Photo by DVGRR I love this. Flat out love it. At the Delaware Valley Golden Retriever Rescue in Pennsylvania adult survivors of puppy mills are provided with skills to make the transition to being pets. Not only does DVGRR accept mill survivors they actively seek them out and make relinquishing these dogs easy. Their no questions asked acceptance policy means that more dogs will ...
Language is important. The words we use to convey ideas matter. Times change and language changes with it. It is helpful to know that when someone is describing something as fat, they mean it's phat. There's nothing wrong with being gay and happy, or gay and homosexual, but using the word gay as an insult, as in that's so gay, should be discouraged, even if ...
Dogs who come from puppy mills or who have lived on chains or confined with limited opportunity to interact with a varied environment, are lacking in many skills. I'm not sure if 'trying' is considered a skill or not, but it's not unusual for a dog who suffered deprivation in their early life, to 'give up' easily. When faced with a challenge, a partially closed ...
How would you justify going to a surgeon who claimed to be really good at cutting out tumors but had flunked out of classes on physiology and biology? Maybe some of their patients survived the surgery and went on to live full lives without a tumor, but what about the others? What about that nerve bundle that the surgeon nicked because they didn't realize how ...
Pet owners are often encouraged to think like a dog when faced with behavior challenges. I can’t help but feel a twinge of discomfort when I hear it. Attempts to think like a dog are often accompanied by fables of why a dog is behaving as they are. They’re jealous or angry, we need to be their leader, or treat them as a mother dog ...
I was reading a post in The Crossover Trainer Blog and was struck by the implications of this comment made about her observation of Cesar Millan at his 'Dog Psychology Center'. "........He walked in with me and one could definitely sense he had an effect on the dogs. I concede he does have “something” about him that effects the dogs. " Not sure why there is an implied ...
Sunny is my dog with the most fear based behavior challenges. For short I call him my 'fearful' dog. It's not an accurate description of him, because he is so much more than just fearful, in good ways and bad, but when managing him around people, it's the easiest label to slap on him. It's either that or, 'he's not right in the head', which ...
During Sunny's 7th summer at the lake he finally started swimming out after balls. A trainer friend shared feedback with me that she got from clients who have read my book, A Guide To Living With & Training A Fearful Dog. Some were disheartened by how long it took for Sunny to show progress in dealing with the fear based challenges in his life. ...
People often think of a dog’s behavior in much the same way as they think about a sandwich. It’s usually the meat in the middle that they are most concerned with. But behavior, like a sandwich has more going on than just the filling. What’s around the filling can matter a lot. Imagine going into a deli and ordering ham & cheese on rye and ...
There is no magic to what we do to help fearful dogs, however you define magic. It's time, energy, and effort all resting on a nice bed of patience. In order to survive every species has to have reason to crawl out of bed every morning, or evening if they're nocturnal. If they can't it's an indication something is wrong, seriously wrong. If we have ...
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