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Books and Booklets Page 2

Not all issues that we have with our dogs can be fixed with "training".  Many of them take a lot of management until the "training" bites.  Most of them need concentrated behavior change which includes desensitization, learning incompatible behaviors, and changing emotional response.

The booklets on this page are designed to help you with common issues.  Each book is $10 and has a complete 6 week curriculum  for you to implement to assist your dog in being the best he can be in your world.

books and booklets

Building a Rock Solid Relationship

A bond is a close relationship that is established over time between two living creatures. It develops mutually and is a cooperative connection. Bonding is characterized by the formation of a strong attachment that involves many emotions. These include affection and trust among others The Human-dog bond is a deep connection between two species that exists like no other in the animal world. It matters not whether that bond is based on companionship or a working relationship, with commitment, communication, understanding and education, that bond can transcend the differences between species.

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Building Confidence in a Shy Dog

This book will show you how to safely manage and support your fearful or anxious dog. Through games designed to assist in dealing with the environment, we will help you build your dog's confidence and create a positive experience to ease the fears of your shy companion.
This book is intended to give you better insight into your dog's fears and how to better assist your dog in regaining equilibrium in our strange human world.
We will engage your dog's natural curiosity, show you how to handle any fear of new objects, people or other dogs and make it safe for your dog to interact with the world around it. This class will give you the tools to change your dog’s emotions and build her confidence in herself and in you. We will cover the basic principles of TTouch and how to apply them to your dog. Tellington Touch is especially recommended for nervous dogs, fearful dogs, aggressive dogs, or hyperactive dogs. 

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Empower Your Dog

Empowerment training is about showing our dogs that the environment is something they can affect and control. Most training is about instilling control onto our dogs instead of showing them how to have self-control and understanding.

In this class you will be establishing a history of reinforcement for choice, understanding, decisions and willingness to operate on the environment and the objects in it.

To empower a dog, you must teach him industriousness, persistence and creativity.

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Stress Free Handling for Vet and Groomer Visits

Dogs and cats aren't born hating particular people or places. Usually two things need to happen before your pet decides that its groomer and veterinarian are The Evil Empire. The first is unfamiliarity and the second is unpleasant experiences.

Accustoming your pet to handling and the sights, sounds and smells of the grooming salon and vet clinic will greatly reduce your pet's stress when they actually go into these places for an appointment. 

In order to deal with fear of vets or groomers, you need to do is accustom your dog or cat to being handled. Handling isn't just petting. Pets should be accustomed to having their body parts, even the unmentionables, handled and even lightly pinched.

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Scent & Enrichment

At first glance, it may seem odd that an animal would be rolling around in a blanket covered with urine, but this is a common animal response to a smelly object. When something in an animal’s territory smells like different animal, they will often try to mask the foreign smell with their own scent.

Having a sense of smell can be very important to an animal’s survival, but it can also give animal keepers another sense to work with when creating interesting experiences for our animals.


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Household Manners

This is a positive training solution for teaching, reinforcing and inspiring real world manners in your dog. The techniques are designed to reward and motivate not only your dog, but you and whoever assists you. No matter how many human or canine members you have in your household, you can enjoy playing the games in the course and teach your dog how to live in your world at the same time.
Rewarding your dog for the right behavior over and over makes the right behavior a more likely choice when your dog is faced with living in a house. Dogs do what works; if sitting is rewarded when he greets new people, he will try sitting as his first choice. This is where knowing what you want your dog to do comes in handy. If a Sit/Stay is what you want the dog to do, then you must reinforce it often and handsomely.

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Senior Support

Not every dog requires a significant solution like an orthosis or a cart. Based on our evaluation of your dog's environment and your veterinarian's diagnosis, we can recommend products and changes to the home that support more general mobility challenges.
For example, senior dogs with some form of degenerative joint changes will often experience difficulty rising from and walking on slippery tile floors common in the Desert Southwest. We offer a selection of boots and paw covers to meet the needs of even the most paw-averse dogs. As senior dog owners ourselves, we share tips and tricks to keep you dog moving safely within her home.
We also understand that being a care-giver to a senior, disabled or injured pet is a challenge. We offer equipment such as harnesses, lifts, diapers and others that make moving and exercising with you dog easier – and more fun – for you and your dog.
Senior Support is a complement to veterinary medicine, never a substitute. 

