TRAINing dogs together

Allegiant Canine is committed to offering a holistic, comprehensive, play-based approach to dog training and human coaching that leads our clients to a life of understanding, connection, and freedom with their canine companions! You will not only learn to train your dog, but also how to fulfill them!

How it Works

1. Begin Questionnaire

2. Book Initial Session

3. Build Training Plan

🚨 Aggression is usually a symptom—not the root problem.

Most dogs don’t become aggressive because they’re “bad dogs.” They become aggressive because important needs are being overlooked.

The three most common contributors we see are:

1️⃣ Lack of biologically appropriate engagement for the dog’s age, breed, and disposition.

2️⃣ Lack of clear boundaries and structure in the home.

3️⃣ No consistent contingency for behavior—meaning the dog doesn’t clearly understand what behaviors lead to good outcomes and which behaviors don’t.

When dogs have appropriate outlets, clear expectations, and consistent communication, confidence grows and conflict decreases.

Aggression isn’t solved by ONLY correcting behavior. IT IS solved by addressing the lifestyle and relationship that created it.

Have you experienced aggression with your dog? Which of these areas do you think made the biggest difference?

👇 Let us know in the comments.

#DogTraining #AggressiveDog #DogBehavior #CanineBehavior #playbased

I asked chat gpt to make a carousel based on my media content and this is what it created. I don’t hate it. If a computer can figure it out, I think you can too!

This is a long one, but there are some things that very good people are missing because they are being LAZY, and making freaking ridiculous excuses

I freaking love you guys and just wanted to give a shout out to some clients who deserve credit for their hard work!

#dogtraining #dogsofinstagram #nashvilletn #slightedge

Join us this Saturday at Evans Park at 9 AM in Spring Hill for our first Group class of the year!

#dogtraining #dogsofinstagram #nashvilletn #groupclass

I cannot tell you how many times this has happened …
#Dogtrainer #punishment #dogsofinstagram #nashvilletn #caninebehavior

A couple takeaways from my time back in France #dogtraining #nashvilletn #france

Sooooo, I have a little news for you guys! I am a very private person, and so is my girl, but we wanted to make this announcement when the time was right, and now is the time!

I have had a handful of life changing moments in my 38 years on this earth, and meeting Mariya has been the single most valuable gift God has ever given me.

I couldn’t possibly earn or deserve her. She’s a diamond in the rough like few people will ever understand. She’s loyal, hardworking, family oriented, and she knows exactly who the eff she is.

My baby, my little Scorpio, my princess, and soon to be my queen, I love you more than I can express in these words.

#love #engaged #proposal

I would be willing to bet money that Judy watched every single board and train session that I posted on YouTube each day throughout this last four weeks… This is how the handoff lesson should be going.

When the client has more trust in their dog than I do, that’s a huge encouragement because it means that they have watched every little step.

Great job Judy and Apollo!
#DogTrainer #DogTraining #BoardAndTrain #NashvilleTN

INSTAGRAM LIVE 🎥
Vet visit, inevitability, distractions, dog fatigue, upcoming vacation, board and trains
#dogsofinstagram #dogtraining #nashvilletn #caninebehavior

Sometimes we get bored and learn a new language 🇺🇦 I think the last time that I worked her like this was about a year ago when we met Cleo‘s owner at the park. Stop working your dog and start enjoying them. #dogtraining #dogsofinstagram #nashvilletn #americanbully

I think I might be more distractible than Mila is this morning 🤪 🤪 #dogtraining #dogsofinstagram #nashvilletn

Over the last two years, there are dozens and dozens of dogs and handlers who have experienced massive rehabilitation leading to lifelong freedom and the rebuilding of their dysfunctional relationships.

The way that I accomplish this is drastically different from 98% of trainers out there, and every single type of misbehavior responds to this system.

Follow us here and on YouTube to see the why and the how behind this approach, and please fill out a training questionnaire on our website to book an initial session so that we can start healing the relationship between you and your dog.

This program will give you increased predictability by focusing on a balance of exposure and structure that will iltinately provide you peace and freedom instead of resentment and frustration.

I could not do what I do without the work of trainers like Jay Jack, Larry Krohn, Ivan Balabanov who actually create lifelong results for owners and their dogs instead of masking what’s actually there.

