Effective Behavior
Modification for Your Dog
At Covenant Keeper's K9 Training Facility, we don't just help you and your dog through their fear, anxiety, and stress. We help you understand your K9's emotions and body language and work through your dog's big emotions together. Our behavior modification programs are designed to address the root causes of your dog's behavioral issues. We focus on building trust and promoting positive behaviors, ensuring you and your dog feel supported throughout the process.
Behavior Modification
- Understanding Your Dog’s Big Emotions: We believe that understanding what your dog is feeling is the first step in helping it overcome its challenges. Our expert trainers will guide you in reading your dog’s body language and interpreting signals such as ear position, tail movement, posture, and facial expressions. By understanding these cues, you can respond more effectively to your dog’s needs, creating a stronger bond and a more harmonious relationship.
- Comprehensive Training Techniques: Our behavior modification programs include a variety of proven techniques tailored to your dog’s specific needs. Whether your dog struggles with fear of loud noises, separation anxiety, or other stress-related behaviors, we provide customized solutions to help them feel more secure and confident.
- Desensitization and Counter-Conditioning: We employ desensitization and counter-conditioning methods to help your dog gradually become more comfortable with its triggers. By exposing your dog to its triggers in a controlled and positive manner, we help it build resilience and reduce its anxiety over time.
- Empowering Owners: At Covenant Keepers K9, we believe successful behavior modification involves empowering you, the owner, with the knowledge and skills needed to support your dog. Our trainers will work closely with you, providing step-by-step guidance and practical tips for reinforcing positive behaviors at home. With our community social club, we offer support for the human side of owning and training a reactive dog. We know and understand the challenges of owning a reactive dog. It can feel lonely; you can feel forced to stay away from others. We are here to help you understand that others feel the same way and want to build a support system for you!
- Celebrating Progress: Behavior modification is not just about correcting undesirable behaviors; it’s also about celebrating progress and small victories. Every step forward, no matter how small, is a testament to your dog’s resilience and your commitment to their well-being. Join us at Covenant Keepers K9, and let’s work together to help your dog overcome their fears, manage their stress, and live a joyful, balanced life.
The techniques most commonly used in our behavior modification include classical conditioning, desensitization, counter-conditioning, response substitution, and shaping. WE NEVER USE PUNISHMENT! While it is claimed that punishment is frequently used with varying degrees of success, few people use punishment correctly. "Dominance" training techniques that encourage owners to assert leadership through physical confrontations are also not used or recommended. Multiple studies have shown that training based on punishments or confrontations is more likely to lead to fear, avoidance, and increased aggression. Dogs trained with rewards have fewer behavioral problems and are less fearful.
We address emotions, not just suppress them!
Behavior Modification Techniques
Most of the techniques involved in behavior modification are not hard to learn and can be successfully used as preventive techniques. However, they do require regular investment of time and effort. The following is a short review of the basic principles involved in these techniques.
Classical Conditioning
Classical conditioning refers to a learning process where learning occurs by association. You condition your dog’s innate reflexes to react to subtle signals. Over time, your dog learns to associate the signal with the event. Mastering the concept of classical conditioning will help you understand how your dog understands, relates to, and interprets information.
This form of learning is also known as Pavlovian or associative learning. Ivan Pavlov, a Russian physiologist, discovered that dogs automatically salivate when presented with food. He trained his dogs to associate the ringing of a bell with the presentation of food and eventually made the dogs salivate with only the ringing of a bell.
Counter-Conditioning
Counter means to change. Conditioning refers to the word train. As you guessed, counter-conditioning means changing your dog’s negative feelings or behavior toward something. This is done by training your dog to react differently (i.e., positively) when he sees, smells, hears, or feels something that makes him uncomfortable.
When referring to a negative feeling, this is the feeling that comes as second nature to your dog. It’s instinctive, and it’s something your dog can’t control when seeing an object, person, or animal that makes him uncomfortable.
Counter conditioning is used in dog training to correct a negative reaction, such as barking at another dog, being destructive, fear growling and yelping, to a desired behavior (e.g., not barking at a dog, staying calm, and sitting patiently).
Desensitization
Desensitization means very gradually exposing your dog to the thing that triggers its discomfort. The process usually involves counter-conditioning — the pairing of positive reinforcement with the trigger stimulus. The idea is to eliminate the unwanted behavior by creating a new, positive association around the trigger.
Reactive Dog Group Classes
Our reactive dog group classes are designed to help your dog build confidence and improve behavior around other people and dogs. Each session is 1 hour long and is offered on Tuesday and Thursday evenings.
Class Structure
Duration: 1 hour per session
Schedule: Tuesday and Thursday evenings
Group Size: A Small group of only 4 to ensure personalized attention. Semi-Privates are two dogs only.
Techniques Used
Positive Reinforcement: Reward-based methods to encourage desirable behaviors.
Desensitization: Gradual exposure to triggers in a controlled environment.
Counter-Conditioning: Changing your dog's emotional response to stimuli.
Obedience Training: Teaching basic commands and improving focus.
Parkour: Teaching your dog to work through their FAS in a controlled situation.
Pattern Games:
Focus and engagement games!
Goals
Confidence Building: Helping your dog feel more secure and less reactive around other dogs and people.
Socialization: Encouraging positive interactions in a safe, controlled setting.
Behavior Management: Providing tools and strategies for owners to manage and reduce reactivity.
