Kristina’s training methods are rooted in improving your relationship and communication with your dog. She believes there is a time and place for all methods of training except for fear and intimidation techniques. The methods she uses always depends on your dogs personality, and what types of behaviours you are trying to encourage or discourage.

If your dog is food motivated, then yes. When teaching new behaviours, we do use treats.  Once the behaviour can be preformed at a rate of success of 100% with treats, the treats will be quickly phased out in exchange for your affection. Treats are not the be all end all of rewards. If your dog is not food motivated, there are other things we can find that might motivate your dog more, like a certain toy for example.

Yes, positive reinforcement is essential to a dog understanding what behaviour is good and which behaviours they should continue. Positive reinforcement can be in the form of food, affection or play, and while we use all 3, we do try to phase out food as quickly as possible. Your love and affection should be the most important reward. Our methods and techniques will always be customized and catered to your dog’s needs.. 

Yes. This is a common catch phrase people use in the dog training world as it makes them sound more legitimate. “Science based dog training” doesn’t actually mean anything, other than the fact that you are using methods that have been proven in science to work. The “positive only” or “R+” trainers will use this phrase to say that they only use positive reinforcement to train. This is not science based because there are 4 quadrants to learning, not just 1, and all 4 should be utilized at appropriate times for the fastest learning to occur. 

If this is what you want to learn, yes. Clicker training was originally created to teach wild animals to do tricks for wartime tasks and circus performances. The sound of the clicker along with a food reward was proven to help these animals understand that they did the trick correctly.

When teaching new behaviours, Kristina will use this method, but instead of a clicker, she recommends using the word “yes”. It is important that when we are communicating with our furry family members, that we do not need to rely on anything other than our own voice. Dogs and humans have evolved to communicate with each other in a way that no other mammals have done. Dogs understand our voice as well as human language. We can achieve the same training goals using our voice rather than a piece of plastic. 

Using your voice is also more successful at creating better communication and a deeper bond between you and your furbaby.

When dogs interact with each other naturally, they will always correct behaviours that are inappropriate. If a behaviour is acceptable they will do nothing. This is important for us to understand when we are dealing with unwanted behaviours, because for every time you do nothing or do not effectively teach them the behaviour is unacceptable, you are sending them the message that the behaviour must be acceptable. 

In dog cognition, punishment is known as something you add to take away unwanted behaviours. I prefer the word “correction” or “interruption”. Sometimes, this correction can be as simple as asking the dog to sit. Dogs need to understand when they are doing something unacceptable, equally as much as they need to know when they are doing something good. That being said, I will not use any techniques that are based on fear or intimidation.

Kristina’s methods are based on building a relationship of trust and respect between you and your dog, as well as improving communication between the two of you. Without developing that special relationship using the methods she teaches you, the training will not be effective. The only training she will do for you, is to prepare your dog for behaving with a dog walker. See our list of services for more information on our dog walk-training.