Bella| Pit Mix | Los Angeles, CA

Meet Bella! Bella is a thirteen-month-old Pit mix from Los Angeles, CA here for our Three-Week Board and Train Program. Bella was rescued by her pup parent. Bella likes to jump on people, lacks impulse control, counter surfs, displays reactive and demand barking, vocalizes at all times, and can be dominating towards other dogs. Bella gets excited and distracted by other sights and sounds, resulting in poor leash manners. Bella can perform a command or two, however, she lacks structure and will perform the tasks inconsistently. Over the next twenty-one days, Bella is going to learn to be a confident, obedient pup through consistent, clear communication, and balanced training in areas such as at home, and in discovering new people and places. Bella will learn to perform all these things on and off leash through a positive and balanced training environment. Through structure and consistency, Bella will demonstrate how great a pup she can be! Stay tuned for Bella’s three-week transformation!

Pupdate 3/16/25

Today Ms. Bella joined me for her three-week board and train program. Ms. Bella is a sweet and cute young pup; however, she is quite demanding and vocal about what she wants. We will definitely be working on this behavior soon. She whined the entire ride home. We stopped at a local park to see what obedience commands Ms. Bella could perform. It was not very impressive! That's ok! We like a nice blank slate so that we can build her up. We also had a quick photoshoot for her profile picture for her blog. I don't know if you know this or not but dogs aren't the best at sitting still to get their pictures taken.

Once all that was complete, we loaded back up and headed to her temporary residence. I introduced her to Ms. Toji through the outside fence. She barked at Ms. Toji in a nonfriendly manner but overly aggressive. Some dogs act tough through a barrier so I wasn't too worried about it. I then let Ms. Bella into the house so she could check out the place and meet everyone. She liked one of Ms. Toji's chew toys and tried to eat all of my little one's toys. Once again she got to meet Ms. Toji through the screen door and showed some interest at first and then more barking. I took her outside to the non-dog run side and let Ms. Toji come over and say hi. They were able to sniff each other. I left Ms. Bella on a leash. Ms. Bella was being intrusive and trying to jump on Ms. Toji. I stopped Ms. Bella from jumping on Ms. Toji but Ms. Toji won't put up with that if it keeps happening so I think they will be kept separate throughout the day.

After all that excitement, we went ahead and took a walk around the neighborhood. This gives Ms. Bella a chance to check out the sights, sounds, and scents of the neighborhood. This also gives me a chance to asses her further. I was observing her behavior at your house, at the park, and then on this walk I am assessing what will be the best course of action for her. At this point, she was pretty tired from the drive, the park stop, and all the excitement from Ms. Toji but she still wouldn't stay next to me. She also tried to run into the street several times and this is a really bad habit. We definitely need to get a good solid on-leash heel before we even think about an off-leash heel. You live in a very busy neighborhood and we can't have her contemplating or thinking that it's ok to break off into the street. I'll mention it several times over the next few weeks but the safest and best thing for your pup is to be on-leash. Save the off-leash activities for where it is safe and allowable to do so.

I brought her in and gave her some water and let her relax in the crate. However, Ms. Bella had very little chill and was very vocal the entire time she was in the crate. This means that she's a prime candidate to get started on the e-collar today and for her to understand some of the new structure. I also let her spend some more time outside to burn off some more of that puppy energy.

Attached is the e-collar familiarization video. Please review a few times prior to Ms. Bella's turnover. We'll practice together to make sure you are comfortable with the system.

Pupdate 3/17/25

Today Ms. Bella and I got started on her training. I introduced the e-collar. We have some nice low numbers around 10 that she is comfortable working with. When my order of e-collars arrives today or tomorrow, I'll be trying out the micro to see if that gives me a little more wiggle room in the numbers. As you can in the video, she did jump a little due to the unexpected feeling of the e-collar. It is something she has never felt before. I am noticing that Ms. Bella has not had a real limit put on her unwanted behavior. There is nothing wrong with being nice to our pups but we do have to let them know when enough is enough. The good thing about the tools that I will be using is that we make those limits very clear to her.

As you can see, I tried it on her and figured that 15 was a little too high and 10 was about right, so I'll be working in the 7-10 range each day. Once that experience was over, I simply used a ball that she liked to shape her "place", "sit" and "down" for a few minutes of play while leaving the e-collar on so that it is not associated with being a negative or aversive tool. I will be ending all of our backyard sessions with some sort of play to ensure that she is having fun and that she knows there is a reward for her hard work.

