Best Mate Dog Training

We help dog owners around New Zealand and Australia to train their dogs to listen and behave reliably, including around every day distractions like guests, cats, other dogs, birds, bikes etc, all without using treats.

We train dogs without using treats because treat based training often doesn’t work very well for several reasons, especially when your dog’s around everyday distractions like guests, kids, cats, and other dogs.

1. The treat has to be the most exciting option for your dog to want to listen to you.

Most dogs have at least something (often many things) WAY more exciting than treats. Things like guests, other dogs, interesting smells, cats, bikes, cars, birds etc. Even a food-crazy Labrador usually finds jumping all over your guest more exciting than the treat in your hands).

This means that if you’re treat training your dog, their listening skills tend to go out the window in distracting environments, because they’re more interested in the distraction than the treat, which means your training works really well sometimes, but not at all when it really counts.

2. They learn to pick and choose when to listen based on whether they want the treat or not.

Treats only work if your dog wants them. So, if they decide they don’t want the treat in that moment, there’s nothing to convince your dog to listen to you!

Also, if your dogs knows they can pick and choose when to listen to you, the times you REALLY want them to listen, also tend to be the times when they ignore you because there’s something better on offer.

Things like leaving the dog park, but your dog decides they want to stay another half hour, or guests arriving and your dog deciding they’d rather jump all over them than listen to you.

3. Lots of dogs aren’t motivated by treats or toys.

Some fussy dogs won’t even eat food in their bowl (including tasty meat!) when it’s freely available to them. So if they won’t touch food or toys that they don’t have to “work” for, good luck convincing them to “work” for your treats!

This is why many of the dogs we train are dogs who aren’t that interested in food or toys, because the standard, food-based dog training approach works even worse for them than it does for an average dog.

4. They pick and choose whether to listen based on whether you have food to offer them.

Treat training can often create an “I’ll do this, if you give me that” mindset in your dog. Which means that as soon as they realise you don’t have any food or toys to offer them in that moment, they often decide not to listen. Dogs have great noses, so they can quickly figure out whether you have the treats or not, and adjust their behaviour accordingly!

5. They do what you ask, grab the treat, then go straight back to doing what you don’t want them to.

This often happens when people ask their dog to “sit” for a treat when guests arrive – their dog will sit for the treat, then go and jump on the guests! Because, well, “why not”, right? It makes total sense when you look at it from their perspective.

This is why training dogs without treats using our unique dog training system gets such amazing results for our clients in our online dog training course, Canine Chaos to Calm.

Canine Chaos to Calm is a 12 week online group dog training course for dog owners across New Zealand and Australia, covering everything you need to transform your dog from driving you a little bit crazy, to a joy to have in your life.

Everyone starts at the same time, and works through the course together, which means there’s an awesome dog training community for support and learning as part of the course. You get the benefit of everyone else’s experiences and questions, too.

There’s a weekly “Dog Trainer Q&A” included as part of the course, where you can ask questions and get personalised feedback on your dog training sessions or problems.

The course covers obedience that works even around distractions likes guests, kids, cats, other dogs etc, without using treats – (sit (and stay), heel, down (and stay), and come (recall). It also covers pretty much any behavioural problem – jumping up, pulling on the lead, play biting, chasing cats/sheep/chickens etc, barking, digging, stealing things around the house, reacting to things (dogs, people, cars, cats etc) on walks, as well as learning to greet guests nicely, have their nails clipped without fuss, and drop things on command (even when they don’t want to).
We also cover “boundaries” in the course, which are invisible lines to be crossed by invitation only. Boundaries can be used to stop your dog from going into the kitchen, or so they wait to be invited onto furniture, through doorways (like the front door), gateways, or across the road.
The way we teach them inside Canine Chaos to Calm means your dog learns to listen to them and wait for an invite, even when there’s something REALLY exciting on the other side of the boundary.

After all, there’s no point in training your dog to do something if they’ll only listen to you when it suits them, because when it suits them usually isn’t when you NEED them to listen!

There are many benefits to an online dog training course.

You can do it from anywhere (in our case, anywhere in New Zealand or Australia). This means you’re not restricted by the dog trainers that happen to be available in your local area.

You can start earlier. Our waitlist when we offered in-home dog training was typically between 2-3 months. With Canine Chaos to Calm, we open it around every 3 months, so most people wait much less than that, and many start immediately after finding us, so there’s no putting up with your dog’s issues waiting for the dog trainer to become available.

