by Kate LaSala | Jun 2, 2025 | Dog Training, Dogs and Babies and Kids, Fear, Aggression and Reactivity, Rescue Dogs
Last week, I was a guest on The Pet Loss Companion podcast (Episode #212) where I shared how fostering became an important part of my grief journey after losing Boo. I also talked about my self-paced course, Fostering 101: Fundamentals to Being a Successful...
by Kate LaSala | May 30, 2025 | Dog Training, Fear, Aggression and Reactivity, Pet Loss & Grieving, Rescue Dogs
I was recently honored to be a guest on the The Pet Loss Companion podcast, episode #212, talking about fostering, how fostering helped with my grief journey with BooBoo, and my self-paced course, Fostering 101: Fundamentals to Being a Successful...
by Kate LaSala | May 26, 2025 | Dog Training, Dog Training Regulation, Puppy Training, Rescue Dogs
I often hear from potential clients who are torn between hiring a private trainer like me or sending their dog to a “boot camp.” Let me be clear: boot camp is not the answer. The term itself conjures images of military-style training—pre-dawn wake-ups, yelling, rigid...
by Kate LaSala | May 5, 2025 | Dog Training, Dog Training Regulation, Fear, Aggression and Reactivity, Puppy Training, Rescue Dogs
I’ve previously written about 5 Myths About Shock Collars and have my free download 3 Reasons Not To Use A Shock Collar where I talk more about why not to use these tools, take a deeper dive into regulation and give you citations to research if...
by Kate LaSala | Apr 28, 2025 | Dog Training, Puppy Training
“I don’t want to bribe my dog with food” or “When can I stop using food?” are two common things I hear from clients. For some reason, a lot of people see using food in training as some form of corruption, like if they use food the...
by Kate LaSala | Apr 14, 2025 | Dog Training, Fear, Aggression and Reactivity
There are few joys better than watching a dog enjoy a car ride, with their head poking out of the window (while they’re safely tethered), watching the world go by. But for some dogs, they seem to hate car rides, showing signs of clear anxiety like...
by Kate LaSala | Apr 7, 2025 | Dog Training, Pet Loss & Grieving, Rescue Dogs
In the days leading up to saying goodbye to BooBoo, a sweet friend who lives far away asked what I needed and I half joked “more tissues.” About an hour later, DoorDash arrived to deliver 15 boxes of tissues, seen in the picture above. It made me...
by Kate LaSala | Mar 31, 2025 | Dog Training, Fear, Aggression and Reactivity, Rescue Dogs
As someone who focuses on fear and aggression, a majority of my clients have fear of strangers, or “stranger danger.” This includes subsets of strangers, like fear of children, fear of men or fear of people who look or act a certain way. When your...
by Kate LaSala | Mar 24, 2025 | Dog Training, Fear, Aggression and Reactivity, Puppy Training
Socialization is critical to a happy, behaviorally healthy dogs. Unfortunately there are a lot of mistruths, myths and bad information out there on socialization, including that puppies shouldn’t go out until they’re fully vaccinated. Socialization is not...
by Kate LaSala | Mar 10, 2025 | Dog Training, Pet Loss & Grieving, Rescue Dogs
As you may know, my husband and I recently adopted Gertie, a little over 10 months after saying goodbye to my heart and soul dog, BooBoo. I’ve been chronicling my grief journey over the last year and thought it might be helpful, on this 11 month...