The Disc Dog Bed and Breakfast – A Dog Training Vacation in NY

The Disc Dog Bed and Breakfast is back!

Last weekend we had our first full Disc Dog Bed and Breakfast guest since relocating our dog training operation to Kingston, NY. It went off without a hitch, and guess what? He wants to come back at the end of October for another session. How cool is that?

What is the B&B?

For those of you who don’t know, the Disc Dog Bed and (get your own damn) Breakfast is a dog training weekend at Pawsitive Vybe HQ in Kingston, NY. It has been in operation since 2006 and most of our guests have been back multiple times to take advantage of the unique learning experience that the PVybe Pack offers.

There is no typical B&B stay. The weekend is tailored to the needs of the dog and handlers on hand. Sometimes we do a ton of dog training – shaping, eye contact, targeting, theory, etc. Sometimes we need to do reactive dog stuff or drive management. We fix broken drop cues, teach dogs to play with more than one disc, repair strained performance relationships between dog and handler, help players craft a style, and we always throw, throw, throw.

I’m pretty sure that the B&B is the best training value available. Heck, you can barely find a hotel in NY for the cost of a weekend’s stay with us.

Who’s Been There?

Jeff and Misty Wright were the first to try out the unique learning experience. Followed soon after by Nadja Palenzuela – pre Kara days. Angelo Marinakis, Angela Ewtushik – pre Rick, Katherine Ferger, Rick Rauwerda, Frans and Renate from the Netherlands and Lydia Stobbe from Germany were some of our first guests that year.

Angelo and his pack has been to the B&B 4 or 5 times including a day stay test run here at PVybe HQ in Kingston earlier this summer. Rick and Angela come out once a year to tune up and to grab the latest PVybe stuff as well.

Here’s a testimonial that I have yet to publish from Rick and Angela:

Rick & Angela

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We have known Ron & Apryl of Pawsitive Vybe for several years and we continue to make a yearly trip to attend their B&B weekend of disc training. They are able to combine their years of dog training experience and knowledge to provide you with a program that is tailored to you and your dog, whether it be in dogsports or basic pet behaviour. No matter if you are young or old, amateur or a professional, you will come away overloaded with information from both Ron & Apryl. They ROCK!

Angela Ewtushik & Rick Rauwerda | R&R Pet Paradise | Ontario, Canada

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How cool is that?

Andrew Han and Solar

Andrew Han, Abby Cline, Clara Yori, Dariusz Radomski & Bartek Zych (gratis), Heather McLeod, Kat and Jack Fahle, and Jason and Andrea Rigler, are some of the other notable names on the list of visitors that we’ve worked with. Of course, many of them were not so notable at the time… Not a bad list of players eh? If someone ever tells you that PVybe training is really just good for novices or beginners, just remember that list. I’m pretty sure that all of them will be coming back or would like to.

Of course we do work with beginners and we really enjoy it, we all started somewhere. CJ and Patrick Fithian have been a couple of our favorite visitors, hell CJ got a PVYBE vanity license plate in her home state of California – she bartered the MacBook (on which I am currently writing) for an extended stay for her and Pat . The Midwest Disc Dog Crew has been great to work with as well – sorry we’re no longer in your back yard. We work with anyone who wants to learn how to jam with their dogs.

A New Beginning

Over the last few years the B&B had grown into a staple of our business. The Farm was the perfect place – we had a separate training studio, multiple bedrooms and multiple fields – fenced and non-fenced – on which to jam. In fact, right before our landlord decided to sell the farm, the B&B was the thing that allowed us, for the first time, to finish a winter in the Black. We were making it, largely because of the steady and growing stream of B&B stays.

That was one of the hardest things about leaving the Farm. How the heck would we find a place where we could do B&B stays in NY State?

Well, find one we did, and it rocks. We’ve got a training studio, a guest ‘apartment’, a disc dog field 40 yards away. Pretty soon we’ll even have a shower! 😉

And So it Begins…

Last weekend we hooked up with Tim, a passionate and dedicated noobie from Pennsylvania with a couple of great dogs, Mattie and Rocket. Tim is a natural dog trainer, reminds me much of myself back in the day – he really knows how to play with dogs. He has much more stick-to-it-iveness than I did though, and it shows. His dogs know lots of tricks. But natural dog training only takes you so far, you don’t need to know a lot about dog training theory until you run into trouble training your dog.

Tim had been struggling to get his young dog, Rocket, to move fast and aggressively and questioned his drive (Rocket is 10 months old.). His older dog, Mattie has not been hooking up well with him during disc play. Both of these situations stemmed from Tim not communicating as well as he could – no positive marker and inconsequent reinforcement during play. Time for a crash course on positive dog training, not exactly what Tim was looking for out of a Disc Dog Bed and Breakfast, but I level set him on this before he and his pack made the trip, and we did get to do plenty of Disc Dogging.

The weekend kicked ass and we had a great time going deep into training theory and practical application and introducing Rocket to Bitework. Tim’s head did not explode, and it looks like the Bitework was just what the doctor ordered for Rocket to start to look like that awesome, drivey dog that he is.

I was quite stoked last night when Tim contacted me about coming up later this month for another visit.

The B&B is back! We’re ready to work with you. Check it out and get a weekend booked. We’ll jam.

If you’ve been to the B&B or want to, drop a comment below and we can chat about it.

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