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Kiba | Lab Mix | Pasadena, CA | In Training

Tanner Strong

Meet Kiba! He's a ten month old Lab Mix from Pasadena, California here for our Two-Week Board and Train Program! He's extremely friendly, however he often takes his love overboard by jumping on people and pulling on his leash to say hi to strangers and other dogs! Kiba needs a lot of work on his basic obedience skills, as he doesn't follow through with most of his commands if he doesn't want to. He also has issues with his household manners, as he gets incredibly excited and chews up all the furniture! Over the next fourteen days, we will work on Kiba's reliability with his commands, teach him proper manners in and out of the house, especially when it comes to his greetings, teach him how to behave politely on and off leash, and show him how to be the best pup he can possibly be! Stay tuned for Kiba's two week transformation!

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Pupdate: 10/13/2024



After picking up Kiba, we stayed at the park for a few minutes to get to know each other. Boy is he strong! He is an intense leash puller, and was heavily distracted by just about everything we saw. When asking him for his basic commands, he didn't really want to give me any, except for a Sit a few times, and with that, he would hold it for only a few seconds. He got into the crate in my car fairly easily, although once he was in, he wanted to bark consistently on the way home. Back at home, I let Kiba sniff around my house to help get settled in. He was pretty crazy for several minutes, but actually settled down fairly quickly. He's very excitable, but now I have also seen his calmer side. Of course, as soon as we started moving to go for a walk, he was back to jumping with joy!


In addition to his first video today, I'm adding a tutorial and picture of the E-collar we will be using with Kiba. This will make his turnover much more smooth once he is ready to go home!

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Pupdate: 10/14/2024


Kiba and I went to Almansor Park today for training! We're starting with his Heel and Come To Sit commands. For Come To Sit, I want Kiba to come to my right side, walk around my legs and Sit at my left side with his ears at my knee. This is our recall command and I want him to respond to it any time I ask. Whether he is playing, on break, holding a position, or simply lounging around, I want him to come directly to me when asked, sit at my side, and remain there. This leads us nicely into our Heel command. For this, I want Kiba to walk at my left side with his ears at my knee. I want him to remain mostly focused on me, without sniffing the ground, staring at distractions, and certainly without pulling me around. We started off our training using his E-collar and a prong collar this morning. He began paying attention and learning the motions fairly quickly. I removed his prong collar this afternoon and we worked with only a flat collar and E-collar. He is doing a great job so far, I'd like to work on tightening up his movements, but he's getting the hang of it! He is easily distracted, but he's doing a good job paying more attention to me!

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Pupdate: 10/15/2024


Kiba and I went to Whittier Narrows Park today! We went with several other trainers and their dogs, including Kiba's sister, Zelda! They were pretty excited to see each other, but were mostly able to contain their excitement while we warmed up. I noticed that Kiba seemed a lot more interested in Zelda than vice versa, at least at the beginning. In one of our videos that, you can see us walking the siblings next to each other. They maintained their composure up to a point, but once one of them broke, the other would usually follow. Kiba is doing great with his commands so far, but he was focused mostly on Zelda, especially if she got excited. In Zelda's Pupdate, you can see me attempting to heel with both at the same time. They ended up walking fairly politely, although Kiba was on the outside, and he very much wanted to be closer to my leg. Overall, they are both doing alright, but we will need to work with both together much more!

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Pupdate: 10/16/2024


Kiba and I went to the park today to continue working! We kept working on his Heel and Come To Sit commands, as well as his Place! For Place, I want Kiba to hop onto a raised object, such as a bench, and remain there until I either release him from command or ask him to perform a different command. So far, we've practiced this with a place cot, which is still good to do, but I also want him to be able to hop onto a park bench and other objects, if I need him to. This can be a great confidence building exercise when out in public, but I find it most useful at home! Whenever I need to clean, cook, or have guests over, Place can be a great command to let Kiba know he needs to remain in one spot while I'm doing something. He's doing remarkably well with his cot, and he made some good progress on other objects today as well. He found the picnic table to be the most difficult, as the narrow seat can make it hard to balance.


We also worked around a large flock of geese for a while! He was initially very interested in the geese, but after a few reminders of the task at hand, he did pretty well bringing his attention back to me! It seems that Kiba's sister, Zelda is going to be his biggest distraction, as most other things I've thrown at him so far have not phased him nearly as much as seeing her yesterday!

