The Unintended Consequences of Shock
(Confidentiality Notice: Names in this blog have been changed to protect privacy, but the facts remain unchanged. Photographs have been used with written consent.)
Betsy is a kind person who contacted a shelter in June of 2016 to help find a nice family dog to share her life with through ...
Scheduling Your Rewards
So...there we are teaching our dogs lots of new things and he's responding beautifully - treat, treat, treat (yummy!) At what point though, do we stop dishing out all these lovely delicacies? This is a question I'm asked multiple times per week. It's true that if we continued to treat our ...
Clicker Training for Cats (6/6)
By Paula Garber and Francine Miller
Inter-Cat Aggression
Living with cats who do not get along is stressful for everyone. Sometimes the cats need to be completely separated and then formally re-introduced. In many cases, the best outcome we can hope for is for the cats to coexist ...
You know you own a separation anxiety dog when…
By Julie Naismith
Life with a separation anxiety dog differs from the ideal of dog ownership many of us have. “Lassie Come Home” it isn’t.
Here are 5 ways this debilitating condition will affect your life as a dog owner, plus a few tips on how to handle the changes without losing your ...
Onset of Noise Sensitivity Might Indicate Pain in Dogs
Older dogs who develop noise sensitivity might be in pain. Other behavior changes, like a normally friendly dog showing aggression to children or dogs, have long been regarded as potential indicators of pain. But a study published in February might be the first to make the connection between ...
Mama Dogs Don’t Use Treats…..
By Yvette Van Veen
Many people seem enamoured with the idea that we should emulate what dogs do in the wild. “Mama dogs don’t give treats in the wild,” is one of the more common expressions. This one carries quite a punch. People have a natural affinity for natural.
Expressions, ...
What’s a Functional Assessment in Dog Training? (And Why You Should Care)
A lot of dog training advice you get on the Internet won’t help.
Pretty strange comment coming from a dog blogger who frequently writes about training, right? But even if people recommend a humane, positive reinforcement-based approach, something is missing that can’t be done in a typical ...
Retractable Leashes Are Risky
Judging by the number of people I see walking dogs with retractable leash devices on their dogs it appears the product is popular. They are also unsafe.
As Dr. Karen Becker describes them “A retractable leash is not so much a leash as it is a length of thin cord wound around a spring-loaded ...