Recently I attended a dog event and observed about 30 dogs and their handlers come and go in the course of three hours. Most of the dogs were taken to one another for greetings. Call it the curse of knowledge, but I see such interactions through the lens of human handling skills and canine body language. Sometimes what I saw […]
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Choose Professional Development Conferences Wisely, or the Return on Your Investment May Disappoint You!
We all have limited time and resources so choosing which conference to attend each year is an important decision for all professionals. There are several things to consider when making your choice to ensure we make the most efficient and effective use of our precious time and resources. The first thing to consider before clicking the ‘buy now’ button is, […]
Read moreWhen Day Care Is Bad for Your Dog
By Danette Johnston If your dog currently attends dog day care or you are thinking about starting, here is some food for thought… I have owned and operated a dog day care and training facility for over 18 years now. I have a lot of experience in this arena, have learned a ton (thank goodness) in the past 18 years […]
Read moreLitter Box Victory
By Jennifer Van Valkenburg In this post, I am going to talk about a very basic feline need – going to the litter box. Cat owners may wonder, when there is a perfectly good litter box, why does their cat think it is preferable to use the floor, the laundry basket or maybe even the bed to do her business? […]
Read morePortland Blog Competition: Aggression by Any Other Name
By Stephanie Peters “Help, my dog is aggressive!” This is often the first thing that I hear from potential clients when they contact me for a training or behavior consultation. They may be troubled by certain behaviors their dog is demonstrating, and are either panicked that they have somehow caused the behavior, or worried that their dog is inherently “flawed.” […]
Read moreDogs Are Exceptional, Despite Attempts to Argue Otherwise
Headlines like this really bother me: Dog intelligence ‘not exceptional.’ Compared with what? How are you defining ‘intelligence’? Seeking answers to these questions, I downloaded and read the full study, which is available for free. It’s 20 pages, plus 8 pages of references. It’s primarily a review of existing literature on the cognitive abilities of a wide variety of nonhuman […]
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Spice Up Your Walks!
Long explorations in the country, splashing around in the sea, trekking up hills, they’re the reasons we love having our dogs and enjoy their companionship. From time to time though, sometimes things become just a little bit ‘samey’! We can use this special time together as an opportunity to be more enriching and engaging and overall more bonding and fun! […]
Read moreFor The Curious – Your Questions on Deaf, Blind Dogs Answered
By Debbie Bauer Thank you to everyone who contributed questions and wonderings for this blog post, and for what will probably be several more to come! (I received a lot of questions!) Here are a few to get you started: What kind of cues can you teach a dog that cannot see or hear? How do you communicate with […]
Read morePortland Blog Competition: Lessons from Bogie
By Shannon Finch I want to warn you at the outset, Bogie’s story doesn’t have a happy ending. Everything that could go wrong did go wrong for this dog, with mistakes compounded by more mistakes. It’s been over 15 years since I worked with Bogie, but I clearly remember every detail about him. He was a 7-month-old German shepherd with […]
Read moreHalloween and Pet Welfare
I confess that Halloween is my favorite holiday. I enjoy the creative costumes, haunted house attractions and horror films. For me, the creepy nature of the holiday is fun. Behaviorally healthy dogs may accept Halloween activities like trick-or-treat visitors in costume as just another silly thing humans do. For many other dogs Halloween celebration can be truly frightening. Years ago […]
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