Meet Olive! Olive is a nine-month-old Shiloh Shepherd from Hacienda Heights, CA here for our Two-Week Board and Train Program. Olive is a loving, gentle giant of a pup. Olive likes to jump on people and lacks impulse control. Olive gets excited and distracted by small critters like squirrels and pulls hard on the leash. Olive can perform a command or two, however, she lacks structure and will perform the tasks inconsistently. Over the next fourteen days, Olive is going to learn to be a confident, obedient pup through consistent, clear communication, and balanced training in areas such as at home, in the car, and in discovering new people and places. Olive is going to learn how to perform all these things off-leash through a positive and balanced training environment. Through structure and consistency, Olive will demonstrate how great a pup she can be! Stay tuned for Olive’s two-week transformation!
Pupdate 2/9/25
Today Ms. Olive joined my family for her two-week board and train. On the way home we stopped at the park to see what Ms. Olive knew. She was not too interested in me and didn't do that well. We had a quick photoshoot for her Blog and then headed to her new home for a few weeks. I let Ms. Olive explore all the rooms and meet my family. Once we were done checking out the house, I let her meet Ms. Toji, my German shorthaired pointer, and my other board and train, Mr. Mylo, an Alaskan Klee Klai. Ms. Toji paid no mind to Ms. Olive. Mr. Mylo let Ms. Olive know that he's been here for a few weeks but he's quite the vocal pup about everything. Ms. Olive did give the submissive behavior of laying down and letting them check her out.
Once the introductions were over, we headed out for a walk around the neighborhood. I let Ms. Olive lead the way. I allowed her to smell, hear, and see the sights, sounds, and scents of her home away from home. It was surprisingly quiet despite the big game going on. When we got back, I gave her a small break in the crate. She started getting a little whiny so I let her out in the dog run with Mr. Mylo and Ms. Toji.
I'll leave her food with her in the crate overnight and see how much she eats. I can assure you that I will do everything I can and give her every chance to eat her food every day. I monitor her weight and food intake in the form below. We want a healthy, full, well-hydrated pup for training. Tomorrow we will introduce the e-collar and get started on her training!
Pupdate 2/10/25
It has been an interesting twenty-four hours for me and Ms. Olive. Last night, she showed her rambunctious self. I was able to get her in the crate for dinner then she started whining for the whole evening. I took her out around 10 pm to give her a few minutes to go to the restroom. She was out there for about five to ten minutes before she started crying again so I brought her in. I put her in the crate and let her relax. She continued to whine all night. I let her out of the crate around 1 AM so that she could move around with my other board and train as I did need some sleep too. This seemed to help quite a bit. However, when I went to let her out around 6 AM, she had peed in my office. I would say that's my fault for letting her wander around and drink an almost full bowl of water. I am a firm believer in ensuring the pups have access to water and comfortable living at all times. I'll simply have to monitor the late-night water consumption and see what we can do to make it more comfortable for Ms. Olive so she doesn't whine throughout the night.
Today, we started her training where I introduced the e-collar and the prong collar. The e-collar is going to be our primary communication device with her. The prong collar is going to help me pair the commands with pressure. As she gets used to the pressure of the prong collar, I will transition to the slip-lead then to the flat collar, and then off-leash. I think the prong collar is going to be an amazing tool with her as I have been subject to several of her jumping and puppy behaviors such as running around, not sitting still, wanting to play, and not listening, etc. I started at 0 as I had advised you yesterday. The e-collar receiver has the 3/4" contact points but I think I'm going to switch to the 1" as her fur is so long. I had to work up to 40 before she gave me an indication that she could feel it. Once she felt it, we worked our way back down to 15-20. I'll try again tomorrow with the 3/4" and see how she responds. If the numbers are still too high to start, I'll switch to the 1".
After introducing the e-collar, I introduced the prong collar and started working on her commands. I introduced the "sit", "down", "place", "heel", and "come-to-sit". All the commands she is going to need to be successful over the next two weeks. The pressure of the prong collar and e-collar got her attention and helped her manage some of her impulse control and leash pulling. It doesn't take a lot of pressure to get her attention and she is happy to comply.
