Pack Perfect K9

Benji and Bella, 16 week mini poodles, had their first in home lesson today. In addition to all the usual puppy info on socialization, habituation and confidence building, I also always stress with little dog owners how important it is to treat them like big dogs as much as possible. Little dogs are more prone to jumping on people due to their size (and people worsen this by reinforcing it because"it doesn't matter, they're little"), being reactive on leash (picking them up when being reactive also makes this worse), resource guarding (couches and laps are their favorite) and aggression (if a little dog shows teeth or other mild aggression it's usually overlooked or even laughed at because it's not a genuine threat due to size). If you have a little dog, always ask yourself if the behavior in question would be acceptable if they were a regular or large size dog. These two are also litter-mates which can bring about a whole other set of behaviors to the mix. Luckily, the owners are former German Shepard owners and knew to get started on their training ASAP and called us. Benji and Bella were already showing off their new skills by the end of the lesson, great work, littles!