I utilized the e-collar throughout the evening when she was in the crate to work on "off" to minimize the whining in the crate. I let her roam around the office while I was hanging out but she tried to jump up on my desk for counter surfing so we used more "off". She tried to attack my treadmill so we used "off" and then put her in the crate. I let her out after I was done with the treadmill but then she would cry when I would leave for two seconds so we used it for more "off" on those sessions. When she was quiet and calm, I would open the door and come back in. I can hear her and I have a camera in my office where she sleeps so I can observe what she is doing.

Overall, good first day of training for Ms. Bella! She's an indoor pup and every time I let her out she goes straight to the door and starts crying instead of going potty or taking a break. Hopefully, she will get more comfortable over the next few weeks. I have to manage this as Ms. Toji loves to bark at anything and anyone who walks by and I don't want that to transfer over to Ms. Bella's reactive barking while we are out and about. Ms. Toji only does it in the backyard so I am not overly worried about it but if it is causing a problem, I will have to minimize their time together even more.

Pupdate 3/18/25

Today Ms. Bella and I headed to Santa Monica Pier in Santa Monica, CA. We met up with some of our fellow Off Leash pups who were about to go home. We only worked on the prong collar for today. There is a concept in dog training called: shaping, prompting, and fading. Right now Ms. Bella is in the shaping and prompting phase. Sometimes more in the shaping phase. In the shaping phase, we use pressure by pushing on her butt and pulling up on the leash to consistently put her in a sit, use a little pressure to guide her into a down, use some upward pressure to guide her into a place, and so on. As you saw in yesterday's video with the toy, I was also shaping this behavior with the toy. I need the pressure to mean something though because if she doesn't do it, I need a way to gently apply pressure in a certain direction where she understands what I am asking. So I am actually applying pressure, using a toy and or a treat at the same time to shape her behavior. By the end of this week, I'll start using my hand gestures to prompt her into those positions while saying the commands. The goal is that at the end of three weeks, I can just say the command with little to no input from me and she will perform the tasks because I will have faded out the prompts. We do bring back the prompts from time to time to reinforce her behavior because she is still a puppy but over time the prompts will be needed less and less.

I will say that she did pretty amazing for being here for such a short time. She is picking up on everything. We were there for about an hour and it was quite busy. We focused on her "heel". We practiced her "place" on different objects, worked on her extended "sit" with high-level distractions around, and practiced her "down" with high-level distractions around. I started reinforcing the "come-to-sit" command more with her. She is happy to please and likes to treats I am giving her which is good.

She is still 50-50 with Ms. Toji. Sometimes she goes outside and whines at the door, sometimes she goes out there and Ms. Toji doesn't like her puppy energy, then I separate them, then they just bark at each other through the fence. I'll have to dig into my trainer tool kit to see if I can figure that out. I know Ms. Bella doesn't spend a lot of time around dogs so that will be my side project if I have extra time.

Attached is a picture of your e-collar system that came in the mail. I will be using this one with Ms. Bella going forward. I'll give it a go on the regular system for this week. As long as she isn't overreactive at 7-10, we should be ok. If she responds well to 7ish and/or will perform the commands even with vibrate, even better. I'll keep you updated.

Pupdate 3/19/25

Today Ms. Bella and I worked on quite a few commands. Before our training, I took Ms. Bella on a walk around the neighborhood to work on the "heel". We used the e-collar and the prong collar today. She is doing well with these tools. The goal is for the pressure from the prong collar to transfer to a slip lead which will transfer to the flat collar all while being paired with the stimulation of the e-collar. Eventually, we will replace all the pressure with only the e-collar stimulation. That's why you'll see me use the leash a few times in the video today to use the pressure to guide Ms. Bella into the proper position. When that transfer occurs is based on how soon Ms. Bella starts picking up on the tasks. I have introduced almost all the commands to her as of today. During our walks, I have been working on her automatic "sit" when I stop. She is about 60% on this task currently. The last two commands, are "send away to place" and "come-to-heel" but those are based on her ability to do the other foundational tasks of sitting and staying while I walk away from her and understanding "place" respectively.