Owner Education:
Teaching you how to understand and effectively respond to your dog's behavior. There are online courses, a Library, resources, and a community chat forum.
Requirements
Initial Assessment: A pre-class evaluation to understand your dog's specific needs. Our initial behavior consult is $150.
Membership: All behavior modification clients will be required to enroll in a minimum five-month membership.
Understanding Your Dog's Big Emotions: All owners will be required to complete our online course before beginning in-person classes.
Vaccinations: Up-to-date vaccination records are required.
Equipment:
You will need a well-fitted harness, a standard leash (no retractable leashes), a clicker, treats, and a treat pouch.
Join us to help your dog become more confident and better behaved in social situations. Our experienced trainers are here to support you and your dog every step of the way.
Reactive Dog Training: Board & Train Program
Our Reactive Dog Training Board & Train program is designed to help your dog build confidence and improve behavior around other people and dogs. This immersive training experience allows your dog to receive consistent, professional training while staying with us.
Program Structure
Duration: 30 days minimum; depending on your dog's needs, a longer stay may be needed.
Daily Routine: Structured training sessions, socialization exercises, and supervised playtime.
Living Arrangements:
Comfortable, safe accommodations for your dog.
Techniques Used
Positive Reinforcement: Reward-based methods to encourage desirable behaviors.
Desensitization: Gradual exposure to triggers in a controlled environment.
Counter-Conditioning: Changing your dog's emotional response to stimuli.
Obedience Training: Teaching basic commands and improving focus.
Parkour: Teaching your dog to work through their FAS in a controlled situation.
Pattern Games:
Focus and engagement games!
Goals
Confidence Building: Helping your dog feel more secure and less reactive around other dogs and people.
Socialization: Encouraging positive interactions in a safe, controlled setting.
Behavior Management: Providing tools and strategies for long-term success.
Owner Education: Teaching you how to maintain and build upon the progress made during training. There are online courses, a library, resources, and a community chat forum.
Requirements
Initial Assessment: A pre-program evaluation to understand your dog's specific needs. The initial behavior consultation is $150
Vaccinations: Up-to-date vaccination records are required.
Membership: All local behavior modification clients receive their first month's membership included with the program and will be required to enroll in a minimum two-month membership to work on further training.
Understanding Your Dog's Big Emotions: All owners must complete our online course before their dog's stay.
Post-Training Lessons & Support: Follow-up sessions to ensure a smooth transition and continued success at home. All local behavior modification clients receive their 1st month membership with the program.
Join us to help your dog become more confident and better behaved in social situations. Our experienced trainers will provide personalized care and professional training to support your dog's growth every step of the way!
Legal Consulting
Court Ordered Evaluation
When a dog is cited under animal ordinances as being aggressive, threatening, dangerous, or vicious, courts may sometimes order the dog to be evaluated before making a court order. Owners have the right to obtain an evaluation on their own as evidence. In some cases, taking the assessment to court may have a positive influence on the outcome. The main question is, can the dog be released to the owner with a reasonable expectation that the dog will not present a danger to the community? The likelihood a dog will bite again is influenced by the dog’s behavior and the owner’s ability and willingness to appropriately manage the dog, including providing an appropriate physical and mentally stimulating environment. Aleisha Largent assessed those factors in detail during her evaluation.
Evaluations begin with a detailed case history, which can be conducted by phone. Next is an in-person meeting in the owner’s home and a 100-question Canine Behavioral Assessment called the C-BARQ. The details of her interactions with the owner and the dog will also depend on the details of the ordinance violation.
She will write a professional report for the court and/or the owner detailing her procedures and explaining her findings. Her conclusions are objective, independent, and based on the facts of the case and her own observations. Aleisha acts as a neutral party and does not advocate for the dog, the owner, or the court. Her evaluation may or may not be favorable to the dog.
Certified Animal Behaviorists who are academically trained to observe and interpret behavior using scientific principles will provide an evaluation at a different level than individuals without academic training.
Canine Behavior Consulting
Aleisha Largent is qualified as an expert in animal behavior consulting for Colorado. She is familiar with animal ordinances and animal control services and has specialized in canine behavior for over five years.
What Aleisha Largent Does:
- She can provide an objective analysis of the animal's behavior based on scientific information. She bases her opinions on the facts of the case and scientific knowledge about animal behavior. She can be retained by the court, as well as by attorneys for the defense and prosecution.
- She helps formulate questions to ask witnesses and animal owners about the animal's behavior.
- She can advise attorneys regarding sources of information about the behavior of the animal in question.
- She can provide expert witness testimony about the behavioral tendencies and motivations for the behavior of specific animals.
- She can perform a behavioral evaluation or assessment of the animal in question.
- She can formulate an opinion about the likelihood or potential for aggression from the animal in question, whether or not the owners knew or should have known about the animal's nature, and whether or not an injury was foreseeable.
What She Cannot Do
- Aleisha Largent cannot make statements or testify that any specific dog breed is inherently aggressive.
Statement of Legal Fees
Aleisha charges $150 for the initial consultation and assessment. $125/hour for time spent in activities relevant to the case, which includes but is not limited to reviewing reports and other materials, researching the scientific literature, conducting interviews, or meeting with clients or attorneys. If called to testify in court, we charge $175/hour for time spent testifying and $100/hour for time spent waiting to testify. Travel time is charged at $125/hour. Expenses are charged as they are incurred.
