Author: Grisha

Our local Charity of the Month is Old Dog Haven, which is based in Lake Stevens. I love them and hope you will be generous to them. They foster, rehome (if possible), and provide lifelong care for older dogs. They really deserve our help.

Please donate to the little pug container at the training center or directly to Old Dog Haven – please mention the Ahimsa Dog Training charity of the month program. They were the March charity too, but we didn’t raise enough (it was just $11), so we are trying again. They also have great dogs at Old Dog Haven, so you could adopt from them or help out in other ways. Please read that link, there are actually a lot of ways to help, like posting a link to this article on Facebook or using a real estate agent who donates 1/5 of his commission to Old Dog Haven.
Continue reading April Charity of the Month: Old Dog Haven

FidoFEST is this Sunday, September 26th, at University Village in Seattle. I’ll be giving a demonstration at 11:45 with my dog, Peanut. I’m excited for his big debut and hope he does well with the crowds! Peanut will be doing some work with his nose (finding keys, etc.), with some of the kind of training we do in our Backyard Sports & Games classes.
Continue reading Don’t Miss FidoFEST 2010 this Sunday!

I’ve been having a hard time choosing which of the many great causes to support with our Grand Expansion party on Friday. I’ve decided to give 5% of all profits from the new training store, including class registrations, to the Deaf Dog Photo Project.
Continue reading Deaf Dog Project

Hi everybody,

* Party! Don’t forget that you are invited to our Grand Expansion Party next Friday. 🙂

Our party is next Friday, April 30th, 5-8 pm. All of our staff will be there to have fun! Come by any time throughout the party, with or without your dog – remember, not all dogs want to be at parties, even fun ones like ours. We will have free puppy play time during the whole party (20 minute limit if another dog is waiting to play), plus demos, games, door prizes, some displays by rescue groups, and more! This expansion just about coincides with our 7th anniversary. Wow!

Please forward this message on to your dog-loving friends! If you are part of a non-profit and want to display your group’s info, just let me know. Dog walkers, vets, stores, groomers, etc.: we do have a bulletin board now and can display your materials, too, if we feel confident referring to your business.

Want to stop by the new store with less hullabaloo? Our regular store hours are below:

Monday – 10 am – 9 pm
Tuesday – Thursday 5-9 pm
Saturday 9-7:30 pm
Sunday 9:30-7:30 pm
The store is at the same location as the training center, but on the south side of the building, on 9th itself. Thanks for all of the food suggestions. We have decided to not offer dog food or products that a lot of the great local stores already offer, but rather to concentrate on dog training supplies. That means we have training books, DVDs, harnesses, treats, food puzzles, life-sized stuffed dogs, and fun training gear like a remote control treat dispenser. We do sell some smaller bags of Evo to use as treats.

* Dog Aggression & Fear seminar May 28th, 6:30-8:30 pm

I just added this to the schedule yesterday, and 5 people have already registered! Sign up for this seminar if you are a trainer (or want to be), a dog walker, vet, a regular person that’s interested in dog behavior, or a student that attended Growly Dog class before we started doing BAT (Behavior Adjustment Training). This is a fairly high-level seminar, but it should be helpful for all who attend. BAT is a technique I developed to help dogs gain confidence and social skills. I will be showing video, discussing the technique, and demonstrating it live with a reactive dog. Sign up for this workshop or our other ones with Kathy Sdao and Patricia McConnell at http://doggiezen.com/workshop

* Backyard Sports & Games

This class is designed to be mostly for fun, but it also helps you and your dog become a team, using a combination of backyard agility, dog dancing, nose work/tracking, tricks, and games. This is a great way to see if your dog would enjoy one of these sports. It’s not meant for hard-core search and rescue folks or world-class agility & competitors. It’s meant as a way to expand your dog’s mind and a chance for you to have some more fun training.

