Snowbound Kennels

06/10/2026

 I think this one is super super important.

Most everyone I encounter wants to see maximum progress in every training session for whatever skill they are working on.

The only possible way you know you've gotten maximum progression is when your dog fails because if your dog hasn't failed maybe you could get more progress.

Many people actually believe a dog has to fail to learn but then again many many people believe the Earth is flat.

So in every training session the dog ends up failing, the trainer trains and the dogs progress on a steady routine of failing.

What I try to do on my advancement days is get the maximum advancement I can and pull the plug before the dog fails so I get advancement and the dog has a steady diet of success.

I said advancement days.

I generally train five days a week. I've tried six and I've tried seven and here's what I found. If I trained six or seven days a week most of the dogs always look pretty good but am I creating new habits and changing behavior or am I just managing them through daily training?

Give the dog a couple days off and then on Monday see what you have there. Am I managing behavior or have I changed behavior? I want to see what the dog looks like when it comes roaring out of the blocks after a couple days off not what it looks like when I train day after day.

So Monday I'm kind of running the dog up the flagpole to see where we stand after a couple days off. Tuesday and Wednesday I'm generally trying to get advancement without failure.

Thursday?

Let's take a sport, Tennis, whether you play or not you will understand the analogy.

For two days you've been working really hard on your back hand. You're trying to get some solid advancement and it has been mentally and physically challenging. You know what's really nice to do after those two challenging days? Go to the net, have some easy lobs hit you and just smash the living hell out of some overheads!

That's right, just enjoy the sport. Enjoy whatever it is you were doing at a high level of competence and not push pushing for advance advancement. Just have some damn fun!!

I don't think there's enough of that in a lot of training protocols. People need to back off more often and just let the dog enjoy what it's been trained to do at a level that isn't demanding and the trainer isn't looking for advancement. Just let them have fun!

Generally  doing that after day four the fifth day I poke around advancement and see how we're going to end the week making every effort to make sure it's a positive experience.

If you have a super high drive dog you can push for advancement all the time and clearly some dogs thrive on that. But, a lot of people don't have that dog but try to train like they do and I think it burns out the dog looking for that maximum advancement all the time.

Let your dog have some fun and when I say fun that's with trained skills within its ability not just chasing a ball or going to for a run.

06/10/2026

I've said it before but I will say it again.

I've trained a fair amount of dogs to a very high level but one of the biggest kicks I get is seeing a dog safely off leash blasting around having a great time.

Here is nine year-old Roscoe enjoying life. He has on a GPS tracking collar because I believe him to be a flight risk but his recall was excellent.

06/09/2026

06/09/2026

OK, so maybe it's time to do a little mowing so I can actually see Otto...

06/09/2026

It's never too late to formalize Training so your dog can live at best life which in my opinion includes off leash recall at a distance so your dog can safely be off leash where it's safe knowing you have formalized recall should the need arise.

Nine year-old Roscoe demonstrates during his first real experience with me off leash.

I also consider Roscoe to be a Potential flight risk so he's wearing a GPS tracking collar but proved to be totally unnecessary. I'm more of a what if Guy than what now when it comes to dog training.

Roscoe has an amazing owner who realized that his life would be much improved, hers too, with formalized obedience

06/09/2026

So how do you not get frustrated when you're training a dog and encountering significant challenges?

I think the first thing is that you have to start training your dog clear of other frustrations in your life. Of course you're going have those other frustrations but you can't get your dog out when you're already pi**ed off in the first place at something else going on.

Yeah, some people have the ability to enter training frustrated and then the training actually helps settle them down but for a lot of people it's just the opposite. They start training mad and then they get mad when things don't go well.

Next, have a plan and the most important thing about having a training plan is knowing that you may have to alter that training plan no matter how committed you are to it based on the dog that day.

Let's say you go to town with your dog to work on some long duration patients sitting outside at the local coffee shop getting your dog used to that duration inactivity.