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Pupdate: 10/17/2024


Kiba and I went over to Garfield Park today! Around very low level distractions, I was able to drop his leash and practice his commands with the leash dragging. Allowing the leash to drag gives me some idea of how he might perform off leash while still having access to the leash should I need it. While Heeling, if we were walking briskly, he was very focused and perky. When I slowed down, however, he would often start sniffing the ground. I consider this to be a distraction, and I add our Off command to the Heel when he does this. Off is our general, "Do not do" command, and can be used for any unwanted behavior, including paying too much attention to distractions. He also gave the behavior while performing his Come To Sit. While I'm happy that he is performing the motions of the commands, I know he has a lot of energy and I'd like him to use it to fully complete each command immediately when asked. For his Down command, he quickly started learning it while on a place cot, but has struggled a bit more performing it on any other surfaces. So today, we worked on moving toward a Down command that he will perform whether he is on grass, concrete, turf, and any other surface we could find. I also tried adding some distance to his Down command. This is a bit more advanced, but I felt he could try it. As you can see, he often wants to come closer to me instead of immediately laying down, but with some encouragement, resets, and repetition, he's starting to get better with that too. It's important to keep in mind that his environment today only had a few people, dogs, and other critters around, so I felt confident enough in his abilities to drop the leash for practice. It is highly likely that when we add in many more distractions, specifically his sister, we will start with the leash in hand once more and go from there. Beginning to complete his commands without guidance from the leash is still a great step in any environment and he did an excellent job today! We just need to keep his nose off of the grass when he's working, as it could mean he's still susceptible to other, more difficult distractions!

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Pupdate: 10/18/2024

Kiba and I went to Santa Anita Mall today for training! He spent some of the time pretty distracted by all the activity, but there were also times where he settled in nicely and calmed down. We met Scott and Zelda there, and Kiba was pretty excited to see his sister! We worked on their commands around each other, but also took time to simply have them get used to relaxing together in this new environment. With the leash in hand, he did a great job with his commands! I started trying to drop the leash and he got a little too distracted for the time being, so I picked it back up. Once again, it seems his biggest distraction is his sister! They both did well for their first time in such a place!

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Pupdate: 10/19/2024


Kiba and I went to Almansor Park today! There were plenty of soccer games, parties, and other groups of people to work around. We continued his leash dragging, and there was only one time I needed to pick up his leash. Luckily, this one time was when he wanted to go to the place cot without me asking him to, which isn't great, but could be much worse! Today was a great day for practicing around tons of distractions, and he nailed almost everything. I believe tomorrow he will be ready for some off leash training.

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Pupdate: 10/20/2024


Kiba and I went off leash at the park today! It was pretty crowded again today, but Kiba's work yesterday translated well to taking the leash off today. He could definitely tell the difference between leash dragging and being off leash, and made several small mistakes while working. Most of these mistakes were based on his impulse control, and not wanting to stay put for more than a few seconds, so we still need plenty of work there. For his first day off leash, he did well, and even with a solid number of distractions, he succeeded most of the time! I will likely want to have at least one more meeting with Scott and Zelda before we try to have them off leash together, but we will play it by ear.

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Pupdate: 10/21/2022


Kiba and I went to Whittier Narrows Park today for training! We were around lots of other trainers and their dogs, unfortunately not including his sister Zelda. We worked with him on and off leash, and he did a pretty good job! He was very distracted by the other dogs, but mostly contained his excitement. His biggest mistake was while off leash in the middle of the field. He was asked to Down, and he held it for about a minute before jumping up and trying to play with me. When reminded, he immediately returned to his designated position, but not before bouncing around like a bunny a few times. Other than this mistake, Kiba performed his commands well, and behaved himself, despite finding it a bit difficult to stay focused. His toughest command was Placing on the picnic table seat, as he is a big boy, and found it difficult to balance. Even though we didn't get to see Zelda today, it was still great to get to work in such close proximity to a wide variety of other dogs!


Back at home, I cooked dinner while Kiba was on the place cot, and he stayed on there for roughly half an hour. While out in public, I'd like to have Kiba able to hold his positions for around two minutes around distractions, but at home, his place command should be more or less indefinite, so you can have plenty of time to cook or clean while he's in Place. He's still quite aways off from that public goal, but he's well on his way to Placing at home for much longer periods of time! This is partially because he loves the place cot, and isn't a big fan of Placing on other surfaces, which we will continue working on!