Lastly, it appears she has a cut on her ear. It was not there this morning when I took her out for her first break, breakfast, or let her back out for another break after breakfast. I noticed it during our training session and immediately treated it accordingly. She may have pawed at it, or the pups were playing a little too rough. I cleaned it up with an antiseptic spray and lots of Neosporin. It's topical on the outer part of the ear. I'll keep it clean and keep you updated. She let me clean it up and treat it without any issues.
Pupdate 2/11/25
Today Ms. Olive and I headed over to Whittier Narrows in El Monte, CA to meet up with our fellow Off-Leash trainers and their pups. Ms. Olive had a much better and less eventful twenty-four hours than the previous. She ate most of her dinner without any issue, she was nice and quiet throughout the night. She was ready to go out around 5 AM. No big deal, I let her out to go potty with Mr. Mylo and Ms. Toji. They came back in for breakfast. Ms. Olive only ate her topper and not the rest of the food. We'll give her a chance to eat all her food again this evening.
She is responding well to the prong collar. The pressure of it is making things nice and clear to her and she is quick to pick up on what I am asking of her. She may be an XL-sized dog but she has a gentle spirit and demeanor. The e-collar has not been quite as helpful yet due to the long fur. I have been able to place the e-collar receiver on nice and snug but it isn't making good contact with her skin. I will be upgrading her receiver to the 1" contact points and those will be on your unit. When she does get good contact, we can communicate with her around level twenty. A perfect level. When it is not making good contact we are over sixty and that's not a good level to be at to get her attention at first due to it being significantly stronger. We want to work at the lowest levels possible and right now the equipment configuration is preventing me from doing that. You can look forward to seeing the difference in the 1" contact points starting tomorrow. We reviewed her extended "sit", and extended "down" around the other pups. She did great! We went for a nice walk around the park practicing her "heel" and her "sit" once I stop. She is responding well to this structure. She even started to fall asleep while we were hanging out around the other pups. These obedience tasks are more mentally exhausting than physical. I'm really happy with her progress so far and we will continue to press forward!
Please also review the e-collar video today and before you receive Ms. Olive back. This will be up here for your reference whenever you need it in the future as well.
Pupdate 2/12/25
Today Ms. Olive and I took a field trip to Los Cerritos Center in Cerritos, CA thanks to the rain. I usually don't like to take my pups to the mall until the 5th or 6th day after they have a chance to get used to all the commands but Mother Nature has decided differently for Ms. Olive. I think she did well overall. We worked on her "sit", "down", "come-to-sit", and "heel". She did try to check out other people while we walked through the mall so it was good to refocus her attention on me.
I did upgrade her e-collar receiver to the 1" contact points. I think she is a tough cookie because we were still up around 40. Once I switch her off the prong collar, I'll be able to move the e-collar up a little bit higher on her neck and that should be in a slightly more sensitive area and is where we normally want it but the prong collar is where the e-collar receiver should be at the moment. Once again the prong collar is teaching her pressure that we are pairing with the e-collar stimulation. We will fade out the prong collar but the e-collar stimulation will be persistent.
She has been doing well with eating her food and she really likes playing with Mr. Mylo although I am not sure Mr. Mylo feels the same way. Once this rain clears up on Friday, we will be on the fast track to cleaning up and catching up on anything she might be a little behind on.
Pupdate 2/13/25
Today Ms. Olive and I focused on her door manners. It was way too rainy to try to go anywhere today. I showed you two different versions of the door manners. The first version is where she has to sit nicely at the door until we let her through the door with an "ok" or "break". We have already been practicing this command going in and out of the house for breaks, training, and out of the office. It took her a second to catch onto this for a longer period but she got it. The second method involves having her "place" then "down" or "down" on the floor, opening the door, and going outside to do what you need to do but she can not go outside. She was doing ok but I decided to challenge her with me moving quickly across the door as a temptation. I could see her watching me and felt she would break her "place" and "down" if I went by quickly. This is fine! She learns from her mistakes.
The e-collar was on her again in a good position. When I put it on, I found her skin, but her numbers are still pretty high. I'll see how it goes tomorrow when the sun finally comes out. Then, we can head back to the park to see if the past few days have been sinking in. I'd like to see her be able to perform all her commands with the leash dragging by now, but the rain has kind of slowed us down a little bit. I'm also going to have my daughter aka my mini-trainer be a distraction to her while she relaxes in a "down" to work on her impulse control. We won't let the rain impede our training any further.
