and eighty percent of his time deliberately uninvolved while she explores. Against that background he harvests the failures he needs, and says outright that he needs her to blow him off because a command that has never been enforced is not a command. A second handler is used as the thing she velcros to, so the recall can be practised off a real competing attraction - which he says is exactly what will happen when she goes home and hides behind her people. The session ends with a bolt: she panics, sprints into the woods on the 50-foot line and loops herself three times round a tree. The debrief is the most explicitly reasoned teaching in her file - bolting must produce nothing but more pressure and returning must produce immediate and prolonged relief - and it comes with a dose limit of two such events per session and a rule against ending a session on the pressure or in the truck. Days later the line comes down from 50 feet to a 12-to-15-foot petite long line, with the trade-off named out loud: she can get away more easily, so it costs more trust. At the handover the same event is given its other meaning: what made her quit was the drilling, not the line.
On film
at least with me like she knows her commands it's really just like that at this point I think the obedience has opened her up as much as it's gonna open her
a session like this i might be out here for 10 15 20 30 minutes or whatever and like 80 of it is what i'm doing now which is starts with an n nothing i'm literally doing nothing um and just letting the dog go do stuff which is super valuable
you just look for opportunities for her. You look for, you try to create, like, times where she blows you off. Like, you need her to blow you off. If she doesn't blow you off, she won't.
Because what you don't want is her just get the idea like, okay, like I'm just stuck to this person and then that's like her coping mechanism all she does is just like like Velcro. So if she Velcros up to you, then I just recall her to me.
Bolting is their go-to, right? So you've got to teach them that, like, bolting never works out good, right? It goes nowhere. They don't get anything out of it. All they feel is more pressure. But as soon as they come back, there's lots of relief.
normally i don't look for more than like like definitely i don't want to have more than like two of those in a session because you start like getting you can't have a bunch of that like that that is that's an intense experience for the dog
12 to 15 feet it's a lot smaller so she can get away get away from me a lot easier so you need to have a little bit more trust to put this line on but she's doing good right now and we're not an incredibly high stakes environment or anything like that
with her um drilling too many commands at once will make her want to be like frick this i'm out right i that that happened the other day where like you know like with with the the tree thing i was telling you about it was like commands and all of a sudden she was like yeah i'm done and she's like i'm on a long line i could just run right now
The second owner lesson: the pair walking together, the duck, and the startleTurning point
Monday 10 August 2026 (watch), ninety-four minutes at Bass Lake Park
A shaded two-mile loop with two trainers, two owners and both dogs, and the lesson where the case visibly lands. The teaching is the off-leash ladder end to end, the rule that a movement command must never carry leash pressure, the difference between a penalty and negative reinforcement decided entirely by word order, and the settle criterion - the anxious stare has to go before a held command counts. Underneath it, three things happen to Lola in ninety minutes. She holds a down through a group of passing dogs with nobody touching the line and self-corrects on a verbal marker alone. She launches into a lake after a duck, which nobody present has ever seen her do, and the trainer takes both halves of it seriously: it is wonderful to see her be a dog, and it also has to stop. And she takes a startle late in the walk and recovers by coming to a person rather than fleeing, which the trainer names as exactly the outcome the program was for. The owners, unprompted, produce the two measures that matter to them - she will go near water she always refused, and walking her is enjoyable instead of scheduled around other people - and the pair dynamic is recorded as an outcome: Archie used to want to be ahead of wherever she was, and now they simply walk together.
On film
I was working with her and I like went through a bunch of commands with her and I said like her commands are great but I don't trust her off leash because she's so scared you know. Yeah. So she might panic and do something dumb.
what we all look for in any command we do is that anxious stare where you're like specifically looking for the stair needs to go away. You can be a little nervous, but you got to actually learn how to settle. And until that happens, it's not really a smooth rep of the command.
there's two parts to that. There's like one part of it where it's like it's great to see her just be a dog. Yes. Right. where she's interested in things other than hiding. And then there's the other part of it where it's like stop that.
certain behaviors will sometimes like surface once there's less apprehension.
The second reaction is what we got and that's what we want.
Yeah. Now it just seems like they're just walking together. Yeah.
Yeah, honestly that's that's the big one is allowing space, allowing choice. Don't pull her in. And then the other big one is punishing when necessary. You have to penalize those behaviors that made you come to see us in the first place, right?
The night session: what is left, counted honestly
Tuesday 11 August 2026 (watch, published 08-12) - the last training session before the handover
A short session taken deliberately in the dark because there is less to set her off. It is the most explicit statement of the diagnosis anywhere: environmental nervousness gone by the one-to-two-week mark, genetic nervousness permanent and a management job. The target behaviour is bolting, and he refers back to the tree as the thing that disqualifies an ordinary walk. Two commands are named as the unfinished list - the implied stay and the heel. He discounts the clean night explicitly because it was dark and quiet, and plans to retest in the afternoon. He considers taking her off leash and decides against it on the grounds that nobody on staff could catch her. The thing he praises at the end is not a command but the check-in.
On film
she's got a little bit of genetic nervousness and environmental nervousness the environmental nervousness is pretty much gone that was pretty much gone i would say around the one to two week period but genetic nervousness is a lot more tricky because you do have to learn to manage it
we're trying to give her the freedom and make her feel comfortable with that freedom as opposed to knowing she's free and bolting
she's not doing any bolting out here which is really really good it is night and there's less distractions too so So, we'll see how she does at, like, you know, 2 or 3 o'clock tomorrow in the afternoon.
so implied stay and the heel which funny enough she does significantly worse with the implied stay on it flexi versus a off leash scenario or like the long line that i have
the other good thing too is even on the long line she's checking in which was really really good if she didn't and she just took off and she didn't care that wouldn't be great
Go-home: the handover of handling, and the honest limitsTurning point
Wednesday 12 August 2026 (watch + watch, one lesson of about 53 minutes, published 08-15)
The dogs go back. Most of the first half is equipment - fit, side, level, and ten minutes of the trainer working out a double-collar mode a colleague had configured without telling him - and he states why that is the deliverable rather than a preliminary: if he cannot show them how to use it, they cannot correct their own dogs. Then the house itself turns out to be the last untrained context. Lola blanks a recall in her own living room that she gives in a park, and he diagnoses it as the old behaviour living in the old room rather than as lost training, with a week of strictness as the answer. The rest is the owners doing the work with the trainer deliberately silent so the dogs do not credit him with the cues. The Lola-specific instructions are the ones that carry the whole case into the family's hands: correct her and then immediately make it fun, because she freezes rather than flees and is already borderline suppressed; do not drill commands at her, because that is what made her quit on a long line days earlier; be careful with the flexi; and always mark before you correct. He names the industry outcome he refuses - the velcro dog with no soul left - and tells a story against himself about the first dog he trained bolting from the word 'sit'. The limits are delivered without softening in the owners' living room: she has bolted, she is fast, and if she runs they will not catch her.
On film
Yeah, cuz if it's not synced properly, then I can't show you how to use. And if I can't show you how to use it, you don't know how to correct your dogs.
this is what I'm talking about. Some of the stuff you have to reinforce it in the house. And that's why we do the sessions in the house. Yeah. Because the dogs do get like weird like that where I like I can walk around in the park, right? Yeah. She's like, "I'm home now. I don't have to listen to anybody."
you get a lot of behavior like this where maybe like the old like when she used to be here before she was scared everything and then any other time she was like I'm just going to like sit here and be scared. Um she doesn't do that behavior like anywhere else now. But because it's the old behavior associated here it's got to like throughout that week you got to be strict.
or you can get that moment where you put her on the long line and she looks behind and she's like nobody's holding me anymore and then just and you are not going to catch her if she runs.
the other thing is like correcting her but after you do it make sure it's really fun and it's really like there's no like residual like i hate you energy going on um because with her pressure could shut her down really fast like she has that tendency
there's a term called velcro dog you ever heard of it it's where like they take a nervous dog or a dog that doesn't listen well and they use the e-collar and like reinforcement so much so the dog's scared to leave the side and so for the rest of his life it just follows the owner around like this and because they repressed the dog like so hard the dog has no soul anymore not a fan of that
first dog I ever trained actually when I was learning how to train I had a little dachshund and I I said sit and he like bolted away cuz I had like trained it the wrong way and I felt really really bad
lola she looks like she's pretty happy to be home she looks extremely happy like she would not follow me out to the car at all right now
Skills
Giving to leash pressure - the baseline concept under everything else
How it was taught
Pull her in, keep the pressure on, release the moment she gives and walk away, so that the release is the answer. Long decompression gaps rather than repetition, about five reps planned before moving on. The trainer classifies this as a baseline concept rather than a command, and gives the mechanical reason it has to come first: an e-collar tap carries pressure but no direction, so a directional channel must already exist before the collar can help. It is also his honest explanation for why the first fortnight of a board-and-train looks like nothing is happening.
On film
i'm going to pull her to me and i'm going to make her come to me and then i'm going to keep pulling on it and so eventually when she's let go of the leaf pressure i immediately then i walk away and she'll learn that giving into least pressure is the best thing to do because that's how we do it get all our training done
We actually moved on our own a little bit that time.
the reality is a dog like her we're not going to get that in one session it does not happen so I'm happy with how she's handling the release pressure
where they're staying and then also learning baseline concepts that aren't commands so like an example of a baseline concept is if you feel the end of a leash or you feel at least pulling a certain direction you should move you should go with it you should give to leash pressure okay instead of bracing that's a baseline concept that you need to teach a dog with pressure
because if i tap an e-collar right if i just tap this right now right that gives no direction it's pressure but it doesn't give any direction about what to do or where to go
as an example if i go no no down good girl okay right and so the way i taught that is i just took the leash and i pulled down a little bit just like little tugs and then she went into the down and as soon as she hit the down i said okay and let her go wherever she wanted
The release marker 'okay'
How it was taught
Say 'okay' and immediately let her go and run. Never produce the release by hauling her out of position, because then the word means being pulled rather than being free. It is protected as carefully as any command: the trainer warns that walking away before saying it makes the walking the cue, and the same logic catches the hand wave.
