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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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To use or not to use high value treats…

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

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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
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