House Rules

Dogs thrive with rules, boundaries & expectations and having a well behaved dog takes more than obedience exercises.

Consistent rules and providing clear feedback about what is and is not acceptable helps your dog remain calm and confident (lack of clear guidance creates uncertainty and anxiety in our dogs leading to a host of unwanted behaviors from barking to aggression) and to become an amazing and enjoyable member of your family.

We recommend starting with more structure so you can easily set clear expectations and offer healthy leadership and guidance during your dog's first year or two, whether you're raising a puppy, or brought an older dog into your home.

Rules may change over time with your family's needs or boundaries/ structure may be loosened as your dog matures (with both age and attitude) and earns more autonomy and freedom.

Bottom line - Your house, your rules. You and your family can decide what is and is not acceptable doggy behavior in your house...

What matters to you,

Your lifestyle,

Your home.

YET!

These Leadership Rules have been proven to help you build, change and strengthen your relationship and set you and your dog up for a successful life together!

BASICS

Dogs thrive and flourish on structure, rules, discipline, routine, and leadership. 

Want Calm? Be Calm - Losing your cool and yelling at your dog is majorly counter-productive and adds unbalanced energy. A calm, confident, assertive approach is what conveys leadership, and what dogs respond consistently to - use your tools and processes to get or stop behaviors - not yelling.

Calm gets Calm : Excitement gets Excitement - Calm dogs are able to process information better and make better choices. Train calm, not excitement - Be intentional with what behavior you reward and what behavior you correct. 

Remember! - During greetings, your guests should ALWAYS ignore your dog when they are excited and greeting poorly - never reinforce the excitement (petting, talking, or other encouragement), allowing you to correct and handle the behavior. If you or guests interact with your dog while they are excited, your dog will learn that excited, manic greetings work to get the attention and will continue practicing that overly aroused behavior. You will also validate the belief that they should go nuts every time someone comes through the door, which can manifest into an explosion every time they see a person, whether at the door or out in public.

Give Consistent Feedback - The more you tell your dog what to do, the better they get. The less you tell them what to do, the worse they get. Don't leave them guessing!

Treat Them Like Dogs (the affection conversation...) - The biggest breakdown in the human/canine relationship is our inability to truly understand what love and fulfillment look like to our dogs. Our dogs need structure, rules, and leadership FAR more than they need affection. Love your dog by fulfilling their true needs - structure, rules, leadership and exercise/ drive outlet.

Put these before your needs for constant love and affection, babying, etc. and your dog will be happy to fulfill your needs for good behavior!

The Small Moments - Everything you say, do, allow, prevent, or not tells your dog something about you and your expectations for life with them. Every moment is an opportunity to train and cultivate the good behaviors you want. Commit to this and you will have a dog that is constantly thinking and consistently under your control.

CRATE USAGE

When you are not actively interacting with your puppy or dog, they should be in their crate! At least until they are potty trained and house trained and completely trustworthy - think toddlers! (Note: very few dogs actually achieve this, so don’t be too disappointed or set your expectations too high.)

An incredibly valuable management tool, crates can be used any time you want to put your dog somewhere safe that you don’t have to worry about them - at home when involved in other things that demand your attention; at work and want to keep your dog safe from getting into things that could harm them or to prevent them from ruining your things; when company (or little humans) are over and you want to give your 2-legged loved ones your undivided attention. 

It’s okay to put your dog in a crate - In reality, they need their own quiet space for a good, quality rest without distractions. They do not need to be in your presence at all times - this can promote separation anxiety.

•        If you stay home with your dog, they should still practice 4-6 hours of calmness in the crate.

Use the crate to promote healthy habits and limit anxious behaviors - pacing, territorial issues, barking at noises, stressing over when you are getting home, etc. 

Keep your dog safe, calm and relaxed when leaving the house by utilizing a crate. 

Another great, healthy habit is to have your dog sleep in their crate at night. 

•       If your dog has any major behavioral issues, they should be sleeping in their crate at night. 

Dogs require 12-14 hours of sleep a day, and only about 20% of their time awake being active. 

Crates provide safe havens and dens for dogs, are a place of calmness along with promoting impulse control and helping to prevent anxiety.

The crate is your first threshold and is a great opportunity to have a psychological conversation with your dog, cultivating impulse control and requiring patient, respectful engagement - deferring to you in the face of something that triggers excitement and enthusiasm.

It is a familiar place your dog can go to decompress and relax and not worry about the world happening around them.

For nervous/anxious/fearful dogs, it limits options to help them not to feel overwhelmed and stressed by the world, and, for dogs with attitude issues, limiting freedom is essential to help with entitlement issues and adjusting attitude - the more freedom (lack of guidance) that your dog has, the more likely they are to develop and practice entitlement issues.

LEASH ON

Even Inside! 

When supervising, during training and/or to follow through with duration work, the leash (and prong collar) should be on at all times. Removing the leash and collar too soon undermines the training process, and teaches the dog he can blow you off and get away with monkey business. This is a habit you do not want them practicing!

