November Newsletter

Just as I sit down to write the November newsletter, I realized that I never did one for October!  Oh my!  Well, I have been busy, which is a good thing and something I am grateful for, but it wasn't my intention to skip October!  So, here we go with November.  Welcome Fall!  My favorite time of year. Things will be winding down with classes soon, but I have some cool things coming up for January and next year that I am going to be excited to share with you.

Likely the main reason I forgot the October newsletter was that I was preparing for my trip to Florida. I attended the Natural Encounters professional animal trainers week long workshop.  The workshop is designed and taught by Steve Martin and Susan Friedman, both regarded as two of the top animal trainers in the world.  They consult with zoos, teach trainers and Steve trains birds for free flight shows including the free flight macaw show for Disney.  It was a very exciting, fun and enriching trip.  The schedule was intensive with two hours of lecture every morning and every afternoon and two hours of hands on training every morning and afternoon.  We were split up into groups of four with one leader per group.  We were all given a macaw to train for our duration there.  In addition to the basic things we worked on such as building a relationship with the bird, delivering food reinforcers to the bird, teaching the bird to turn in a circle and reinforcing for flying to our hand, we were also allowed to choose a behavior or chain of behaviors that we wanted to train.  My bird was a gorgeous and social Hyacinth Macaw named Sulley.  If you have never met a Hyacinth before let me tell you they are amazing.  Easily one of the most beautiful of all the macaws and the largest.  Sulley was the only Hyacinth in the workshop and I felt very lucky to get to work with him.  In addition, each group had a corvid to train as a group.  Ours was a pied crow named Garfunkle who was amazing.  We also got to see some young Bald Eagle training, their Harpy Eagle and some work with a Red Tail Hawk.  It was an amazing trip and I am so glad I went.  This month I will be back in Florida for the Pet Professional Guild Summit conference to learn even more!

Here are a few photos from the trip:

With pied crow, Oreo

The magnificent Sulley

Sulley flying to my hand

Not where he is supposed to be

With Steve Martin

DOG OF THE MONTH

Valencia is a beautiful and sweet young Pharaoh Hound who is trained, loved and handled by Theresa Harper.  Valencia comes to Braveheart for her show ring training and is doing a fantastic job!

Ins and Outs of the Show Ring 1/2 Day Workshop
San Leandro, 12/6
I have so many clients that are just starting out in the show ring that I have decided to offer a 1/2 day workshop covering much of what you need to know about showing including what the dog needs to know, ring etiquette and procedure, classes to enter, what to wear and so much more.  Dogs do attend this seminar and space will be limited so register today!

Cooperative Care Class
I am designing a new class that will be offered in January called Cooperative Care.  The focus of this class will be teaching husbandry behaviors with your dogs such as nail trims, ear cleaning, grooming, examination, and much more.

UPCOMING CLASSES
Conditioning and Skills for the Show Ring, Pleasanton, Fridays, 6-6:50pm, starts 12/4
Scentwork Flash Class, San Leandro, 12/1, 6-7pm
Conformation Flash Class, San Leandro, 12/8, 7-8pm
Old Dogs, New Tricks Flash Class, San Leandro, 12/15, 7-8pm
Cooperative Care, San Leandro, 1/7, 6-6:50pm
Beginning Obedience/Manners, San Leandro, 1/9, 9-10am
Puppy Preschool, San Leandro, 1/9, 10-10:50am

Upcoming 1/2 day conformation workshop!

Mark your calendars for December 6!  I will be doing a 4 hour, 1/2 day long workshop on The Ins and Outs of the Show Ring.  This will be a workshop for people who are just getting started in conformation and need some help in direction in how shows work, what to wear, how to enter and what the show dog needs to know.  Please let me know of your interest and I will put you on my list of interested clients!  This is a tentative date but will be confirmed soon!

The Naturally Complete Canine Seminar with Anna Bettina

Braveheart Dog Training and Dodger's Paws Dog Training is proud to be hosting a seminar with Anna Bettina from Happy, Healthy Pup in Atlanta, Georgia.  The Naturally Complete Canine Seminar will give you tons of information about nutrition including homemade diets, as well as the use of other holistic remedies such as herbs and essential oils.  You won't want to miss this!  Register here!

Anna Bettina and Glaukos

September Newsletter

It's funny that as Summer is winding down we seem to be just starting in with some really hot weather!  Keep yourselves and your animals safe!

Most of you probably know that after 8+ years we will no longer be teaching dog training classes with the Castro Valley Adult School.  They replaced the floor in their multi-purpose room and when they did they informed us that they no longer wanted to have dogs in the building and that they were moving forward with more fitness classes.  That's okay for Braveheart as we still offer our classes at our own San Leandro location and at Dodger's Paws in Pleasanton.

In addition to this change, we have also made some other changes to the direction of the business.  At this time, we will no longer be offering private behavior consultations.  Our only private lessons will be for conformation/show dog training and bird consultations.  We will continue to offer our usual wide variety of dog and puppy training classes and have added a Monday night conformation class to the schedule which is taught by Yvonne Chohan. Vicki will also continue to offer a very limited number of board and train dogs (small dogs and puppies) for conformation training as her schedule allows.  Day training may be available for some of our clients as well.