Pupdate 2/14/25
Today Ms. Olive and I headed over to Rynerson Park in Lakewood, CA to get out and about and start practicing and reviewing her commands. I was pleasantly surprised at how well she did without the prong collar and only on the flat collar. The only real issue we had today was the improper location of the e-collar. As I mentioned previously, the prong collar was situated where I would have put the e-collar. I placed the e-collar receiver a little higher on her neck to start today plus I switched back to the 3/4" contact points as the 1" were not giving me the lower numbers that I expected. As I started the numbers were way too high. The numbers were closer to 90 and that was not ok. I readjusted the e-collar receiver up closer to her ear and ensured it was touching Ms. Olive's skin and I was able to get the numbers down between 20-30! This is much better!
After the video, we went on a nice long walk around the park working on her "heel" while the leash was dragging. We are looking pretty good despite the rain taking me off of my regularly scheduled program but we'll keep pushing through and keep Ms. Olive on track. We'll take advantage of the sunny days ahead and keep Ms. Olive learning and having fun!
Pupdate 2/15/25
Today Ms. Olive and I headed over to Liberty Park in Cerritos, CA. Ms. Olive is doing so well! I am very happy with where we are now. Her biggest struggles are the "place" and "come-to-sit". The "place" is a struggle due to her size. She slipped off the benches today a few times. She is doing her best and wants to perform the task but she is like a teenager who hit their growth spurt and doesn't know what to do with her oversized limbs. After a few trials and some patience, she figured out where to put herself.
The "come-to-sit" is coming along nicely. However, she keeps wanting to "down" when she comes into position, which is not what we want. We will have to give this a lot of attention in the next few days. I think a trip to the pet store to find some tasty treats that she likes will help entice her to stay up.
The park was quite rambunctious with toddlers, pickle ball, people walking their dogs, running on the track, and all kinds of noises, sounds, and smells there for Ms. Olive to absorb and ignore in order to perform her tasks today. I am quite pleased with how well she did. One of my favorite things is how she performed the extended "sit". She has been wanting to "down" in the middle of the "sit". This is one of the first times that she made it the full two minutes without breaking it or moving into a "down"! Great job!
Lastly, with the better positioning of the e-collar receiver, we were once again in the 20-30 range and sometimes lower. This is making the training a lot more clear and easier for Ms. Olive to understand. We will continue with the 3/4" contact points and ensure it is in a good position.
Pupdate 2/16/25
Today Ms. Olive and I headed over to Home Depot to see how she would do around all the shoppers, carts, and different sights and smells. She is doing so well! We had good low numbers on the e-collar and consistent obedience from Ms. Olive! I enjoy all the looks we get as walk around. It's a combination of Mr. Olive's size but also with how well-behaved she is. People love a well-behaved pup and Ms. Olive is well on her way to having a solid foundation in obedience.
When we got back from Home Depot, I gave her some time to run around with Ms. Toji and it appears that Ms. Olive might have hurt her paw. I performed a full check from the toenail to her lower spine. There was no visual indication of injury besides her taking weight off her paw. I applied pressure all over, inspected in between her toes, and between the pads, and stretched her legs out and she showed no signs of discomfort. When I took her for a quick walk in front of my house to show you, she seemed to be walking it off on the grass. I'll be placing her on bed rest for a while. I'll also be placing her on her side for her potty breaks to limit the rough play with the other pups. She's here for training and we need to keep her in tip-top shape. She'll have her whole life to play and enjoy being a pup.
Mr. Mylo went home today and I brought home Mr. Rusty. The girls still outnumber the boys with Ms. Toji and Ms. Olive running the show right now. I think we are right on track where we should be with Ms. Olive! Stay tuned this week for how much more progress we make.
Pupdate 2/17/25
First things first, Ms. Olive had almost 24 hours off of no activity and her paw doesn't seem to be bothering her at all. I was concerned it was a muscle or ligament issue since there were no visual signs so I even gave her the option to sleep outside of her crate so she could stretch out wherever she wanted. Guess what? She went into Mr. Rusty's crate and fell asleep in there on her own. She looked like she had no issues at all. Also, her ear has been healing up fine. I've been taking care of it and ensuring it's clean and properly dressed.
