Dogs who learn behaviors via humane, reward-based training will communicate by offering behaviors for attention or a cookie. What a brilliant mind of a dog to use what she’s learned to ask for something. Dogs who offer behaviors, in essence are saying, “Please.” “I just saw you give that puppy a cookie for pooping in the yard. I can do all this. Please may I have a cookie, too?” That was my 9-year-old Australian Shepherd, Bunny, saying please. For a {Read More}
Training A Dog To Think
May 31, 2017 By
Training dogs with food results in a well behaved, fun dog, who uses her smarts to think herself through a lifetime of possibilities. Reward-based trained dogs offer behaviors for the possibility of a reward while dogs trained with pain-based methods, respond to commands out of fear of a painful reprimand. Dogs trained with pain do not offer behaviors. But a dog trained with food results in a dog who thinks and who then uses her skill of learning to fearlessly {Read More}
A Big Step
May 22, 2017 By
I grew up with a parent who believed a pet dog should not be stepped over, but rather should move out of a person’s way, even if the dog were enjoying a peaceful snooze. He should wake and move out of the way fast. So the family dogs were never comfortable lying in the pathway of foot traffic. And most places in our house were foot-traffic worthy. Because the dogs had been conditioned to jump up and move out of {Read More}
Our Motivating Dog Training Food
May 9, 2017 By
When training dogs, I always use a motivating, nutritional food and most of the time, this is food that I bake. I bake trays of dog training food at a time, wrap what I’ll not be using immediately in waxed paper, and store them in the freezer in sturdy freezer bags. Later, I take out and defrost as needed. The waxed paper helps keep freezer crystals from forming and the plastic freezer bags insulate the food. They defrost nicely. Take {Read More}
Hiring a Professional Dog Trainer
May 8, 2017 By
If you are a service professional, have you found that people come up to you to ask for free advice just because you are present? I would bet more service professionals than not would answer the question with a resounding yes! It eventually happens. As for me, a couple weeks ago, someone who I’ve had scant conversations with asked me a how-to dog-training question on the fly. The question she asked me needed more than a 60-second sound byte, especially {Read More}