I started the training off-leash to see how much she would do without the leash pressure but that didn't last too long. I need the leash to hold her accountable when she breaks a command and reset her. I know that her age is an approximation but she is still a puppy. This may affect her ability to test for the canine good citizen test at the end of this three-week board and train. She lacks a lot of impulse control and the ability to maintain attention for long periods. When I worked on her extended "down", even in my no-distraction, low-stimulation backyard, she would break the "down" after 20-30 seconds. I had to become a treat dispenser. I was giving her a treat at 10 seconds, then 15 seconds, then 20 seconds, then 25 seconds, then 30 seconds, to try to get to two minutes.

Pupdate 3/20/25

Today Ms. Bella and I headed over to Rynerson Park in Lakewood, CA. We worked on a few things around other pups, people walking and jogging around the park. Ms. Bella is getting there. Her puppy energy is contagious, which makes it fun to work with her. She still thinks she is the boss which has us engaged in the eternal struggle of good versus evil, light versus dark, Zeus vs Hades, and the Avengers vs Thanos, ok maybe that's a little dramatic but the idea is the same. We are definitely in a power struggle over here. She thinks she is in charge whereas I know I am in charge. These are two different things. I have to teach Ms. Bella that I am in charge. She does not like that I am in charge because she is a strong, independent breed and pup. I love that about her. She is brave. She reminds me of a Scrappy Doo. However, she is here to learn some structure and that there is a time and place to be Scrappy Doo and then there's a time to be a lady.

She still tries to bully her way out of the car crate, she won't load up into the car, and she is still willing to try to do some unwanted behaviors because as a puppy she thinks she knows better. Her favorite command is going to be "off" at this rate. We will have to focus on her car manners and door manners soon now that she is comfortable with the leash pressure, and e-collar pressure and understands several of the commands. I have a pretty good system for shaping those behaviors. Those will be a separate pupdate over the upcoming weekend.

Today I continued to work on her "heel", and "place", performing a "sit" when I stopped walking, extended "sit" and extended "down". The extended "sit" and "down" are about 90 seconds at the moment. I tried to push for two minutes today which was too much with all the distractions going on. I settled for 90 seconds which was fine. We still have two more weeks to build in the last 30 seconds or more. I did have to use the leash pressure to shape her "down" because she kept breaking it. Just as she would try to bite the leash previously, she decided she would try to bite my hand today. Nothing major, she was just showing her displeasure with being told what to do. These small battles are what have to be had to win her over. She will undoubtedly resist a few more times in the next week or so as almost all the pups do. Ms. Bella has had very little structure in her life. This is called an extinction burst. We are reshaping her old behavior and right before we extinct her old way of life, she will act up and pretend like I have taught her nothing. This is a common phenomenon and is to be expected sometime in the next few weeks. We stay consistent and persistent with our training and once that's out of her system we are usually smooth sailing after that.

Good job today Ms. Bella!

Pupdate 3/21/25

Today Ms. Bella took a nice long walk around the neighborhood. We continue to focus on her "heel". I left the prong collar off to see how she would perform without it today. She did well yesterday with all her commands and very little pressure on the prong collar, so I figured it was time to try to use the flat collar pressure only in combination with the e-collar stimulation. Turns out, Ms. Bella was ready for a flat collar only. She understands the pressure just fine. There is slow steady pressure and there is a quick sudden pressure. Slow steady pressure is used to guide her into position and the quick pressure is to get her attention when the steady pressure isn't capturing her attention. I try to start with the steady pressure but sometimes the quick pressure is needed. Now that we're on the flat collar, it is simply a way to get her attention as she may be overstimulated by a scent or something passing by. We have to be more distracting than the distraction. She did well on the walk. She is a concrete pooper which is strange. This brings me to a reminder:

Just like an athlete, everyone performs better on a good night of rest, well hydrated, well fed, with a good bio break of poop and pee, and free of distractions. The same goes for the pups when we are training and conducting our obedience training. Ms. Bella is a puppy. She is distracted by enough in the world. If she is thinking about being hungry, thirsty, or what is that new smell over there, etc., she can't focus on the training. Then it can be unfair of us to overstimulate her by asking her to do too much in that environment. We can try but we should be aware of overstimulating her and if she is showing signs of overstimulation, it's ok to stop or take a break. She may need a break as she is still young. I know she will be capable of great things but always be aware of her mental, emotional, and physical status.