#dogtraining #nashvilletn #behaviormodification #dogsofinstagram

Penny living her best life patiently waiting adoption from @russellrescue_tn

When dogs are learning to set and keep boundaries, it is SO HARD sometimes to not get involved and NOT to put weight into the interaction.

(This whole session is uploaded to YouTube if you want to see how the rest of the walk went)

They both needed to learn here: JB needed to see that when she initiates conflict I’m not going to just come in and rescue her. And Apollo needs to learn that coming in too hot will cause problems and that space is respect.

This is not the first time they have met, and we all enjoyed an off leash hike after this. I interrupted more than usual, but this is something that he’s been doing with Mila as well.

It was more realistic and they both learned. When I say OUT I mean it.

#dogbehavior #offleash #dogtraining

I took Apollo out to the local Dollar General to say hello to one of his human friends who got to meet him on week, one.

We made a little breakthrough on the two week mark of his board and train, where he was actually willing to start playing tug with me!

One of the reasons that I am fading out the use of food for behavioral issues is that it often masks the dogs true feelings about themselves, the handler, the environment, triggers, which is bad because it will create a false positive if I’m not careful.

If a dog is willing to commit to a solid game of tug, their emotional state and self image is not lying to me. A dog does not have to play to stay alive.

It’s nothing sexy or flashy, and it doesn’t have to be… Just happy dogs learning what freedom is like.

#DogTrainer #playwithyourdog #Caninebehavior

@amieledford just out there letting pigs fly 🐖 🐖

The quiet fight against ideological bullshit #dogtraining #nashvilletn #dogtrainer #caninebehavior

Meet Champ! This adventure, loving scruff is really opening up after only three sessions.

He absolutely loves long line adventures and rides in the car. He also loves rolling in the grass, personal play with his handler, and to play tag!

Help us find a forever home for this sweet guy feel free to tune into our full length, unedited YouTube’s daily Monday to Saturday every single week.

@russellrescue_tn #dogsofinstagram #nashvilletn #dogtraining

Maisie’s owners gave me permission to upload this video because it was probably one of the fastest transitions from neurotic, reactive, distracted walking, to focused, attentive, low arousal walking.

This is just a warm up to remind the dog how we walk. I start by teaching them about the pressure they will *find* then the pressure I will *show* them myself.

It’s not fun or sexy but it’s also not miserable or painful. Structured walking is one of those things I like to get out of the way so that I can really get moving with the dog.

I think trainers make this take wayyyy too long, and the average client is not interested in taking 6 months to learn to loose leash walk.

This was our first session teaching this, and I always consider results temporary until the client can duplicate the competency and confidence of the skill. C&L both absolutely killed it.

This became the structure that we could then correct the reactivity from because before there wasn’t a “way” that the walk was supposed to go.

#walkthedog #dogtraining #dogsofinstagram

As I understand, the different drive states more deeply, I am made astonishingly aware of the continuum between relevance and arousal.

The four different drives that your dog oscillates between as part of human society are exploration, engagement, education, and existence.

Exploration is high arousal and low relevance.

Engagement is high arousal and high relevance.

Education is lower arousal and higher relevant.

Existence is low arousal and low relevance.

All four are extremely important! Make sure that these opportunities and inevitability exist for your dogs, assign a verbal value to when you are stepping into that drive state, and then just enjoy being with your dog!

#DogTraining #Holistic #LetDogsBeDogs

Controversial opinion: Using food in dog training is not always the best option if I want to know a dogs emotions, self image, or belief system.

But it can be a powerful motivator for blank slate puppies who have everything going for them.

Murphy is a 5 month Bernadoodle who has done two sessions with me. The most important part of puppy training is letting the owner see the dog responding to the communication system. It’s a lesson in who their dog is.

In this video, I was explaining how I play the reverse yo-yo game to teach the ”Place” behavior.

I think it’s important to note that you can teach this behavior really well using all kinds of methods. Later in the lesson we perfected the behavior with pressure, and proofed it with punishment.

So the answer to the question is when the dog loves doing it, unless the leash is attached. When I have the ability to use pressure, commands can be introduced alittle earlier. No sweat.

But word association super early in the process is an extension of a humans impatience to get the dog into their language too soon.

We use market or bridge words to build the behavior, treating the exercise like a game, showing them how to win.

Then once we’re seeing pretty great intensity, speed, and consistency of offering, we assign a prompt to it.

