New Oregonian Life...

The past 6 weeks have been a blur! It feels like I’ve been here forever and it also feels like I just left New York. We are getting settled in, slowly but surely…

The Willamette River is just 5 minutes from the house. Lots of fun stuff to explore there.

Just a few weeks after I arrived the local freestyle club, Dogs Gone Dancing, hosted a live freestyle show. So we jumped right in! Ringo put in his strongest performance ever, finishing his Elite Intermediate title. Terra felt well enough to perform…

Just a few weeks after I arrived the local freestyle club, Dogs Gone Dancing, hosted a live freestyle show. So we jumped right in! Ringo put in his strongest performance ever, finishing his Elite Intermediate title. Terra felt well enough to perform both days, caused the audience to cry and polished off her Elite Novice title.

The first Manners and More puppy graduates!

Roger and I have been exploring the forests near our barn. The plant life is so different here!

A Friday night full moon on the farm. The farm where Roger lives raises grass-fed sheep and organic grass hay. We can ride around the property if we feel like staying close to home.

Terra and Ringo love having a training facility just down the road from home. We can go and train so much more often! And of course training is their favorite thing!

Wonder Dogs has an open-enrollment puppy class that allows puppies to sign up anytime. I added a new course for graduates of that class called Manners and More, to introduce a perfect balance of socializing and clicker training.

I added a new class to the Wonder Dogs program called Double Trouble, specifically for handlers with two dogs.

Students at the Performance Annex get their feet wet in my K9 Games class, which is full of challenges.

Saddle Selfie!

Headed out down the road to get to the forest.

STCA's Favorite Calming Supplements

Supplements to support behavior change

These over-the-counter products can be used separately or together. By helping your dog be calmer, less reactive, and less anxious, your training will progress more quickly, with more permanent long-term change. Don’t reach for them as a last resort! Using them in conjunction with a well-planned and well-executed desensitization and counter-conditioning program can really help improve your dog’s overall stress level, making him/her more receptive to training exercises.


Vitamin B

Stress (both positive and negative) quickly depletes B vitamins, so help your dog stay stocked up on this. Most dog foods do not have enough, especially when you consider that Vitamin B is easily destroyed by high heat. Guess how your dog’s food is cooked? Try Amino B-Plex by Rx Vitamins for Pets.

The Auto Trainer

Milk-Protein Based Calming Supplements

These milk-protein-based calming and anxiety-reducing supplements are safe to give everyday. Terra used Zylkene for years and it really made a dent in her general high arousal and sound sensitivity. Ringo swears by Composure for when his separation anxiety creeps up. These consistently get rave reviews from my students and are very easy to feed.


DAP Solutions

DAP stands for Dog Appeasing Pheromone. These solutions emit a dog-appeasing pheromone that mimics natural comforting pheromones emitted by nursing mother dogs. You can get it in a spray form to put in the crate, the car or on a bandana for your dog to wear. You can get it in a diffuser for the whole house. Or get it in a collar that your dog wears full time!  

The Treat and Train

Calming Ingredients in Treats 

Look for ingredients like passionflower, chamomile, skullcap, valerian root, or melatonin. Lots of brands sell calming treats these days, so you’ll want to look for good quality overall ingredients and calming ingredients in amounts that will actually make a difference. Here are some to consider:

  • Ultra-Calm by Drs Fosters and Smith

  • Rescue Remedy by Bach 

  • Calming Bites by Zesty Paws

  • Pet Calm by Richard’s Organics

  • SmartCanine Calming by SmartPak


Announcing SassyT Associate Trainers!

We are happy to announce a partnership with two wonderful trainers in the New York and Connecticut area that will keep our SassyT students in good hands! I will be planning quarterly visits to NY and CT for private lessons, but STCA is very thankful to have such good trainers available to continue the force-free humane and rewards-based training that is the cornerstone of SassyT Canine Academy.

I feel completely confident recommending and referring NY and CT STCA clients to these trainers, who are working closely with me to continue to bring wonderful and effective dog training to Westchester, Greenwich, and surrounding areas.

Read more about Virginia and Betsy here!