Why Labels for Dogs AND Trainers Are Misleading
Over the years we’ve written many articles about the importance of describing what dogs DO rather than – or at least BEFORE – assigning interpretive labels to their behavior. For example, describing a dog as “stubborn” is an anthropomorphic interpretation of his behavior and doesn’t really give us any information about what the dog is…
Three Ways to Help Clients Do What You Want
We’ve been in our new (at least new to us – it was built in the 1970s!) “snowbird” townhome in Sun City AZ for a little over a month now. Because the living space and amenities are different from our primary residence in Denver our routines have been modified as well. Here, we have a…
Is “How Can I Get Him to Stop” The Right Training Goal?
The most common question we hear from pet owners is how they can get their dogs or cats to stop doing some behavior they don’t like. Perhaps they want their dog to stop barking, their cat to stop spraying or urinating outside the litterbox, their cats or dogs to stop fighting or being destructive, or…
Can the Placebo Effect Apply to Training and Behavior Modification?
To be perfectly honest, when we initially had the idea for this article, we weren’t quite sure where we were going with it. It’s funny how what seemed to be several unrelated events of the last several days suddenly came together to point us in the right direction. The first was a relatively recent article…
The Importance of Reading Scientific Articles
It should come as no surprise that there is quite a difference between the scientific literature about animal (and dog) behavior and popular literature on dog training. It’s still fairly difficult for the average dog trainer to access the scientific literature. On occasion, articles originally published in the scientific literature are made available on the…
Habits, Routines, and What’s Important to Dogs
We’ve been at our new “snowbird” townhome in Sun City AZ for a little over a week now. It’s a bit of a change for Coral, our 8 year old field-bred Irish setter. She’s accustomed to a decent sized backyard where she loves to spend time watching her birds and squirrels and burying an assortment…
Bust Your Business Barriers in 2013 Survey
Having a successful and profitable behavior and training business – or incorporating behavior services into another type of pet related business – always presents some challenges. From attracting new clients, working with veterinarians, building an email list, to improving client follow through, we face problems we don’t always know how to solve by ourselves. It’s…
Did You Do Your Dog Training Homework?
Statistics indicate that most pets will engage in at least one behavior in their lives that becomes a problem for owners. It’s not known how many pet owners consult some sort of behavior or training professional for help for their pets’ behavior versus trying to solve the problem on their own. We’ve become more…
The Basis for Better Behaved Dogs
It’s hard to believe that our dear Irish setter Coral, is now 8 years old. To us she is still our little baby puppy. Coral is without a doubt one of the easiest dogs to live with we’ve ever had. Just the polar opposite of our most recent Dalmatian, Ashley, that we wrote about frequently…
Breed Identification – Unintended Consequences
How do you know what breed – or mix of breeds your dog is? We know our dog Coral is an Irish setter because we purchased her from someone who we know has been breeding Irish setters for over 20 years. Not only does Coral look like an Irish setter (one who is bred for…