There ARE bad dogs… I see owner after owner attempting to make a dog who’s a bad fit…fit. These could be dogs with attitudes and dispositions that make them poor candidates for your typical family dog. (A willingness to challenge, push, correct, control, dominate their humans.) Or, they might be dogs bred for serious work applications, which we’ve selected for being independent, strong-willed, hyper-territorial, hyper-protective, hyper-suspicious, etc. And of course, you can plenty of overlap or uncertainty regarding which is which and why. Regardless, we need to start being more realistic, more practical, more grounded in what’s possible and best, and…
Author: pet-care
Most dog owners will benefit greatly by using a professional dog trainer. However, you should be aware of exactly what a good dog trainer will do. The concept of dog trainers being able to train behaviors out of a dog, and then return the dog to a home environment that doesn’t maintain the same standards and the dog magically remains “good” is a myth. A good dog trainer will spend more time and effort in training the owner(s) then the dog. It’s best to think of training, whether board and train or individual sessions, as a beginning point. The real…
It is without a doubt one of the most challenging things to do with your pet. Communication. Your dog wants very much to love and understand you. However, many of the things you do confuse him just as much as some of the things he does confuses you. Your dog tries very hard to associate your verbal tones and gestures to respond and get affection from you. But it can be very confusing to see you wave your arms saying “up . . up” to use a similar gesture to say “bad boy!” He does not speak English; he merely…
Dogs do not engage in unrewarding behavior. Dog training involves making bad behaviors unrewarding. If we simply employ this principle, we can stop our dog from barking excessively. Dogs bark because it is a natural behavior. Barking is used to alert their pack of possible danger and to give warning to others. This natural behavior can go astray when the canine is bored, stressed or for various other reasons. An analogy would be overeating in humans. Eating is obviously a natural behavior. However, if we are bored, stressed or suffer from various maladies we sometimes overeat. Natural behaviors can become…
Attitude is the mind’s paintbrush. It can color any situation. There is nothing more critical to the success of dog training than the owner’s attitude. The mindset of the trainer is more important than the equipment purchased, the exact system used, or the breed of dog involved. Nothing can destroy the likelihood of effective training more quickly than an owner with the wrong outlook on the training process. It’s very natural for dogs to crave and enjoy human companionship. The right approach of their human companions makes them particularly receptive to learning and they develop a strong desire to act…
I believe that the formula for a well-trained dog is obedience training, socialization and physical exercise. Obedience training is a positive way to teach your dog that you are his pack leader. Dogs have no inherent desire to please humans, just because we’re humans. Dogs care to please only a pack leader. If your dog does not view you as the pack leader, he or she will have no interest in taking direction from you. Training your dog helps you achieve pack-leader status. And, of course, teaching your dog to respond reliably to specific obedience commands will allow you to…
It never ceases to amaze me how many people I see being pulled along by their dog while out “walking”. What amazes me more is that most of these people blame their dog for this behavior. If they only realized that the problem is on the other end of the leash. If your dog pulls on the leash, you’re kidding yourself if you think you’re the “master”. Dogs are smart, and they will take advantage of a situation if you allow them to. The worst part of this situation is that it only takes a short period of time to…
Ok, picture three dog trainers sitting in a room and actually agreeing on something. For those of you that understand trainers and their different ideas of what is the correct way to train a dog, then you realize that having trainers agree on something is a rare and noteworthy event. After attending a training seminar, myself and some other trainers agreed that these ten mistakes are probably the most common offenses we see in dog training. We made it ten mistakes because people like lists of round numbers…..Kind of like the top ten cities, or the top ten greatest movies,…
I’m a professional dog trainer. I don’t ordinarily believe in the mystical or magical. But I realize that when I do my job well, I’m not being driven by human logic or some textbook knowledge. I realize that my many years of working with dogs has taught me to be able to cast aside my human limitations and for the moments of our human/canine interaction, I can hear and understand and become one with the world inhabited by dogs. Let me try to explain. I’ve learned the world of dogs is a Zen like place somewhat counter-intuitive to humans. There…
The number one reason people call me is because of problems with dog house training. The issues fall into two categories. The first is potty training a puppy and the second category involves a dog that suddenly begins relieving himself in the house for no apparent reason, or never becomes potty trained. Dogs have reasons for the things they do. Unfortunately, they are not always apparent to humans. When we address the problem of potty training a puppy, the reason that they are relieving themselves in the house is pretty straightforward. They are puppies. Just like human children, they must…