On film
so that was actually really good for me because the second I said okay then I let her run so it made it very clear
there's a chance that they were okay it's like i'm pulling you out of the kitchen now and everything becomes manual and that really isn't great
the two, my two favorite positive kind of like reinforcement experiences, my two favorite rewards are one just a just a release to freedom you just say okay
so if i go and i start walking and i say okay that's the cue the walking away is the cue
Yep. Also a hand wave. She uh she's used to me doing okay and then hand wave. So sometimes she Okay. Feels like the handwave. You accidentally condition the handwave.
what you can do here, because I'm not gonna do it because she's gonna think it's me saying it.
Down
How it was taught
Word once, leash pressure held until she gives, release big. Then the leash prompt swapped for a very light e-collar prompt specifically so the leash can be faded before she learns to wait for it. Interrupts stay verbal. Generalisation is attacked surface by surface - a down that works on grass is re-taught on concrete, abandoned when it is too much, and returned to later in the same session. When she begins predicting it, the answer is to ask for a sit instead so she has to react to the word rather than guess.
On film
Only the first rep she fought me just a little bit. Yeah she's going into it easy now. I've only been able to do the the one session with her.
Yeah, she's right on the cuffs of doing it first.
The verbal only down right there. Good job, mama. Good job.
she's gonna fight me a little down i just have to show her she doesn't have an option lola down nope all right so she may not be ready for that so let's go there lola
so that was, that was a predicted down, so she didn't really, like, think she already heard me say it, so she was like, oh, I already know what he's going to ask me, so what we do in that case is I'm going to do it again in a second, and I'm going to do a sit instead of down
So, she's so her nerves are getting in her way right now. She's got all this Lola down. You got it. Uh-huh. It's a lot for her right now. There's a lot of things going on. We got like machinery over here. Wind. Her brain is going at full speed right now. Just trying to not freak out.
Sit, and the implied stay
How it was taught
Comply, get the okay, get to run - the same contract as the recall. Duration added and distance deliberately withheld, because distance is what her nerves take from her. The standard is argued from what the word is for rather than from obedience: a dog that pops back up has not given a stay at all, only a momentary sit, and the household uses of the word are voided if the word does not mean a stationary thing. The blocking behaviour is named precisely - the anxious stare, a dog inside the command but not in possession of herself - and the settle criterion at the second lesson is that the stare must go before the rep counts.
On film
Same thing with complying with, like, a position. Right? Like a sit. As soon as she complies with position, she gets to release the freedom. and she gets an okay and gets to run around
we're just reinforcing that in flight stay day which is where you know i don't need her to jump up every single time if she does that's not an implied stay that's not a stay at all it's just like a momentary sit which of course is not what you want with actual sit right they just plop down and then get back up there's no point in it
so she's not quite ready for the distance yet so we're just adding duration for now
so right now what she's doing is an anxious stare it's a behavior that happens anytime like a dog is nervous and anxious there even though they're in the command they're not really in full control of their faculties in the moment so she can hold position but the second I get away her nerves take over and then she really can't she can't do the implied thing
what we all look for in any command we do is that anxious stare where you're like specifically looking for the stair needs to go away. You can be a little nervous, but you got to actually learn how to settle. And until that happens, it's not really a smooth rep of the command.
So, you can actually see like the way she kind of conditioned is like she wants to get out of whatever is happening. So, if she like sat down just was like, "Is that what you want me to do?"
Place - the cot
How it was taught
Guide her on with leash pressure, insist on all four paws, release with 'okay', and attach no word until the behaviour is reliable under pressure - so that no word ever has to be reconditioned. Later the cue is a single word with a verbal interrupt on the wrong movement and a marked hold before the release. In the cot block it is run with the e-collar on, and the reason given is that it teaches impulse control rather than deciding who may use the sofa: both dogs are allowed on the couch at home and do the work anyway.
On film
so the main thing is i gotta get all four paws on one of these i'm very critical about it
lola oh you gave me that so fast that time oh she popped me really fast
Go to the place.
So then should we even go hard on rolling a play-foot then? because yeah i mean i know they need to learn it they know it already i feel like but because they're off like allowed on the couch so they need to practice okay yeah because it teaches other skills and concepts it reinforces things like impulse control you see how you put the vehicle on because they're not trying to come off anymore
And they are always allowed on the couch. Okay, okay. Absolutely. They are couch certified.
All right, Evelina, give her a little space, okay? She keeps avoiding you. That's why she's trying to get off, right?
Settle - as distinct from down
How it was taught
The definitional passage is in her file and nowhere else: a settle is putting the dog on the cot and waiting for it to lie down on its own; a down is putting it in position. Both are wanted, and the settle is preferred when you want the dog free to stand and move without a position being enforced. The method is the handlers' own inattention - they carry on with admin and conversation and do not manage the dogs - plus a marked interrupt for a bark with nothing behind it, longer time rather than more pressure for a worked-up dog, and a release the moment the dog earns it, immediately reinvested in the next rep. At home the criterion becomes ten or fifteen minutes on place when visitors arrive.
On film
We've down and settled as two separate things. The settle was I put them on there and wait for them to lay down on their own. I call that a settle.
But see, now that they're on a down, they're not trying to come off. Yeah. It's easier for them to be on a sitting or standing for them to come off than to be on a down.
They should be able to do both, putting it down, or you can just let them, just wait and let them settle. Cause that way they're free to like stand up and walk around and cut it. And then you don't have to enforce it down.
Uh-uh. No. There was no need for that bark. Nothing is happening.
I'm going to let him go for a minute because he earned it and then we're going to go back to the spot and let him go for the next go.
They're not going to get up until I like see them look away and then they like kind of go into like a down like chill out. So once you see them chill, oh now we're teaching.
Recall - and the split between formal and informal
How it was taught
Every rep is paid with release straight back into freedom, so returning never costs her anything. It is deliberately not used off every distraction, because that teaches a dog not to go anywhere. The failures are engineered rather than avoided - the truck and the picnic table are used as reliable producers of a blow-off, and the scenario is walked back to and recreated. Encouragement starts from the first step she takes toward the handler. The formal command is distinguished from an informal 'come here' that carries no obligation, and the formal one must be backed every time it is spent. At the handover the owners say the word and pull the line at the same moment.
On film
get released right back into freedom so it doesn't close her world down it doesn't make her world smaller instead uh she gets her world reopened back
you also develop the recall by um you don't do it every single time they get distracted because then they'll be like i'm not gonna go anywhere
That was much better, right? So, she resolved the pressure and the confusion really fast that time. That was really good. Because I tapped the recolor once there and she was like, oh. And she made the decision that she felt pressure and she went straight to you.
So, that's what Kelton was talking about. There's like the informal recall, which is just like, "Hey, come here." And then there's like RG come, which is like that has to be reinforced.
she's doing this thing where like when I'm training a recall when they're almost done this is one thing they do and it's where they'll come up to you and you'll be like recall right and they keep going and they keep going and then they like wrap around and come back right what you want is like a recall that they come up to you and then it stops there and then like a sit is at the end of it
So what we're gonna do is, I want you to just have the long line here and just say come and pull her at the exact same time.
You're mixing yours up today. So the come always ends in a sit.
Recall off the velcro person - the two-handler drill
How it was taught
Let her stick to handler B, then handler A stops, steps to the other side of the line and recalls her off him. Mark a refusal with an uh-uh and repeat. Vary the setup so she cannot pattern it. The trainer names the precedent - two dachshunds recalled off each other in his mother's backyard - and the reason: velcroing is her coping mechanism, and recalling her off a person breaks it while rehearsing the exact thing her family will meet at home.
On film
Because what you don't want is her just get the idea like, okay, like I'm just stuck to this person and then that's like her coping mechanism all she does is just like like Velcro. So if she Velcros up to you, then I just recall her to me.
Then it kind of gets her out of the mental pattern of Velcroing to anybody.
Like when you're generalizing it with her people when she goes home. She's gonna do it That's a very real reality is that they could say comments. You could try to hide behind somebody else
Well and then they're not predicting based off of the word, they're predicting based off of coming out red.
Yeah. Well and maybe they know what the word means but they don't think that the word has the effect.
Yeah, so like she did this with me and Kelsey the other day where she'll hide behind somebody. So you gotta, yeah.
So that's part of like what we were working on is just like finding these weird scenarios where like it could probably happen in regular life if you just train the dog inside a room for 4 weeks, right?
The long line as a dial - the off-leash progression
How it was taught
Length and weight treated as a continuously adjustable variable rather than a binary. The ladder is laid out for the owners end to end - 50 foot for a dog that still looks like it is scheming, a 15-foot petite line cut down from a tie-out, an optional five-and-a-half-foot light leash that feels like nothing and exists mainly so heel can still be worked, then nothing - and the trigger for moving a step is the handler's confidence, read off how the dog looks when she is thinking about leaving. The line is dropped so she can explore without the handler dreading a sprint, and picked up when a command is going to be taught or a stranger is passing. A flexi is explicitly not a substitute, because the retraction means it is never slack.
On film
literally walks in the park with something like this this is 26
it's just she's just going to drag it around on the ground for a while um until i'm like really confident in her recall and that she's not going to do something stupid like run off into the woods or something
That is a petite long line, so it's not only a lot thinner than this one and a lot lighter than this one, but it's also about 35 feet shorter. I think that that one's maybe 15 feet long.
This is significantly closer to being fully off leash here so that's what we want. What we want to see here.
This is like the next this is the last one that I do before I take the leash off. Okay. Cuz this feels like nothing to the dog.
Yeah. For me, it's like, all right, how confident do I feel with this dog?
