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Positive Dog

🐶 Old dogs CAN learn new tricks!

Published about 2 months ago • 1 min read

A lot of you have been asking the same question. "Is it too late for my dog?" My dog is... 5, 7, 10...

No, it isn't too late for your dog. Your dog CAN still learn and build skills to help them in life - and to make your life with your dog easier. The only exception to this rule is for geriatric or palliative dogs - we just keep them happy, enriched, and ensure they have their best last months or years.

A mature dog might have well established patterns of behaviour. Maybe they have been isolated due to their challenges, or not had the chance to go out in the world much.

The benefit of training a mature dog though, is that they are developmentally stable. We don't have to worry about sensitive puppy or adolescent brains, shorter attention spans, or fluctuating hormones confusing their minds.

When we are working with older dogs, we put management in place, then break skills down into very small pieces - small fun games, to build new habits from the ground up.

If you follow me on social media, you might have seen that I'm bringing home a new puppy next week! I'll be videoing all of her training and sharing it in Dream Dog as a bonus, on top of all the regular Dream Dog content.

A few people have reached out, worried that Dream Dog might be more suited to puppies than to their older dogs. That's definitely not the case. While puppies are absolutely welcome, the heart of Dream Dog is still helping dogs with big feelings, at any age or stage. The puppy videos are simply a bonus resource, a chance to literally show you how to build behaviours and arousal skills from the ground up, so you can see the same tools in action from day one.

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If you are thinking about Dream Dog, but have questions or aren't sure if it is for you, please book a call to discuss what your plan inside the program could look like.

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Positive Dog

Christina Young, BSc, CDBC, PCBC-A

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