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Noise Phobias

Noise phobia is an excessive fear of a sound that results in the dog attempting to avoid or escape from the sound. ... The most common causes of noise phobia are fireworks and thunderstorms, but dogs may develop a fear of any sound no matter how inconsequential.

Effective treatment for dogs prone to flee from fearful sounds can be as simple as offering them refuge in a pet crate covered with a heavy blanket as a partial sound barrier. If the dog is afraid of thunderstorms, bring the dog inside and turn on an appliance or television, or play music to override the noise.

We use Play as our method of choice.  Play means everything is safe.

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House Training Issues in All Ages

Most puppies can be housebroken prior to 8 months of age using traditional methods. But for older dogs that are still having accidents in the house, the umbilical cord method should be used. 

Dogs do NOT eliminate in the house because of anger, spite, jealousy, boredom or mischief. With the exceptions of territorial urine marking, illness, or (rarely) separation distress syndrome, dogs go to the bathroom in the house for one reason: they have never been properly housetrained.  

This is also the case when a dog is housetrained at home, but will go inside anyone else's house or the store or bank, etc.  Housetraining should not be just about your own space.  It should cover any indoors space, especially if you are raising a service dog.

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Control Yourself

Every dog is able to handle a certain amount of stressful challenge, and every dog can be in a situation that exceeds their capacities. A dog living in our world needs to be able to handle a wide variety of social situations, varied environments, unexplained noises, and pressures. If they're lucky, they were exposed to most of these situations in puppyhood, at manageable levels, and learned that they were nothing to be concerned about. Exceeding the capacities of dogs with these skills is harder to do, and their recovery is usually pretty quick.
However, not all dogs have had this exposure, or have come to these conclusions about their experiences, and thus experience more stress than they should in new situations, with new people or dogs, and around new objects or sounds. They may recover more slowly, and may find almost anything or anyone new distressing.  

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Hands On Healing 

The right holistic treatment can improve your dog's health and happiness, and maybe even extend his/her life. The main advantage of alternative medicines is that they can treat a number of ailments in a natural way without chemicals that could have adverse side effects.

Non-conventional, alternative, natural and holistic methods are not only concerned with the physical aspects of your pet, but also its emotions and experiences, which can have a major impact on its physical health.

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Managing Prey Drive Basics

Even though our dogs no longer, in most cases, do their own killing if they want to eat, we’ve all seen them hunt – or try to, as the 150th squirrel in a row makes a clean getaway. What would a complete sequence of predatory behavior look like?

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Managing Prey Drive Advanced

Learning to manage your dog's prey drive is necessary, not only to prevent undesirable scenarios like the one described above, but also because a dog whose prey drive is engaged and channeled in an acceptable way will have a much easier time getting along with humans and other dogs.

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Canine Weight Loss

Nobody wants to be told their dog is fat. As humans, we've wrapped food around emotions like love, caring, support and belonging. Yes, most dogs love treats and smile when you hand them out like candy. But that doesn't mean they love you more. It means they love your food.
Loving your dog too much in this way puts her health at risk. Obesity is tied to many painful -- and avoidable-- consequences like diabetes, joint/bone/ligament damage, heart disease and high blood pressure, heat intolerance, decreased liver function and more.

Our program is intended to complement your veterinarian's medical management of obesity. Our goal is to provide a safe and consistent means of exercise in addition to the nutritional and medical care your dog is already receiving from your veterinarian. 

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Bed Rest Games

Bed Rest Games
There are many reasons why a dog would be confined to a crate or on restricted exercise.
Here are some games that you can play with your dog that require very little movement on the part of the dog, but burn energy, teach something useful and challenge your dog mentally.
Most of these games also teach your dog necessary behaviors that are handy for a dog to comfortably live in our contrived world. Going to the groomer or the vet, being alone and not trying to destroy the house, leaving your dinner alone, leaving roadkill alone on a walk, knowing how to deal with a leash and the different sensations and pressures, etc.   

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