Blog Archives

10 steps to getting a great dog from the shelter

I train service dogs for a living. Where do I get my dogs? From the local shelters! 100% of the dogs that we train and place as service dogs come predominantly from the local Humane Societies and rescue groups and have

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Posted in Dog behavior, Dog training, Dog/human relationship, Misc, Resource, Shelter

How Do Dogs Think? The Scientific Revolution in Dog Intelligence

When I first started to study dogs from a scientific perspective, finding research on canine behavior was a long and difficult task. It wasn’t just because at the time we didn’t have Internet and most of the publications had to

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Posted in Dog behavior, Dog/human relationship, Educational, Psychology, Resource, science

Enrichment – 8 easy ways to increase your dog’s quality of life

When we compare the lives of wild animals to that of our pets, there is a striking difference in their activity levels. Dogs, cats, birds, hamsters and gerbils of all sorts, spend a large part of their days just lying

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Posted in Dog behavior, Dog/human relationship, Psychology, Resource, Technology, Training tools

Animal Abuse, Training and “The Dark Triad”

I was recently reminded of how insensitive and cruel some people could be with the account of a trainer who had muzzled and hung a dog in order to teach him to accept his toenails trimmed. Despite criminal sentences for

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Posted in Dog training, News, Psychology, Resource

Dog crates dens or prisons?

Over the past decade or so, dog crates have become a must have piece of equipment for all dog owners. Trainers and pet stores have done a great job at promoting its use and most dog lovers today have adopted

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Posted in Dog behavior, Dog training, Educational, Positive Animal Training, Resource

Confidence – the key ingredient to successful training

When the dog pays attention, a walk in the park or a training exercise are easy, fun and rewarding. When the dog spends the majority of the time looking for anything else to do besides focusing on the human, the

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Posted in Dog behavior, Dog training, Educational, Positive Animal Training, Resource

Yielding to pressure – From horses to dogs, an example of negative reinforcement

When teaching dogs new behaviors, we mostly focus on positive reinforcement, in other words, on adding something to the situation that will increase the chances of a particular behavior or aspect of a behavior to occur. Giving the dog a

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Posted in Dog behavior, Dog training, Educational, Positive Animal Training, Resource

6 ways to prepare your dog to meet the new baby

Dogs are a wonderful addition to any household and growing up with a dog provides a child with valuable learning experiences about respect and care of another being. Most of all, growing up with a dog can be fun and

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Posted in Dog behavior, Dog training, Educational, Positive Animal Training, Resource

10 effective ways to help our dogs feel safe

Barking, aggression, destruction, separation anxiety, resource guarding, … Many behavior issues that directly affect the dogs welfare can be attributed to stress and fear. These emotions dominate the dog’s life experience and are often responsible for the human/dog relationship breakdown.

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Posted in Dog behavior, Dog training, Educational, Positive Animal Training, Resource, science

Punishment affects both the dog and the owner

Reward based training methods are slowly gaining in popularity among dog professionals including: trainers, veterinarians and behaviorists. But popular beliefs about the value of punishing for so-called ‘bad’ behaviors still run strong. In a society where we justify scolding, handing

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Posted in Dog behavior, Dog training, Educational, Positive Animal Training, Resource, science
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