Posted in Owner Education

How Trainers See DogsOne of many things I’ve been thinking about, is how trainers represent their own dogs, how they talk about them, how they view them, what they prioritise with their own dog(s).  Because that will give you some idea of how they will treat your dog.Do they say how obedient they are; how perfectly trained they are; how well behaved they are; how they can take them anywhere; how they cope with everything life throws at them without a second thought?Or do they talk abou...

Behaviour is ComplexThe more we learn, the more knowledge we accumulate, the deeper we dive in, the more complex we realise behaviour is, as we find missing pieces to the puzzles.We begin to understand that assumptions we made about why dogs do things were not correct; where we thought the answer to “why does my dog”, was “abc”, it can be “def”, right through to “xyz”.A deeper understanding provides us with a richness that allows us to appreciate our dogs on a different level ...

A Quiet Revolution I got my first dog in 1991, a Border Collie called Monty, he was perfect and turned me into the “dog person” I am today!He was trained on a check chain, and we were taught to do “dominance downs” meaning we forced our dogs to the ground and pinned them there to prove we were dominant over them.  It seems very archaic now and never really sat well with me, but at the time we didn’t know any different, I was just doing what I was taught.  As it turns ...

What is Dog Training?Training means teaching dogs skills to help them live their everyday lives with us humans.  Typically, this is walking with you on lead, coming back when called, greeting people and other dogs calmly, and a whole range of other traditional exercises such as sit, lie down and stay.Training also includes preventing and/or addressing behaviour issues which are more likely to be emotion based, for example separation anxiety, resource guarding, barking and lunging on lead....

LET'S LEARN - What is Positive Reinforcement?This is the first in a series I will write to help dog owners better understand how to teach their dogs skills and how to change behaviour.  When you have a decent foundation in learning theory it makes a huge difference because you can start to understand HOW and WHY things do and don’t work.There are several ways dogs (and humans and other animals for that matter) learn.  The first one we will look at is Operant Conditioning which is m...