Lastly, we worked on her door manners. There are two types of door manners that you can perform with Ms. Bella. The first is the most common type, where she needs to stop and sit at each door. We always go through the door first. We go through the door, wait for Ms. Bella to make eye contact with us, then say "okay" or "heel," and then she can come through the door with us. The next method of door manners involves her performing a "place" like say on your couch and then performing a "down" while waiting for you to go outside and get the mail or a package and then you come back inside. That method also reinforces the extended "down". Its a high-level distraction with the door wide open and gives her a chance to bolt through the door. She did pretty well on this task. I didn't use the treats either today as a gauge to see where she is on her reinforcement schedule. I will continue to use them but I wanted to see how well she was doing at this point in the training.

Looking good Ms. Bella!

Pupdate 3/22/25

Today Ms. Bella and I visited our local hardware store. Ms. Bella is coming along so nicely! Once again we focused on performing commands with only the flat collar and e-collar. I'm moving away from the treats. As I've mentioned before and have noticed several times, she has been the queen for quite a while so I'm going to lay off the treats. We're still going to reward her occasionally with a hidden treat or tennis ball or maybe even a tug toy. We need to establish more a consistent consequence system for not completing a task.

With that said, we focused on extending her "down" and "sit" to two minutes today. She did it! Even around all the people and distractions of a busy hardware store! Amazing work for only being with me for less than a week. Imagine what else we will accomplish over the next two weeks. I'm super excited to see what else she can do. We have to shape and make things a little more consistent but I am super happy with where we are.

I did give her a good potty break before going to the hardware store as the entire store is made up of concrete floors and she has her fascination with concrete floors and pooping. That was a good choice.

Pupdate 3/23/25

Today Ms. Bella and I stayed around the house and worked on the same tasks we have been working on all week which are related to her impulse control while still making the training fun and rewarding for her. I think my strategies are paying off so far.

We started with a little bit of fetch with the ball. She has no negative association with the e-collar at this point. She doesn't care if it is on her or not because more often than not either nothing happens or she gets to play when it is on. Rarely does it give low-level stimulation to get attention. The times in the video where you see her reactive towards it are either at levels 7-10 or even vibration. She is more startled at the suddenness of the collar because it rarely goes off. I used it to retrieve the deflated ball at one point since she didn't want to give it back. We call that the "eject" button. I pressed the "T"+ verbal "off" and she gave it to me.

As you can see she did great with a nice long "down" and "place" for a little over two minutes. Great work! We did a mini-heel to get her into position for her extended "sit". She broke this so I reset her and then she nailed it. Another great accomplishment! We played some more and she finally destroyed the ball. Then I worked on her "under" and "down". Still a work in progress. I might have to bring back a treat or two to lure her into the under some more. I might have faded out the treats too soon. No big deal. The leash pressure works but I can't rely on the leash pressure when we go off-leash so I need my hand movement to mean something to prompt her to go into the position. I want my hand presentation + a verbal "under" + low-level stimulation to mean go under this item.

Today went well. I've been going back and forth on the current e-collar system. At first, I was thinking of using the micro-system, then I was thinking of switching to the longer contact points because I wasn't getting consistent contact with her because she would keep moving the receiver, and then today she was overreacting to the stimulation. The answer might be the micro with the longer contact points. I'll charge it up tonight and give it a go for a few days and see how she reacts. If I'm getting the same overreaction from her, we will go back to the regular system and just work on better conditioning her to the stimulus.

I am super happy with where we are at one week. Things we do have to address over the next week are the following: come-to-sit, come-to-heel, car manners, and increasing distraction levels. We will introduce leash dragging with all the commands which is where the leash drags behind her but I can still step on it if she decides to take off. Then I'll switch over to a smaller leash. Ideally, we will be working on some commands off-leash or, at the very least, introducing off-leash in a controlled environment such as my backyard. Still, lots to get to in a short amount of time! Week 3 will be refining all the commands off-leash. As I mentioned before, I anticipate some sort of regression in there somewhere, but we'll work through it when or if it shows up.

Pupdate 3/24/25

Today Ms. Bella and I headed over to Whittier Narrows Park in El Monte, CA to meet up with her fellow Off Leash Board and Train classmates. She is doing well around other pups. She still isn't allowed to be around them unsupervised but she can behave when supervised.