• Always remove the collar/leash whenever you leave or are unable to supervise.

SAY IT ONCE / STAY

Say the command only once. Whether “Sit”, “Down”, “Place”, or “Come”, if the dog doesn’t immediately move into position, then guide the dog with leash pressure into position. Later in the training process, when the dog completely understands the commands, and chooses/opts not to comply, we will use verbal marker "No" and a source of pressure (typically leash or e-collar) to help your dog complete or build duration in the command.

STAY - Stay is implied in my training program. We will build duration in every command and the only way your dog is allowed to leave the “Sit”, “Down”, or “Place” command is with a release “Break”, or another command like "Let's Go" or "Come".

DURATION DURATION DURATION

Major gamechanger, maybe THE GAMECHANGER and most valuable exercise you will do to change your dog’s overall state of mind. 

The rules are simple: regardless of what goes on in your dog's world, the only thing they are allowed to do is relax and chill out!

With this powerful exercise your dog will build an “off switch”, learn how to self soothe, to be calm and ultimately more confident. It also teaches them that it’s NOT their job to worry, assess or freak out over what’s happening in their environment. 

The goal will be to build up to hours of duration with distractions and commit to consistently correcting any mistakes. You can make a lot of progress in less time than you may think by simply practicing daily. 

Prioritizing this in many different situations will create a dog that has a calmer default state of mind who knows how to be relaxed and calm, regardless of what's occurring in the environment. You create a dog that, through your command and guidance, has an on and off switch - they can be relaxed and chilled out when you need them to be, and also playful, fun and crazy when you want them to be.

But most importantly, you'll create a dog that is comfortable and happy in their own skin.

MEAL ETIQUETTE

No free feeding, or grazing. Schedule mealtimes and if your dog doesn't finish it, remove it - especially 3-4 hours before bed if you're having potty issues!!

Mealtime can also be an exciting time! Lots of jumping, barking, pushing and shoving. If you wouldn't allow your kids to act like this at the dinner table then you certainly should expect your puppy/dog to have polite manners too. 

Have your dog practice patience by having them sit, stay on their dog bed, or quietly wait in their crate. No wandering around, begging or hassling you. If they do, patiently put them back and teach them that the sooner they gain self control, the sooner they get to eat. 

Take this rule a step further by implementing waiting for food ask them to sit and make eye contact as you put their bowl down and wait until your hand is free and clear of the bowl before stuffing their face.

Note: for multi dog households we highly recommend feeding your dogs in separate crates to avoid any food fights.

THRESHOLDS

Threshold exercises develop and practice a calm, patient, respectful state of mind, and build impulse control and the habit of looking to you when they're excited. It sets the tone of leadership before your walk and creates handler value and respect. This is one of the 3 Gamechangers in helping your dog’s overall state of mind/ addressing arousal.

Enforcing Thresholds ensures that your dog doesn’t drag you through thresholds, and isn’t rewarded for practicing negative habits (reward being going on a walk, going out to play, etc). This can also help to establish boundaries at important entryways.

CONSEQUENCES

Like us - Dogs do what they do to seek a positive (to them!) consequence or seek to avoid a negative consequence. 

Find what your dog likes and leverage it as a consequence when your dog is doing something you want. 

Is your dog remaining calm or greeting people politely? Encourage more of that by rewarding it! Pet your dog or offer a treat when they do what you want, every time for a while. 

On the flip side, it’s crucial to also disagree with our dogs and teach them some behaviors are inappropriate, this often means applying a correction, some sort of pressure your dog wants to avoid or “turn off”. 

Corrections are uncomfortable, especially when we view (and define) them as punishment through our human lens. 

Corrections are much more about communicating with your dog, sharing feedback and support about what they should (or shouldn’t) be doing in a given situation. When we share appropriate leash communication we open up an entire of world of communication between ourselves and our dogs. We can share something very subtle like “Follow me this way”, or something more intense like “Stop what you’re doing now; Don't ever do that again.”

Properly timed and appropriate corrections allow us to create very clear boundaries about what is acceptable and what isn’t; what they should be doing, or not.

Corrections not only enable us to reinforce practical obedience, but they also help us to grow and support a healthy, calm state of mind and discourage an unhealthy stressed or anxious mindset.

Corrections, Choices & Consequences -

Dogs naturally learn through consequences and the outcome of a behavior either increases or decreases the likelihood they’ll do it again. 

Our main goal is to help dogs develop default habits and make good choices, to teach them to understand that their choices have consequences, both good and bad.

Corrections - interruptions/ attention getting- is an essential part of that process, the one that helps them when they’re stuck and need our assistance to move forward.

I get it! Following a structured routine can seem tedious and challenging. Committing to building a lifestyle of clear communication, boundaries and fulfillment will help you raise a happy and enjoyable dog and have an amazing relationship with them!

🐾 Jessica

Freedom K9