How Is Your Relationship With Your Dog?
If your dog Comes happily, allows grooming, accepts a leash and collar, likes playing with you, likes being petted by you, listens to your commands, can be left home alone without distress or destruction, and doesn’t have to be left in the yard while you are gone, then you have a good relationship with your […]
Rescues, Shelters And Breeders Need To Focus On The Puppies
What would make the biggest impact on reducing the number of dogs in animal shelters, and consequently, the number of dogs put to death every year? Rescues, shelters and breeders need to start focusing on puppy socialization and training. Get the puppies right and you are much less likely to get them back. Socialization. We […]
Preventing Shelter Dog Deterioration
Long term, inappropriate kenneling creates neuroses in shelter dogs, resulting in repetitive or severely inhibited responses; multiple signs of extreme stress, self-preoccupied behaviors; increased care soliciting or care rejecting behavioral patterns; resistance to being returned to the kennel; snapping at the leash or while being leashed; food bowl guarding; suspiciousness, restlessness, and excessive vocalizations; trembling; […]
Understanding Puppies
On one hand, puppy wants what it wants and can’t inhibit themselves very well. On the other hand, external influences limit a puppy’s actions. How can we best raise and own dogs, from puppy to adult, and balance these conflicting forces? About 60 years ago, a new perspective was overtaking the dog world. The message […]
Dogs, Pavlov, and Skinner
What are we, as dog owners and trainers, to make of the mechanistic learning science doctrines of Pavlov, Skinner, and others? The troublesome outcome of their work in animal and human experiments is that their concepts were sterile and inadequate, and forced to explain all behavior as combinations and sequences of exact, independent, reflexive actions. […]
What Kind Of Dog Do You Have?
One of the first questions I ask a potential student is about the kind of dog they have. I do this because training should match the dog, not the other way around. Once the breed, breeding, or mix of breeds, is established, then I want to know what kind of training the owner is seeking. […]
Force Free vs Balanced Dog Training?
There has been a long-standing dispute between the “force free” dog training community advocates and the “balanced” dog training community advocates. What’s that all about? The “force free” dog training community are generally those who advocate that all dog training should be comprised of positive reinforcement methods. In this group, it is considered inhumane to […]
My Male Dogs Want To Fight
Aggression is a difficult topic to explain and treat. First, we want all dogs to get along, and it is hard to understand why dogs that were friends are now in conflict. Second, it is hard to find research studies on dog fights because of the obvious difficulty and danger of working with aggressively stimulated […]
When Punishing Your Dog Backfires
Small example. Your dog has been punished for every little thing while you are home. Punishment is a learning theory term which means applying a consequence that reduces the frequency of a behavior. It doesn’t necessarily imply that you’ve done something horrible to your dog… but we can discuss that further at another time. You […]
Adding A New Dog Into Your Home
Are you considering getting another dog? What do you need to do to have the highest chance of success? And what if your current dogs are fighting? The first consideration should be whether your current dogs have a culture that would be good for another dog. Groups are self-teaching. That can be good or bad. […]