Scent Tracking as Part of Your ABC
When consulting on canine behavior problems, you will be looking at your ABCs - Antecedent - Behaviour - Consequence - as part of your functional assessment.
The immediate antecedents, such as direct environment, setting the dog off doing something the owner is not happy with, are often ...
Do Docked/Missing Tails Lead to Miscommunication in Dogs?
Are dogs with docked or missing tails vulnerable to miscommunication or misunderstanding by other dogs? Or do they learn to rely on other body language communication?
I have a little rescue dog (right) who came to me from Romania with her tail missing. I don’t know where it went or why it ...
Prettier by Another Name
How much does a dog's breed matter, particularly when that dog is of mixed breed heritage?
When people are seeking a pet dog, breed, or, more likely, what they think they know about various breeds, can heavily influence their choices. But in the end, knowing — or guessing at — the dog's mix ...
The Benefits of Keeping Cats Indoors
By Paula Garber, MEd, CATEP, CFTBS
Some cat owners believe it’s “natural” for their cat to be outdoors, or that their cat won’t be happy unless given the opportunity to roam. These days, most pet cats aren’t as suited to outdoor life as one might think. They are simply ill equipped to ...
Socialize Your Puppy but Let Him Play, too!
Fifty years ago not too many trainers or owners talked about socialization. Not because puppies did not need it, but because for the most part puppies ‘self-socialized’, they wandered and roamed the neighborhood, accompanied children to school, hung out with other dogs, sometimes got into ...
Quick Fix or Never Fix
When someone first calls me for help, they usually hope their pet behavior problem will be resolved in a couple of weeks. They have tried everything they can think of for themselves, watched TV trainers and scoured the internet. Now they have decided there is nothing for it but to pay for ...
What’s in the Bag?
What you don’t know could kill your pet.
Like all dog owners I want my pets to be healthy and enjoy a long life as members of our family. My first puppy, Samanatha, was the joy of my life and it came as a painful shock when she died abruptly at just over 12 years of age.
It was not long ...
To Prompt or to Reinforce
Click – treat, click – treat, click – treat. As trainers, we all know what is going on here; someone is conditioning a clicker. But the lines can get blurred from here.
First we click and treat until the animal alerts to the click. Then we use the click to indicate to the animal that they ...