Thank you all for your understanding and ongoing support.

DOG OF THE MONTH

Baxter is a sweet Labradoodle boy who has completed several of our classes with his owners Dorrie and Ryan.  He is shown here after earning his Canine Good Citizen award.  We love having this awesome family in our classes.



BRAGS
Those of you who participate in dog sports please feel free to let me know about your brags so I can share them here.

Congratulations to my own dog Opie (Aviance's Opportunity Knocks SL) who finished his championship with a 5 point specialty major.

Congratulations to Bernice Jensen and her Bulldog Bigges on completing his championship.

Congratulations to Cheryl Hawthorne and her Leonberger Bogey who completed his championship.

Congratulations to Jerry Caldwell and his Australian Cattle Dog Sly Cly who has had a few wins and obtained some championship points.

Congratulations to Rhonda Perkins and her Dachshund Emeril who recently got Reserve Winner's Dog at the Santa Rosa show.

August Newsletter

I can't believe it is already August.  I hope that everyone is enjoying their Summer.  I took my longhair Dachshund Opie to Ventura for a Dachshund Specialty show and then one day of the all breed show.  I made sure to come home on the morning of the 4th of July so that I could be here with the dogs in case of fireworks.  I'm so glad I was as it turned out to be a horrible night for my dog Jenny and I was glad to be able to be home with her.  She has never been this upset and I wasn't prepared, but plan to be better prepared next year.  I will be talking to my vet about some medication for her to help her cope with the fireworks.  I will NOT be using acepromazine, but will be wanting an anti anxiety med to help her through it.  I hope that you and your dogs did well.  It is a scary time for very sound sensitive dogs.

DOG OF THE MONTH

Bronn is a sweet German Shepherd who is owned and loved by his mom Chelsea.  He has been taking class with Braveheat since he was a baby in our puppy class.  Since then he has done a variety of classes and excels in everything Chelsea invites him to do.

The Naturally Complete Canine with Anna Bettina Seminar

Saturday, September 19, 9am to 5pm

Registration is just $85 if you register before September 1 (then $95)

Anna with Glaukos

I am very excited to be co-presenting this seminar with my good friend Christine Salazar of Dodger's Paws Dog Training.  If you are interested in learning about nutrition including raw and homemade diets, holistic approaches and the use of herbs and essential oils, you won't want to miss this day long seminar with Anna Bettina of Happy, Healthy Pup in Georgia.  Anna is a good friend and my go to person for nutrition and holistic remedies for my dogs.  Register here!

UPCOMING CLASSES

Indoor/Outdoor Advanced Obedience, San Leandro, Thursdays, 6-6:50pm, 4 weeks, starts 8/6

Conformation/Handling class, San Leandro, Tuesdays, 7-7:30, 4 weeks, starts 8/11

Conformation/Handling class with Yvonne, San Leandro, Mondays, 7-7:30pm, 4 weeks, starts 8/17

Real World, San Leandro, Tuesdays, 11-11:50am, 4 weeks, starts, 8/25

Conformation/Handling, San Leandro, Wednesdays, 12-12:30, 4 weeks, starts 9/9

Greetings and Salutations, Pleasanton, Fridays, 6-6:50pm, 4 weeks, starts 9/18

BRAGS

My Opie finished his Championship with a 5 point specialty major at the NCDC specialty show.

Cheryl's Leonberger Bogey, finished his Championship at the Richmond Dog Fanciers show.

Feel free to remind me of your brags!

UPCOMING CLASSES

UPCOMING CLASSES
Conformation, San Leandro, Wednesdays, 7/29, 12-12:30
Conformation with Yvonne Chohan, San Leandro, Mondays, 8/3, 7-7:30pm
Conformation, San Leandro, Tuesdays, 8/11, 7-7:30pm
Indoor/Outdoor Advanced Obedience, San Leandro, Thursdays, 8/6, 6-6:50pm
Real World, Tuesdays, 8/25, 11-11:50am
Canine Good Citizen, San Leandro, Thursdays, 9/10, 6-6:50pm
Greetings and Salutations, Pleasanton, Fridays, 9/11, 6-7pm
Beginning Obedience/Manners, San Leandro, Saturdays, 9/12, 9-10am
Puppy Preschool, San Leandro, Saturdays, 9/12, 10-10:50am

Register here

Aggressive Dogs In Conformation Classes

In the past I have tried to help people work through issues with their dogs in our classes including dogs in conformation class that may have issues with other dogs.  I have made the decision that this is not fair to the other dogs and students in the class.  Even if no contact is made, a dog can develop issues if he or she has been rushed, lunged at or frightened by another dog in class.  For this reason, I will no longer be allowing dogs that I feel make other dogs and people in class feel uncomfortable. Any dogs that makes contact with another dog due to the owner not being able to control the dog or not managing the dog in any way will immediately be removed from the class and not permitted to return.  This is regardless of whether the dog is behaving aggressively or the owner feels the dog wants to play, is being friendly or wouldn't hurt another dog.  It is everyone's responsibility to have control of their dogs.  This would not be appropriate at a dog show and it isn't appropriate in class.

Thank you in advance for your understanding.