Blog Archives

Could we soon have a conversation with our dog?

As dog lovers it’s quite obvious that we communicate with our dogs. At the very least, they react to our body language and emotions in ways that indicate they understand our intentions and moods. How much and what we actually

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Posted in Dog behavior, Educational, News, Resource, science, Technology

Blah, blah, blah… Do dogs understand anything we say?

‘Do you want to go out for a walk?’ ‘Sit, sit, sit, I know you know how to do this, SIT, good boy, good doggy’. ‘Did you take my shoe? Rover, fess up! I know you did it!’ ‘Stop jumping

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

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

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

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

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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

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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

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

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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

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Posted in Dog behavior, Dog training, Educational, News, Resource, science

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

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

The Genius of Dogs: Heralds New Era in Dog Cognition Research

I just finished reading Brian Hare’s and Vanessa Woods’ book, The Genius of Dogs. I was anxious to get my hands on this book and was looking forward to learning about the latest studies on dog cognition. I had also

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