Our services

Experienced dog care professionals at Shelmar Kennels provide Katy dog training and dog boarding services. Give us a call today with your dog training and canine boarding kennel questions or to schedule an appointment for services at (281) 371-2554.

We provide a variety of canine services at our dog kennel for residents of Katy and Houston, Texas. Our pet care services include:

Dog training Houston

Dog obedience training

Dog boarding

At Shelmar Kennels, the highly experienced owners are the only ones who will be training your dog.

Dog training and pet care training is our life and as such, we take a personal interest in making sure that both you and your dogs have the best experience possible when utilizing our dog training classes and boarding kennel services.

Houston Dog Obedience Training

We specialize in dog obedience training Houston and take the time necessary to understand your needs and those of your canine companion.

Our in depth experience has provided us with the ability to deliver the best obedience training in Houston, to properly advise you with answers to your dog training questions and ensure a successful transition when working through the Houston dog obedience training process.

At Shelmar Kennels, we have 20 acres of open space surrounded by eight-foot high fence on the Katy prairie with which to properly train your dog to behave in all the different scenarios in life.

We offer 3-week, 4-week and 6-week training course options to meet your Katy dog-training needs.

We also provide rescue dog training in Houston and behavior modification training in Houston.

We have extensive knowledge of rescue dog training, the problems they arrive with, the answers to why that pup was given up to a shelter in the first place and the skill and time to correct these issues.

We work with many rescue organizations. Shelmar Kennels has quickly become the go-to place for problem rescue cases in need of rehabilitation.

Katy Boarding Kennel

Make sure your pets continue to live in a pampered environment with excellent care while you are away by contacting us to make an appointment for your dogs next Katy boarding kennel stay.

We provide a strictly upheld exercise routine, plenty of outdoor play time as is appropriate for your dogs particular needs, lots of space and love in our Katy boarding kennel facility.

We also provide canine recovery boarding for pets have undergone surgery and need special care during this delicate time.

When you call Shelmar Kennels at (281) 371-2554 to discuss your dog obedience training or boarding kennel service needs in the Houston and Katy area.

We will be happy to discuss any of your dog training and boarding kennel services needs today!

Rest assured that your dogs always receive the best care and attention when you use the training and boarding services of Shelmar Kennels.

Shelmar Kennels Houston TX

Shelmar Kennels Texas dog trainer offers a few dog obedience training tips for people who believe dog is mans best friend, yet their canine companion will not listen. If you cannot gain control in the park during a walk or your dog refuses to be house trained, you have a problem.

What relationship do you have with your dog?

Pretty important question if you are browsing our site looking for training advice or even a training program. The relationship most people have with their dog coming to our kennel is one of being their dog’s best friend. The next question would be is there anything wrong with that?

Training Tips

The answer is tricky – it depends on the type of dog you have. If your pups the perfect pooch, loves taking his walks, friendly with everyone he meets, has several canine friends that love to romp and play together and, finally, after a day spent being your perfect companion, falls asleep at your feet, you are on the wrong web site. Most people don’t have that luxury nor may I even say a ‘fairytale’ storybook of a dog.

I know I’ll get 1000 emails saying that their dogs are angels without wings etc etc etc don’t bother sending them!

I’m dealing with dogs that are not like that. The people I deal with everyday are confused, frustrated and sometimes scared. Raising a dog was not as easy as they thought and their perfect bundle of fur at 8 weeks has turned into a Tasmanian devil dog by 5 or 6 months old.

Of course I’m making a point – not everything about them is terrible but a dog that bolts across a road when you lose control in the park and simply will not listen, that’s scary. Dogs that tear up the back yard because they have been relegated there for incessant jumping up isn’t fair to dog or owner.

I have a list elsewhere on the site but all the problems we encounter are NORMAL behavior for dogs given their training. The main question being, what do I do about it and how can I make it stick?

The adage I want you to remember is that a dog is Mans Best Friend. We have all heard the phrase. To make your dog your companion you have to be a leader. Dogs don’t respond to weakness, they respond to and respect strength. This is where reinforcement of your commands comes into play. Obedience training is as easy as remembering the last thing you told your dog to do and making them do it!

I want you to make a choice between love and respect right now. Love has no place in training a dog. Dogs confuse kindness for weakness. Training is simply making your dog obey what you are showing him to do through repetition. There are many methods of training from treat training to forcing. Most dogs respond best to a regular schedule and repetition.

Don’t get me wrong, I love and adore my dogs, but when I’m training I expect them to perform and learn.  I demand attention from them and high levels of concentration.

