Dog Training
To Crate or Not to Crate
By Angelica Steinker, M.Ed., C.D.B.C, CAP2 designed by Kimberly "Kim" Archer, CPDT-KA, CTDI It has become a popular notion to crate dogs, especially during adolescence to encourage a reinforcement history with people rather than the environment. However, is keeping a dog crated for 23.5 hours a day appropriate? This article does not aim to exclusively answer any [...]
Cognitive Dog Training
Another forward thinking blog by Pam Hogle. Cognitive Dog Training invites readers to look beyond traditional training methods and explore how dogs think, learn, and make decisions. In this article, [...]
Empowering Small Dogs or Puppies in a BIG World!
Empowering Small Dogs or Puppies in a BIG World! starts with understanding just how overwhelming everyday life can feel for a small dog or young puppy. In a space designed [...]
Dog Barking: Seek First to Understand, Then Seek to Be Understood
Barking Is Communication, Not Misbehavior Dog Barking: Seek First to Understand, Then Seek to Be Understood reframes barking as communication rather than a problem to stop. Barking is one of [...]
Health & Safety
Tampa Dog Trainer: Dog Travel Safety
Dog Travel Safety is an important concern Tampa Dog Trainer: Dog Travel Safety By Brenna Fender Dog s often travel with their pets to competitions, on vacation, or just about town while on [...]
Tampa Dog Trainer Angelica Steinker: Helpful Pet Insurance Information
Helpful Pet Insurance Information It can be hard to find helpful pet insurance information, so today we are sharing a link to a huge chart listing many of the pet insurance companies and presenting a [...]
Tampa Dog Training: Tips for Surviving Your Dog’s Rehab
Tips for Surviving Your Dog’s Rehab By Brenna Fender When canine athletes (or energetic pets) get injured or become ill, their recovery time can be full of frustrating inactivity. Fortunately, there are many ways to keep [...]
Dog Agility Training
Courteous Canine Articles
Meetups: A FUN Way to Make Dog Friends
If you enjoy the concept of meetups please consider joining one of these meetup groups if your dog fits the breed or activity -- For Chihuahuas: https://www.meetup.com/Chihuahua-Mafia/ For doodles: https://www.meetup.com/Doodle-Bugs-of-Tampa-Bay/ For pet therapy enthusiasts: https://www.meetup.com/Tampa-Paws-for-Pet-Therapy/
Tighten Those Turns
By Brenna Fender Several dog sports benefit from tight turns. Agility is the most obvious one, but rally and traditional obedience also include about turns that are best done tightly around the handler. Turning tightly [...]
AKC Coursing Ability Tests (CAT) are for any breed!
(as opposed to lure coursing tests that are for sighthound breeds only) Below is a link to the AKC’s summary description of the CAT. This outlines the distance of the course based on dog size [...]
Enjoying the Holidays with your dog
This article is shared with permission from USDAA.com. Holiday festivities are fun for us, but can be both stressful and dangerous to our dogs. Here are few tips to make sure everyone in your family [...]
Teaching Spin
By Brenna Fender Teaching your dog to spin is easy, fun, and useful! This trick can be used to help stretch your dog out before activity, to build coordination, and to teach your dog lefts [...]
The Four Courteous Canine Learning Games
Our four learning games: Shaping Prompting Capturing Observational Learning So how do each of these learning games work using a 'clicker'? Shaping - Shaping is the process of training your dog by rewarding a very [...]
Homemade Agility
By Brenna Fender Before you could buy agility equipment online, and even before plans for making agility equipment became available, people practiced agility for fun in their backyards, and you can too! As long as [...]
Looking for some doggie fun this weekend?
Looking for something fun to do this weekend? Come join us at Courteous Canine, Inc. to watch some dock jumping we are starting at 8 am both days and will roughly end at 4pm. Admission [...]
Screw-Up Cookies
By Brenna FenderNo dog trainer is perfect. When training simple behaviors, you might most often get your cues, lures, clicks, and rewards right, but when the tasks get complicated, there is more room for error. [...]
New Dock Diving Opportunities in Florida
The American Kennel Club (AKC) is now recognizing dock diving titles and Courteous Canine, Inc. is giving Floridian dog s their first in-state opportunities to compete! Dogs attending North America Diving Dogs (NADD) sanctioned events [...]
A Quick Guide to Agility Organizations
By Brenna Fender The United States offers many agility sanctioning organizations, which means that American competitors have lots of options for different agility experiences. There are more similarities than differences between the organizations. Most are [...]
Teach Your Dog to Peek!
By Brenna Fender “Peek” is a cute behavior that’s easy to teach and handy to use as a fun trick or helpful move in various dog sports. It works like this: a handler stands with [...]
Tampa Dog Trainer Brenna Fender: What is UpDog?
Tampa Dog Trainer Brenna Fender: What’s UpDog? UpDog is a brand new dog sport organization created by Kat and Jack Fahle, Andrea and Jason Rigler, and Babz Mahony. These dedicated disc doggers wanted to expand [...]
Tampa Dog Trainer Brenna Fender: New Trainer and New Class at Courteous Canine, Inc.!
New Trainer and New Class at Courteous Canine, Inc.! By Brenna Fender Did you ever see a dog do some really cool tricks and think, “Wow, I’d love my dog to be able to do that”? [...]
Tampa Dog Trainer Brenna Fender: The ABCs of Tracking and Other Games
Tampa Dog Trainer Brenna Fender The ABCs of Tracking and Other Games By Brenna Fender American Kennel Club (AKC) is probably the most well-known organization in the United States to sanction tracking. You can read [...]