This is a guest post by one of my Maremma clients, Violet Qu. Violet owns Cotton Candy (CC), a puppy from my May 2022 Sevro x Polar litter. Violet also owns a Great Pyrenese named Marshmallow. Violet took the Karen Pryor Academy Dog Trainer Foundations course before bringing CC home. She has been extremely succesful in training CC and a lot of the reason why is the excellent knowledge and skills the course gave her. I asked Violet if she would write a "review" of the course for my email newsletter and she did such an excellent job that I invited her to do a guest post on the blog. Enjoy!

A Tale of Two White Dogs, by Violet Qu

The big dog on the left is Marshmallow. He came to me as an 8-week-old fluff ball, with a mission to keep my chickens and barn cats from being picked off by the big bad wolves. He was my first dog. I didn’t know what I was doing. I watched a lot of Zak George videos and took a puppy training class over zoom (it was during Covid lockdown) where I learned to manipulate his body by using a lure. For the most part, things worked fine. Marshmallow learned to sit, lie down, stand up, shake, crawl, and so on. He even learned to fetch, which is somewhat unusual for a Great Pyrenees. But sometimes, when I asked him to do something, he would suddenly have this unbearable itch that he had to scratch, and then he would yawn, and then he would give a sideways glance at the ground before performing the task in slo-mo. I coined it “emergency itch” and sometimes asked with a sarcastic tone “really? must you right now?” For months, he was mouthy and I just ignored it. Everything I read said it would stop if I just kept ignoring it.


At the age of 1, Marshmallow’s guarding instincts kicked in in full force. He ran around the ranch barking and chasing coyotes at night, and often looked exhausted in the morning. However, the mouthiness remained. And he was also chewing just about everything I didn’t want him to chew on. Even though Marshmallow was doing all he could to guard my small ranch, I still had 2 chickens disappear without a trace and a barn cat mauled by what I could only imagine a coyote (the kitty fully recovered after veterinary intervention). The coyotes did not fear him. They kicked dirt at him from the other side of the fence. It was clear to me that Marshmallow needed a partner.


A few months later, Cotton Candy joined the family as a 3-month-old from the Prancing Pony Farm, where she had already learned many life skills as a livestock guardian dog. 


In preparation of CC’s arrival, I took the Dog Trainer Foundations online course from the Karen Pryor Academy. It turned out to be more helpful than I expected. Throughout Marshmallow’s puppyhood, I had been ransacking the internet for positive reinforcement dog training tips. But tips are exactly that: a melange of “do x” instructions. The DTF course provided me with the structure I needed to internalize the positive reinforcement training concept. I am not known for following instructions. So if a training tip says step 1: wait for behavior, step 2: click, step 3: treat, I’ll more than likely mess up the timing or order or skip a step. But if I understand the building blocks to positive reinforcement training, then I can “derive” my own instructions time and time again and always get it right. Other than the science and mechanics, I also found the chapter on understanding dog language really helpful. Marshmallow’s “emergency itch”? That’s stress. His yawning? That’s stress. Mouthiness? Yup, still stress. That poor pup! The whole time he’s been gently telling me that he could use a bit more support, and I’ve been an idiot trying to wait it all out. What also dawned on me, is that a lot of what I thought / was labeled positive reinforcement, wasn’t reinforcement at all. Dangling a piece of bacon to get a dog to sit is bribery, or non-contact coercion, if you will.


Now back to CC. She has received positive reinforcement training at Kim’s since the day she was born. By the time she arrived on my ranch, she knew how to mand and target really well. And that gave me plenty of opportunities to reinforce her and quickly build a trusting relationship. Eventually I taught her to shake, only because she looks incredibly cute doing that. But by golly she was so polite and never pawed me for attention like Marshmallow did when he was a pup. She knew that manding gets her attention and treats, and giving me her paw only when I ask gets her praise and treats. I haven’t intentionally taught her to come, but she figured it out because every time she comes to me she gets pets and she might even get to lick my face. She has a pretty good “go to bed” from a single training moment. It was her birthday and I had a serrano ham bone for her. I wanted to let her have it in the kennel without being bothered by Marshmallow. I walked towards the dog bed once we entered the kennel and she hopped on it. On the spur of the moment, I clicked, then gave her the ham bone. I later put it on cue, but really, the “go to bed” action was learned in just 1 event. 