On to today's training! I wanted to accomplish three things today: 1) show you how she can be calm with distractions going on around her, 2) introduce the leash dragging potentially off-leash work, and 3) continue to work on all commands specifically focusing on the come-to-heel. For goal number one, I think I did a good job of doing that. I had my mini-trainer even sit on the cot with Ms. Olive to pet her and engage with her. Ms. Olive stayed relaxed and did not become intrusive. I think this is what you were looking for with your child. Remember that this is just the foundation and you will pick up where I leave off and continue to build with her.
Let's jump to goal number three. We were able to reinforce all the commands and review the come-to-sit. It did not go as well as I would have liked but that's related to goal number two and this part of the training.
Goal number two did not go so well either. This is perfectly fine as this happens with almost every two-week board and train at this point. I give them the option to follow the new structure, and a majority of the time, after a week of having structure all around them, I knock all the walls down to see where they are. Ms. Olive showed me that she needs some more reinforcement before being off-leash. This is normal and it's establishing a new normal for them. We practiced a while longer after the video ended without the mini-trainer to see if she could handle the leash dragging and she kept breaking off and would not return. Sometimes it's just better to reset and try again another day. I did go get her and follow through with the commands before ending the session though. No freebies around here.
Ms. Olive's e-collar did come in and I have attached a picture of it for your reference. As you can see, and I'll show you, I have already installed the hypoallergenic 3/4" contact points for you.
Last note, she continues to really only eat the topper part of her food and not the rest. I did have to make chicken and rice for Mr. Rusty since he's having some issues so I will put some of that in her dinner to try and see if she will eat all of her food tonight.
Pupdate 2/18/25
Today, Ms. Olive and I headed to Rynerson Park in Lakewood, CA, to review all her commands. I wasn't too pleased with her progress yesterday, so I wanted to take a step back and make sure everything was clear to her. She did pretty well with all her commands today. I decided to use a gentle leader to encourage her to come with me a little more. After a few minutes of adjusting to the gentle leader, she was on board.
As far as her paw issue/concern is going, I am not sure what the culprit is. This morning when I took her out for her morning potty break, no signs of favoring it. I brought her in for breakfast, fed her, and then took her back out. On her way back out, she was favoring it again. She could get into and out of the car without any issues. I observed no wincing, yelping, or inability to perform the task. When performing some of the "sits" she was lifting that paw off the ground. I have checked it several times. I have checked her hips, lower back, thigh, knees, pads, and toenails. I poured water on her paw to try to clean out any possible irritant in there. I am not a vet so I can't say for sure what is bothering her. Usually, the pup will show some sort of discomfort if I get close to the area and then I can pinpoint from there. I am going to keep her out of her crate for the next few nights, hopefully she doesn't pee on the floor but it's a risk I'll take, to see if that helps. I have some of the largest crates you can buy for your car and at home and she fits in them fine. It is not a matter of being cramped but maybe being to be fully outstretched will allow whatever is going on to resolve itself.
For the training to be successful, the pup must be well-fed and hydrated, have adequate potty breaks, and be in a good mental and physical state. If she is thinking about her paw hurting or has a physical ailment, it is unfair to ask her to carry out all these tasks. We'll keep monitoring it, and hopefully, it's from the extra activities and growing pains of being an XL shepherd and nothing more.
Tomorrow, we'll give the off-leash activities another chance as we get closer to getting back to you.
She did wind up finishing her food yesterday and she ate all her dinner through the evening with some added rice and chicken in there for her.
Pupdate 2/19/25
Today I had my final backyard session with Ms. Olive. It was all or nothing today for her training. We are at the point of no return that she either is ready for off-leash training or not. She had me nervous at first because she was not ready to participate in the training. That was my fault. I should have had her on the leash for a few minutes warming her muscles up, her mind, and getting the blood flowing. Once she was warmed up and got the resistance out of her system, I was able to get her to perform all of her obedience tasks with the leash dragging. Many times I pretended to unhook the leash to make it seem like she was free. The first time I did this, she fell for it and tried to run away. I stepped on the leash and she came right back. The next time, she didn't even think about it. Eventually, I did fully unclip it and she had no idea. She was still following me around everywhere thinking that she was clipped to the leash. This was amazing that we made it this far!
When I did go to initiate her training with her, she was still favoring that back left paw. However, once I engaged with her, had her walking around and the blood flowing, she paid little attention to it. In regards to this, I gave her a chance to sleep in Ms. Toji's area last night. Ms. Toji sleeps in a special area where she has her dog bed but it is gated off. Ms. Olive still woke up with her favoring the back paw and she hardly slept on the dog bed.