But, you get your dog out and it starts pulling like a sled dog heading to the start of a race, perhaps better to work on heeling that day then long place duration.

You are planning to continue your steady to wing/shot with your pointing dog but foundational control seems a bit shaky so forget the bird work and reestablish your fundamental control.

Your retriever has a slow coasting stop on a single whistle blast running blind retrieves but on the line he seems insecure and doing a lot of head swinging today. Forget the plan and work on building his confidence and understanding of directional focus.

Have a plan when you start training but be flexible enough to do what needs to be done not what you want to do.

06/09/2026

Easy dogs make great trainers.

Honestly, if the first retriever I ever trained in a more serious program protocol add under the direct supervision of the pros I was learning from, I doubt I would've ever considered training dogs professionally.

Anyone in the world could've trained that dog with him in one hand and a book on training in the other. He just went through an entire foundational program incredibly easily.

Then I started training other people's retrievers at no cost because I knew the steps but I knew I needed a ton of hands-on experience.

Some of those dogs......

If you only train the easy ones and turn away the difficult ones or perhaps blame the dog for a skill set that might be incomplete you can look like a really good dog trainer.

Although it takes time and some degree of skill I'm not bowled over by someone whose Malinois does an attention heel.

When their high drive retriever that comes blowing back dropping the bumper at their feet.

Or the pointing dog chasing flushed birds faster than Secretariat on the home straight running the Belmont.

Difficult dogs are difficult and when they are you just have to be a better trainer!

Let me say that again, you have to be a better trainer to train the difficult dogs than the easy ones.

If you encounter a dog that challenges your current skill set there's no shame or embarrassment whatsoever in asking for some help from someone that might be able to help you out.

Clients are constantly apologizing to me for their lack of training skills and every time they do I tell them that I wasn't born knowing what I know I had to learn it.

Never apologize for what you don't know unless you're buried in invincible ignorance, want to be the biggest fish possible in a small pond or blame the dog for your lack of current abilities.

When someone tells me something's hard I generally say there is no such thing as hard. There are many things that may be beyond your or my current skill set but if our skills increases those things are no longer hard.

The advanced ski slope, the challenging clay target, the difficult golf hole or the challenging tennis stroke aren't hard, most likely they're just beyond your current skill set.

Increase your skill set and the hard becomes much much easier.

I think a lot of different dogs are a product of how they are bred and that will be the topic of more than one post here.

06/08/2026

Emotional control is undoubtedly one of the most important things you need to consider when training a dog

I believe it's also the thing that many people struggle with training with the, "I don't want to hurt my dog or the gonna fix this now you SOB."

The former is understandable but can lead to a lack of progress and formalizing a behavior change while the latter has absolutely no benefit whatsoever and is probably more detrimental than the former.

I have long said that you need to train like Spock on the original Star Trek, no outward emotion. The exception is to be excited, happy and pleased with your dog.

I don't think I've ever seen a happy trainer with an unhappy dog. I've seen a lot of dogs running totally amok having a great time with unhappy trainers though.

I think the goal should be happy dogs and happy trainers.

Trainer frustration is usually at the root of their anger and the frustration comes from understanding what they need to do to get the progress they desire or being unhappy with the dogs current performance.

Overwhelmingly most poor performances come from a dog that is unprepared and that's on the trainer. So much of the time I see trainer frustration when they're expectations are not met but the dogs preparation is lacking which has led to the performance and the trainers frustration.

Just because the trainer believes the dog is prepared doesn't mean the dog actually is.

And no, your dog isn't trying to "screw you" it's either unprepared or perhaps it's just having a bad day.

We excuse our ourselves all the time when we're having bad days but I see a few people considering their dog might just be off that day for one reason or another. Yeah, dogs have bad days too and make mistakes.

Having a great program and applying at thoughtfully while maintaining emotional control will most likely result in a happy trainer and a happy dog.