You can train your dog at a time that suits you. The problem with in-person dog training is it is restricted by the availability of the trainer. Some don’t do weekend or evening training, and when they do, those spots are usually booked up the fastest. Online training is there whenever you want to do it, so you can train in the middle of the night if you wanted to!

It’s all there to look back on and refresh yourself. It’s really hard to remember everything a dog trainer said and did during an in-person dog training session (most would find it impossible!), which means you can get stuck once they’ve left because you can’t remember how to deal with everything.
With online training, especially when the course has lifetime access like Canine Chaos to Calm does, you can watch the videos and go back over something as many times as you like. This is especially helpful when your dog’s behaviour changes, or you have a busy period and training isn’t kept up the same.

Online dog training courses can have limitations too, though.

The dogs used in the demo training videos (if there are any!) often already know the exercises, so the demonstration looks nothing like it does when you attempt it with your own dog. That’s why in Canine Chaos to Calm, we use untrained (and naughty & stubborn!) demo dogs in all of our training videos, so you can see what it ACTUALLY looks like, and what to do when the dog doesn’t do it perfectly. We also have videos of the finished result with an experienced demo dog, so you can see what you’re working towards (and how worthwhile the training is!!)

They can be overwhelming. Some training courses have literally hours and hours of videos, which aren’t actually relevant to you and your dog, so it can feel like a massive effort working your way through them all, without much (or any) benefit. That’s why Canine Chaos to Calm is designed so that all the videos are either useful for everyone, or set up so that it’s clear which ones you need to watch, and which you can ignore.

We use our food-free dog training system to teach EVERYTHING, from obedience that work around distractions, through to dealing with behavioural problems. That means that once you understand the system and how it works, you can use it to teach your dog to do, and not do, pretty much anything you want. The course teaches you everything you need for you and your dog to understand the system, and how to apply it to your life, and has optional videos for all the different behavioural problems, so you can watch the ones that are relevant to you and your dog, and ignore the ones that aren’t.

Some online dog training courses also don’t include any support, or the support that’s included is so limited or basic that it’s not that useful in real life. That’s why we include the weekly Dog Trainer Q&A’s in Canine Chaos to Calm, so that our members can get feedback on a problem, answers to their questions, and feedback on a training session or a video of a situation that they’re struggling with. And everyone else gets to benefit from those too. All of the previous Dog Trainer Q&As are archived in the course, with time stamps to the place in the video that the question starts, so it’s easy to skim through the previously asked questions and jump to them in the video.

We believe in our online dog training course so much, that we even provide a money back guarantee (something many dog trainers don’t do!). Here’s our head dog trainer, Grace’s, take on our money back guarantee.

“Most dog trainers don’t offer money-back guarantees. That’s because there’s no way to ensure you’ll actually consistently do the work (and if you don’t do the work, or aren’t consistent, you won’t get the results!)

However, I’m such a believer in our dog training system and its ability to get results EVEN for clients who felt like they’d tried every option under the sun, that I’m willing to take that risk, and offer a 30 day money back guarantee. It’s that good.

Full disclosure… you have to show me you gave it a go. Just watching the videos isn’t going to train your dog & I’m invested in actually helping you and your dog achieve an amazing life together, so I want to make sure you give it your best shot!

Do the course, put in the effort and if you’re not totally sold on the method and its potential for you and your dog in the first 30 days, I’ll personally refund you the course price (excluding the price of the halter and lead, which are yours to keep).”

Many dog owners have tried LOTS of different training approaches without success. They might have even had other dogs before without issue, only for their new dog to throw everything they though they knew about dog training out the window!

It can be super frustrating living with a dog who doesn’t listen and behave reliably (or at all!). It means you’re often annoyed at them, or having to leave them outside or leave them behind when you go out, when you would love to involve them if they actually behaved themselves!

A well-behaved dog has a better life – they can be taken more places and given more freedom without their owner getting stressed or frustrated, because they can actually be trusted to listen and behave. Training your dog to listen and behave reliably makes life better for you AND your dog.

That’s why it’s my mission to help committed dog owners to transform their lives with their dogs from chaos and frustration to joyful and fun!

Even if your dog only have a couple of small issues to iron out, it can still have a big impact on your enjoyment of life with them. If they have more than that, it can have a HUGE impact, often causing stress in relationships or leading to the rehoming of the dog because their owners just can’t deal with it anymore.

It doesn’t have to be that way, and there is a way out if you feel stuck, even if you feel like you’ve tried every dog training method under the sun!

So, if you’re in New Zealand or Australia and need some help with your dog, come and join us in our online dog training course Canine Chaos to Calm and we’ll help you transform your life with your dog so you can BOTH fully enjoy your life together.