Category: Dog Behaviour
Your Dog Recovering From Severe Trauma . . . Is There A Baseline?

As many of you will know my then 8 year old Border Collie “Encore” suffered a major traumatic event 3 months ago when she collapsed seizing one morning which could not be stopped. With good medical care and the outpouring of prayers from this dog community Encore survived where little hope of survival was given. [...]
Read moreDog Training and Attention

I have looked into your eyes with my eyes. I have put my heart near your heart. ~ Pope John XXIII A lot is made about “training” your dog’s eyes to look into yours when you are working together. Some schools use force to demand it, many have special “attention” classes to create it. I [...]
Read moreContact Training For Those With No Interest in Dog Agility

Weird eh? Why on earth would anyone who has no interest in dog agility want to know anything about how to train agility contact obstacles? To explain the reason let me share a story with you. Years ago John (my husband) used to travel to, and help me out at many of my seminars (he [...]
Read moreImprove Your Dog Training By Playing Like A Dog

I sent out a newsletter early this morning which covers all sorts of tips on tugging with your dog. As lengthy as that newsletter ended up being, I fear I only scraped the surface of what could be written on the subject. So, here I am sharing more (but again, I still feel I am [...]
Read moreDoes Your Dog Training Need a Shot of Joy?

This week we are focusing on how to inject more joy into our dog training. I believe that all dogs start off with an innate joy to be around us. Our choices as dog trainers can either help to develop that joy, turning it into a focus for us and for work, or our choices [...]
Read moreIs it Time To Clear Out Some Baggage?

If you are a newsletter subscriber then earlier today you would have received a post on evaluating and working towards eliminating “baggage” in your relationship with your dog. All of dogs our carry around some form of baggage from living with and learning from us. This baggage is just artifacts of our dog training choices [...]
Read moreA Lack of Rules and Drive in Dog Training

While many of you are putting your life with your dogs under a microscope after my last two newsletters, I fear some of you may be drawing the wrong conclusions. As you observe your dogs’ source of reinforcement and joy you are observing that perhaps your spouses seem to be more reinforcing to your dogs [...]
Read moreDon’t Forget to Laugh!

There have been some great reports written on my last blogpost after the last newsletter. I am happy to see so many of you are starting to exam the triggers your dogs have have that prompt responses from you. I just want this to be clear; Susan Garrett’s dogs do posses triggers that will prompt her [...]
Read moreTugging With the Dog

There were some great comments on my tugging post yesterday as to why you thought long duration tugs had the potential for more focus for the environment while short bursts of tug games alternating with other responses created great attention for the handler. You pretty much hit all of the points I had prepared for [...]
Read moreThe Duration of The Tug Sessions

Tugging is a big part of my dog training, I hope it is also a big part of yours. It is a great reinforcer for most dogs. For those dogs that are not currently big fans of tugging, it is a skill that be cultivated with work on your part . . . yes I [...]
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