What Makes a Great Training Treat?

By Katherine Ostiguy, KPA CTP CPDT-KA|2025-04-23T17:41:13-04:00August 15, 2022|Helpful Hints, Training|

Be sure to pick a training treat that your dog enjoys!

The number one question I receive from owners learning to clicker train their dogs: what makes a great training treat? Here are the things I recommend you consider when choosing treats to use while training your dog.

Size

You will be [Read more…]

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Fear of the Clicker: How to Train Your Dog Through It

By Katherine Ostiguy, KPA CTP CPDT-KA|2024-05-09T05:22:38-04:00September 5, 2017|Training, Tutorials and How-To Guides|

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Why “Paw” is Problematic

By Katherine Ostiguy, KPA CTP CPDT-KA|2024-04-29T07:15:10-04:00July 14, 2017|Training|

Photo by Bonner Springs Library (Flickr Creative Commons)

Many of you know that I enjoy teaching my dogs tricks, so today’s post might come as a bit of a surprise. However, there’s one behavior that dog owners love to teach that often [Read more…]

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Puppy Day School Success Story: Alice [VIDEO]

By Katherine Ostiguy, KPA CTP CPDT-KA|2024-04-29T08:02:26-04:00September 27, 2016|Videos, Training|

Meet Alice! She is a 9-month-old Border Collie mix puppy. Her owner enrolled her in our Puppy Day School program to work on her socialization skills around other dogs.

Alice missed her critical socialization period while waiting to be adopted. Then, shortly after coming [Read more…]

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Capturing Your Dog’s Behavior: A How-To Guide

By Katherine Ostiguy, KPA CTP CPDT-KA|2016-05-04T17:59:36-04:00May 4, 2016|Training, Tutorials and How-To Guides|

Over the last several weeks, I have written about shaping and luring here on Spring Forth Dog Blog. My next topic is capturing, which is a pretty simple, straightforward way to get behavior!

Clicker training allows you to capture a behavior, like this terrier’s adorable tilted [Read more…]

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Luring Your Dog: A Primer

By Katherine Ostiguy, KPA CTP CPDT-KA|2024-07-01T07:29:34-04:00March 10, 2016|Training, Tutorials and How-To Guides|

Last week I started off my series on “How to Get Behavior” with shaping. Now I’m going to explain a bit about luring and how to use a lure to teach behavior.

The term luring refers to the use of a desired reward to coax the dog into achieving the desired behavior. The “desired reward” is nearly always a [Read more…]

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Introduction to Dog Agility Class [VIDEO]

By Katherine Ostiguy, KPA CTP CPDT-KA|2024-05-09T04:53:39-04:00March 4, 2016|Dog Agility, Dog Sports, Group Classes, Training, Videos|

It’s no secret that dog agility is my passion. 2016 is going to be my 12th consecutive year of competing in this great sport. For several years, I’ve taught beginner dog agility classes in Rhode Island and Massachusetts. I decided to put together a video showing what I teach in this introductory class to give prospective students an idea of what [Read more…]

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How to Get Behavior: Shaping

By Katherine Ostiguy, KPA CTP CPDT-KA|2024-04-29T08:42:19-04:00February 29, 2016|Training, Tutorials and How-To Guides|

Cricket has been taught to lie on her mat using shaping.

When it comes to positive reinforcement based clicker training, there are four major ways of getting behavior: shaping, luring, targeting, and capturing. There are other ways, including physical modeling, but they [Read more…]

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The Power of Peanut Butter

By Katherine Ostiguy, KPA CTP CPDT-KA|2024-07-01T07:29:07-04:00December 17, 2015|Group Classes, Helpful Hints, Reactive Dogs, Training|

Behold! One of the most versatile dog training tools known to man. (Photo Credit: Victoria Chilinski)

What’s your favorite training tool? Dog trainers are always looking for the latest and greatest items to add to their bag of tricks. My answer can be found at any supermarket or convenience store: [Read more…]

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