Abundant Life Dog Training

Empowers Dogs To Be Their Best

Champion Hawk du Josar

'Thunder Paws'

Abundant Life Dog Training empowers dogs to be their best as companions as well as competitive partners.  With my training methods, dogs are always emotionally balanced.  This allows them to learn quickly and perform accurately.

Dogs have always a big part of my life.  I never knew competitive dog sports existed until I went to my first training class in 1983.  Because my instructor was a member of a Schutzhund club, I joined it as well as a local Obedience club.  They both used compulsion based training.   This was not for me.  I was determined to find a better way.   

By learning as much as I could about what is behind the beautiful eyes of dogs, discovering and implementing the laws of learning, and studying the science behind training, I developed a program that is extremely effective, and I have been using it with my dogs and teaching it to my student's for almost 38 years.  

Understanding How To Communicate With Your Dog

Since there is a language barrier between me and my dog, I create a new and distinct language for us to learn together.  And because we can speak the same language, my dog stays emotionally balanced instead of getting frustrated because he cannot figure out the information I am giving him.  Skills are taught with hand signals first.  This eliminates all social pressure on the dog.  Verbal cues are added only when my dog is responding reliably and meets my criteria for the targeted response.  

My Views On Corrections

I do not correct my dog and I do not have a conditioned aversive.  My dog’s response to a verbal, signal, or object cue is solely based on my abilities to:

• Effectively teach her the desired response.
• Allow her to rehearse it until it has become habit.
• Proof it so she is confident of what to do under many circumstances. 
• Be consistent and reliable when presenting the signal or verbal cue. 

If I have not done all of that, how can she respond correctly?  She would be punished because of my poor teaching.  And if after all of that, she still doesn't offer the desired response, then I go back to the drawing board and figure out a better way of signaling her.  

How my dog responds to my questions provides me with extremely valuable information. If she offers a behavior other than what I am looking for, that behavior has a stronger positive reinforcement history. Since she is only performing a behavior that she thinks will earn reinforcement, the onus is on me to figure out what information I gave her that caused her to answer my question the way she did.  I need to figure out a better way to ask the question, so she is correct the next time.

Having a dog that does not respond at all is very different than choosing the incorrect response. Some of the reasons why a dog does not respond are:

1.  Something in the environment is affecting their emotional balance.  They are in survival mode.
2. They are so distracted by something in the environment that my signal/cue was not salient?

They offer incorrect responses because:

1.  They really do not know what response to offer to that signal/cue.
2. They are confused in what we are asking them to do.
3. We have mutated the signal/cue so much they no longer sees it as a signal/cue.
4. They have not been given enough opportunities to rehearse the response until it has become habit.
5. The response has not been proofed.  
6. They are not confident what to offer around distracting circumstances.

And the list goes on and on.

Wildland's Indiana Jones

Canadian Tracking Dog Excellent

In addition to receiving the JET Award of Merit for heroism from the Belgian Sheepdog Club Of America, my dogs have earned their Canine Good Citizen, Virtual Home Manners, Therapy Dog International, and American Temperament Test titles.   We have competed and earned numerous titles in:

• Agility - AAC, USDAA, NADAC - MADC (Canada)
• Conformation - AKC/CKC Multiple BOB (Best Of Breed) Group 1
• Herding - HIT AKC/CKC
• Obedience - AKC/CKC/UKC/WKC (Including Multiple High In Trial)
• Rally - AKC/CKC/WRCL (Including  Multiple High In Trial)
• Tracking - CKC/AKC Multiple TDX (Tracking Dog Excellent)
• Trick Dog - TDA (Trick Dog Advanced)
• Schutzhund - BH, SchH 1