Introducing Your Reactive Dog to New People
Reactivity is usually due to fear and insecurities about how to behave in a certain situation. Instead of running away, the dog tries to scare the “trigger” (object or animal that causes the reaction) away. Unfortunately, the reaction that dogs resort to (barking, lunging, etc) are typically interpreted as the dog is being “dominant” or…
Dogs are Superstitious
If you’re not careful, you can train a dog to think he needs to jump before being rewarded for not jumping or a dog that thinks he needs to pull the leash before being rewarded for not pulling. When training alternative behaviors, dogs may begin to think that they need to do the undesirable behavior and then…
Trying New Behaviors in Hopes of Being Right
Dogs that are trained with positive reinforcement have a different way of thinking than dogs trained using correction based methods. This became very apparent to me when we trained Loker to “wave” his paw at us when we waved at him. Mainly, it was that dogs trained with positive reinforcement offer or try different behaviors…
Welcome to Mars
In the 21st Century, we’ve got all sorts of gadgets and odd things in our homes, we drive cars instead of walk, and we’re always in a rush to be somewhere. The world our dogs live in today is so far from natural we might as well call it Mars. We also communicate with verbal words and…
Now, Instant, Immediate, Prompt, Instantaneous or Eventually
Why are prong collars and e-collars so popular despite the obvious physical and psychological harm they do to dogs? It’s because they give instant results. Unfortunately, positive reinforcement based training takes repetition for the dog to learn and change. Despite it’s proven long term effects on behavior, it doesn’t give the results as quickly as…
Living With Two Dogs – Training Challenge #1
I’ve had a problem with making instructional videos lately because while I’m working with one dog, the other is whining because he hears the clicker and doesn’t have access to rewards! So in my spare time I found a minute to video tape our very first session of working with both dogs at once. They…
“Ushering in a New Era of Gun Dog Training”
It is my pleasure to announce a brand new organization which has chosen to promote positive and dog-friendly training methods to educate and influence their field. The Positive Gun Dog Association has just launched their organization as well as an amazing interactive membership site for enthusiasts/owners, hunters, positive trainers, and breeders. Oh, and it’s FREE!…
The Ethics of Training Methods
A friend recently asked me to read this article and give some thoughts on it: The Relativity of Pressure. Well, I had a “thought” for about every other sentence I read so I figured I’d turn it into a blog post! Here are my thoughts on the ethics of dog training methods: How should we…