Play as a for of payment is also something we experimented with yesterday. Food is just easier to explain to a client sometimes. Very little of this is truly free-shaping although I do discuss it as such when I allow the dog to offer whatever they want. It’s just shaping.

#puppytraining #freeshaping #dogtraining

Veterinarians, “Behaviorists,” rescue groups, and Ignorant Dog Trainers are all guilty of it.

“Get them fixed,” they say. As if it’s the fix they want. There is a psyop in this phraseology that causes people to believe it’ll solve all their problems.

It won’t. Spaying and neutering often creates more. I wonder if we looked at the data if the massive pressure to spay and neuter made any overall impact in the underserved animal populations or animal welfare in the United States.

I think it’s worth looking into. But there’s another industry that was propped up by the messaging of the industry - veterinarians. I have watched the price of simple ass procedures nearly triple in the last ten years. Now we’re having to take out insurance on our pets?! Come on man.

When the pressure and the price for something go up at the same time, pretty good chance there’s something afoot.

#psyop #spayandneuter #intactinfact

Over the last couple years, I’ve seen the dog training community get real nasty, and I have chosen to stay out of the drama.

But the longer I avoid it, the louder the voices of falsehood get. And it’s not just from one side. It feels ubiquitous.

So I decided to make a video that would get people’s attention. Not like my usual videos where I barely edit them but something that may cause people to think a bit about their ideology.

The dogs in this video were found on a property in rural Tennessee where they were abused and neglected. They don’t seem to be held back by this at all. Ralphie and Faiths full consult is on YT uploaded yesterday.

Dogs are intelligent. Dogs are resilient. Dogs move on.

I will vehemently fight against claims of the opposite by continuing to post boring, music-less, un-voiced over videos of me avtually getting results by healing the dog.

Without guidance from @larrykrohn @xjayjackx13 @daytodaydogtraining @trainlikeivan @michael_ellis_school there are a lot of dogs who would be dead.

Time to kick some ass.

#dogtraining #nashvilletn #dogsofinstagram #rescuedogs

You can hear us in the background making excuses for why Ruger wasn’t playing tug.

Maybe he’s tired
He just got dewormed
It’s raining

Once we fixed the “picture” of what he was used to play looking like, we changed the technique from dead squirrel to live squirrel, and we stopped trying to get the toy back from him and instead celebrated possession, he played for five mins straight like a wild man.

Build drive, curiosity, frustration, possession, and cooperation, and you’ll get engagement and fulfillment like you’ve never seen before.

Someone amazing needs to adopt this Ruger Booger from @a.freedom.journey asap!

#malinois #offleash #dogtraining #dogsofinstagram #nashvilletn

My beautiful 🤩 princess 👑queen 🌹 made me the most amazing “snack” tonight. I am so grateful for her insanely good judgment and sense of taste and style.

@traderjoes you knocked it out of the park with this Italian Bomba Hot Pepper Sauce 🌶️ ! @coorsbanquet pairs really nicely!

#snack #girlfriend #dogtrainer

Otis the French bulldog is not an aggressive or reactive dog. Hes an insecure dog whose world was very small due to past behavior.

Home Depot trips are NOT the only engagement or kinds of walking this dog gets.

Lesson one was an evaluation to see what was up and to show his people he wasn’t really aggressive. Lesson two we taught the communication system and reintroduced Otis to the neighbor boy who he bit. Lesson three we introduced him to Mila and they had a blast -‘#. Lesson four we went to Shelby dog park (yep) and also let him observe the geese off leash for the first time in public. This video is most of lesson 5.

Since the FF / +R / Positive only community cannot seem to find my YouTube I’ll just post this video here.

I actually show all my work with my clients’ permission, so if you’re gonna come at me with “Poor Dog,” actually be willing to see what you’re criticizing.

At some point people start becoming a sheep / robot / parrot of an ideology instead of saying

1. Did it work?
2. Did it improve overall welfare?
3. Did the dogs emotional state improve?

There is another video of Otis at Shelby Park, and I’ll ask @amieledford if I can share. This is where we worked on the biological fulfillment side of things.

The bigger picture still involves much more freedom and play, and yes an occasional punishment. Because sane people know that fair, clear punishment creates clarity, trust, predictability, and freedom.

Stop listening to the liars who aren’t even dog trainers who won’t show their work or sometimes even their faces.

#frenchbulldog #offleash #dogtraining #dogsofinstagram nashvilletn

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TRAINing dogs together

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