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Take Me To Your Provider Of Consequences

By |2012-11-20T08:55:29-05:00November 20th, 2012|Categories: Dog training, Helping fearful dogs|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |

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 ...

Think Like A Human

By |2012-10-17T11:49:03-04:00October 17th, 2012|Categories: Dog training, Helping fearful dogs|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , |

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 ...

Of Wolves and Women

By |2012-08-07T18:53:20-04:00August 7th, 2012|Categories: Dog training, Helping fearful dogs|Tags: , , , , , , |

Back in the early 1980's I was intent on finding ways to get university credits without actually sitting in a classroom. I discovered study programs which were taught 'in the field' and awarded credits toward graduation. I spent months hiking in the Sierra Nevada in California, weeks canoeing rivers in Montana and sweating in Death Valley. My biggest regret to date is that I didn't ...

Breed Specific Legislation & Alpha Dog Myths

By |2012-07-30T10:42:34-04:00July 30th, 2012|Categories: Dog training, Helping fearful dogs|Tags: , , , , , , , , , |

As smart as we humans consider ourselves to be, we can be remarkably short-sighted or inconsiderate of the effects of our beliefs or actions. Antibiotics have saved countless lives and I consider myself among the lucky in history to have lived in an age during which we have access to them. But we have also learned that unless we use them judiciously, the fall out ...

Practice Makes….More Likely!

By |2009-08-22T16:30:10-04:00August 22nd, 2009|Categories: Helping fearful dogs|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |

If you are living with a fearful dog who has inappropriate responses to the things it's afraid of, cowering, lunging, barking, growling, fleeing, etc., it is important to understand something about how animals (including humans) behave when stressed. When your dog is afraid, it is experiencing stress. When an animal is stressed and needs to respond it is more likely to perform whatever behavior it ...

How To Help A Fearful Dog? Stop Scaring Them!

By |2009-03-19T14:18:37-04:00March 19th, 2009|Categories: Helping fearful dogs|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |

In a blog about fearful dogs you wouldn't think that I'd pay so much attention to this whole dominance virus that has infected the health of our relationships with our dogs, but it's major. I run an in-home boarding business for dogs. It's a nice set-up for the dogs and the owners that use my services are conscientious pet owners. It's not a scene that ...

The Gift of the Growl

By |2009-03-13T16:48:10-04:00March 13th, 2009|Categories: Helping fearful dogs|Tags: , , , , , , , |

I make no pretenses about it, I am obsessed with my fearful dog Sunny. Not only do I think about him, I am always looking for ways to help him, and other scared dogs. Leafing through an old issue of Newsweek I read a quote attributed to Tibet's Karmapa Lama and of course, thought of scared dogs.  "For any living being, when you feel the ...

Energy Wise

By |2009-03-06T20:31:04-05:00March 6th, 2009|Categories: Helping fearful dogs|Tags: , , , , , , , , |

While I agree that our own energy has an affect on our dogs, I do find the focus on an owner's energy to be at times confusing or just plain useless when it comes to training dogs. In Cesar's Way owners are encouraged to imitate people like Cleopatra, John Wayne and Oprah. Huh? Now while some people out there might think they know what Millan ...

What’s Your Theory?

By |2009-02-03T14:42:59-05:00February 3rd, 2009|Categories: Helping fearful dogs|Tags: , , , , , , |

I've been reading a lot of dog training books lately and many trainers provide readers with the reasons their method of training dogs works or makes sense. More often than not it has something to do with wolves, pack behavior, prey drive, alpha animals, etc. Statements are made about what dogs want or need. Most of them leave an owner struggling to sort out whether ...

Attitudes About Training

By |2009-02-01T18:05:36-05:00February 1st, 2009|Categories: Helping fearful dogs|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |

I found a copy of one of William Koehler's training books in a local used bookstore. He was a trainer that worked in Hollywood, training dogs for films that I watched as a child. Had I known his training techniques then I probably would have cried before the dog got caught in a well or suffered some other fate that was geared to jerking the ...

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