This week I have been reflecting that my dogs have had the opportunity to do much, much more than most dogs do. One of my recent clients came for help to get her dog to stop lunging and barking at passersby while in the house, but she had no, zero, interest in teaching her dog to do anything else. She didn’t want one of those “fancy trick” dogs; she wanted her dog to be his authentic self, but without barking and lunging at passersby.

A professional dog trainer sees a lot of stupid mistakes over the years, but probably the most common one is the mismatch of dogs and people.  On a friend’s Facebook page recently, I got into a discussion with a rescuer who insisted that any dog slated to die was a better option than a well thought out, carefully placed and carefully researched puppy. 

One of the most frequent questions I am asked at social functions is “How do I choose a really smart dog when I am looking for a puppy?”  This is a loaded question that really reflects how little people understand what they are looking for in a dog. 

When we get a puppy, we are happy and looking forward.  We look forward to the times we will spend in the company of our adult dog, and all things we will do and all the fun we will do together.  We realize that there will be work along the way, including taking the dog to the vet, training and cleaning up after him, not to mention the dust bunnies and other household reminders he will leave in his wake. 

I just got an email from a lady who described her 4 year old dog as a puppy, and she wondered if he was old enough to start coming to school because he was driving her crazy.  The problem is that her dog is not a puppy.  The term puppy is roughly equivalent to the human term infant or baby. 

Just what do people mean by active when they talk about active dogs?  Everyone seems to want to be more active these days. If you are an athlete, you want to reach that level of fitness just beyond your current ability and you push yourself to do that.

With our new puppy program we have been hearing from more and more puppy owners and a surprising number of them are bring home their pups at six weeks of age, often without their first set of shots.  Puppies from pet stores may be older when you meet them, but may have been taken from mom as early as four weeks of age. 

The pinnacle of my relationship with my dogs is being able to take them off leash and walk with them anytime, anywhere.  Being ABLE to do so is different from choosing to do so when it would not be in their best interest, but being able to do so is magic.  Taking my dogs to a natural area and letting them run free has been one of the greatest relationship building activities I have ever had the pleasure of engaging in. 

Once upon a time, I was a svelte 148 pounds and just a smidge under five nine.  I rode horses, threw hay bales around and when time permitted, I lifted weights.  I liked lifting weights.  In fact, I enjoyed it so much, and was so active that I liked to test how much I could lift once a week.  My record week, I bench pressed 198 pounds. 

Probably the toughest question you get as a dog behaviour consultant is “why does my dog have this problem”.  Regardless of the problem, aggression, anxiety, fears and phobias, separation anxiety, everyone wants to know why THEIR dog has a behaviour problem. 

When a dog comes into my classroom I have a little under a second to determine if that dog is going to be safe to handle and train in the setting we are in.  If we are in a group class, I have a responsibility to my students and their dogs to make sure that everyone is safe at all times. 

Uh uh. Huh uh. Oh, oh. Wrong. Try again. What do these five phrases have in common and what do they have to do with dog training?

For the past twenty years, I have offered a program I call the Good Dog Program for good dogs who have big problems.  Every month, one or more student manages to pass their dog through the program and into our regular obedience class. 

Last time I talked about talking to my dogs. This time I want to talk about listening and more importantly hearing what they have to say. Dogs are non verbal species. This means that they can only tell us things by their behaviour.

In many respects, dogs operate much like toddlers do. They pick up common phrases and integrate them into their daily activities. They learn that specific words mean specific things, and they learn what activities predict what other activities.

Your dog is a member of your family and you want to make sure that he is confident about everything he will encounter. The following tips will help you to make your dog’s experience of Canada Day as good as yours!

As dog trainers, we have both hopes and expectations for our dogs when we train them.  The problem I am seeing is that people are satisfied if Fido is willing to sit after several prompts, a treat on the nose and the cue repeated fifteen times in a row. 

So what does it mean when a dog growls?  Growling is one of the behaviours that precedes a bite.  In fact, there is a whole sequence of behaviours that usually happen before the dog actually bites. 

As a behaviour consultant, one of the most important skills in my bag of tricks is my ability to suss out what a dog is doing.  I am not talking about why a dog does a behaviour, or what drives it, but what a dog is doing. 

Everyone I talk to who doesn’t own a dog has strong opinions about having dogs in apartment buildings and an awful lot of shelters and rescues won’t adopt out unless you have a fenced yard.