She’s been here about a year now, and CC has never had an “emergency itch”. Now isn’t that interesting! More interestingly, Marshmallow’s “emergency itch” and chewing all but disappeared after CC’s arrival, which roughly coincided with the beginning of proper use of positive reinforcement on my end. Was it me? Was it CC? Only Marshmallow knows. What I do know is that with 2 happy relaxed dogs, my life has gotten easier. And we’ll just end the story here and live happily ever after.

So when one of my puppy owners or anyone else comes to me with a training issue with their dog, the very first thing I recommend is that they take the KPA Foundations course. Of course, if this is one of my puppy clients, I suggest they take the course before bringing their puppy home. Unfortunately, only some of them do. Whether it's the money or the time it takes or that they don't see the value in it, I don't know. 

I have considered requiring prospective puppy buyers to complete the course before they can buy a puppy from me, but someone has to want to learn this information for it to be effective, and unfortunately, not enough people understand the value of this program to them and their dogs.

I do require my breeding candidate owners to complete the course before they can get breeding rights on their puppies, and I am firm on this requirement. If you are a breeder, you are also a trainer, and this program is step one to being a successful trainer of little Livestock Guardian Dog puppies. Unfortunately, most people who take the course to get breeding rights choose to wait until their dogs are of breeding age to do so. Better late than never, but it's sad that neither the dog they bought from me nor the owner themselves benefitted from the program when their puppy was little. 

Of all the puppies I have sold over the years, the owners who have been the most successful and had the fewest problems training their pups are the ones that have taken the KPA Foundations Course. The puppies who have benefitted the most from an owner who truly understands their dog and how to communicate and train in a kind, fun, science-based way are the puppies whose owners have taken the Foundations course. This course truly is Step One in your success as an LGD owner. 

A Livestock Guardian Dog is a huge investement. The safety and security of whatever you value are riding on that dog, be that goats, chickens, horses, or the family cat. (This course is just as vital for companion Maremmas.) Livestock Guardian Dogs have a high failure rate, and that is because most people are ill-equipped to train their dogs. The Karen Pryor Acedemy Dog Trainer Foundations course gives you the vital first step towards success with your dog.

​Think of it as insurance on your investment. Most people wouldn't forego insurance on a new car. That would be too risky. Don't skip on insurance for your LGD! Take the KPA Foundations course before you bring home your new Maremma puppy. Or if you've already got that adorable pup, start the course now. Your dog will thank you for it, and you will thank me for this advice!

On the way home from The Ranch I stopped to visit our friends in Oregon.

The views here in Oregon are beautiful!

Friday was my last day working with Corgi. He was a great training partner.

Donkey Grooming Time!

We had a lot off great demos on Thursday but I'm having trouble uploading them to Weekly. Below is the goat recall demo. I'll try to add the others later.

The goats and alpacas enjoy their enrichment and browse time. This gives me lots of great ideas of things to build for my goats!

Some of the students had an apple catapulting contest. Apples are shot into the pastures to attract the elk. I watched. This map depicts all the places students have come from to visit The Ranch. More places will be added after this course is over.

Wednesday morning started out rainy, which made learning the lecture difficult but was a great break for me, coming from the drought ridden California Central Valley. We did end up moving indoors to finish the morning session, but things dried up in time for the first animal lesson.

After the morning lecture we went out for another goat session. We had a visitor for the pre-lesson briefing. ☺️ Corgi was as cooperative as usual. He's a smart boy!

In the afternoon we had our first donkey training session. The black donkey is Sillouette, my training partner. She was a good girl.

We had dinner at the ranch that evening, where Ken Ramirez shared stories of all the amazing adventures he's had training all kinds of animals all over the world. He once even trained thousands of butterflies to do a synchronized flying routine!

Tuesday morning the goats were ready and waiting for their training session!

We also had an alpaca training demo by Ken Ramirez, on Tuesday. This was a great lesson in how to work with shy and skittish animals, as well as how to train multiple animals at once.

Tuesday afternoon Ken Ramirez gave us a donkey training demo.

