Blog Archives

Shiny New Objects!

Shiny New Objects! Several weeks ago I was lucky enough to be able to attend Clicker Expo in Arlington, Virginia.  I love the opportunity to spend time connecting with colleagues and students, learning interesting new things, and of course, buying

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Posted in Dog behavior, Dog training, Dog/human relationship, Educational, Misc, Positive Animal Training, Technology, Training tools

Cooperative Care and the Pet Tutor

Cooperative Care and the Pet Tutor By Deborah Jones, Ph.D. One of my hobbies is working on cooperative care with my dogs.  What is cooperative care? It is any sort of physical handling that is necessary in order to maintain

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Posted in Dog behavior, Dog training, Fear, Misc, Positive Animal Training, Technology, Training tools

Goals for Successful Dog Training

Set Your Goals for Successful Dog Training Does your dog have some behaviors that you’d like to improve on? Would you like to increase your own skills as a trainer to help your dog’s long term behavior? With both New

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Posted in Misc

Understanding and stopping our dog from jumping on us

Dogs naturally want to jump on us as soon as we walk through the door. It doesn’t matter that we’re in sweat pants or dressed up for a special occasion. For Fido, that’s just how you say “Hello! I’m so

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Posted in Dog training, Dog/human relationship, Misc, Positive Animal Training, Technology, Training tools

Dog Training: Praise or Treats?

While we understand that good behavior should be rewarded if we want the dog to repeat it, there are different opinions about how and how much we should reward our pooches. We might consider that a “good boy!” is a

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Posted in Dog behavior, Dog training, Dog/human relationship, Learning theory, Misc, Positive Animal Training

Loose Leash Walking Fundamentals

How wonderful is it to take a nice stroll in the park with our dog? We’re enjoying the cool breeze in our hair, the sound of birds in the trees and just sharing a nice stress releasing moment with our

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Posted in Dog training, Misc, Positive Animal Training, Training tools

Behavior momentum: increasing efficiency in training

Regardless of what species we’re referring to, whether human, dog, horse, dolphin or bird, when teaching something new, the easier we can make the training session, the better the results. If a dog or a child feels successful, their desire

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Posted in Dog training, Learning theory, Misc, Psychology, science

Learning theory basics, part 1- Classical conditioning in dogs: beyond the training session

Most of us have heard of classical conditioning. Pavlov demonstrated how a neutral stimulus could become meaningful to a dog when followed by something that elicits a natural response. So when a bell, meaningless in itself, is consistently followed with

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Posted in Bob Bailey, Dog behavior, Dog training, Dog/human relationship, Learning theory

Training ‘Do As I Do’: Fun and Efficient!

Through interactions with the world, animals learn that certain actions lead to pleasant or unpleasant consequences. Most of our training theory revolves around our ability to manipulate the animals’ environment to reinforce certain behaviors rather than others. However, not all

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Posted in Dog behavior, Dog training, Positive Animal Training, science, Training tools

When is controlling our dog too controlling?

When teachers, psychologists and parents are asked which methods are more acceptable when teaching our children, they consistently prefer a positive-reinforcement based approach over the use of punishment. A punitive approach to behavior is not only less effective, but it

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Posted in Children, Dog behavior, Dog training, Dog/human relationship, Positive Animal Training
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