There's tiny tiny tiny little with the flexi. Okay. So, you don't even notice. Yes. Just from the retraction. There's always a tiny bit of tension. So, they they can feel the difference.
backyard because like I said you don't want to get a dog home like day one and then be like we're going on an off-leash hike right that's a little little dangerous um so within the week test like come out here do the recall stuff
Heel, and the heel entry
How it was taught
Show the dog the position on the left, teach that the position moves with the handler's body, make maintaining it the dog's job, then try to shake her out of it. Kept to short bursts with the release between them. A five-and-a-half-foot light leash is kept specifically so heel can be worked while the dog otherwise feels off leash. The prohibition on heel grinding is stated to the owners by name, with three concrete uses attached - passing someone visibly uncomfortable about a pit bull, a crowded store aisle, and crossing a parking lot with an off-leash dog.
On film
for a nervous dog that like is kind of fluttery i'm not gonna try to force a heel there's like inherent dangers with that
when you're trying to heal you do push it a little bit harder than you would just your average heel right and so you might just make the dog be like just shut down completely
the best way to teach heal the sequence is is literally just this you just show them where it is right like okay like this is the position right here to your left and then you teach them that that position moves right because the body its body relative and it's your job to fix it
so like one application of Lola would be like if somebody is intimidated because she's a pit bull and they are obviously uncomfortable that your dog is out in front of you put them in a heel for like put her in a heel for like a minute yeah walk by those people and then say okay and let her go back out
Let's do it with the leash, let's do it with the leash.
no, keep it moving, huh, Lola, heel, eh, no, eh, eh, no, no, you got it, no, no, come on, that's the one command we haven't done much work with on her
I was just doing a little heel in motion there, and then teaching a heel entry.
Correct, then make it fun - correcting her without suppressing her
How it was taught
The correction is only half the repetition; what the handler does immediately afterwards is the other half. Correct, then make it fun at once, with no residual 'I hate you' energy. The justification is her specific stress signature - she freezes rather than flees, so sustained intensity after a correction would box her up - and the named bad outcome is the velcro dog, a nervous dog reinforced so hard it never leaves the handler's side again. The same judgement appears in-session as a choice rule: refusal gets pressure, uncertainty gets cheerleading, and you flip the moment the dog starts to give. A fear-based offer gets neither correction nor reward.
On film
but the thing is you really can't even do even a hint of it on a dog like her so we're going to fully open her up by being very clear on what we're doing right
the other thing is like correcting her but after you do it make sure it's really fun and it's really like there's no like residual like i hate you energy going on um because with her pressure could shut her down really fast like she has that tendency
there's a term called velcro dog you ever heard of it it's where like they take a nervous dog or a dog that doesn't listen well and they use the e-collar and like reinforcement so much so the dog's scared to leave the side
Right. Because what I'm looking for is emotional state. I'm looking at her emotional state and changing based on that.
because you don't want to punish like uncertainty
That seems kind of fear-based, so I'm not going to do anything about that. I'm not going to reward that. I'm not going to.
there's a fine line between working a dog intensely and suppressing a dog and i made sure that the latter was not happening and that we were just working really hard
No drilling - the dose limits
How it was taught
Long decompression gaps rather than repetition, from the first session. A standing session cap of fifteen to twenty minutes, justified not by her fitness but by the association being built. A hard ceiling of two high-intensity bolt-and-recall events per session, because a dog that expects four of those per outing comes to resent going out. A heat rule that caps outdoor sessions independently of the training plan, and a stopping point set a couple of minutes before she stops being able to think rather than at distress. And at the handover, a flat prohibition on drilling commands at her, with the evidence: that is what made her quit on a long line days earlier.
On film
allowing a lot of decompression time because the biggest way to repress a dog is to throw him over and over and over like that
most of my sessions really don't these days like today it's not going to exceed probably more than yeah the time we were out here before not going to exceed more than 15 or 20 minutes because it's pretty hot out here
like in a walk and the dog thinks every time they go out they're gonna have like four of those that's very intense
i don't want to work her to her like threshold of like smooth brainer
with her um drilling too many commands at once will make her want to be like frick this i'm out right
because some people they uh they get like really excited when the dog gets home and so they're like you know what i'm gonna to do I'm going to just like drill these commands until I like am bored and it looks kind of cool but the dog's in like psychological pain so I don't want to put her in psychological pain
work it down or two before we end it i really don't want to drill them too hard though it's very easy to drill a dog too hard so i gotta be careful with that
Opening up - environmental exploration, and the handler doing nothing
How it was taught
The prescription is three things - environmental exploration on a long line, exercise, and controlled pressure - with affection added as a fourth for her specifically. Operationally it is the handler being uninvolved: long line, no pressure, walk away and want the dog far from you, stop moving on purpose to see what she does, and accept that eighty percent of the session is nothing. Frights are worked through rather than removed. And when none of that is enough, the syllabus is abandoned in favour of whatever reaches her - the trainer says he will sit in a room for two hours and cuddle her if that is what opens her.
On film
can think about the three things that do the most for them right what are they the three things that do the most for clarity clarity and then for like anxiety right it's like negative reinforcement does a bunch freedom to go investigate an environment does a bunch and then other than that exercise obviously
typically my thing with a dog like this is like I just won't do anything and then I'll walk away I'll walk away from them and I want them to get far away from me ideally and so me doing nothing and just letting her just do whatever she's gonna do and explore her environment that's the way
how long have you been out here five minutes yeah maybe something like like that check about five minutes he's already like starting to go off and she went off in the woods that's good right I wanted to go look at things and give me some licks on the hand now
so it's not just taking away i didn't fix it you made her work through it i let her i let her figure it out so and i just encouraged i was like oh dude go everything's fine right
Hey. Oh, Lola. It's all good. I'm not asking you to do a command. Just a good girl. You know what I'm saying? You give me a sniff.
Look at them. They're floppy, too. It means she's not like, you know, the ears, right? If they're like really rigid.
We have a phrase dog stuff. They be dogging. Yeah. They'd be dogging, right? They're being a dog and we want to see them be a dog.
Public access and venue escalation
How it was taught
Venue treated as the curriculum rather than as an obstacle, and escalated one step at a time - a quiet park, then the busier side of the same park, then progressively more crowded public areas, then stores. The choice of side of a park is made deliberately on the day. Surfaces are treated as their own generalisation problem. Heat sets a hard cap on all of it. The behavioural bar in public is stated once and is unusually low: she does not have to like anybody, she just has to not do something stupid.
On film
or else if she wants to right right um and then from there like more and more crowded areas yeah i'm going to take her into stores and stuff like that
like more and more crowded areas yeah i'm going to take her into stores and stuff like that
actually good for a lot of things going on every time I seem to come out here with it there's not a lot going on so we're gonna be hanging out more over on this side of the park today not the usual loop that i hang out in
okay? So we're just trying to get her to be around people. That's all I want. Just be around people, be around things, do commands.
here's the other thing is like she doesn't have to like every person she sees yeah she just needs to not do something stupid
Say her name. Okay. Yeah. Just say her name. So going to she should be just like cruising along indifferent to people.
The e-collar - conditioning it, setting it, and word order
How it was taught
Put the collar on and leave it switched off for whole sessions, so that when the sensation arrives nothing about the equipment has changed and she never becomes collar-wise. The level is read off the dog rather than set: hers is below what her handler can feel on his own skin. Levels are not transferable between models - 24 on the small-dog unit feels like 30 on the other - and the number moves with the distraction rather than with the dog. The rule that decides what the collar means is word order: fired with no command it attaches to the trigger and builds an association with people and dogs; fired after a command it is a penalty for not listening. And the marker comes first, always, because a command followed straight by a correction teaches the dog the command means punishment.
On film
so if it's on her right now if she feels nothing in the next session she feels it she's like well nothing changed so i guess it must genuinely just be this behavior that like causes this uh chain reaction and she doesn't suspect it's the collar
and this one is for smaller dogs so So, at a 24, it feels like a 30. Yeah, it's 30% less?
And how much, like, with what amount of, like, pressure do you need to back it up? However much is effective, right?
if the dog like sees right and is like starting to fixate you just hit the e-collar with no like nothing you can like a negative association to just people whereas if it's like a let's go and then you hit the e-collar and then it's a punishment for not listening right they're two very different worlds.
So, I would say that both of them cuz this goes up to a 100. So, I would say both of them sit around like the 15 to 20 range.
we have like a a rule that we go by and basically if you can fit like two fingers in the e-collar like this, you're good. But if you have like wiggle room like this, it's too loose.
some people still were like I just like I was like show me how you do and they're like sit boom and I'm like yeah you just taught the dog the sit means you're getting punished which that's a really bad thing
Prey interest - a brand-new problem, surfaced four days before she went home
How it was taught
Not taught - diagnosed. The behaviour is read as apprehension lifting rather than as a new vice, on the general principle that behaviours surface once a dog is no longer afraid. Both halves are said at once: it is good to see her be a dog, and it also has to stop. Three answers are offered - force a recall, condition 'let's go' onto the sight of wildlife, or penalise the sighting directly with no command first, which is the version that stops it for good - and where there are real stakes the trainer preempts rather than letting the bad choice run.
On film
It could be that because she's opened up a lot and she's not so afraid that now she's like M what else can chase animals now?
My suggestion is that you punish it.
or another option is you just punish it directly without any um recall or any command beforehand. Okay. Um, and so that's the more like never do it again thing. Um, because then they see wildlife and they think not doing that.
So you have two options. You can let them make the bad choice and then you can penalize it. Um or secondary choice is you can just preempt it. And in this case, since there's stakes, uh I would normally preempt it.
Apparently now you have a hunting dog. Yeah. Look at her. Yeah.
Play and reward - attempted, deferred, never resolved
How it was taught
The reward is meant to be found rather than imposed, and the trainer says plainly that it may not be findable until the dog opens up further - the missing piece is motivation, not knowledge. Meanwhile the house position is that food makes the handler a bank rather than a companion, and that play needs a shared objective and real rules to function as a reward at all. What works for Lola in practice is release, sniffing, and being touched by someone she trusts, and the owners identify that she likes being chased.
On film
She's definitely a little scared. Just overall, in her temperament, she's a little nervous.
I'd like to play ball or play tug with her soon.
