Megan Hart - Dog Trainer

29/01/2025

Announcement! 📣

As I get closer to finishing the piles of paperwork involved in changing your name and starting a business, I am going to be transitioning all of my content to the Love of Dog Pet Nutrition and Training page and winding down this page.

If you have followed along on this page, thank you so much! I would love it if you would join us over on the Love of Dog page and showed your support by both liking and following (two different things, apparently!).

I will post this message a few times to make sure everybody who wants to continue following has a chance to before shutting this page down.

Thank you for everything!

Megan

13/01/2025

Watch me try to break my dog’s “stay”!

07/01/2025

Watch my dog Leila figure out how to communicate what she wants! She is used to having a door bell button for when she wants to go outside. This morning we added an identical doorbell on the outside of the door, so that she can tell us when she wants to come inside. I showed the new button to her once (once!) and have let her figure it out from there. This video is a great example of allowing your dog to figure things out on their own rather than relying on you to constantly be reminding them. Skills learned this way tend to be the most reliable and consistent in my experience.

31/12/2024

On our normal walks, I generally allow Leila to choose the direction, pace, and how much sniffing she does. This was the stats for our walk today: only 0.56 miles in 31 minutes, and she is sooo tired! Sniffing is so important to our dogs and tires them out much faster than a “brisk”, no-sniffing walk. I challenge you to try out this method!

23/12/2024

Had a great time working with my new friend Ollie today. He’s such a smart boy!

18/10/2024

Many of you know that my own dog, Leila, has faced some adversity in her life, including dog attacks and fights. These experiences unfortunately but understandably led her to being wary around certain other dogs. She particularly struggles with dogs larger than her who are approaching her head-on. This technique, called Counter-Conditioning, aims to build positive associations with things that are not positive to the individual. You can see in the video that we are outside of our local dog park (with some buffer space between). All I’m doing is throwing treats in the grass in the direction of the park - it can truly be that simple to change your dog’s emotional response! PS, this is also a great way to socialize puppies and teach them to be neutral around other dogs!

01/10/2024

Another spaw day for Leila. She gets monthly visits with Dr. Jodie's Integrative Consulting, PLLC for acupuncture and laser therapy, which helps significantly to reduce her musculoskeletal pain. Many times when we come to these appointments, Leila is asleep by the end - she loves it! Apparently she was not feeling like laying on the mat today, lol!

30/09/2024

I am deeply saddened by the Republic of Ireland’s decision to effectively ban XL Bully-types. Here’s what my pals at The Muzzle Movement had to say:

From midnight, the import, breeding, sale, and re-homing of XL Bully dogs will be prohibited in the Republic of Ireland. Additionally, as of 1 February 2025, owning an XL Bully will be illegal without a certificate of exemption.

To all the incredible guardians facing this monumental change, we want to share our heartfelt thoughts…

We are genuinely heartbroken for anyone who shares their life with an XL bully type. We know how deeply you love your dog, and we sincerely hope that everything we strive to accomplish at The Muzzle Movement demonstrates that a muzzle should never be seen as a "life sentence." Many dogs can and do lead happy and fulfilling lives while wearing muzzles.

Lastly, don’t let the negativity and prejudice get to you - keep your heads held high because you are doing brilliantly. 💕

Our hearts go out to the Irish XL Bully community… we stand with you every step of the way! 🤍

15/09/2024

Little clip from us practicing sustained relaxation while watching other dogs, people, bikes, and cars go by this morning. This is what dog training is supposed to look like! Calm, casual, relaxed. Let’s face it: a little boring. No big blowout reactions, no extreme corrections. It might not be very entertaining to watch, but this type of training is much more effective than “flooding” the dog with stimuli. It’s also kinder to your dog.

02/09/2024

Follow my pet nutrition page, Love of Dog Pet Nutrition, for enrichment toy recipe ideas!

Another enrichment prep day. Today I went with a fish theme!

🐟 Open Farm Herring and Mackerel Rustic Stew
🐟 Plato Pet Treats Wild Caugh Baltic Herring
🐟 The Honest Kitchen Ocean Chews (cod skins)
🥬 Organic collard greens
🥬 Organic celery
🥒 Organic cucumber
🫚 Organic ginger root

All vegetables were puréed together in a blender to help optimize their digestion in the body.

Check the comments for the finished products 🤗

26/08/2024

Happy National Dog Day! Share a picture of your dog in the comments along with your favorite thing about them 🥰

21/04/2024

Early morning muzzle training session. Muzzle training is so essential and so often overlooked.

We ordered a new, custom one from The Muzzle Movement (size “Taz”) that will fit better than this Baskerville (size 5, too large for her), but it hasn’t come yet. Will of course show you all when it does!