Today's video may seem boring just watching her hang out around the other dogs but there is actually a lot going on. I keep emphasizing her impulse control. As you can see, she gets up and breaks the "down" several times. She had to learn that this is not ok. I did not ask her to do anything else. I kept resetting her until she finally capitulated and understood, ok, I am not supposed to do anything else.

After the video was over, we did walk around a bit and worked on her come-to-sit, worked on her "under". I worked on her "sit" and "down" separate from the "place". We used a squeaky tennis ball to reward her for doing so well.

I did use the micro e-collar with the 3/4" contact points. It didn't matter. She just needs to be more conditioned to the stimulus. The vibration is too soft that it doesn't get her attention as the regular unit does and then level 10 on the micro is causing her overreaction. Looks like she is back to the regular unit and just working on the conditioning of her understanding that the stimulation means something and she needs to perform the command.

Pupdate 3/25/25

Today, Ms. Bella and I headed over to Liberty Park in Cerritos, CA. It wasn't as busy as I had hoped but the training grounds were still what I needed to work on some things with her. Also, I was able to break in my new Rogue vest in preparation for my Murph challenge. Not as bad as I thought it would be.

As you can see, we worked on introducing leash dragging "heel". She wasn't too keen on doing this command without the leash pressure. This is where the e-collar stimulation conditioning comes into place. I have been mostly using vibration but when she is more resistant, I'll use the level 7‐10 to have her follow through. She performed her extended sit and down. I didn't do the "under" on these benches because it becomes too confusing. I have to teach her to "send away to place" and she needs to generalize in certain areas. She does not have a mastery of "under" v "place" to have her know the difference. Too much confusion will be counterproductive to my current goals. That's for a different day. Also, she tried to perform the "under" on her own to avoid having to do other commands. This is aptly named "avoidance" behavior. So, if I would have had her "under," I would have further reinforced her desire to avoid performing the other tasks.

As you can also see, I left the leash on the ground while she performed her extended "sit" and "down". We are working our way towards the off-leash work. She really isn't trying to get away from me, which is a good sign. These are the small signs of resistance I have been mentioning. That's why we have the long line attached. We pick it up and follow through with her.

We've been working on her car manners. I owe you a video of what that looks like, but she's very athletic and agile, even now that I have my SUV back. She's picking up on that, and we're making good progress.

Pupdate 3/26/25

Today, Ms. Bella and I headed over to Los Cerritos Center in Cerritos, CA. We were able to review all her commands in a public place. She is doing so well visiting all these wonderful places. Once again, I made sure that we took a proper potty break prior to leaving the neighborhood to avoid any accidents at the mall. Ms. Bella performed so well today! I am super proud of her. While she was hanging out practicing her "place" and "down" on the bench, she even made some new friends who complimented her. They openly wondered how their sister's dogs could be more like Ms. Bella. She received lots of happy and positive feedback. We were on a leash for this training, but I did use my lighter and shorter leash for this training session. You can see in the pictures that I chose to perform the "under" a bench with a large opening under it and the "place' on an object with no opening underneath it. This is what I was referring to yesterday in trying to make sure it's clear to her and not to confuse her. I did have to encourage her to the "place" which is different than her being confused. I have to encourage her to "load up," but that doesn't mean she's confused; that's sometimes a battle between her and I.

Pupdate 3/27/25

Last night, Ms. Bella and I headed over to Bloomfield Park in Lakewood, CA. As you can see, there was softball practice, multiple soccer practices, and even a baseball practice. There were people walking their dogs and jogging through the park. This was about as busy and distracting a place as you could ask for. I would say that Ms. Bella did AMAZING! We conducted almost the entire session with her leash dragging. The only real issue we had was towards the end of the evening when a few soccer balls came right at her, a very high-level distraction and motivator, she broke her down for those, but other than that, she performed so well throughout the entire session. We are going to keep working on the leash dragging today and aim to introduce off-leash work tomorrow in my backyard. She is highly motivated to work when she thinks or knows I have the ball for her reward. Once again, we played a lot to reward her for her good behavior.

Also, attached is a picture of her relaxing with the light of her e-collar on. This feature can be useful in low-light or during the night when playing fetch with her.

