Blog Archives

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

Why getting your dog excited may affect your training session

“Rover, come!” shouted in a high pitch excited voice is likely to get a faster and more enthusiastic response than the same words expressed in a monotone, low key fashion. Most trainers rely at least at certain times, on how

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Posted in Dog behavior, Dog training, emotions, Psychology, service dogs

Service dogs: The fabulous, the faulty and the fake

One in 5 people suffer from a disability according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Many can’t hear or see well enough to safely function on their own,  can’t pick up an object, make a call in case of emergency, open

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Posted in Dog training, Dog/human relationship, Misc, service dogs

Dog play: what’s the purpose?

While most species gradually stop playing as they grow into adulthood, our beloved pooches never seem to stop playing no matter how old they are. My 10 year old German Shepherd, Nala, still reacts like a puppy when an opportunity

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Posted in Dog behavior, Dog/human relationship, Misc, Psychology

Does the concept of dominance apply to dogs? Science says it does

Is there a behavioral concept that we can describe as dominance between dogs or between dogs and people? As I had mentioned in a previous blog “Dominance and pack leadership in dogs – Controversial and still misunderstood“, there seems to

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

Medical Detection Dogs: new applications for life saving canines

What would you do if your dog was constantly sniffing or even trying to bite a mole off of your leg? Today, you might take it seriously and run to the doctor’s office, but 20 years ago, who could have

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Posted in Dog training, scent, science

Is your body language helping or confusing your animal?

Humans and their pets understand one another on many basic levels. We can even extend this statement and recognize that we are capable of a certain level of interpretation of the intentions of wild species. We can identify most expressions

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Posted in Dog behavior, Dog training, Dog/human relationship, emotions, Horse, Misc, science

Dog play, fun and seriously therapeutic

Butts up in the air, after a quick play bow, the dogs take off running, barking, jumping, chasing, growling, stalking and mouthing. Dogs having a good time playing together are quite a spectacle to watch! They can go from stalking

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Posted in Children, Dog behavior, Dog/human relationship, emotions, Fun, Psychology, science, Shelter

The 10 best ways to get bit by a dog

Dog bites hurt! Even when they don’t break skin, the mere pressure of the canine jaws is enough to inflict serious pain. Many of us have experienced at least one traumatic chomp. The speed and brutality of the act often

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Posted in Dog behavior, Dog/human relationship, emotions, Fear, Roughhousing

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
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