This leads me to another training item for Ms. Olive. Ms. Olive has some puppy/unwanted behaviors that you will have to continue to work on. Ms. Olive whines a lot in the evening. A dog whining is not in itself unwanted behavior. Dogs whine for all sorts of reasons, fear, anxiousness, excitement, potty breaks, etc. I think Ms. Olive has inadvertently been reinforced on her potty and whining schedule. You had mentioned that she will whine when she needs to go potty. The problem is that she will whine even after she's gone potty. She's learned that "whine+potty=human". Then there might have been a time where "whine + no potty= human" which simplifies to "whine = human" in their mind. It's like a crying baby that has been fed, burped, changed and has fresh clothes on, it's a perfect 70 degrees with the perfect humidity in the air, a perfect balance of white noise is in the air and the baby is still crying. If you go pick that baby up and comfort them, they have learned that the crying gets you and your attention. Sometimes all it takes is that one time. Now next time, the baby will cry harder and harder to get your attention because they are like it worked last time. I say all this to say that Ms. Olive is not fully potty trained. She has now urinated in my house multiple times overnight. Last night after giving her a break before bringing her in, she started whining incessantly around 2 AM. I brought her in around 8 PM. That's barely 6 hours. At 9 months old, she should be able to make it at least 9 hours or more during the night time since everything slows down while she is sleeping. When I put her in the crate overnight, she can make it. Based on the fact that sleeping in the larger space didn't help her paw/foot issue and even as I write this, she is in the crate with the door wide open, I am going to leave her in there in the PM hours. The other remedy is that she will probably need to be given a second or third potty break in the middle of the night before she starts whining if we want to mitigate the amount of whining she does. If we keep relying on her to whine to let us know she needs to go potty, it will be an entire lifetime of her whining for human attention. At one year old and on, she should be able to make it through the night without any issues.
Pupdate 2/20/25
Today Ms. Olive and I headed over to Liberty Park in Cerritos, CA for a final review of her commands with the leash dragging before we headed into the off-leash territory. Although we introduced the off-leash commands yesterday in a little to no stimulus environment in my backyard, that didn't mean she was ready for off-leash work in the wild. I wanted to see how well she would perform with the leash dragging before we pushed her to the next level. The only issue we had today was that her paw/leg continues to bother her. It is preventing her from holding the extended "sit". I even tried moving to the grass where it was softer and that didn't help. We even went for a walk around the park after the video and her whole hip area is moving awkwardly. This could be the result of keeping weight off her paws that now it is moving up or it's always been up and is presenting itself more.
I will say that she knows all the commands and can perform every single one of them. She has self-control when conducting the training but I am not sure what the best course of action going forward is. She likely needs some time to rest and recover before returning to training. She needs to find food that she enjoys so that her diet is more stable and she needs a better potty schedule.
Pupdate 2/21/25
Today Ms. Olive and I focused on her door manners, car manners, and food manners at the house. We did all of this off-leash! Good job Ms. Olive! She has come so far despite the few hurdles we had to overcome. I am super proud of all her progress. Tomorrow we will do one more comprehensive review of all her commands around distractions in a public place and off-leash!
I did notice she went after and ate a bit of Ms. Toji's food when I brought her in last night. I put some of it in with her food this morning, and she wound up eating all her food! Ms. Toji eats Blue Buffalo Red Meat. You guys have good food for Ms. Olive, and you can tell by the quality of her coat and skin, but maybe she's over it. Sometimes, it can be a 50/50 mixture of two foods to ensure the pup gets all its nutrients and vitamins.
See you in two days!
Pupdate 2/22/25
Today Ms. Olive and I headed over to The Shops at Santa Anita in Arcadia, CA. As I mentioned yesterday, the goal was to review all her commands off-leash. We were able to eventually practice them all off-leash just not one after the other. One of the problems is that we have been taking it easy with her training due to her leg/hip/paw issues so training has been limited in time. Today we were out for over an hour working on her off-leash stuff and whether it was her leg issues or the time, she was over it after about 40 minutes. She was still willing to let strangers say hi to her, and she was willing to relax in the "down" when we took breaks.
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".
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".
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 door 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!
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