Pupdate 3/28/25

Today Ms. Bella started the day on our usual walk around the neighborhood. We completed the entire walk with the leash dragging! What great progress we have made in two weeks. I am so grateful to get three works to work with her. She still can be a little reactive towards other dogs and some people. I still maintain and recommend walking on a leash whenever you can as it is the safest option for you and her. Just because you can do something, doesn't mean you should. Also, when you get her back, you will have to practice on the long line with a loose leash, leash dragging, and then off-leash in low distraction environments prior to adventuring off into the unleashed world.

With that being said, we gave her a chance at the off-leash world today. As you can see, she was a little skeptical and wanted to do Ms. Bella's things. She knows all the commands. Whenever she didn't perform a task, it was simply because she chose not to perform it. I had to raise the level of the e-collar to motivate her. Rest assured, the highest level we raised it to was about 25-30 when I was trying to get her to "place". I raised it 5 levels at a time and gave her several opportunities to perform the task. This is that battle of her will vs mine. I wasn't being mean or raising my voice. I simply kept saying "place" and tapping the cot while pressing the black "S" button.. She kept avoiding it and refusing to perform the command. I would go up 5 and repeat. Eventually, she got to a level of discomfort where she had enough and performed the "place". I reset the e-collar remote to level 5 and pet her, and reinforced that she made a good choice. Then we played with the tennis ball and everything was fine. That's how it works. She doesn't run the show, despite what she thinks. When it comes to off-leash obedience, we can't allow her to be disobedient. That's the difference in her safety. She must follow through with her commands. We want her to perform the command the first time we ask her because we want her to be next to us where it is safe.

Keep in mind, when you go out and about, you will usually perform a "heel" going to the car. Have her jump in the car and be on your way. Maybe you'll walk over to the park, play fetch, and then go home. There won't be many times where you're going to ask her to perform "heel", "place", "come-to-heel", "under", send away to "place", "down" extended "down," and "sit" back-to-back like I have been. This is the CrossFit Games of obedience. She's being put through the gauntlet due to the timeline we're on. With that being said, I love training with her, and I have fun with her every time.

Good job today!

Bella Pupdate 3/29/25

Today, Ms. Bella and I revisited her house manners and car manners. We worked on everything off-leash. I started with the door manners. We practiced this several times. I even had my son run by to make sure that she stayed in place. You can see that she gets comfortable by putting her head down and relaxing. There's a time when I go by, and her head pops up, and she looks at me. These are the small precursors we are on the lookout for before she's going to get up and break the command. I remind her, "down," and she goes back to the relaxed "down". I didn't catch the first trial of the "place" on video because I forgot to press record. She gave the same resistance as yesterday. I had to go back up to 30ish to get her to "place". This is why you saw her run so enthusiastically on the first "place". She had already been through the resistance and you know how the song goes: "I fought the law, and the law won". This is what Ms. Bella is going to learn this week. We are going to do almost everything off-leash while only using the leash in unsafe situations or when we need to polish some behavior.

We then headed outside to demonstrate the "load up" command. As I mentioned, we have been working on it but I haven't taken the time to just focus on it. I start by placing her in a "sit". I open the trunk/door, then tell her, "load up!" while pressing the black "S" button. I let the toy and my hand motion prompt her. This is important because now my hand gesture means something. We pair that motion with what I want from her. I am throwing the tennis ball into the crate to reward her. Her drive for the ball is great enough that she ignores the low-level stimulation and jumps in. I had the door fully off the crate for the first few trials. Then I put the door on and reset the whole thing. Sit, open the door/trunk, open the crate door, then give her the "load up!" + stimulation, throw the toy, then close everything up. Then, let her out. This is all conditioning her. Then I waited to give her the tennis ball until she was in the crate. Then I waited to give her the tennis ball until she had gone into the crate, I closed everything up, then let her back out. We also took a quick second to work on her "come-to-sit" because she was not participating when I cut her off-leash. After a few trials and a few reminders, she was back in the groove. We will be practicing "come-to-sit" and "send-away-to-place" every day this week. These two are going to be the primary focus almost everywhere we go. I have a trick with the tennis ball for the send-away to "place" similar to the "load up," but that relies on me being able to land the ball on the cot. If you saw in one of the attempts today, I missed the crate and she basically just jumped in and jumped out. No big deal, I just reset and tried again.

We shouldn't have any issues with these two commands for the rest of the week, but we will revisit them at least one more time. I also ordered a few more tennis balls. I'll send you home with a brand new one, as these are your best friends when working with her. I'll probably have one with me everywhere we go while working off-leash, as it's a high-value reward to get her attention back on me.