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Pupdate: 10/22/2024



Kiba and I went to Santa Anita Mall today for training! I had him on a short leash and most of our time was spent with the leash dragging. It wasn't incredibly busy today, which made it a nice day to practice staying calm and relaxed in a strange environment while being able to pick and choose what distractions we worked around. While walking through the indoor area of the mall, there were more people, and we took things slow, asking Kiba to stay glued to my side and not pay attention to the people passing. He did well with his commands, but did find it difficult to stay focused. In the outdoor sections, there were fewer people, but more opportunities to practice Place, such as the mini pond bench you can see in the above video. There are turtles and some fish in this pond, which Kiba was initially puzzled by. He pretty quickly figured out the turtles aren't particularly interesting, and didn't really look at them after that. Today, Kiba did a really good job holding his positions when we were relaxing, however, he would sometimes preemptively move from a position if he thought I was about to ask him to do something. To help with this, we need to be extremely clear when we ask him to perform his commands, so he has zero room for confusion!

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Pupdate: 10/23/2024


Kiba and I went to Garfield Park today! He was off leash for about half the time. We focused on staying still while I walk away, and tried extending the distance of his off leash recall. The first several times, he ran at me full speed and had trouble slowing down in time to turn quickly and his in the right position, often running past me by about ten feet before turning and getting into position. After some attempts at this, he started judging the distance better and slowing down before he got to me so he could find his position much faster. He started doing much better. I will continue to work on this, as it is a great exercise for his accuracy. Other than that, we saw some squirrels running around fighting each other, and they definitely got Kiba's attention, but he remained stationary on his place cot. The most difficult distraction, however, was a golden retriever, who was off leash barking and chasing squirrels around the park. I could tell Kiba wanted nothing more than to go join him and play, but he did a fairly good job staying focused on me, even with that going on around us. Slowly but surely, he's getting better with his distractions and attention span.

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Pupdate: 10/24/2024


Kiba and I went to Santa Anita Mall today for training! He was allowed off leash for a few minutes at a time throughout the day here. It wasn't too busy today, but still filled with some tough distractions. Kiba did a better job of staying focused than the other times we've gone to the mall, and his commands were much more accurate. The toughest part for Kiba was holding his Sit position, but he had very little issue holding his Down and Place positions. His distracted nature only manifested in the form of him looking around at the people walking by. There were no moments today where Kiba broke commands to go over to something he wanted, which is very good news. Even when he broke his Sit, it was usually him trying to get more comfortable by lying down. Today was a big step for him, as being off leash in this type of area can be very tough. Kiba did a good job with it!

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Pupdate: 10/25/2024


Kiba and I went to Cerritos Mall today and met with Scott and Zelda! Kiba was pretty excited at first since we've never been to this mall and was especially happy to see his sister. We warmed up with his leash on and he quickly calmed down at which point we started working off leash. He did a great job considering the high level distractions, including Zelda.


One of his strongest commands was his Heel. Heeling in such close proximity to crowds of people can be extremely difficult especially with an easily distracted dog like Kiba. He did a great job sticking with me the whole time. His biggest struggle has been holding his Sit and that remained the case today, especially when sitting on the slick tile. He would often start slidding into the Down position, but did a great job getting back into a Sit position when asked.

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Pupdate: 10/26/2024


Kiba and I went to Almansor Park today with another dog that I'm working with! He did a really good job with Zelda yesterday, but how was he with a dog who has had a little less time training than them? He did great. I kept him on leash to more easily handle both pups, but Kiba maintained his composure the entire time. The other dog, Pablo, really likes Kiba, and constantly wanted to lick his ears and annoy him. Despite this pretty intense distraction, Kiba stayed focused on me while we trained and was able to ignore him while they held their Place, Sit and Down positions. The other pup wanted to initiate play several times, but Kiba did a good job staying on top of his commands until I allowed them to play together. Importantly, Kiba did a great job playing, then settling back down as soon as I asked. It can be tough to want to allow your pups to play if you're unsure if you'll be able to regain control of the situation, so this is a great skill for him to have, and continuing working on.


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