Shadowbar Shepherds K9 Coaching

06/16/2026

Playing fetch.

06/16/2026

Show dogs are a process of elimination. This cheat sheet shows how the elimination works.

06/15/2026

This weekend. Oran and Georgia gained their CKC Advanced Titles. In addition, Georgia gained her Exterior Excellent component .
Oran gained his Excellent containers and was the ONLY dog to pass the Excellent Exterior today. So proud of him!!
Congrats to my fellow “sniffers” Barb and Kim.
Barb and Birdy now have their Advanced Title and Kim and Carly picked up an excellent exterior yesterday.
Thank you to our amazing judges, Tamara and Wendy for challenging hides and encouragement .
Thank you to a Cranbrook and district Kennel Club members for hosting as well trial with the absolute best meals ever!
Thank you to Kris Vanderweyde for allowing Shar and me to bunk at her place overnight, to Deb for dog sitting and lending me Oran. To Shar for braving excellent containers with Georgia…. and of course thank you so much to Georgia and Oran for being such willing partners.❤️❤️❤️

06/11/2026

Levy working the containers this morning. What a good dog. 🌹

06/10/2026

Our five week competition obedience/Rally Obedience class has filled. 🌹

06/09/2026

Waylon and his back up handler practicing scent this morning.😎

06/05/2026

06/03/2026

So when you see those fabulous facebook K9 performances, think of the time and dedication it took to get there. How many times they had to change the pathway and fine tune the approach while all the time keeping their eye on the goal 🌹

Real sessions don’t look like the ones on Instagram.

There are sessions where the dog is off. Where nothing clicks. Where you’ve done everything right and it still falls apart at the gate.

Most people read that as failure. It isn’t.

Progress in dog training is rarely linear. It shows up after repetition — usually right after the session where you were convinced nothing was working.

But here’s what I’ve seen end more training relationships than anything else: the handler quits in the messy middle. Not because the dog couldn’t get there. Because the human ran out of patience right before things turned.

The handler has to learn timing too. Timing isn’t just a leash skill. It’s knowing when to push and when to back off. When to end on a win and when to ask for one more.

Consistency when you can’t see progress yet — that’s the real work. The dog is almost always ready before the handler thinks he is.

If you’ve had one of those sessions where nothing seemed to work, share your story.

Or tag someone who needs to hear this today.