Let's go. Okay. Go get it.
and the thing is, it doesn't have to be today, and sometimes you don't find that super interesting thing until the doggies open up a little bit,
not bank yeah not treat bank right
are fighting for possession of the toy it's a possession game um and so if you're playing a possession game you should try strategies other than brute force right
with Lola I think of like a third one for her is also she She likes, she's a very like physical dog, like she likes to be like very close with people
Place - the cot
On film
Lola, place.
She is not into that.
Kind of freaked her out a little bit.
Sit, and the implied stay
On film
Maybe we got something there.
Maybe we got a little something there we could sit.
Recall - and the split between formal and informal
On film
down Lola down Lola Lola come come she ran away she ran away
Giving to leash pressure - the baseline concept under everything else
On film
She definitely pulls pretty hard on locks from what I've seen so far
Place - the cot
On film
i got her to do place and portions of sit within her first session
Sit, and the implied stay
On film
i got her to do place and portions of sit within her first session this is the second time i've done some work with her
No drilling - the dose limits
On film
we like do a little push for a second and we're out and then i do the release
Hang out with each other, respond to each other, go back to work, respond to each other,
From the Shorts
Short clips posted from Lola's training. They are undated, so they sit beside the program rather than inside it.
Lola before training
In her 'before video' the trainer says Lola is more nervous than her brother Archie: she pulls hard on the leash, tends to burst through gates and any opening, and has her tail tucked and is on high alert. He then asks for sit, place, down and come by word alone. There may be a sit; place frightens her; on down and come she runs away. He calls it real skittishness, thinks she may do better for her owners because they already have a relationship, and concludes she does not seem to have a spoken cue for any of the things they teach.
On film
This is her before video and you can see that she has a little bit different character than her brother Archie does she's a little bit more nervous
She definitely pulls pretty hard on locks from what I've seen so far
She has a tendency to like bust through gates or openings of any kind. You can see she's got a real crazy tail tuck there
and she's just kind of hyper vigilant
Maybe we got a little something there we could sit.
Kind of freaked her out a little bit.
so you can see what we're working with here um there's definitely some real skittishness going on
down Lola down Lola Lola come come she ran away she ran away
she may uh I would hypothesize do a little better with her owner on that one
doesn't seem to have a like a verbal command any of the things we teach
Archie and Lola's first night
Both dogs, outside together on their first night at the facility, explore the training yard - the pools, the place cot, the toys - and come to say hi to the trainer with their tails wagging. The trainer says they seem happy and curious ('where are we'), and that the staff will be spending a lot of time with them.
On film
Their first night at Angier Canine.
They're exploring their environment.
They're checking out the pools, the place cot.
hi oh yes they're happy doggies they're like where are we where are we
come here we're gonna hang out with them a bunch
Look at those tails wag.
Lola: the trainer's thoughts after her first outing
At the end of her first trip out with him, her trainer sums up: she is a fast learner; in his first session with her she went to place and did part of a sit; this is his second session and her 'middle' (standing between the handler's legs) is looking really nice. He thinks they are starting to bond, and that she is a little standoffish because of where they are.
On film
she's doing really great she's a fast learner she gets her commands really great
i got her to do place and portions of sit within her first session this is the second time i've done some work with her
her middle's looking really nice
we're starting to develop a little bit of a bond
She's a little, I think she's a little more standoffish because of where we are.
Archie: a stay with strangers at Home Depot
Archie's own clip. In Home Depot the handler asks some people to watch Archie, tells him to stay and steps around the corner. About twenty seconds later he is back, asking Archie whether he was good for the nice people. Whether Archie held the stay is not said.
On film
I gotta go look at something around the corner.
Can you watch my dog Archie for me?
You stay.
Were you good for the nice people?
Lola: settled in and friends with the trainer
A trainer says Lola has settled in nicely and that they have made friends; he calls her a happy girl.
On film
Lola has settled in quite nicely. I think we've made friends.
We've made good friends with her now.
Lola: work hard, release, reconnect
At the end of a session the trainer tells Lola he is proud of her and describes the rhythm he used: a short push of work, then the release, then time together, then back to work - 'almost like a red light green light thing'.
On film
Good job, Lola. I'm really proud of you.
we like do a little push for a second and we're out and then i do the release
red light green light thing where it's like okay we're going really hard
Hang out with each other, respond to each other, go back to work, respond to each other,
How the method adapted
No command words at all on day one, and no word attached to any behaviour until the behaviour worked under pressure.
A word taught wrong has to be un-taught, and re-learning takes longer than learning.
On film
So we're just gonna today, since it's her first session, all I want, and she's already calmed down I'm going to build my horse Bradford. But all I want is we're not doing any command or anything really.
you're not locked into i've marked it with a word and now i have to recondition up the word with a word right you know like if i told you one day like hey actually green is actually red and then you have to like relearn it it's possible but it'll take you some time
So if you're off the bat, you know, for a week and some change, then you have to undo a week's worth of work, which in my line of work, I only have four weeks to train these dogs.
Petting withheld, and touch tested as information rather than offered as a reward.
For a terrified dog a pet is not a reward - it is something being added that she does not want - so offering it would have been adding an aversive while believing you were being kind.
On film
Now I'm not going to touch her because, um, you know, sometimes people think, oh, that's a nervous dog, you'll make her feel better. The thing is, if they're terrified and don't like the pet, the pet goes from a reward to actively either negatively reinforcing or turns into a positive point of view because you're adding in the pets, right?
I'm not doing this for reward. I'm seeing if the idea of the physical touch in general it doesn't appear that it does she's actually breathing slowly she's not like like shaking and everything so that's good
I don't want to scare her either. We're just keeping things chill. I'm not actually going to look in her direction as far as the eye contact goes.
And then, later in the same program, the exact opposite: affection prescribed as one of the three things that will do most of the work for her, and a willingness to spend two hours doing nothing but that.
She turned out to be a physical dog who wants to be close to people, so contact became the access point rather than an intrusion. The method is explicitly subordinated to whatever reaches this particular dog.
On film
with Lola I think of like a third one for her is also she She likes, she's a very like physical dog, like she likes to be like very close with people and so I think like if you combine like giving her like love, rubbing on her, let her be free and doing her thing and being very clear with her, you probably would solve the majority of the nerves or at least.
Main thing is I need to find something that just really opens her up. If I have to, I just have to sit. If if cuddling is the only thing that opens her up, I guess I'll just have to sit in a room for two hours and just cuddle with her, right?
Detachment when the closeness became a symptom. She is bonded with and not comforted on demand.
A nervous dog that starts using the handler's body as an anxiety-management device has found a coping mechanism rather than a solution; and later in the program that same closeness is what makes her recall untestable.
On film
They just start using the handler as a way to manage their anxiety, night which is understandable from a dog perspective but in this case you have to be very detached
it'll be something that anytime you're carrying a nervous dog i will say one of the most important things is to bond very well with them
because she's like tied to me though cuz she's nervous. I really have a hard time testing on her recall.
Long decompression gaps instead of repetition, and a rep count capped before the session starts.
Stacking reps is named as the mechanism of repression rather than as merely inefficient, and repressing a nervous dog is described as simply giving her more anxiety.
On film
allowing a lot of decompression time because the biggest way to repress a dog is to throw him over and over and over like that
with Lola, it's more pressing a nervous dog, it's just called giving a dog more anxiety
but the thing is you really can't even do even a hint of it on a dog like her so we're going to fully open her up by being very clear on what we're doing right
A working e-collar level of 10 out of 100 - below what her handler can feel on his own skin - and a readiness to skip the collar entirely on a failure.
The level is read off the dog rather than set from a rule, and she is described as sensitive to any kind of pressure at all, not just to the collar. On one recall blow-off a handler deliberately uses leash pressure alone because that is enough for her.
On film
That e-collar pressure is incredibly light for her. It's only on a 10 out of the 100 possible levels, which I actually, I normally can't even really feel the 10.
That's because she's a very sensitive dog to any kind of pressure at all.
she kind of blew off the recall i actually didn't use the e-collar yeah you just put well because in that case she's already so sensitive to stuff that's probably just pulling on the yeah just tuck them a little bit probably enough for her
down, eh, there we go, good job, go down, eh, eh, eh, eh, no, down, Lola, down, I'm going to turn the e-collar really low, down, eh, okay, cool, thank you, Lola, let's go,
The collar worn switched off for whole sessions before it was ever used.
So that when the sensation arrives nothing about the equipment has changed and she attributes it to her own behaviour rather than to the collar - which is also what prevents a dog becoming obedient only while wearing it.
On film
I have the e-collar on her I will not be using it this whole session in fact it is not turned on I just have it on her because I want her I just want her to be used to wearing it
so if it's on her right now if she feels nothing in the next session she feels it she's like well nothing changed so i guess it must genuinely just be this behavior that like causes this uh chain reaction and she doesn't suspect it's the collar
Commands spoken quietly, and the cue spelled out loud when narrating so as not to fire it at her by accident.
She is described as unusually receptive to the words, so volume is treated as a dial to be turned down rather than a constant. The spelling habit is the same instinct applied to the camera.
On film
and I'm saying them quietly because apparently she's really like receptive to them
Alright, let's see how she's doing with her D-O-N-W, D-O-W-N command today.
Heel deliberately not taught for most of the program, and then started late and left unfinished.
Teaching a heel means pushing harder than an ordinary heel, and on a dog like her that either shuts her down or builds a frustration that can come out as a bite on a third party. The cost of that is stated in its extreme form: it is how dogs get put down.
On film
for a nervous dog that like is kind of fluttery i'm not gonna try to force a heel there's like inherent dangers with that
you he'll grind and then all of a sudden nips at like a four-year-old it's not a great look for you or your dog that's how dogs get put down all the time
that's the one command we haven't done much work with on her
Duration added and distance withheld on every held command.
Distance is the specific criterion her nerves take from her - she can hold a position while the handler is close and loses it the moment he moves away - so the criterion that is available is time, not space.
