Treating Reactivity
Won’t feeding my dog treats when he acts aggressive or barks only reward that behavior? I wondered about this question when I first began positive association training with my dog, Loker. I was starting the “Click the Trigger” (CTT) method to try to get him to quit being so reactive when he saw other dogs or…
Teach Your Dog to Go to His Mat!
Teaching your dog to go to the mat is easy. Although I have always taught obedience with some positive reinforcement techniques, I was not very familiar with the variety of techniques that can be used. I would have to say that my favorite that I have learned so far is high frequency reinforcement. Although it looks like I’m just…
“Dogs in the City” Review
Episode 1 There has been a buzz going around about this new show on CBS called “Dogs in the City”. The show is about a “Dog Guru”, named Justin Silver, that works with dogs and their owners in New York City. I watched the first as unbiased as possible and took notes about what I liked…
Graduation Day!
I know many of you have been following Loker’s journey through his group class in the past few weeks so I wanted to let you all know his big day has come! He has officially graduated from his Courteous Canine’s class by Adventures in Canine Training! Looking back at our first day in class, he…
Be a Leader, Not a Pushover
Honestly, when I used to use traditional and dominance based methods, I never would have thought that I could earn a dogs respect and be a leader by giving treats. In fact, many traditional trainers see positive reinforcement trainers as “cookie pushers” and there may be a few out there that don’t quite understand the…
The Gulf Coast
This week we took a small vacation to the Gulf Coast near Corpus Christi. This was Loker’s first time experiencing salt water and it was pretty funny to watch him try to drink it then vomit it right back up! You could tell he was quite perplexed by the fact that he was completely surrounded…
Clicker Training for Cats!
I just recently adopted a young cat named Minnie Mouse. I agreed to foster her and her two-week old kittens until they got adopted, but tragically all the kittens passed away and she was the only one left. She grew on me and I knew her shyness wouldn’t help get her adopted at adoption days so…
Loose Leash Walking Update
Loose leash walking is a bit of a challenge for every dog. After all, what dog can resist the smells and sights of the world without the proper motivation?! I was having a bit of an issue because at points in the walk Loker would ignore the clicker and ignore anything I said. It was…