About Pawsitive Barb

Pawsitive Barb publishes four numbered services and a clear specialty: "My specialty is working with young puppies and my passion is service dogs."

The four programs

"Puppy Start Right" is the entry point – "These classes are specially designed for pups between 7-12 weeks old." "Early Puppy Board and Train" is residential: "Boarding them at my home facility allows 24/7 exposure to Positive Reinforcement Training and can fast track their learning process." Private training is offered "In your home or mine!" and is aimed at dogs whose problem behaviors, as the trainer puts it, "are already firmly in place", with a published four-step method that starts by "Identifying the WHY behind the behavior". The fourth is "Therapy and Service Dog Coaching".

What the service-dog work actually is

Worth being precise about, because the words are easy to misread. This is not a trained-dog placement service. The trainer describes it as coaching the owner: "I train you to be the trainer. I'd love to speak with you about evaluating your dog to be a therapy or service animal!" The dog being trained is the client's own.

Method

Positive reinforcement and clicker training, explained at length on the site, including why a marker is used at all: "The essential difference between clicker training and other reward-based training is that the click tells the animal exactly which behavior earned it a reward." The site also notes that "There are times where a clicker will not be used, and we will identify an alternate marker".

Credentials

Barbara Galbraith publishes a Karen Pryor Academy Certified Training Partner designation and a Service Dog Coaching credential through Cooperative Paws, and describes herself as a volunteer puppy raiser with Service Dogs of Virginia and a national trainer with Pets for Vets. Those are her credentials rather than services; the service counted here is the published coaching product.