On film
so she's not quite ready for the distance yet so we're just adding duration for now
she can hold position but the second I get away her nerves take over and then she really can't she can't do the implied thing
so it's really the distance that she has a hard time with and that's just the nerves right
Encouragement used as the escalation step rather than more pressure, and a fear-based offer given neither correction nor reward.
Uncertainty must not be punished, because a dog that is unsure has nothing to comply with. The rule is to read emotional state and flip from pressure to cheerleading the moment she starts to give.
On film
Right. Because what I'm looking for is emotional state. I'm looking at her emotional state and changing based on that.
you can see like a shift if you're paying attention between them breaks on like dude I'm not doing this and then as soon as they start to give in oh god I'm not sure then go okay come on
I know that may or may not be fear-based, So I'm going to reward that for a down because she did the right thing.
So basically, I just started encouraging as soon as she started making her way towards me, right?
The correction split into two beats - the correction, then immediately making it fun - and taught to the owners that way.
She freezes rather than flees and is already close to suppressed, so sustained intensity after a correction would close her down and undo the thing the program was for.
On film
the other thing is like correcting her but after you do it make sure it's really fun and it's really like there's no like residual like i hate you energy going on um because with her pressure could shut her down really fast like she has that tendency
she's already like kind of borderline suppressed enough we're trying to like keep her open
Eighty percent of a session spent doing nothing, with the handler deliberately walking away and wanting the dog far from him.
Once obedience had opened her as far as obedience could, more obedience was the wrong instinct. The environment and the freedom to investigate it were doing the work, so the handler's job became to be uninvolved and harvest the moments that matter out of the gaps.
On film
at least with me like she knows her commands it's really just like that at this point I think the obedience has opened her up as much as it's gonna open her
a session like this i might be out here for 10 15 20 30 minutes or whatever and like 80 of it is what i'm doing now which is starts with an n nothing i'm literally doing nothing um and just letting the dog go do stuff which is super valuable
and so like sometimes the answer is actually to do less if we're doing too much because if she's already and so then like if I see her walking well stop on purpose because I just want to see what she does
Failures engineered on purpose, because a dog who never gets it wrong cannot be taught not to.
A command that has never been enforced is not a command, and the trainer states he actively needs her to blow him off so that he has the opportunity to obligate it. Errorless learning is rejected by name.
On film
you just look for opportunities for her. You look for, you try to create, like, times where she blows you off. Like, you need her to blow you off. If she doesn't blow you off, she won't.
so I'm hoping that I get another opportunity to use the e-collar to negatively reinforce here.
Um which is good. We need that. We want it. Yeah. Um because there's no learning without error, right? Um errorless learning is fake in my opinion.
But the engineered failure is rationed: no more than two per session, and never as the last thing that happens.
The experience is genuinely intense, and a dog that expects several of them per outing comes to dread going out. And where the session ends teaches the dog where relief lives, so ending in the truck would make the truck the relief rather than the handler.
On film
normally i don't look for more than like like definitely i don't want to have more than like two of those in a session because you start like getting you can't have a bunch of that like that that is that's an intense experience for the dog
you don't want to have them have it go out a bunch and then you don't want to put them right back in the truck after
One option is put her in the truck right go home other option is Give her a wind down right because she's like whoa right. She's just had some intense interactions here where she's had Like been negatively reinforced with a recall and it's shady over here, so I'm just gonna go okay good girl and let her go Explore over here, and then you can like end on a pretty good note right
Sessions capped by the weather and by her breed rather than by the training plan, and the stopping point set a couple of minutes before she stops being able to think.
A flat-faced, heat-intolerant dog runs out of air, and a tired dog cannot receive a rep. The response is to move the session earlier in the day rather than to train less.
On film
just because there is an inherent dangerous quality of having like a bully breed out here for this amount of time. Because what ends up happening is that they can run out of air, you know, they don't breathe well in the heat.
she's in a state where i might only have a couple more minutes with her before she's like all right i'm like i'm tired right and i don't want to work her to her like threshold of like smooth brainer
okay tomorrow i'll take her out more maybe uh i'll take her out earlier in the morning since she's so sensitive to the heat we can cool off
A two-handler drill invented for her - a second person used as the thing she velcroes to, so she can be recalled off him.
Velcroing is her coping mechanism, so recalling her off a person breaks the pattern; and it rehearses the exact failure the trainer predicts for the family, where she hides behind her people when a command is given. The precedent is two dachshunds worked the same way in the trainer's mother's backyard.
On film
So then if she's with you, right you can use it because it's a lot
Then it kind of gets her out of the mental pattern of Velcroing to anybody.
Like when you're generalizing it with her people when she goes home. She's gonna do it That's a very real reality is that they could say comments. You could try to hide behind somebody else
Then I can recall her to me off of you right because that's actually you remember those two dachshunds
MARKED AS PAIR ADAPTATION. The second dog treated as an active ingredient, and the household treated as the unit of assessment rather than the dog.
The presenting complaint existed in the pair, not in either dog - alone at a park she does nothing, beside an over-aroused Archie she ramps. And the confident dog does work for her that a handler cannot: he is 'good for her clearly', and having her out with him is named as doing good things.
On film
this it's walking the two of them together that look Archie gets excited and she's like oh my god excited what do I do it comes out it's like kinds of excited
Archie's good for her clearly. Yeah. Right. Because Archie's confident, happy to be alive and see people. And having her out with him does good stuff for her.
Yeah. So yeah, the initial plan was just to send Lola and Christian's like, "If you send both, it's whatever and it's better for them."
MARKED AS PAIR ADAPTATION. The pair separated on purpose where the pairing was the problem, and their handling deliberately kept identical.
Archie had to be shut in another room before Lola would go into a crate at all, and his vocalising stopped other dogs' training. On place the planned progression is to split them - settle both, then call one off while the other holds. And at home both dogs are to be walked the same way whether one person or two is handling them, so they never learn that the rules depend on the audience.
On film
Okay. So, when we first got Lola to try and get her to go into the crate, uh we had to put Archie like in another room, bedroom, maybe close the door.
And then have them settle and then call one off if the other one stays on the cot. But that's tomorrow's challenge for them.
just because you don't want to get them in a pattern of like i have to listen when it's only me and him but then when we're together we can be acting a fool you know you don't want that
A rotation of five or six handlers through her on purpose, varying sex, volume and mannerism.
So the commands generalise past the person who installed them - which is the thing that decides whether a board-and-train survives the handover. The owners notice the result themselves on the day of the second lesson.
On film
We spend time having multiple people work with the dogs for a few sessions each at least, right?
so then they learn like, hey, like this could be something that could be from a male or from a female or with a quiet voice or or a loud voice or it could be all kinds of different people with different mannerisms.
It seems like she responds to just from today responds to whoever says her name and then the whatever the command is. Yes.
first of all, I worked with him outside We've had other trainers working with him But we try to get our hands on or try to get every train to get their hands on the dog
The people in the room moved rather than the dog corrected.
When she repeatedly broke a place command the cause turned out to be a child standing too close. The break was avoidance, not disobedience, so the intervention was to give her space - the opposite of the instinct to correct harder.
On film
All right, Evelina, give her a little space, okay? She keeps avoiding you. That's why she's trying to get off, right?
She's a sweetie. You got to be nice and gentle to her.
Handover documents and instructions written for her rather than generically, and the handover lesson run in the house rather than at the kennel.
The old behaviour survives in the room where it was learned, so the last untrained context is the client's own living room. And the instructions she needs - correct then make it fun, do not drill her, be careful with the flexi - would be actively wrong advice for a confident dog.
On film
this is what I'm talking about. Some of the stuff you have to reinforce it in the house. And that's why we do the sessions in the house.
she doesn't do that behavior like anywhere else now. But because it's the old behavior associated here it's got to like throughout that week you got to be strict.
one thing with lola be careful with the flexi with her she actually has a tendency to maybe like be 15 less open on a flexi than a long line and i do think it's because she can feel just that tad bit amount of tension that you're holding the leash versus it's a long line it's dragging
she's she's opening up. It's just taking her a little longer than I thought it was going to take. But I do think that she'll still be on track to go home on time. We're just going to have to specialize some stuff for her.
The furniture rearranged so she could not hide.
She was running circles round the room and wedging herself under a chair, so the hiding places were removed and the handler then did nothing and waited to see what she would do. By the end of that session she was lying against his leg.
On film
when I first took her out you might wonder why the chairs are positioned like that because that thing looks weird um I actually had to put a crate in the middle here and then put the chairs there because she was doing a donut around the room and running away from me to the point where she hit under the chair
rearrange the furniture in the room because actually she would like hide behind the stairs. And so, I was looking at her. I was like, I'll try to run away in a minute. And I walked away and she was just like laying down
i had rearrange all the furniture in the house because she tried to hide under everything i had to make a place where she couldn't hide
Sessions taken in the dark, and results from them explicitly discounted.
Night is chosen because there is less to set her off - and then the clean result is refused as evidence, with a plan to retest at two or three in the afternoon. The condition that makes the training possible is the condition that makes the result untrustworthy, and the trainer says both.
On film
she's not doing any bolting out here which is really really good it is night and there's less distractions too so So, we'll see how she does at, like, you know, 2 or 3 o'clock tomorrow in the afternoon.
sometimes a dog can look really good because nothing's happened. You know what I mean? So like maybe two out of 10 times the dog will bolt. But the thing is if you only see the eight out of 10 times you're like yeah good.
What the family was told
What your job is, and what the program is actually buying
a lot of Will depend on like following through like yeah, what we what I end up teaching you
and then if you come back six months later and I ask you if you've changed the oil and your engine has blown up and you say you have not changed the oil that it's not covered in a warranty
so if you don't reinforce the commands and penalize the things you don't like then they will come back yeah and the commands will weaken
Yeah, cuz if it's not synced properly, then I can't show you how to use. And if I can't show you how to use it, you don't know how to correct your dogs.
She's like, "No, I'm sorry, but I can't drop you off without showing that you know how to do your stuff.