06/08/2026

Snowbound kennels is Local business of the month at my branch of Community bank, and I have a modest display there..

06/07/2026

Pro or amateur, what what are the abilities you need and why can training be so difficult?

1. I think you have to have and follow a good program.

Not just one that is successful, not just one that is easy but a program that is logical and best for individual dogs and then you need to be able to apply it in a logical fashion.

First grade prepared us for second grade, second grade reviewed first grade and prepared us for third grade, etc., etc. some people have a very difficult time and their approach to Dog training is first grade, third grade, fourth grade, second grade, eighth grade, repeat third grade...

Each step should prepare the dog for the next step. It's not a race to a destination, it's a journey that you and your dogs should enjoy.

2. Emotional control. It's something most people really struggle with, they become emotionally involved in their training decisions with a "I don't want to hurt my puppy puppy or I'm going fix you SOB" attitude.

You cannot become emotionally involved and reactive. I consider reactive that visceral thing that you do in regard to something you encounter.

I want people to respond and I define response as something that has been preplanned and considered before it happens. You can react with a response quickly, I just see people react most generally out of anger or aggravation and I don't believe that has any place in dog training.

3. The ability to work through situations that you may not currently know how to work through.

Sure, some of that comes from experience, the actual hands-on experience of training countless dogs which unfortunately most people never get to do but even I encounter training situations and certain dog behaviors that I have never encountered before and I have to figure out how to work through them.

Most of the frustration I see in dog training is when people don't know how to work through things, or they aren't progressing as quickly as they'd like but that's another topic, so when they don't know how to proceed they get frustrated. Frustration leads to becoming emotionally involved in your training decisions and generally when you're emotionally involved you aren't gonna be making the best decision decisions.

I tell people all the time, you have to train like Spock in the original Star Trek. No emotions. The exception is to be happy positive and upbeat because I've never seen a happy positive dog with an unhappy trainer and rarely do I see unhappy trainers that have happy dogs.

4. Being patient with training progress or lack thereof.

My last Dog, my other dog, my buddies dog, dogs I have seen other people have worked with, what someone did in a video, a timeline, I hate timelines, in a book, DVD, social media, etc., everyone wants to train to a timeline.

The only timeline you train to is the dog you are actually training at your side, none of the above. I see time to time from thoughtful trainers the importance of working with individual dogs and I'm quite proud to say I wrote an entire column on that for Vermont outdoors probably 20 years ago about training the dog at your side.

Take whatever you're good at and someone asks you to teach them how to do that thing and how long would it take?

You'd have 1 million questions about the abilities they currently possess, their affability to learn, their commitment, the time they have to practice, in many cases the facilities they have because it's hard to learn how to ski if you live in Miami Beach Florida and are only going do it once a year.

Dogs are the same and I think a lot of people find that frustrating in that they don't know about schedules in timelines they only learned mostly at a pace that is individual to that dog. Some dogs take off and learn things very quickly and then slow down, other dogs have a slow start then learn quickly, some dogs learned slowly and it's difficult through the entire process and other dogs learned fast and our breeze to train.

Understanding it's a journey not a destination and helping your dog along that journey as best suits it is what training optimally  is all about.

5. Do you actually have what you need to train the dog to the level you want your dog trained in regard to training grounds and the necessary tools?

With pet dogs it's pretty straightforward but with gun Dogs it's a different story.

If you're training your gun dog with extremely limited resources and then you expect trained abilities in a much more demanding environment it's kind of the equivalent of playing tennis by hitting a ball against a backboard and then entering a tournament.

Sure, you might have a fundamental ability to hit the ball but you certainly aren't prepared for the incredibly dynamic world of actually playing tennis on a court with an opponent.

Training your dog in the Local pond with a couple hands thrown retrieving dummies is not preparing it for opening day yet that is what many people do and then are disappointed when their dog loses the tournament.

I will probably continue the less but that's the first five that always come to mind.