Assessing Your Dog’s Level Of Training
When training a dog, it is a good idea to categorize the level of training the dog has completed. I use the similar terminology that hunting dog trainers use. I see people ask novice dogs to do advanced skills and get upset because they think the dog is “disobeying”. If you know the level, then […]
Is Your Dog Really Getting Trained?
Contemporary dog training landscapes reveal a predominance of programs emphasizing restrictive management techniques, such as prolonged confinement to a mat or cot, suppression of leash reactivity through shutdown protocols, or superficial activities like platform balancing and basic luring. In the Behavioral And Sensory Stimulation Optimization (BASSO) Method, which prioritizes ethologically informed enrichment to fulfill a […]
Project Dog: Fearful Chihuahua
Here is one of my students and her Chihuahua. Adopted from a rescue, with an unknown history, this dog started out with very little to work with: fearful of humans but playful with the family dogs; mild interest in treats; mild interest in playing fetch with the owner; afraid of being touched by a human, […]
Dogs And Americans With Disabilities
I’ve seen a lot of dog things over the years. Some stick in my memory and represent significant discoveries. First, I participated in group classes with my first dog after I graduated from the University. The best trained dog in class was a male Schipperke. The owner? A young woman with Cerebral Palsy. Guess what? […]
Dogs And Amusement Parks
One of the latest trends in the dog world is the creation of neighborhood, for profit, playgrounds for dogs. Basically, an amusement park for dogs. This is the evolution of the enrichment fad that took off a few years ago. Enrichment started out as a strategy to help captive animals in zoos to prevent behavioral […]
Dogs And Ball Addiction?
The idea of “ball addiction” is bonkers. There is no such a thing. Here’s how the theory goes, however. You play fetch with your dog every day. So, whenever your dog is around, your dog now brings you a ball so you will toss it. When you don’t toss the ball, the dog barks, develops […]
Should You “Break” A Dog?
I have a new student. Nice pup, but with a few challenges. They signed up for a 2 week “board and train” program, paid the money up front… and decided not to go. They realized the obvious. This program was to “break” the dog. Show me a top level dog: competition, hunting trials, search and […]
Dogs And Calm Submissive Philosophy
As a result of the “dog whisperer” phenomenon, there has been the coalescence of a few online trainers preaching a calm-submissive philosophy of dog training. They might not all use that terminology, but that is how I would describe it. The essence of the approach is No dog that does any kind of real work […]
Dog Training And Existential Feeding Board And Train Programs
There is a “business model”, for lack of a better term, that quite a few board and train programs use. You could probably find one in every major city in the world. What they are doing would be described as “existential food training.” Here is how it goes. The contract you sign will say that […]
Competition vs Pet Dog Training
What are some of the main differences between competition and pet dog training? I’m not referring here to the dogs that are selected, I’m referring to the training. Competition Training has less emphasis or expertise regarding problem behaviors outside of competition. In fact, some dogs are not raised to be pets at all. They train […]