Yeah, honestly that's that's the big one is allowing space, allowing choice. Don't pull her in. And then the other big one is punishing when necessary. You have to penalize those behaviors that made you come to see us in the first place, right?
Why you stopped being a source of freedom, and how to become one again
and so the question is whether or not we shake those negative reinforcers or we just let them be whatever they're gonna be
say they pull on the leash pull pull pull and then when they get to the thing they want the pressure turns off because you stand there looking at the phone
and so then what what is it what is your role end up being in the walk restrainer restrainer exactly restrainer um and so then you're not a source of freedom you're a source of restraint
the way you get that is you you allow choices yeah and then you make consequences for those choices and they start to become more reliable in making good choices because you give them the opportunity
because if you're managing all the time they don't make the choice
I can pick this leash up and I don't have to like hold it tight and make the choice for her by managing. I can just hold it at the end. Mhm. Just make sure she makes a good decision.
Whether corrections will make her afraid of you
no no no i'll get my truck and drive there's no problem why because i have control it's easily avoidable yeah it's contingent on that thing and i can just not do that thing and avoid the whole problem
non-contingent that one too if you do nothing then yeah that's even worse or non-contingent pressure pressure that they have no way to avoid because they don't understand why the pressure's happening if it's unclear then that's majorly problematic
the third one is actually negative reinforcement. Okay. And the reason that it works is because it is a lower stakes way of teaching them to deal with stress. stressed. That's how you develop resilience.
because you don't want to punish like uncertainty
there's a term called velcro dog you ever heard of it it's where like they take a nervous dog or a dog that doesn't listen well and they use the e-collar and like reinforcement so much so the dog's scared to leave the side and so for the rest of his life it just follows the owner around like this and because they repressed the dog like so hard the dog has no soul anymore not a fan of that
Lola specifically - correct her, then make it fun, and never drill her
the other thing is like correcting her but after you do it make sure it's really fun and it's really like there's no like residual like i hate you energy going on um because with her pressure could shut her down really fast like she has that tendency
there's a lot of like nervous dogs who if their instinct isn't necessary to like run and scream immediately they like freeze up and she's one of those
with her um drilling too many commands at once will make her want to be like frick this i'm out right i that that happened the other day where like you know like with with the the tree thing i was telling you about it was like commands and all of a sudden she was like yeah i'm done
because some people they uh they get like really excited when the dog gets home and so they're like you know what i'm gonna to do I'm going to just like drill these commands until I like am bored and it looks kind of cool but the dog's in like psychological pain so I don't want to put her in psychological pain
here's the other thing is like she doesn't have to like every person she sees yeah she just needs to not do something stupid
The first week home, and why she will seem to have forgotten everything
Some of the stuff you have to reinforce it in the house. And that's why we do the sessions in the house. Yeah. Because the dogs do get like weird like that where I like I can walk around in the park, right? Yeah. She's like, "I'm home now. I don't have to listen to anybody."
If not she kind of is like it's a little looser over here. I can get you know mom and dad there. I can I can get away with some extra stuff.
if you take the like the basic idea of like they go to grandma and grandpa's house and they load the kids up with sugar and they can do whatever they want and then they come home and they still act a fool and the parents are like you're allowed to do that there but you're here and these are the rules
for like the next day or so if you give her a recall while she is there and you don't have a long line on or an e-collar dog she gonna look at you and be like yeah like very side eye
Generalisation - the order in which to widen her world
I think of it as like three phases right so you have like inside behavior maybe like backyard and then you have like out and about stores hikes right um so the first part is like you try to get due obedience good in the house when they come home and like Like, once that's, like, you're feeling good about that, then you make it outside in the backyard.
i usually tell people like make sure sure that all of your commands are pretty solid on like a leash or something before you go and take them off leash just again it's not that the knowledge isn't there it's more just a thing of like you know dogs are dogs and they'll do whatever they think they can get away with
backyard because like I said you don't want to get a dog home like day one and then be like we're going on an off-leash hike right that's a little little dangerous um so within the week test like come out here do the recall stuff
or else if she wants to right right um and then from there like more and more crowded areas yeah i'm going to take her into stores and stuff like that
Lines and equipment
So the reason track solutions are great is because they allow for movement. They allow for movement and they allow for retreat.
say somebody comes with another dog and I feel nervous about it like now I can go Lola come right and then I can pick this leash up and I don't have to like hold it tight and make the choice for her by managing.
one thing with lola be careful with the flexi with her she actually has a tendency to maybe like be 15 less open on a flexi than a long line and i do think it's because she can feel just that tad bit amount of tension that you're holding the leash versus it's a long line it's dragging
if you're taking it on the long line make sure it's not tangled yeah you'll lose you know you lose you lose length that way and then if she decides to bolt and all of a sudden you only got 20 feet you're like oh frick
we have like a a rule that we go by and basically if you can fit like two fingers in the e-collar like this, you're good. But if you have like wiggle room like this, it's too loose.
the big one, too, is whatever side you walk the dog on, this is important. Make sure it's on the opposite side.
So, I would say that both of them cuz this goes up to a 100. So, I would say both of them sit around like the 15 to 20 range.
So, obviously, I don't just want to hit the button to test it out cuz I don't know that I I can't do it. It just feels really wrong to be like, "Let's test it out and just hit both of them."
so the reasons are great is because they allow for movement. Um, they allow for movement and they allow for retreat.
Word order, markers, and the mechanics you will get wrong
so you have to kind of discipline your body to not do other stuff um that you don't want to be the thing before you do before you say the word
fourth conditioning i think is much more natural um and that's just like i say archie come come right and then he can make a choice
if the dog like sees right and is like starting to fixate you just hit the e-collar with no like nothing you can like a negative association to just people whereas if it's like a let's go and then you hit the e-collar and then it's a punishment for not listening right they're two very different worlds.
what you can accidentally do is if it's any kind of command like a like a recall or a let's go or something that's very like movement based. Um you can accidentally teach the dog that they need to feel a tiny bit of pressure.
So, you can give the choice point and just let her do whatever she's doing. That's totally fine. And then if you want to recall, the only thing is if you do say come, got to back it up. Now you're Now you're stuck.
which what I'd recommend is just use a long line pull her over or you can use the collar but just make sure it's always followed up with the marker
if you timed it out wrong he could associate that e-collar that that sensation right in that moment to maybe something completely random there are dogs that they associate like one patch of grass ass is electric right and so the dog is like i just can never step there ever again that's not what the owner wanted to do but it's how the dog took it and the dog decides what's a reinforcement what's a punishment
What counts as a finished rep
you can teach a lot of just learning how to chill, which people don't know what they're looking for sometimes, is you'll put a dog in like a sit or something when people walk around, but they'll do this thing where they stare at you like this the whole sit. You don't actually teach them to calm down.
And so that's the big thing with Lola is like are you reinforcing like a temporary sit with heightened anxiety? Are you actually being like it's cool you got to chill out?
what you want is like a recall that they come up to you and then it stops there and then like a sit is at the end of it
what you could do now is grab him over to you and then say sit. Because right there, he wasn't in a command, so he can get up. What I want you to do is put him in the sit command. That way, the implied stay is there and he has to hold it until you release him.
Meeting people and other dogs
Say her name. Okay. Yeah. Just say her name. So going to she should be just like cruising along indifferent to people.
don't punish because she didn't do anything to get punished for instead you just go like oh come on let's go if she then continues to fixate the last thing and go harder then you and punish
And that's the other one. I'm especially careful with other dogs. Yeah. Um because I don't know those dogs. Yeah. I don't know if they're going to react or not. Because if they react, then she might react and run.
just making sure like that you press your dog like because if you get nervous, they'll get nervous. Mhm. So, it's really important that like when you see a dog, just not to panic internally
so like one application of Lola would be like if somebody is intimidated because she's a pit bull and they are obviously uncomfortable that your dog is out in front of you put them in a heel for like put her in a heel for like a minute yeah walk by those people and then say okay and let her go back out
Rewards, play and what not to do
the two, my two favorite positive kind of like reinforcement experiences, my two favorite rewards are one just a just a release to freedom you just say okay
Turns out that what it does, it makes it transactional, it's like a bank, like I'm like a bank
it's also if i beat you every time like every time without even it's like no contest right or if i force win every time like if i use a cheat code yeah every single time no fun but if you win sometimes i win sometimes and it's competitive fun
so so bad a really bad advice does not work yeah I'm sure you did yeah you know how I know because I tried it early on in my career
I will say don't heal heel grind. If I find out you're heel grinding your dogs, I'll be super mad. Heel grinding is when you go on a walk and make your dog heel for like 45 minutes. It's icky, don't do it.
The duck, and what to do about a problem that did not exist a month ago
My suggestion is that you punish it.
or another option is you just punish it directly without any um recall or any command beforehand. Okay. Um, and so that's the more like never do it again thing. Um, because then they see wildlife and they think not doing that.
So you have two options. You can let them make the bad choice and then you can penalize it. Um or secondary choice is you can just preempt it. And in this case, since there's stakes, uh I would normally preempt it.
certain behaviors will sometimes like surface once there's less apprehension.
MARKED AS PAIR INSTRUCTION - handling two dogs
just because you don't want to get them in a pattern of like i have to listen when it's only me and him but then when we're together we can be acting a fool you know you don't want that
Yes. Yeah. The best way to take two dogs on a walk is to have them off
with her I'm not as scared of that because she's already got a baseline of like she doesn't trust a lot of things so if you call her over she's gonna be like ah safety right she's like this is my my safe harbor um but with Archie I definitely like I could see like you know he's at like a store or something and you're like come and then he's like sees something really cool and he's like just like walks away
i tell people i can correct it or if you don't care yeah that's fine i don't care if he lays down or sits do you care if he lays down or sits okay just because if you go the whole week and you're cool with it and then randomly you're like you know what i want it it to be different yeah it's gonna be a lot trickier than if it's like day one back home
for that week you have to reinforce certain stuff so when you know she's going to be like on her way back from work if you're here have the e-collar like ready to go that way when she jumps in you can you can penalize the jumping like immediately
which I so I plan to address that the other thing that I saw with both of them was doorbells yep yeah so I plan on doing some specific stuff with doorbells with with them
The honest limits, delivered in their living room
or you can get that moment where you put her on the long line and she looks behind and she's like nobody's holding me anymore and then just and you are not going to catch her if she runs.