Bella Pupdate 3/30/25

Today, Ms. Bella and I headed over to Rynerson Park in Lakewood, CA. I wanted to focus on her send away to "place" and come to "sit". I tried a few different methods to see what would work best with her. Ms. Bella was definitely distracted and a little overstimulated. I gave her a nice long break before we started. She is panting about 10 minutes in because of the mental stimulation of the exercise of going away and coming back while ignoring all the other stimuli at the other park. Once again, we have to stay persistent. She has shown to be resistant to the "place" command off-leash and other times. So the send away to place is proving to be slightly more challenging. She goes up to the cot, then breaks off. If I press the stimulation button again, then she might take that as "I don't want to go near there." I have to be careful with the timing. If I am always standing too close, then it won't work either because she's relying on my body position close to the object. Its ok if she cues off of me taking a quick step or two and sending her into the "place". I used her being on the cot as a chance to simultaneously reinforce the come-to-sit, but she kept getting distracted by the scents and other things going on. This means that we had to go up a little bit on the e-collar remote today. We were operating on average about 15 today due to the distractions. She was doing ok with the leash pressure guiding her, but when I set the leash down, she kept choosing not to follow through. This is going to be our priority this week, while reinforcing the other commands before reinforcing these two. The other issue was that I took out the tennis ball to get her attention. She was already headed to overstimulation highway, then I took out another stimulus. Turns out that was a bad idea. Now she's super excited and guessing and not following through with anything. Make no mistake, she knows or thinks I always have the tennis ball. The trick is, she doesn't know when I'll give it to her or where I'm hiding it. So when she gets too stimulated by other stuff, we have a saying: "Be more distracting than the distraction". Obviously the tennis ball got her attention, but it also added more fuel to the overstimulation. That's ok. We ended on a nice leash dragging come-to-heel after the video ended. We played with the ball for a little bit and headed back home for the day. Always end on a positive note, even a small one!

Look for a lot more of us at Rynerson this week and one of my other favorite local parks. We are getting there. Don't be surprised if there's a day where I put on the slip lead to clean up all the behaviors so that she and I are on the same page.

Pupdate 3/31/25

Today, Ms. Bella and I went to Whittier Narrows in El Monte, CA, to meet our fellow Off Leash trainers and their pups. We spent most of our time off-leash around the other pups, and Ms. Bella performed well. I was pleasantly surprised at how well she did today. The work we put in yesterday paid off. Her send-away to "place" went much smoother than it did yesterday. Even with all the distractions of the other pups around she performed the recall and send away to place. Her come-to-sit looked a little cleaner as well. We are getting closer and closer to finalizing her behavior before she goes home this week. We ended our training with a nice, fun play session. I played fetch with her off-leash. She brought the ball back and had fun. Great job today, Ms. Bella!

Pupdate 4/1/25

Today, Ms. Bella and I headed over to Liberty Park in Cerritos, CA. This park is usually full of more distractions, but today, it only had a few little ones on the playground, a few runners, and a couple of dogs going for a walk. We were able to review all of her off-leash commands, which was amazing! I think today was her best overall day and as long as we have more days like this, Ms. Bella is going to be a rockstar when she goes home on Sunday! Hope you're enjoying the progress as much as I am working with her. It appears that we have figured out the send away to place and the come to sit.

Pupdate 4/2/25

Ms. Bella and I headed over to Los Cerritos Center in Cerritos, CA. We focused on her commands around people. She is doing so well in and around public places. We continued to focus on her send-away to place, under, and come-to-sit. She is performing this much more consistently. I cracked open a new tennis ball for her, and she was enamored. Now the problem is she thinks every time I reach into my pocket she's going to get one. This is a good problem because I can use this to get her attention to perform an obedience command. I don't like how much she shakes her head when I press the stimulation button, even on the vibration setting. She is trying to move the collar to a different location. She doesn't do this when she has the tennis ball in her mouth or when she is highly stimulated. She only does this when we are in low-stimulus environments. It's likely because it feels more like a tickle to her; however, going too high on the remote is unnecessary and results in becoming too aversive, and I don't want that either. Another good day of training for Ms. Bella!