Our Sunday classes are full, so we added Wednesday nights at 8 and we will probably add a daytime class start in mid-May, most likely Mondays at 1 pm. The schedule/info is at http://doggiezen.com/dreamdog/sports.php or if you’re already signed up for Dream Dog, you can log in to swap in for some of those sessions. The fun and games classes are pretty popular, so dropping in can be difficult.

* Take a fun break – watch us training puppies on King 5

If you haven’t seen us train puppies on TV yet, watch it on the home page at http://doggiezen.com In the video, I demonstrate how to teach Touch, use touch as a recall cue (come), and how to start work on heeling.

p.s. Puppy folks – I just added some more Puppy Jr. High classes, at https://ahimsadogtraining.com/class/puppy-junior-high.php Just a warning – these are popular classes and they fill quickly, so sign up when you get a chance.

Only good things,
Grisha

Ballard dogs have been enjoying our training services since 2003. Our classes have become so popular, that we’re expanding to a second training room and a dog training store for gear and the essentials for creating a calm, happy dog. We’re so excited!
Continue reading Expansion Party April 30

Ahimsa is going to be a Silver Sponsor of the Furry 5K this year. The Furry 5K is a benefit for the Seattle Animal Shelter. More news later, but I wanted to let you know about the event so that you could mark your calendars!

Here’s their info, from http://www.furry5k.com:

The Seattle Animal Shelter is pleased to present the 11th Annual Furry 5K Fun Run and Walk! The race, which will take place in Seattle’s Seward Park on Sunday, June 20th, 2010, raises money for the Help the Animals Fund.

Join the fun as thousands of people run and walk, with their friends, families, kids and of course their dogs, in order to raise money for injured and abused orphaned animals.

We will definitely have a booth and we *might* have a walking team. Let me know if you are interested in walking as an Ahimsa team!

We’ve got some fabulous talks coming up for dog trainers and people who simply have gotten addicted to dog training. It’s even better than a basket-full of chocolate kisses. Seriously.

• Kathy Sdao is a behaviorist and a scientist with decades of experience, but you wouldn’t know it by the energy she puts into all of her talks.  She has a great way of explaining difficult concepts so that we all understand.  Kathy is doing a relatively new kind of workshop in Seattle this summer, which we’re calling “Kathy Sdao Unplugged” – it’s a place for trainers and advanced folks to bring their dogs, get practice, and solve those tricky challenges with your own dogs. We have working and auditing spots.  You can get more info or register now for the July 15-16 workshop.
• In September, we have a whole weekend devoted to fear, aggression, and play in dogs. I’ll be starting out the weekend with a 1-day presentation on Behavior Adjustment Training, or BAT.  It’s a technique I developed that has had some really fabulous results with client dogs and my own dogs, too.  People around the world are trying it and giving great feedback on their dog’s new-found ability to function like a regular dog!  On the second day, Patricia McConnell will fly into Seattle and rock our world with her great info on dog play and aggression. I’m absolutely thrilled to have Dr. McConnell, author of countless dog books, come to Seattle. She’s one of my all-time favorite dog behavior heroes. Can you tell?  You can get more info or register now for the September 11-12 workshop.

Happy spring! The construction on our second training room is almost complete. It looks like we will be good to go on April 1st. It’s adjacent to our main training room in Seattle (Ballard) and I’m hoping we’ll occasionally be able to open it up and use both rooms for bigger classes.

I’ve been busy adding more classes for you to our schedule this week. We have new Puppy Jr. High, Growly Dog classes, Puppy Kindergarten, play times, and Advanced Manners classes. Because of the 2nd training room, you can take classes at even more convenient times, including weekend mornings. Those have been reserved for puppies for the last several years, because we want the room to be pristine. Now the adult dogs can use their own room in the morning. Yay!

We also added 5 new weekly Puppy Kindergarten classes, for a total of 15, including a third class for baby puppies (under 12 weeks). Puppy class sizes will now be limited to 8 instead of 10.
Continue reading More convenient class times – 2nd training room!