Have a Good Memorial Day!!

Here's Dexter, Posie and Hailey playing to some music....

The Our Pack Patio Party was a Smash Hit!

If you went to the Our Pack Party last night, you might look like this today!
124 people arrived and we made almost $6400.00. The best part was the heartwarming support from friends and loved ones of Our Pack. Thanks to all......
Many Special Thanks go to Rebecca MacDonald for working her magic with Promotions & Registration. See her blog, Cogent Communications Blog: www.serialreinvention.com Thanks to Julie and Tom Heijza who organized and ran the Silent Auction and Raffle. And Julie, thank you so much for serving folks too! Thanks to Christine Rivera of Destino Spa www.destinospa.net for providing items for auction and parting gifts and bringing along Emmanuel for the lovely photography.

Thanks to Sherri MacDonald who promoted & donated.Thank You to Kevin Riley, Alicia Nachman and Anna Morey for handling our registration table and nicely greeting people at the door.

Thank you to Mary West for being such a great all around help. Thanks Mary Campbell, you're always there...always!

Thanks to Stephanie Lam www.studiopet.com for her help promoting & donating your fantastic artwork. Thanks to Michelle Wise for getting drinks to the folks when needed. And Thanks to Humane Society of Silicon Valley (www.hssv.org) for their outpouring of support, as well as Society Dog www.societydog.com , Beschoff Mercedes http://www.beshoffmotorcars.com/events.htm

Thank you to the good folks of Santa Cruz Shelter, Oakland Animal Services and Humane Society Silicon Valley for coming and showing your support. Thanks to my good friend Gale Frey of MuttsnStuff www.muttsnstuff.com for coming and making us laugh and sharing your wisdom with us.

I'd especially like to thank Mitch and Tracey Cutler and all the staff of La Fondue for hosting this fantastic and heartwarming event. Couldn't have done it without you. www.lafondue.com I hope I haven't missed anyone. Thanks to you if I did....we love you!

Puppy Stuff

Sometimes when pups don't get early socialization they can be missing communication skills they need to be able to confindently interact with other dogs. Without confidence dogs can become defensive. One of the things we do is help dogs that have missed this early interaction with dogs. From what we learned this pup possibly missed a lot of his much needed early pup on pup play. With remedial socialization he has come along way. When we met him he really wasn't sure what the heck to do. He's now enjoying play and positive interaction with his friend seen here.

Training Tip

When walking your dog or doing any training at all with your dog stay relaxed as much as possible. When your dog is relaxed much more learning can take place. Sometimes in our Pit Bull Manners class we tell people to get their dog to walk with them by stopping and standing still if he pulls or gets anxious. Wait for him to calm down before moving forward again. Relax yourself as well though. Try getting your do to BE WITH you by just nicely, calmly moving forward and let him follow that nice energy. Your walks my be a short circle for awhile. That's ok. If you have goofy young dogs it's all normal for them to pull on the leash and bounce around. That's what pups do. Let him be a pup and try and stay relaxed and reinforce only the calm behavior. If he's not calm stand there until he is. Don't talk to him which will create more arousal sometimes. Just stand there. Ok, so when you dog is a pup then your nice walks might be mostly "stands". :) Hope this helps. Here's a short clip of "Pit Bull Church" on Sunday.
Marthina McClay, CPDT

AKC S.T.A.R. Puppy - Thanks Animal Farm Foundation

Thanks to Animal Farm Foundation for sponsoring us! Our Pack offered some comps for some wonderful pups that were dropped of at Humane Society Silicon Valley several months ago.

Here's Willow with her person Joe. She is one of the pups the just passed the AKC S.T.A.R. Puppy class and test. Give them a big hand. It's a nice accompishment. She's off to go for her Canine Good Citizen now! Please see Animal Farm Foundation's site at http://www.amimalfarmfoundation.org they're an awesome support for our dogs!

Dexter's Corner - On the "Look" Command

Dr. Dexter here. I've had some requests to come back to my column for a quick training tip. So here ya go.

I'd like to talk about the very simple "look" command that most owners have their dogs do to keep them focused. It's done in all training arenas and is really simple to teach. Actually, it's a basic. I learned this in my kitchen when I was just a baby coming home from the shelter years ago.

Many of you know this but here it goes. Try working with your dog in a very low distraction environment. Wait until he looks at you then give him a "yes!" then treat. The difference here is that you're waiting for your dog to do it not prompting it. It's sort of his decision to do what's going to get him the best stuff not that you directed him to the behavior. Sure makes me feel smarter this way! Hey maybe that's how I got so smart.

So instead of prompting by pointing to your eye and saying "look" or "watch me", wait, then when your dog looks at you make a big deal of it. This way when you're in an environment where you need your dog to stay focused on you it's more of an automatic thing for us to do rather than you having to instruct us to do so. Of course there will be times that you'll need to say, "look" or "watch me".

Then later on you can increase distractions by working in front of a friend's dog while on leash for instance. Wait for the look, then reward. After a while with some work, looking at another dog or some other distraction can actually become the cue to look at you and not the distraction.

Hope this helps guys.

Dr. Dexter

Our Pack Training Article Featured in Bay Woof Magazine

Pleased to Meet You

Managing Successful Dog Introductions

By Marthina McClay, CPDT

Our Pack has a training article featured in this month's Bay Woof magazine! This is the second time we've had an article featured in the magazine's "Good Dog!" training column. The article focuses on how to set up and manage polite dog-dog introductions. Here's an excerpt, click on the link below to read the full article:

Imagine you are out walking your dog around the neighborhood, when around the corner comes a neighbor with her dog. As the new dog spots you, its ears shoot forward, its gaze locks onto your dog, and it lunges to the end of the leash, pulling its owner across the street toward you. "It's okay, he's friendly!" she calls.

As the neighbor's dog rushes forward, your normally calm, laid-back dog freezes, emits a low growl, and maybe fires off a few warning barks. Your neighbor, looking shocked and slightly offended, drags her dog away.

What just happened?

Read the rest of the article here.