What Dog Sledding on a Glacier Taught Me About Your Doodle

When your Doodle spots a squirrel, a bunny, or a deer, does it feel like the whole world switches off and only the chase is left? 🐿️ You are not alone, and your Doodle is not being "bad." In this Steal the Spotlight episode, canine expert Simone Mueller, creator of Predation Substitute Training (PST), joins me from Southern Germany to share how to work WITH your Doodle's prey drive instead of fighting it. I have been telling Doodle parents for years that the Poodle in your Doodle was bred t...

Does your Doodle bark at you until you give in? Kristi Benson, barking specialist and Academy for Dog Trainers instructor, joins me to explain why “demand barking” is really “demand working,” how we accidentally train it with textbook positive reinforcement, and why both bark collars and “just ignore it” make things worse. You’ll learn how to tell an upset bark from an asking bark, why Doodles are especially quick to learn this job, and Kristi’s three-part plan: run an enrichment audit, teach...

Part 2 with Dominika of Dog Meets Baby is the how-to half. We start with the first meeting between your Doodle and your baby, including the step most families skip: greeting your Doodle without the baby first. From there, Dominika covers why jumping and barking are the two behaviors to work on now, what changes the day your baby starts crawling, how to tell a happy lick from a "please give me space" lick, the bubble trick that finally makes sense to a two year old, and the signs it's time to ...

How do you prepare your Doodle for a baby? Dominika of Dog Meets Baby was eight years into her career as a certified trainer when she brought newborn twins home to a dog every trainer friend trusted. What happened in the first few seconds is why she now helps families prepare their dogs for life with little ones. In Part 1, we talk about what really changes for your Doodle when the family's attention shifts, why "cute" behaviors suddenly feel like too much, the guilt nobody says out loud, and...

More than 3,000 Doodle families jumped into the Fall 2026 Doodle Parent Challenge this week, and some of what happened in those five days is just incredible. 🐾 In this celebration episode, I share the wins straight from the live chat and your messages: a Goldendoodle named Willow who finally clocked out for the night, a sit that held while a FedEx driver walked right by, and the moment a Doodle parent swapped a harsh label for "having a difficult moment." In this episode: 🐾 Why a playbo...