Quality At-Home Dog Training and Behavior Education Serving The Lehigh Valley (Including Allentown, Bethlehem
and Easton) as well as the North Central New Jersey Area!
Obedience Training Kindergarten Puppy Training
Problem Behavior Eliminated!
Lehigh Valley:
610-435-7055
New Jersey:
908-769-8074
FAX:
610-435-7523
We Solve:
Pulling
Housebreaking
Anxiety
Biting
Jumping
Barking
Chewing
Bolting
Digging
Welcome to K-9 Care!
I'm Jeff Cushner, Owner and Dog Behavior Expert. I've been researching dog behavior and working with dog owners and their dogs for almost 30 years, succeeding in truly solving simple to complex behavior problems that dog owners like you experience everyday.
This website has many articles and features that will hopefully educate as well as give you confidence that K-9 Care is the way to succeed way beyond what you thought was possible in having well-behaved dogs.
Brrrr! It's COLD Outside!
Did you know that most of the behavior problems that dog owners experience have nothing to do with putting dogs on leashes and walking them around outside?
Especially in the the winter months, dog owners are more plagued with the everyday type of problems like begging at the table, chewing, housebreaking and dominance related issues.
Although most of you also want your dogs to behave outside, few are willing to actually go to the trouble of working with them in the cold and would prefer to wait until the weather becomes warmer before starting.
K-9 Care's All-Problem and Kindergarten Puppy Training courses take place and concentrate on behavior and knowledge that is mostly based inside your warm and comfortable home. Even those folks who want to take advantage of the Full Obedience training can start now, inside, with working through the relationship, needs and the all-important rules of your home. When warmer weather occurs, you will be ready to take everything you learned outside and continue at a time that suits you.
For those of you (and your dogs) who don't mind the cold weather and want to do outside-based training, whatever is convenient for you is also convenient for us!
My "Technique"
The technique I use is quite simple. Your Dogs already understand what I’m teaching. It’s not my technique; it’s theirs.
If you ask any other trainer, they’ll cite someone’s “method;” either clicker or command or operant conditioning. All of these techniques are usually simple for the humans to understand but almost impossible for dogs to figure out.
Thank about it; Do you want your dog not to bolt when the door opens or do you want your dog to sit and stay when this occurs?
This may sound the same to you but to a dog, it is worlds apart! In the first case, you’re in synch with your dog; you don’t want him to leave (a rule) and that’s the way that he as well us WE already understand. In the latter, you’re telling him to stay put. Fine. He doesn’t know why but if he’s “trained,” depending on the relationship, to possibly do what you say. The next time, though, he still will have not learned why and you MUST repeat the command again… and again, for as long as you own the dog or until age catches up with him. This is not education as he is not truly learning what you want him to learn.
Most other trainers are teaching you what you already know! Did you ever ask yourself why the results should be any different? After all, if you taught your dog to sit and stay, say, with a treat and when someone opens the door he doesn’t respond properly, should a trainer be any more successful when they are teaching the dog the exact same thing?
Did you ever wonder why your dogs may be feisty and belligerent to you at home, but when they’re with other dogs they become just playful; submissive and/or angelic? It’s because they know they can’t get away with the stuff they might have pulled with you. They know the other dogs already understand what they might try and they know it won’t work!
So, my “method” is what I’ve spent a lifetime understanding; how dogs truly think. When explained, it’s simple for humans to learn and dogs have no learning curve as they already know! These “methods” that other trainers employ may be ridiculously simple to you but impossible for dogs.
A lot of what I teach is educating you to understand your dog and communicate better, with the result of eliminating problems; not just avoiding them. It certainly has nothing to do with distracting them to temporarily take their minds off what they wanted to do in the first place.
If you truly want to understand your dog better and finally solve behavior issues, whether they be a simple jumping or stealing problem to fighting and biting, the only method you should want to use is the one your dogs already know!
Why K-9 Care's Training Methods Work For You
While commands taught your dogs are satisfying and fun, when trying to solve behavior problems they just confuse the issues. What you are hopefully looking for are ways to truly solve the issues that you are experiencing with your pet. I'm sure that your goal is the same as mine for you; to truly have a loving, carefree life with your pets. In order for this to work, however, you also need to have a great relationship with your dogs; a relationship where your dogs Love you, Respect you, and inherently truly Understand the way you want them to behave.
Any behavior problems you may be experiencing with your dogs are caused by multiple factors. I understand all of the causes and work with you in your own environment, where the behavior is occurring, to completely solve the problems. The methods I use are natural behavioral techniques that I have developed in the decades that I have researched canine behavior. These include communication that dogs already understand, involving the Four Steps to a Perfect Dog: Needs, Leadership, Rules and Commands. The results are truly win/win!
If Dog Trainers Were Plumbers
Most dog owners think if they can take their dog to a trainer; (or vice-versa) that the trainer will demonstrate a tip or pronounce a word a certain way and the dog will forever be better behaved. Despite what people think, this will never be the case. Dogs are just too smart to behave like that. They ask questions, get responses (whether or not we know we are giving them) and determine their relationship to us as a result. I get at least one comment during the first training session, after I’ve worked with a now behaving dog for a few minutes, that sounds like: “Can you take the dog home for a week and bring him back perfect?” I always respond, “He’s good right now. Why should I have to take him away?”
It is important to understand that no dog trainer can “fix” a dog, as a plumber can come in and fix a leaky pipe, no matter how much money you throw at the problem. Because I know dogs so well and owners usually see a complete change after the first few moments, owners hope and pray that the magic will not wear off after I leave. It will, unfortunately. Once dogs believe that I’ve truly gone, perhaps the next morning, they revert to their old ways until their owners prove ready to learn how to truly communicate with their pets and then assume the roles of leaders.
So, hiring a trainer to come over is certainly not the same as hiring a plumber to fix a leaky pipe. If pipes were like dogs, the pipes would leak after the plumber left just as bad as before. To take the analogy one step further, in order to truly rectify the problem, the plumber would have to teach you how to fix the pipe yourself before he left.
The best reason to get a professional to help you with your dog is to learn how to truly communicate your leadership and rules from your dogs’ points of view. This way, your dogs not only love you but respect you in a way that is consistent with their natural instincts. The longer this pattern continues, the more all of you work it into the normal routine, so living with your dog becomes transparent and all benefit.
In order to truly succeed in modifying your dogs’ behavior, you must be eager to learn how to communicate clearly with your dog and work on being successful with your dogs’ needs, leadership and rules which you will learn when you become one of the K-9 Care family.
Dog Food For Thought (During your day, ponder this thought and see where it leads) If you put your stuff out of your dog's reach, is your dog learning anything but to learn how to climb higher?
Kindergarten Puppy Training 
