My viewpoints on dog training,
fitness, & nutrition
I have been professionally training dogs to better behavior, optimize fitness, and improve diets for many years. Many of my family, friends, and followers are often curious to my personal opinions and methods to dog training, fitness, and nutrition because I have never had a platform to share my personal views.
Optimal Canine’s blog will serve as a platform where I will share content based on my personal opinions, approaches, and methods. The posts I publish on Optimal Canine’s blog are my biased views founded on preference, experience, and science.
Every professional, regardless of the industry they serve, has their own approach when fulfilling their goals. In this blog post, I hope to provide a clear picture of my viewpoints on:
Dog Training
I pride myself on being a progressive dog trainer who utilizes the most modern and progressive training methods focused on positivity, fun, relationship, and leadership.
Canine Fitness & Conditioning
I am a personal canine conditioning coach where I develop fitness programs focused on safety, form, structure, and strength.
Diet & Nutrition
I provide diet and nutrition programs for dogs focus on nourishment, fresh food, proactive recipes, and individualized diets.
Dog Training
My training beliefs and methods are very different from mainstream media. I am not in the business for quick and instant results because I do not believe anyone, human or canine, can become an expert in anything in a short amount of time.
I am very interested in a dog’s cognitive process and the behaviors that follow as well the science of learning theory and its effective application in dog training. I understand why dogs behave the way they do and I use the most current and progressive training methods to improve their behavior.
My goal in dog training is to create long lasting results through positivity, fun, relationship, and leadership.
Positivity
All of my training approaches and methods are founded on positive reinforcement. By identifying each dog’s individual preference, I can create a fun training program focused to harness each dog’s motivation to build a strong working drive without coercion.
Fun
Better behaviors become stronger when fun is incorporated in training. Science tells us that learning and relationships are accelerated through play and all of my dog training programs are based on games because everyone, human and dog, enjoys training when it is fun!
Relationship
I focus on developing a working relationship between myself and the dog by harnessing their motivational factors. My goal is to teach each dog that training is fun and provides access to what they find the most rewarding. Through appropriate leadership the dog associates myself with the pleasure of training and our working relationship becomes stronger.
Leadership
I take the role of leadership very seriously because I do believe in leading by example. I teach dogs functional life skills and sport performance behaviors through positive leadership because positive does not mean permissive. Additionally, I teach humans how to effectively train dogs through positive leadership because 90% of dog training is really human training.
Canine Fitness & Conditioning
Undesirable problems arise when a dog’s biological requirements for physical stimulation are not consistently met. Problematic behaviors such as destructive chewing and medical issues from obesity stem from lack of physical exercise. I have a goal to help educate pet parents on how to effectively exercise their dog to overcome and prevent these issues.
I am very interested in coaching dog owners to help their dog achieve and maintain physical fitness, regardless if their goals are for sport performance or for family activities. I understand how to target muscle groups in fitness programs to increase muscle strength, coordination, and confidence.
My canine fitness and conditioning training programs focus on safety, form, structure, and strength.
Safety
Maintaining a safe fitness program is priority number one because canine conditioning is designed to improve straightening without causing injury. I avoid flashy exercises and focus on achieving ideal form, as well as design fitness programs for each dog’s individual abilities.
Form
Flashy behaviors often lack appropriate form and do not target the appropriate muscles to achieve desired results. Any professional, personal trainer will tell you that maintaining appropriate form in the gym is the key to successful results and preventing injury. My structured canine fitness and conditioning programs follow the same concepts.
Structure
All of my fitness programs are structured to strategically improve a dog’s body awareness, strength, and coordination. Additionally I review each dog’s physical structure to identify weak points or areas that may need vet examination to rule out injury. Structure is necessary to ensure safety is priority, form is maintained, and strength is achieved.
Strength
The major component of canine conditioning is to improve physical strength, but what I love the most about being a canine fitness coach is improving each dog’s confidence. I help shy dogs develop confidence to break out of their shell and performance dogs strengthen their confidence to excel into their next competition through physical exercise.
Diet & Nutrition
Reviewing and modifying a dog’s diet when training for better behavior and working on physical fitness is often overlooked, but I believe nutrition plays a vital component in achieving an Optimal Canine. When the body is provided nutritious whole foods, behavior improves because the dog’s physical health improves!
I am very interested in educating pet parents on ways to provide their dog with a fresh food diet in a cooked or raw diet. I understand how to formulate nutritionally balanced diets with unprocessed food to improve health, fitness, and behavior.
My canine diet and nutrition programs focus on nourishment, fresh food, proactive recipes, and individualized diets.
Nourish
The wise old quote, “The food you eat can either be the safest and most powerful form of medicine, or the slowest form of poison,” by Ann Wigmore resonates with me when it comes to the foods I consume as well as the foods I feed my personal dogs. Optimal health starts with optimal nourishment and we can provide this through fresh food!
Fresh
Humans inherently know that eating a variety of fresh, whole foods is incredibly healthy and my goal is to help pet parents adopt the same mentality when feeding their dog. I believe in the addition of fresh, whole foods into dog’s diet or exclusively feeding a home-prepared diet is a proactive approach to achieving optimal health and wellness.
Proactive
I believe that quality nutrition is a proactive approach to achieve canine wellness, and is a large supporting component of ideal behavior and physical fitness. I provide individualized nutrition each dog's diet to achieve and maintain optimal health.
Individual
A diet that works for one dog may not work for the next. I treat all dog as an individual because I believe that there is no such thing as "one size fits all" when it comes to nourishing the body.
Achieve the Optimal Canine
I hope to inspire pet parents, as well as sport performance competitors to adopt my viewpoints and routinely practice my methods when training, exercising, and feeding their dog. Our dog’s lives become more enriched and exciting when we provide the tools to teach them better behaviors, along with the outlets for physical exercise and a diet to nourish the body. I believe when we combine my methods for dog training for better behavior, canine fitness, and ideal nutrition that we achieve the Optimal Canine!