Most owners and trainers frequently rely on high value treats when working with their dog. We may use them to get better focus during dog classes, more motivation when working outdoors and they generally help us work through the more…
Blog Archives
To use or not to use high value treats…
Tagged with: Animal training, Behavior, clicker training, Dog, dogs, high value treat, Jennifer Cattet, reward based training
Posted in Dog training, Educational, Fun, Misc, News, Positive Animal Training
Posted in Dog training, Educational, Fun, Misc, News, Positive Animal Training
The importance of preparing animals for the vet
Until recently, it was believed that animals didn’t feel pain or that they felt it differently than we do. In the past decade, research has shown that this simply isn’t true. Our pets definitely feel pain! We have stress when…
We just can’t resist puppies! Why?
Puppies are like gremlins. They bite everything in sight, including our hands, pant legs and favorite shoes. They pee all the time, chase after every moving object, and just like human toddlers are a ton of work! Yet, for some…
Tagged with: cute, Dog, dog cognition, Ethology, Jennifer Cattet, Konrad Lorenz, puppies, puppy, Smart Animal
Posted in Dog behavior, Dog training, Educational, Fun, News, Resource, science
Posted in Dog behavior, Dog training, Educational, Fun, News, Resource, science
The joy of shaping
There are few things more exciting for a trainer than working with a dog on shaping a new behavior through clicker training. From teaching the dog to lie down on his bed, to retrieving objects, or flipping a light switch…
Tagged with: Animal training, classical conditioning, clicker training, Dog, dogs, Jennifer Cattet, operant conditioning, reward based training, shaping
Posted in Dog behavior, Dog training, Educational, Fun, News, Positive Animal Training, Resource, science
Posted in Dog behavior, Dog training, Educational, Fun, News, Positive Animal Training, Resource, science
Easy Potty-Training Instead of Housebreaking.
Teaching a dog good potty habits as well as house manners in general, is about making sure he’ll develop the habits of behavior that we’re looking for(the opposite approach of ‘housebreaking’ uses punishment). Building strong habits is no different than…
Tagged with: Animal training, Dog, human dog bond, Jennifer Cattet, Potty-training, reward based training, Stanley Coren
Posted in Dog behavior, Dog training, Educational, News, Positive Animal Training, Resource, science
Posted in Dog behavior, Dog training, Educational, News, Positive Animal Training, Resource, science
Smart breeding – increasing the dog’s chances to a good life
Behavior issues are the primary reason why owners give up their pets. We’re all talking about the latest behavior modification technique, and often blame poor handling or inexperience, but at the core of many behavior problems lies a basic genetic…
Tagged with: Animal training, Behavior, behavior genetics, Dog, dog breeding, dog cognition, dogs, human dog bond, Jennifer Cattet
Posted in Dog behavior, Dog training, Educational, science
Posted in Dog behavior, Dog training, Educational, science
E-collars – why I never want to use them again
No matter where we stand on the training spectrum, from purely positive, to balanced or traditional, we all want the same thing: enhancing the behaviors that we want and decreasing those that we deem problematic, for the benefit of both…
Tagged with: Animal training, Dog, e-collar, Jennifer Cattet, relationship, reward based training, shock collar, Technology, Training
Posted in Dog behavior, Dog training, Educational, Positive Animal Training, Resource, science
Posted in Dog behavior, Dog training, Educational, Positive Animal Training, Resource, science
Spatial navigation – how dogs find their way
Vanessa Woods and Brian Hare surprised me the other day with the drawing they had published in their book ‘The Genius of Dogs’, about one of the experiments I had worked on with the Geneva University in Switzerland (fig.1). I wanted to write about those experiments for…
Tagged with: Brian Hare, dog cognition, dogs, Ethology, Jennifer Cattet, path intergration, spatial navigation, The Genius of Dogs, University of Geneva
Posted in Dog behavior, Dog training, Educational, News, Resource, science
Posted in Dog behavior, Dog training, Educational, News, Resource, science
Human and Dog – a Bond of True Love
All over the world, extraordinary stories of dogs are reported in the news. In Scotland, an Akita jumped into freezing water to save his owner from drowning, in Australia, a dog laid next to his owner, trapped under his vehicle,…
Tagged with: Dog, dog cognition, dog love, dogs, human dog bond, Jennifer Cattet, love, man's best friend, Smart Animal
Posted in Dog behavior, Educational, Positive Animal Training
Posted in Dog behavior, Educational, Positive Animal Training
Dog psychology trumps intuition and myth
So you’ve just come back from work, walked through your front door, and immediately notice the smell; this awful, yet familiar smell that unequivocally informs you that a dirty deed has been committed. Buster has relieved himself on the new…
Tagged with: Dog, dog cognition, dog shame, guilty dog, Jennifer Cattet, Pet, Pets, puppy, Smart Animal
Posted in Dog behavior, Dog training, Educational, Positive Animal Training, Resource, Technology
Posted in Dog behavior, Dog training, Educational, Positive Animal Training, Resource, Technology