Is Dog Behavior Lawful?
Does dog behavior operate according to recognized rules or laws? I would say this. While dog behavior can be described and often predicted in a laboratory, you will find it impossible to predict and control all the behavior of your dog in the real world. How can that be? It has long been recognized that […]
Why Is It Complicated To Build A Well-Trained Dog?
How do you build a well-behaved dog? Most dogs are getting shortchanged. Current programs are still stuck in 100-year-old dog training models. The available tools most trainers use have some impact but never 100%… food luring, environmental enrichment, clickers, e-collars, reinforcement schedules, leash, collar, toys, punishments, positive reinforcements, critical periods, etc. The inventors, or followers […]
Competition Vs Real World Dog Training
Competition obedience is judged upon accomplishment of a stylized routine of precise exercises according to organizational rules in predictable situations. Real world obedience is judged according to public safety laws, rules and customs in unpredictable situations at home and in public. Here are some of what I learned about this contrast over the years. My […]
What is PoochMaster?
PoochMaster is my daily blog. I started this blog back in 2005 to write about current, daily topics on dogs. If you follow the link, you’ll see articles about current events, news and topics that ranger wider than what I tend to print here on my website. It is a labor of love to write […]
Dogs And Photoperiodism
Do dogs have significant seasonal changes in behavior, especially in mood state, like people? I was asked this question recently, so I figured it was a good topic for a blog post. Photoperiodism is an animal’s response to changes in the length of day and night. For example, there are known 24-hour hormonal cycles. The […]
Why Is Dog Behavior So Hard To Understand?
I was speaking with a new student yesterday who was trying to understand why so many trainers use different approaches. In her case, she has an under-socialized young adult dog that is fearful of new people and new situations. One trainer she spoke with said that they were going to start the dog on an […]
Your Dog And Setting Boundaries With People
It is important to define and choose the appropriate physical and emotional boundaries you will enforce when people interact with your dog. Some things are going to be OK, some things are not going to be OK. A couple of examples… It is not OK for someone to hurt your dog: a physical boundary. It […]
The “Science” Of Dog Training
I’m currently reading an article from the Journal Of Experimental Analysis Of Behavior regarding stimulus control experiments, especially those of Guttman and Kalish (1956). This study was about the visual discrimination training of pigeons to better understand the concept of stimulus generalization. The authors of the article cite the definition of stimulus control as described […]
Black Friday Puppies And Dogs
Every year, after Thanksgiving, we have the Black Friday sales. Consumers have wads of cash, and they are ready to spend. A lot of these purchases are in anticipation of Christmas. There will be a LOT of great pets to choose from. However, many municipal animal shelters are CLOSED that day and through that weekend. […]
A Dog Training Mess
Occasionally, a carefully planned dog training lesson… will turn out to be a mess. That is because every dog has a vote in terms of how things are going to go. Thus, in the middle portion of one of my lessons this morning, what I was trying to do went sideways. Now, I’m not saying […]