Three “Must Dos” For Walking Your Puppy
While walking to the gym this morning I encountered a man walking his puppy on the other side of the street. The puppy was trailing behind him a bit, not quite to the end of the six foot leash. The puppy looked over at me in a friendly way, slowed down, and moved to the…
Overlooked Secrets to Successful Housetraining
When it comes to housetraining, most new dog or puppy owners, want this to happen fast! But any behavior professional and dog owner will tell you that when it comes to any sort of training, nothing ever seems to go as quickly as we want or expect. In this short article we give you three…
Why Labeling Behaviors as “Impulse Control” Problems is NOT a Good Idea
More and more often we are seeing diagnostic labels from human psychiatry being “borrowed” and applied to pets and pet behavior problems without any scientific or even rational reason for doing so. Applying a “fancy” label to a behavior doesn’t convey a greater and more in depth understanding of the behavior. It’s instead another example…
A Second Look at Oxytocin as the “Social Bonding” Chemical
Oxytocin received a lot of press a few years back regarding its relationship to social bonding between dogs and people. Dr. Patricia McConnell points to one such study in her blog article “Oxytocin Increases When Your Dog Looks at You”. It’s even been proposed as a treatment for separation anxiety in dogs. But an article shared…
Welcome to Science Based Dog Training!
Our site is under development. Look for articles and podcasts to appear here soon. In the meantime sign up for our Articles and Updates List and we’ll send you our analysis of the scientific article: “Effects of alpha-casozepine (Zylkene) versus selegiline hydrochloride (Selgian, Anipryl) on anxiety disorders” by Claude Beata, et al. You’ll discover whether this article…
Snappy Trainers – the original returns!
What is it? The Snappy Trainer is an effective training device, often used in multiples, to correct a large variety of unwanted behaviors. Since the owner can’t always be at the scene of the "crime", the Snappy Trainer is the perfect training aid. How does it work? The Snappy Trainers are set and placed on…
Dog Bites and Human Expectations
Here in Arizona, where we now spend the winters, we’ve read about two serious attacks by dogs on people. One was fatal, the other resulted in permanent disfigurement of a four year old little boy. The dog responsible for the fatal attack was euthanized, while the fate of the dog that maimed the child is…
Does City Living Stress Dogs Out?
It may be harder to be a dog today than at most any other time throughout the 15,000 years dogs have lived with humans. If that sounds like a surprising statement, let us tell you about a recent experience that led us to arrive at that opinion. We visited Suzanne’s cousin and his family, who…
Helping Pets Get Along
We’ve received a number of emails recently about problems introducing cats to resident pets – both to other cats and dogs. This topic has been on our radar because Suzanne just finished presenting a lecture on “The Peaceable Kingdom” to the Tri-County Humane Society’s Animal Welfare conference in St. Cloud MN, and we’ll be giving…
A May Sale in Honor of All Puppy Moms
(and Dads!) In our house, Mother’s Day (and Father’s Day) consists of each of us receiving one or more cards from our four legged children. And the “thank yous” for being a good pet parent that each of us makes up to write in the cards for the other, can bring a tear or a…