Food toys are a great way to show a dog a good time The most important role a foster caregiver can play in the life of a dog in transition is to ensure that the dog, at the very minimum, does not develop new fears, concerns or reasons to distrust people. Every dog in the rescue system would have a unique tale to ...
Every organism on the planet needs to behave in particular ways in order to survive. For some the behavior is more complex, for others it might be moving in one direction with their mouth (or whatever it is they have that allows nutrients in) open. Even microscopic organisms will change their behavior based on whether or not they are reinforced for a particular behavior. They ...
Guess what these dogs are looking forward to getting? From the comments I've been hearing and the stuff I've been reading on the internet one would be inclined to think that the use of food in training poses great problems or risks. I cannot think of one conversation I've had with a trainer who laments that their clients reinforce behaviors with food too ...
Even a "good" dog has teeth. During his early time with us Sunny never growled or lifted a lip toward me or my husband. No one was more surprised than I was when he landed a bite on my neighbor's calf when she was walking in front of our house. I soon learned  from other, more experienced fearful dog owners, that there was ...
We are familiar with the experience of living with an aging creature and being caught by surprise when we realize how much they have changed before our eyes. This routinely happens to me when I look in the mirror, "When the heck did THAT happen?!"Â The same thing can happen with our fearful dogs. Their progress can be so slow that it's difficult to notice until ...
It stands to reason that if we have not ever lived with a seriously scared dog that we would not have developed the skills to work effectively with them. Even if we've assisted other people living with a dog like this, there's nothing quite like 24/7 to put our feet to the fire. I regularly speak with people embarked on the bumpy journey to change ...
Stop in for a visit to any one of the thousands of forums or groups devoted to dog training and behavior and you're likely to bump into a discussion about whether or not it's acceptable to punish dogs during training. There will be both reasonable and unreasonable comments from either side of the table. Punishment is a very effective consequence to apply in order to ...
Childhood milestones in my life could be measured by learning how to swim. There are grainy, black and white home movies showing me leaping up, wiping the hair out of my eyes after demonstrating the newly gained skill of putting my face in the water at our lakeside cottage. I remember learning the "deadman's float" and pretending to swim in the shallow water, my hands ...
In order to simplify training for pet owners, and to incorporate training into daily life, eliminating the need to set aside a specific time for it many trainers recommend the Nothing In Life is Free protocol (NILF)*. It has its merits, though an unfortunate name. Tagging along with the technique is a fuzzy notion of "we're in charge here and the sooner you figure that ...
Imagine creating a website where pet owners could commiserate about their sick dogs. They could post pictures of their dogs to share with others who were also dealing with life with a sick dog. Now imagine that people were also sharing advice about illness in dogs (you don't have to imagine it, just go online) and someone posted in response to an image with the ...
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