What’s a Virtual Session?

 Why Virtual Sessions? 

Virtual training eliminates some of the limitations of in-person sessions. For example, if your dog is stressed by visitors, we may lose half or more of our session trying to help your dog get comfortable. Depending on how hard that is for your dog, it may not be possible to finish our session, as your dog may reach their threshold and need a break. Additionally, I find coordinating time for the whole family to be present can be really challenging. Virtual sessions have more flexibility in scheduling and allow family members to be present even if they aren’t in the same place. Additionally, virtual sessions can easily be recorded, allowing you to review the content again and replay for family members who weren't able to join in person.

Virtual sessions can be incredibly helpful for dogs who find life outside the home to be stressful. While we meet virtually it helps us break your training down into different phases. It’s important that Spunky learns how to do new things in her most calm environment before being expected to do it in the real, stressful world. Nobody wants to learn how to drive on the freeway, it’s extremely stressful, potentially dangerous, and truly unnecessary. My general rule is to teach new behaviors in the home then practice it around the property first. Once your dog can readily perform the behavior on her home field, then we can start traveling into new environments. Training at home can also help lower stress for the human part of the team. Out in the world you’re watching for people, dogs, oncoming traffic, small animals under cars, etc. Not only are you watching your surroundings but you’re managing a leash, your treats, your dog and doing tasks that are also new to you. It can be a bit overwhelming for both the human and the dog. Practicing at home allows you to skip the leash or practice in an environment that’s low risk. If you drop the leash in your own backyard, no biggie! You’ll find that while training with me, I aim to meet you and your pup where you are with your skills and support you as you need to keep improving.

Finally, many people talk themselves out of getting started with training by envisioning barriers in their way. With virtual sessions, you don’t need to stress about cleaning your house for visitors, or being available in the middle of the day or even about your dog “misbehaving” in front of the trainer. (A little secret - I’m there for the misbehavior! I really won’t mind if I’m jumped on or barked at. I’m coming to help you and your dog, I’m not coming to judge you or wag a finger at you. I already know you’re a fantastic pet parent, because you’re calling for a trainer to help!) We can Zoom from your front porch, your back yard, inside any room, anywhere you want to work! As long as you can hear and see and have good access to an internet connection. Your dog’s presence is not required for the entirety of virtual sessions. There will be plenty of times where it’s perfectly acceptable for your pup to excuse himself to relax while we discuss next steps or coach previous ones. This can be helpful for dogs since learning is hard work! Depending on the complexity of your homework, we may discuss videos during our sessions rather than training in real time. The small delay that happens during streaming can be a challenge and since we all have cell phones that could film a documentary, sometimes that’s just the better option. If this is the case, I’ll have you send over your videos before our session to allow me to prepare and discuss them during our session.

Don’t you need to see my dog’s behavior?

I’m certain that we can discuss what you’ve seen and paint an accurate enough picture to get started on working through your situation. It should be noted that a respectable trainer should never ask you to provoke a response from your dog for their observation. Some behavior challenges don’t need much provocation, like jumping when excited. However, if you need help working on your dog’s fear of strangers, I would never ask you to walk your dog up to a stranger to provoke and demonstrate their aggression. I may ask for video of training sessions and video of your dog behaving in natural settings to better understand what their body language looks like and provide coaching breakdowns of what you share. If you already have footage of specific instances of behavior that you’re hoping to discuss, then I’m happy to review. Please do not encourage behavior that could be dangerous to your dog or other living beings in order to collect video.