Natalie Bridger Watson

Why Socialization Is Like A Video Game

With a name like Level Up Dog Training, you knew we’d start making nerdy video game references eventually, right? But we’re also talking about puppy training! Specifically, we’re going to talk about how a puppy’s critical socialization period works like a video game and why that matters to you, New Puppy Parent. Why Socialization Is

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Why “Perfect” Service Dog Puppies Can Be A Red Flag

People who are training their own service dogs are under an extraordinary amount of pressure from day one. In addition to the baseline difficulties caused by our disabilities, we have also taken responsibility for the two-year process of painstakingly transforming a tiny infant mammal of another species (who doesn’t understand English and thinks cat poop

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The Dunning-Kruger Valley: Why Inexperienced Trainers Escalate

The Trajectory of Dog Training Over the past hundred years, dog training has experienced a renaissance.   As we have learned more about dog behavior and tested applications of learning theory, the needle has slowly swung away from dominance-minded, correction-focused dog training methods and toward well-planned positive training. We have moved from ear-pinching to clicker

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Improvisation in Dog Training: Lucas’s Service Dog Tuck

One of the most undervalued must-haves in a dog trainer is the ability to improvise effectively. Almost anyone can follow a recipe to get a basic behavior.  If it’s a good recipe, even a novice dog trainer will be successful a reasonable amount of the time. But what really separates the wheat from the chaff is what

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