Want to know a secret – they LOVE being pushed to learn, made to concentrate and they egt a massive feeling of accomplishment when they do things right and reward is given.

Summary

Your role as the leader of the pack must be clearly defined. The dog must understand that it is subordinate to you and is one of your followers not the leader.

I ask all my clients if their dog has a job, if he brings home a paycheck. The answer is always NO. Most dogs are unable to even feed themselves. This puts them at the bottom of the food chain, therefore they need to be led and have a leader. Through training and spending time with them, dogs become comfortable with this; they feel they have a place in your life and you and your family become very important to them.

Dog behavior training

Shelmar Kennels dog trainers in Houston works to correct bad behavior in dogs. Jumping on everybody, constantly licking and even aggressive behavior in a dog can often be resolved with good canine training.

The majority of your dogs behavior is a result of learned behavior. Every time you are with your dog you are teaching him something.

Don’t feel guilty!

Many people feel guilty upon discovering they were reinforcing the very behavior they are dealing with at the moment, or a behavior they ended up disliking – consider this situation.

A dog that is scratching on the door or barking incessantly to be let in from an unsupervised potty session in the back yard is displaying a learned behavior. If you open the door and let Fido in, you have cemented the fact that all he has to do is scratch/bark to be let back into the house. He learned that FROM YOU! Bark, Bark and open sesame.

Consider this obedience remedy

Fido finishes doing his business and comes up to the back door and proceeds to scratch/bark whereupon you immediately give him a couple of blasts with the kids mega-soaker water gun, followed by the command QUIET in a firm tone. Now we are teaching – Fido has a different outcome to his initial action of bark/scratch: instead of open sesame, we now get squirted with water.

After a brief period of Fido waiting at or near the door to come in, we then open the door, making him wait outside until told – OK – and let into the house.

The only difference in good dog behavior and bad is how we deal with it

We must counteract our dog’s bad behavior to make it good learned behavior. You may or may not have been the person who reinforced a particular behavior in your dog. Anyone, friends, relatives, neighbors and kids could have been the one who reinforced a certain behavior.

Anyone who interacts with your dog has the potential of reinforcing behaviors in your dog, especially young children wanting to play chase with a young puppy. The pup grows and the chase speeds up and our youth, who previously could out run and out smart pup, are now regularly mauled upon entering the back yard.

Pup is in play mode as soon as he sees any children entering his area. Pup thinks ah ha its playtime, run kiddo run! To compound the problem worse kids scream ahh no don’t eeee ooo no puppy ahhhh – of course pup immediately recognizes this as the scream-run-play game and continues to play hard. BUT it’s not the pup’s fault, this is a learned behavior!

As your pup comes into your world he starts behaving like a dog and doing things that dogs do.

Some of the pup’s behaviors get reinforced and some do not get reinforced. The vast majority of the behaviors your dog displays are the result of accidental or intentional reinforcement. Reinforcement is when you as the owner of Fido allow the back door scratching to be let back in the house continues. You would be reinforcing the bad behavior you don’t want to happen.

True, some of a dog’s behavior is genetic in origin, but the vast majority of the behaviors we are concerned with in day to day living are learned or reinforced.

In studies it has been observed that just one or two reinforcements can almost guarantee the behavior will happen again in the future. Knowledge of reinforcement and how to be aware of it is so important to understanding your dog’s behavior if you are trying to teach or change some behavior. Remember the old adage about letting dogs learn from one another throws that theory out of the window doesn’t it!

Imagine all the great things they could learn in a couple of weeks with the dog down the road. This is exactly why raising two puppies at the same time is nearly always a sure fire recipe for disaster.

Let’s talk about good reinforcement. Fido is told to sit and does so but within a second or two stands back up or he may move off a little to sniff a new smell.

You should immediately push his hindquarters back onto the ground repeating the command sit. You are creating a program from which the dog can learn, he stands and you make him sit. You will have to show your consistency but pup will learn to bend to your wishes. This is called dog training! Welcome 🙂

Many owners share the same problems with their pups. Jumping up on them is the number one complaint we get at the kennel. I watch as the errant pup jumps on its owner only to be petted before being pushed away. They are reinforcing the already learned behavior of  – if you want attention, jump up on me!

Accidentally reinforcing aggressive behavior in a dog

This is probably the number one cause of most aggression we see and it can often happen with the best of “good intentions” of the owner. The dog growls at a stranger and meaning well, the owner may try comforting the dog with, “Its alright Fido, he won’t hurt you”.

Without meaning to, the owner is reinforcing the dog’s aggressive behavior by their words and tone of voice. These words are always given in a weak manner, much better to give the pup the Quiet command and nix any bad behavior at its onset.