So I think she'll be a little like she'll always be maybe like slightly like uneasy.
So then the goal becomes how do you get it so when the dog gets nervous that they don't like become overcome by the nerves and you know lose themselves right cuz if a dog doesn't know what to do the adrenaline hits they panic. They're not in there anymore.
so what I cannot promise is that he will never ever jump on things or make noises however what I can give you is a reduction and an easy way to communicate to him in a way that is clear and in a way that he will respond to very quickly to knock that crap off
sometimes a dog can look really good because nothing's happened. You know what I mean? So like maybe two out of 10 times the dog will bolt. But the thing is if you only see the eight out of 10 times you're like yeah good.
you start like blending other things with the training then we're like we don't know what's going on in their head in terms of like they have like all these different inputs it's not just the training I put on
In the family's own words
Their goal, stated twice in one lesson and never in terms of obedience.
On film
i just want her to not like stress
i just wonder i want her and him to be able to come with us and enjoy and like have fun
What they wanted instead: a place, an activity, and both dogs off leash.
On film
I just don't want her to be stressed when we go yeah I just don't want you to be stressed we go for a walk in the park or we go camping or we go to the beach
and it's interesting I don't need her to be like following German commands everywhere like
you sent me a message of what you guys had said where it was like we don't want any like hunting or guarding dogs. We just want to take them on a walk
What the problem had cost them, described as a scheduling constraint and a posture.
On film
It was like we have to plan our walks around when there aren't people around.
And then we I would be like, "I'm so sorry, my dog. I'm so sorry." And like arm at full right angle, making the leash as short as possible so she can't go anywhere. She's freaking out at the end of the leash.
Well, Lola probably, if I'm correct, she would just like would have gone park and barked aggressively at them and scared the hell out of them.
Cleared by Kelton on 18 September 2026: the on-camera request to cut it was a joke.
On film
10 out of 10. 10 out of 10. Highly recommend.
Yeah. There it is. Look at that. 10 out of 10. 10 out of 10. Highly recommend.
Woo. Don't say that yet. No. But edit that part out. Yeah. Edit that part out. No. Yeah.
The verdict they gave eleven days later, unprompted, at the second lesson - and this one they did not ask to have cut.
On film
I just can't believe how much more like enjoyable this is.
Yeah. They seem just like so much more relaxed.
So stoked up like this. [laughter] That's it. We are taking them home. Yeah. No way. We're not going to short them.
Their measure of her confidence, which is behavioural and specific rather than general praise.
On film
even that like before she would never even go near the water when we were She wouldn't go anywhere near it. She was kind of freaked out by it.
So, it just makes me really happy to see She's more confident. She's acting like a Yeah, she's a dog. She's a dog now. Yeah.
How they had been reading her before the program - as afraid of everything, hiding, and barking then running when people come over.
On film
I think we put new pillows on this old sofa we had one day and she was like, "I I can't go up there."
stuff with at home is like having friends over so she doesn't freak out yeah and like try she seems to just like bark and then run away
whether it's outside or around we have like a like a half wall for the kitchen where you can almost hide she can hide in the kitchen
she's extreme. She is very super clingy.
One owner's own account of losing her - clipped to a disc golf bag on a six-foot leash.
On film
The I took her disc golfing one time and I I don't know what to do, but clipped her into my bag on like six foot leash and I threw and she took off.
How they came to the business, and what they say they learned from it.
On film
I feel like we did our due diligence with That right there so video and you wearing is the proof
seriously the other videos you guys most of other like we don't even just watch their videos the most successful clients we have watched lots of random videos of ours
so you teaching us what to do to not mess it up that's the idea so helpful yeah yeah good i did i trust the process
you let me know how they are a week from now no yeah we will try not to to mess it up
MARKED AS PAIR - their account of the decision to send both dogs, and of how the two of them were before.
On film
Yeah. So yeah, the initial plan was just to send Lola and Christian's like, "If you send both, it's whatever and it's better for them." You're the man, dude. Yeah. You're the expert. I'll do it.
He's He's the easy part of the combo.
we had a pit bull before Before Lola,
14 or so, and she was very sweet, except she just hated dogs and people.
Outcomes
What the trainers reported
The environmental half of her nervousness is gone, and went at the one-to-two week mark. The genetic half remains and is a management job for life.
The trainer narrating alone, the night before she went home
On film
the environmental nervousness is pretty much gone that was pretty much gone i would say around the one to two week period but genetic nervousness is a lot more tricky because you do have to learn to manage it
So I think she'll be a little like she'll always be maybe like slightly like uneasy.
She no longer circles and barks at visitors, which was the household behaviour the owners described at the first lesson.
The trainer, to the owners, at the go-home
On film
but you know now she won't like circle around and bark at people when you have her people come over.
stuff with at home is like having friends over so she doesn't freak out yeah and like try she seems to just like bark and then run away
She opens up more around her own family than around the staff who trained her.
The trainer, to the owners, at the go-home
On film
You know what's funny, too? She opens up like I mean, she's pretty opened up around us obviously cuz we got her nerves, but she opens up like way more even around you guys.
Her commands are good and were never the problem - fast, clean, and answered to anyone who uses her name.
Three different handlers, independently, across three weeks
On film
basically all of her commands she does very quickly. They look really nice with her. She's a very smart dog.
The main thing really is just that she's pretty smart and she's got a decent grasp of commands but Her nerves are getting the best of her
her commands are great but I don't trust her off leash because she's so scared you know.
It seems like she responds to just from today responds to whoever says her name and then the whatever the command is. Yes.
She is significantly closer to being fully off leash.
The handler who changed her line, narrating to camera
On film
This is significantly closer to being fully off leash here so that's what we want. What we want to see here.
A few more days with Archie and with Lola. Both of them should be fully off-leash by the end of this week, I think.
Bolting has been made unprofitable - the option has moved down her list rather than being forbidden.
The handler debriefing the bolt to a colleague
On film
bolting suddenly the idea is that bolting now is decreasing and her options list it's like low right where it's like hey like that's not a good idea bolting's a bad idea so if i feel panic and stuff like that don't bolt come back good deal
her like she can walk with me and she won't bolt but she does have a tendency to lock up a little bit
She checks in, which the trainer treats as the load-bearing result rather than any command.
The trainer, the night before the handover
On film
the other good thing too is even on the long line she's checking in which was really really good if she didn't and she just took off and she didn't care that wouldn't be great
Yeah. Cuz they're staying as a group, but they're not running all over the place.
MARKED AS PAIR OUTCOME. The two dogs now walk together, where Archie used to want to be ahead of wherever Lola was.
The trainer and the owners, agreeing, at the second lesson
On film
And walking them. It It was more like Archie just wanted to be in front. Yeah. Not necessarily in charge. He just wants to be ahead of wherever Lola is.
Yeah. Now it just seems like they're just walking together. Yeah.
They're besties.
Walks are enjoyable again, and the family no longer has to schedule them around other people.
The owners, at the second lesson
On film
I just can't believe how much more like enjoyable this is.
It was like we have to plan our walks around when there aren't people around.
A lot of people live like that. Yeah.
She is a dog now - the owners' phrase, offered as the summary of what changed.
The owners, watching her approach water she had always refused
On film
So, it just makes me really happy to see She's more confident. She's acting like a Yeah, she's a dog. She's a dog now. Yeah.
We have a phrase dog stuff. They be dogging. Yeah. They'd be dogging, right? They're being a dog and we want to see them be a dog.
What the footage shows
It is the single clearest filmed evidence of a command working with no help attached.
On film
The verbal only down right there. Good job, mama. Good job.
Good girl. Lola, come. Okay. Good girl. You got it. You got it, mama. You're smart. Smart girl. Let's go. Good job. You learned so good.
Day one, in twenty-five minutes: from wedging herself under a chair to lying against the handler's leg with her eyes closing. The speed of that is what the trainer treats as the finding of the whole first session.
On film
she was doing a donut around the room and running away from me to the point where she hit under the chair
she's actually breathing slowly she's not like like shaking and everything so that's good
so going from that to letting me touch her and not freak me out that's really good so she's clearly very adaptable
Five minutes after arriving somewhere on a long line, she goes off into the woods on her own and offers hand licks - which the handler says would have been rare before.
On film
how long have you been out here five minutes yeah maybe something like like that check about five minutes he's already like starting to go off and she went off in the woods that's good right I wanted to go look at things and give me some licks on the hand now yeah before I was like lucky if she was like
so get her tail yeah it's it's a little better right because it was tucked really hard now it's like a
One clean recall off a real competing attraction, resolved by a single e-collar tap, with the handler narrating what she did as she did it.
On film
That was much better, right? So, she resolved the pressure and the confusion really fast that time. That was really good. Because I tapped the recolor once there and she was like, oh. And she made the decision that she felt pressure and she went straight to you.
A down held through a group of passing dogs, with the leash not in anyone's hand, self-corrected on a verbal marker alone with no collar follow-up. This is the strongest single piece of filmed evidence in her whole file.
On film
he just he refused. No, I'm gonna Oh, you just lay down.
Yeah. But that was nice because that was amazing. That was awesome. Great. That was great.
Because that's the power of a couple of things. One, you have a condition punisher, right? Which is the And then number two, you have like a solid command and you have some off leash, right? You've let them make choices and they've made good choices and bad choices and you punish your bad choices.
She swims. A dog who would not previously go near water launches into a lake after a duck, and spends the rest of the walk looking for more. Nobody present has seen her do it before.
On film
No, but then like in that case, all you do is you just say, "Lola, come and you just funny. I've never seen her do that before." And like the park that's like right by us
there's two parts to that. There's like one part of it where it's like it's great to see her just be a dog. Yes. Right. where she's interested in things other than hiding.
