Cody has been learning and growing as a trainer for multiple years prior to starting this business, and has worked with over 1000 board and train clients of his own since starting Gungho Dogs LLC. Cody spent time working under other professional trainers, has trained his own dogs to high levels of obedience and hunting, is a Certified Dog Trainer through the International Association of Canine Professionals (IACP), and is excited to bring that wisdom and knowledge to you and your dog. 

Cody teaches dogs with positive reinforcement, conditions learned behaviors with a low-level pressure and rewards based system, and then guides dogs to be obedient just for obedience's sake. Cody has a Masters degree in Clinical Mental Health Counseling and uses his psychology background, his faith background, and his dog training experience to foster the best relationships between owners and their dogs.

Nobody wants a dog that will only listen for a treat, and nobody wants a dog that will only listen out of fear. That being said we do use a lot of food motivation to get dogs interactive and enjoying training. Luring and shaping with food is our foundation for teaching. Depending on the dog's age and training history, some receive force free 100% positive reinforcement, while others receive a balance of positive reinforcement with correction and the use of different training tools when necessary. The difference will depend on your dogs age, breed and training history. 

Even though we use tools like treats, clicker, leash, long line, place boards, crates, retrieving bumpers, ecollar/prong collar/gentle leader/martingale/harness etc. Our goal at the end of training is to wean the dog off of all of these tools so we then have a dog that is obedient just for obedience sake. 

Each dog's demographics, handler history, and the owner's desired training outcome is all going to factor into how we train your dog. Dog's have unique personalities and it is our job as good trainers to know the dog as best as we can before we start training. The first step to effective training is building mutual trust. 

With the amount of different dogs we have trained we can't say that one specific method of training is going to work for all dogs, but the principles of our training do stay the same. We teach with as much positivity as possible, associating verbal cues with behaviors, then we guide and conditions those learned behaviors in multiple different environments with both corrections and positive reward. We then wean the dog off of any conditioning pressure or reward which results in obedience for obedience sake. 

If you would like to take the next step in improving your dog's training please complete the form below and we will contact you about training your dog(s).