Monday, August 8th, 2022, was my first day at the Training For Professionals: Across Species course at the Karen Pryor National Training Center (The Ranch) in Washington state. The weather was nice enough that most of the lectures and videos could be held outdoors on the deck, with the beautiful view of the pastures and barn with Mount Rainier (sometimes) visible in the distance. This was a great environment to learn in with breaks in the morning and afternoon for live animal demos and hands on animal training practice. Lunch, snacks and drinks were also served every day, with dinner three of the five nights, as well. Considering everything that is included in this course and the sheer breadth and depth of the learning it was well worth the $1200 price tag for the 5 day course. And the entire course and trip is a tax deductible business expense!

On the way out to the barn for our first animal sessions we were greeted by the Alpacas and Llama. While they don't like to be touched they are very curious and came up quite close to get a look at the new students!

Our first live animal demo was a Goat Training Demo given by Ken Ramirez, starring Kelpie.

Monday afternoon we had our first try at Goat Training. I was assigned Corgi, a Nigerian Dwarf wether who is very smart and was usually waiting for me on his training pedestal when I arrived. Corgi already knows a lot of skills but I quickly discovered that I needed to keep moving at a fast pace and keep things interesting so he wouldn't decide to wander off!

The first day ended around 6 or 6:30 PM. It was a long day but we covered a lot of ground and learned a lot. By the time we got back to the hotel we were ready to crash!

I have just spent the last week (August 8-12, 2022) enjoying a "working vacation" (tax deduction, yay!) at the Karen Pryor Academy National Training Center (The Ranch) in Washington State, where I attended the Training for Professionals: Across Species course with 12 other students. It was a wonderful week filled with hands on training sessions and live demos with various types of animals, in class lectures, videos and much more. I myself worked with goats, mini donkeys and alpacas and saw demos with those animals as well as dogs.

There were students from as far away as Colombia and Hawaii. Among the students were dog trainers and breeders and trainers that work with marine mammals, zoo animals and even chickens! Besides the coursework itself it was very educational just talking with all the students about what it's like working with these various species. It was also a very positive, encouraging and uplifting environment for humans with everyone supporting and inspiring each other to learn and grow in their skills so we can all go out and make a better world for animals and humans.

Before I was even halfway through the course my wheels were spinning with ideas I could implement at home, especially with my goats, which I had always wanted to clicker train but hadn't tried. While working with my training partner, Corgi, a Nigerian Dwarf wether, I quickly saw the value of using dog training platforms to train goats and I went back to my hotel and ordered 6 of them from Blue-9 Training to use with my goats and Maremma puppies. They arrived before I even got home so I will be setting them up and trying them out ASAP. 

Previously to going to this course I had never been north of California so being able to visit Washington as well as Oregon was a wonderful experience, especially in August when the California Central Valley, where I live, is an oven!

In April 2021 I began going through a relentless coordinated attack on my business, my reputation and me as a person by a few very cruel individuals. I love what I do and have worked very hard to get where I am so this experience was extremely difficult and caused me unbelievable stress and severe PTSD symptoms. Eventually I had to hire an attorney to help me fight these people but even with my attorney it was a very hard battle that I often felt I would never win. It was truly the most difficult experience I’ve ever been through, and I am a stage 3 cancer survivor so that’s saying a lot. (At least cancer isn’t personal.) During the middle of this experience a friend encouraged me sign up to attend the Across All Species clicker training course at the Karen Pryor Academy Ranch in Washington, with her. The course would be held in August so the timing was perfect, as kidding season was over and I had no young puppies to care for. It would be a great way to further my education with training my Maremma Sheepdogs as well as my dairy goats. I had long been interested in learning to clicker train goats but I'd never really tried it. This course would be focusing on all different types of animals but the main practice would be goats, so I knew it would be perfect for me. I really wanted to attend but I was concerned that I should not invest the money in this course, in case I needed the money for legal fees. The course itself was $1200 and there would be airfare, hotels and a lot of other expenses. So although I really wanted to take the course I was very torn. In June I received an email from my friend, in which she "pestered me" in her words, to attend the course. She reminded me that this course was being held at a perfect time for me and that might not happen again because it is not always held at the same time every year, and it's not often that things line up so well for me to be able to get away from the farm. Then she told me about a similar circumstance she had been in where she was going through a tough situation and was having trouble deciding whether to attend the KPA Professionals Course or not. She said that she thought about it and there were two things that she decided:

1.She needed the distraction. 2. She refused to have her goals be a casualty of her situation. She told me that she fought HARD for every shred of that coursework and looking back, it means more to her to have earned that certification because of it.