Pupdate 4/3/25

Ms. Bella and I did a final review of all her house manners today. We reviewed her door manners, food manners, and car manners. She nailed them! I will send a list on Saturday of how the commands and how to perform them. Tomorrow we are going to a public, outdoor venue to review all her commands around distractions. We can't wait to show you what she is capable of!

Pupdate 4/4/25

Ms. Bella headed back to Santa Monica after a few weeks' hiatus. This time, we went back to conquer the pier off-leash! And that's exactly what we did! Nothing can stop Ms. Bella! All she needs is good, consistent, clear communication and a squeaky tennis ball! Her prey drive for the tennis ball is off the charts. You could teach her so many things with that as a reward system. She hunts for it, she will do just about anything for that tennis ball. I will be giving you the ones that I have been using as well as a brand new one. They are cheap on Amazon, and you will want a stash of them around for her. This was the pinnacle of three weeks of training, and I am super happy with how well she performed today. We had no issues while out and about and received many compliments on not only her looks but how well-behaved she was. She performed all her commands today: come to "heel", "heel", send away to "place", extended "place", extended "down", "break", extended "sit", come to "sit", "under", extended "down" again, and even greeting "manner" while performing her extended "sit". What a great day of obedience and confidence boost!

As a reminder, there probably won't be a time where you have to perform all these commands in rapid succession such as I did in the video for today but she does know how to perform them all and as long as you practice a few minutes each day, you will ensure that she maintains her skills. Also, just because I can perform all these tasks with her off-leash doesn't necessarily mean that you can run out the next day to Santa Monica Pier and perform them with her. You will need to practice and always be aware of your environment and surroundings. We will conduct the Canine Good Citizen test after the turnover and see how well she performs.

Not only did you rescue her when she needed it, but you also provided her with this training foundation to be an amazing puppy. You guys have a bright future ahead of you!

Pupdate 4/5/25

Today, Ms. Bella and I headed over to Rynerson Park to have a fun play session and work on her extended recall. I wanted to see how far I could recall her and just have one last play day with her. We went out and just had fun! She has been fun to be around. I did bring home my new board and train, but she wasn't too excited about meeting Mr. Luigi so we left them separated. I would be careful of who Ms. Bella is around. She can be protective of herself and probably of you. She is a really good dog, and she doesn't put up with much from any size dog. This could be seen as her being a poorly behaved dog but it is more from overconfidence at inappropriate times. With the e-collar and telling her "off," it can be managed, but it is inconsistent when she acts like this, and I don't know what the main trigger is. I would be careful taking her places with other pups. She's been ok in some situations, and in others, she hasn't been. All I can assume is that it is territorial, as most of it has happened at home with other dogs in her "territory" with me around. It does show me that she is capable of acting like this which always has me cognizant of it when we go out and about. As I have mentioned several times before, you can't go wrong with having your pup on a leash, just to be sure. If you want to go off-leash, make sure you have practiced that recall many times.

We will review the e-collar and how to use it tomorrow. Please watch the video a few times and familiarize yourself with the different functions.

As a reminder, here are the obedience commands that she has learned while with me:

Sit/Extended Sit: Press the black "S" button + say "Sit".
Down/Extended Down: Press the black "S" button + say "Down".
Place/Extended Place: Press the black "S" button + say "Place".
Send away to Place: Cast your hand toward the object and say "Place."
Come-To-Sit: Press the black "S" button + say "Come" + use your hands to guide into place.
Heel: Press the black "S" button + say "Heel".
Come-to-Heel: When the pup is sitting or is away from us, tap our left side, say "heel" + black "S" button, and the pup will return to the "heel" position.
Under: Point below a bench or table, press the black "S" button + say "Under" then "Down"
Food Manners/Refusal: The pup must patiently wait in either a "sit" or "down" while you prepare the food and then say "break" allowing the pup to access the food.
Car Manners: Press the black "S" button + say "Load up!"
Greeting Manners: Have pup "sit" then allow for new person to say hi
Door Manners: Place the pup in a "sit," open the doo,r and then allow the pup to go through with you or say "ok" and let the pup inside
"Off" + black button "S" to stop the pup from performing unwanted behavior. Always press the black "S" when using this command.
"Break!" - no stimulation and the pup can freely sniff or go potty.

We will be reviewing how to perform all these tomorrow during the turnover! We can't wait to show you how much she has learned and how great of a pup she will be in the future!

Bella| Pit Mix | Los Angeles, CA | In-Training

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