I know so much lake water. Good girl.
A startle late in the second lesson, answered by coming to a person and settling rather than by flight. The trainer names it as the exact outcome the program was for, and it is the only filmed test of the thing that mattered most.
On film
And so then all you're looking at is what's the recovery? How long does it take? And then like where does she go? Yeah. Does she panic and flee or does she go, "Oh," and then come to you and then go, "All right, I'm fine now. Everything's cool."
The second reaction is what we got and that's what we want.
Two bolts across four weeks, both on a long line, both recovered from. The second ends with her looped three times round a tree.
On film
She wants to run off into the woods, which she has tried once now. Um or no, was it once or twice? Twice. She has tried twice now.
Lola! Alright, she wrapped herself. Lola, come. Come on. Come. Come here. Come. Come.
She freaked out and then she got herself like kind of caught. She got tangled in something on a 50ft. Um she like triple looped herself around the tree.
Passers-by with dogs greeted and passed with no reaction at all - interest, not reactivity - which is the presenting complaint failing to reproduce on camera.
On film
good girl good job so yeah she was interested in seeing them not she wasn't reactive at all
Hi Mom
Oh, you guys got a lot of nice stuff there. Look at that bread
In her own living room she blanks a recall she gives in a park - filmed, at the handover, with her owners watching.
On film
this is what I'm talking about. Some of the stuff you have to reinforce it in the house.
So, you can actually see like the way she kind of conditioned is like she wants to get out of whatever is happening. So, if she like sat down just was like, "Is that what you want me to do?"
The owners run her recall themselves on a fifty-foot line in their own yard, and she has to be made to do the first ones. By the end of the drill she comes in and simply stays with the owner.
On film
so that's one of the big ones is actually she kind of has to be forced to do that or else if she's not made she'll hear that and immediately be like what's that so so keep encouraging her
so she's probably to be honest a little a little tired just because we drilled that back and forth
At the end she will not follow the trainer out to his car - which is the last behavioural observation in her file, and the one he reads as her being home.
On film
lola she looks like she's pretty happy to be home she looks extremely happy like she would not follow me out to the car at all right now
The ideas Lola's case runs on
- 'Let's go' is not 'Come' - and the recall has an ending
- A life that gets smaller, and the bargain
- Aggression read as insecurity
- Another dog as helper, tester or draw
- Build the handler's timing while it is easy
- Clarity is the kindness
- Collar awareness: the collar is a paperweight
- Command, marker, collar - in that order
- Contingent, avoidable, and the right size
- Control is not obedience
- Don't heel grind
- Don't poison the command
- Drilling is what represses a dog
- Eating the correction, and avoidance as a tactic
- False reps: the dog reads the chain, not the word
- Fit before level: check the tool before you judge the dog
- Food facilitates calm, it cannot create it
- Freedom is given in measured steps
- Freeze, flee or fight
- Generalisation is the whole job
- Genetic versus environmental nerves
- Give him time to answer
- He has to be allowed to get it wrong
- Help it or press it - read which
- Hidden help
- Integration is a gated procedure
- Internal emotional change, not repression
- Keep the marker charged
- Look like a dog, not a deer
- Maintenance is use, not practice
- Management, not training
- Meaningful release
- Nobody is at fault; it isn't personal
- Play becomes the reward - and play is a contest
- Pressure, release, reward
- Reading the dog
- Release to freedom
- Reliability is what you have not tested
- Say it bluntly or it will not land
- Social pressure
- Space to retreat, obligation to return
- Start with freedom
- Sticking close is not attachment
- Stop before you shut him down
- Teach the move, then the word
- The board, the scenes and the grades - and every trainer works every dog
- The camera is part of the method
- The dog tells you the reward
- The dose of a session
- The flight-risk protocol, and the one command that matters
- The handler is a variable: nerves, tension, voice and energy
- The handler wears the collar
- The leash is a prop
- The level is not a number
- The pair is the unit of training
- The radius
- The settle criterion
- The settling week
- The standard is set by the job
- The three Ds, and the variables nobody counts
- The three stress reducers
- Thinking is what makes it better
- Two events, not one - and what the handler does in between
- You have to be able to reward him at all
Archie
Who Archie is
A small, fast, friendly dog with no fear; a miniature labradoodle of about six, by the intake and the owners.
On film
But there's not really any fear here. No, no. He's not afraid of anything.
I got him from a breeder. where they owned a farm, had a ton of animals,
he's naturally got a bit of pull on him though. I'm noticing, it's not really bad, and like I wouldn't have a problem walking him around, but I do want it to just be a little more smoother for the client.
His trainers read him as an easy dog, the 'easy part of the combo'; the owners' own view is that he is stubborn.
On film
So I think he's gonna be relatively easy to train,
He's He's the easy part of the combo.
See, I always think he's crazy stubborn.
The family asked whether he could be a therapy dog, for the emergency-services setting they work in; Kelton's answer was that his temperament suits it; nothing further is planned on film.
On film
Yeah, do you think it would be possible for him to be any kind of like a therapy dog?
Yeah, I mean cuz like his temperaments really yeah, he's he's easygoing and he doesn't like he doesn't care about people
The program, stage by stage
Before training
published 11 July 2026 (watch)
Sit, down, place, heel and come are each cued with no help, then with a little help. He has no verbal-only command; he starts to try to sit, and comes when a little leash pressure is added. The trainer's forecast: relatively easy to train. The heel remarks are sarcasm and are not read literally.
On film
any of the commands verbal only.
If I give him a little bit of help
So I think he's gonna be relatively easy to train,
First sessions: sit, with guidance
Three handlers' early sessions, all on sit and come. One works him on a flat collar and ends judging the sit about half known, with the first sign of holding position; one guides him into every sit and gives a walk-around break when he tires; one, on a first lesson with him, keeps it light while a colleague coaches pulling up on the leash. The handlers are not named in any of the three.
On film
Archie, he's understanding now that I want him to stay in that position.
so he's still learning sit and i have to guide him he doesn't want to i've got him every single time
He did good on his first lesson.
Down, place, and play as the break
undated, after the first sessions (watch)
The most explained of his own sessions. The handler pays a treat about every fifth rep rather than every rep, warns that a guided down can become a flop onto the side that does not count, gives two-minute free breaks because a drilled dog walks away, and turns the break into a tug game in which letting go is 'a point' for the dog.
On film
I don't give them a lot of treats, but let's say every once every five reps I give them a treat
Because if you guide him down, there's like a chance that they'll do that and then they'll flop on their side.
That's what happens with most dogs is like, after they feel they've done enough, they'll look at you and they ignore you and they just walk away.
that he has to stay there longer until I release him.
First owner lesson: down still guided; a recall learned in one second
30 July 2026 (watch)
Kelton shows the owners that Archie's down still needs a little leash guidance, 'one session' from going away, and that Jayden has also worked it. Later he lets Archie blow off a recall, taps the e-collar once, and gets a clean recall on the word alone the next time - narrated as how learning happens. He tells the owners what he cannot promise: never a jump or a noise again. What he offers is a reduction and a clear way to stop it.
On film
which i've worked with him a little bit on down um i think jaden did too
archie and see he learns yeah right just from that one second
so what I cannot promise is that he will never ever jump on things or make noises however what I can give you is a
Place with Lola
early August (watch, watch published 5 August, watch published 4 August)
On the cot sessions shared with Lola he is the settled one: staff and children work around the two dogs, and Lola is the one who keeps coming off. His own 4 August upload has a single clean place cue and nothing else usable.
Field and public work
undated; after the first owner lesson (watch, watch)
A field session works heel in motion and a heel entry, and the down takes a run of repeated asks before he goes; the trainer forecasts both dogs fully off leash by the end of that week and contrasts them - Archie very confident, Lola less so but better. A night session in a lit parking lot, the first time that trainer had him out in public, works his leash pull at deliberately low levels because he is small; the trainer apologises when a pop is too strong, checks the tail for stress, pays with sniffing, and states the line he is holding: working a dog intensely, not suppressing it. He also reads Archie's not jumping as the collar's rules carrying over, which predicts an easier handover.
On film
I was just doing a little heel in motion there, and then teaching a heel entry.
Archie's very confident. Lola's a little bit less confident still, but she's gotten better.
so he felt the collar kind of realized like okay everything carries over so that's good so you may have less trouble transitioning to the owners when he goes home which is always a great thing
there's a fine line between working a dog intensely and suppressing a dog and i made sure that the latter was not happening and that we were just working really hard
Second owner lesson: trusted on the line
10 August 2026 (watch)
On film
was probably slightly less trusted on the long than Archie would be, honestly.
And walking them. It It was more like Archie just wanted to be in front.
Handover
12 August 2026 (watch + watch)
Archie is fitted with his collar by an owner. His recall is easy because he wants attention; the risk the go-home trainer names for him is the opposite of Lola's - walking away from a recall when something more interesting is in a store. He is no longer jumping on the owners, so the trainer plans a jump test for when someone comes home, and tells them to generalise the recall on a leash first. The go-home trainer says he worked Lola far more than Archie; Kelton and Claudia did more with Archie.
On film
just because we drilled that back and forth and Archie's recall really he likes attention so
but with Archie I definitely like I could see like you know he's at like a store or something and you're like come and then he's like sees something really cool and he's like just like walks away
i want to see if i can get like hyped up enough to see if like the jumping because he's not jumping on you guys like at all really much but he did when he first came in
i didn't uh i didn't i didn't work with archie as much as with lola i think uh kelton and claudia did more with archie but i worked with lola a ton
Outcomes
What the trainers reported
The trainers' forecast of off-leash reliability for both dogs 'by the end of this week' (watch 03:08), and the second lesson's view that he was the more trusted of the two on the line (watch 57:09).
What the footage shows
From no verbal-only command (11 July) to a recall on the word alone after one e-collar tap (30 July), a settled place alongside Lola, heel in motion with a heel entry, and no jumping on the owners at the handover.
The down is the slow skill: guided on 30 July and still taking a run of repeated asks in the field session.