What she said really struck me. I knew that I DEFINITELY needed the distraction and that, despite what I was going through, I had to put my animals' needs, my education, my business and my mental health first. Like my friend, I had goals to improve my skills and knowledge as a trainer so that I could better serve my animals and my customers and I was NOT going to let anyone stop me from achieving those goals. I had to step out in faith, spend the money to go to this course and let the other stuff take care of itself.

So off I went to the beautiful state of Washington, where I have never been. Some of my "issues" were still going on as I was leaving on the plane to fly out, and some of them were still going on while I was there. I really had to fight to keep my focus on being in this course and not letting these other distractions ruin what I was there to do. It was not easy, I will tell you that. I had turned off commenting on my blog before I left home, to prevent further attacks there and so I wouldn't be compelled to reply. But staying off of social media in the evenings was super hard and I didn't always manage it. But every day I went to class and was surrounded by people who live to train animals in positive and kind ways. Not only was I learning how to train through hands-on training with all different types of animals, demonstrations on different types of animals and in-class instruction and videos, but I myself was being immersed in a positive reinforcement environment. Everyone there was encouraging and kind and truly focused on not only helping animals but on helping each other. There were people from all walks of life, different parts of the country as well as out of the country. People from different backgrounds. Dog trainers, people who work with sea mammals and zoo animals, people who train chickens, dog breeders, doggy daycare owners and all different kinds of people. What we had in common was our love of animals and dedication to helping them and the people who care about them. Thirteen students and several instructors and assistants together for 10-12 hours a day, for 5 days in a row and no drama whatsoever. The longer I was in that environment the more I began focusing on what really matters, instead of worrying about this other stuff. I began to get excited about all I was learning and all the ways I could see myself implementing what I was learning into my breeding and training program (dogs and goats) as well as ways I could help my customers and others learn how to be more successful with training and communicating with their animals. By the time the last day of class came to an end I was more excited and optimistic than I've been in months.

On Saturday I drove with my friend to visit her ranch in Oregon (another state I’d never been to) on the way back from WA. On the drive I told her that I know without a shadow of a doubt that if I had not let her "pester" me into taking this course I would still be immersed in all that other drama and stress, in a bad place and not able to get out. She had been absolutely right. I had NEEDED this course, in more ways than one, and like my friend, refusing to let my goals be a casualty of my situation will pay off, big time. And I will value what I learned even more because of what I had to go through to get here and because of how hard I had to work to stay focused.

I spent Saturday afternoon visiting  my friend's beautiful 360 acre Oregon ranch. I met every single one of her 27 Maremmas, meaning I petted, talked to and spent time with each and every one of them. Twenty-seven Maremmas! Twenty-seven smiling "White Dogs", as she calls them. I also visited her companion dogs as well as the three Maremmas and several other dogs owned by another friend, who we visited along the way. It was a day filled with dogs, as well as goats (including several of my Mini Nubian wethers that I had given my friend a few months ago), mini donkeys, mini cows, mules, horses, ponies and sheep. It was a great day and a great ending to a great week! And tomorrow I'll fly back home to California where all my smiling Maremmas, goats, horses, companion dogs and other animals will be waiting for me, along with my family and friends. And I'll go forth and use what I learned this week, as well as my newfound focus, to make the world a better place for all of them.

Me with my training partner, Corgi, on the last day of the course. I learned so much working with this smart little guy and can’t wait to implement what I learned with my own goats! I already have 6 training platforms waiting for me at home, to use with my goats and dogs, because as soon as I used one with Corgi I knew they would be invaluable tools for training my animals. Of course I ordered purple! 💜

Me getting a Maremma fix with Hannah and Milan, two wonderful dogs. Milan (the one who climbed on the table with me) is the sire of two of my dogs, Marisa and Pax, so getting to meet him as well as some of my other dogs’ parents was so great. 💜