BARKS Podcast with Morag Heirs: September 11, 2018
Guest: Morag Heirs of Well Connected Canine; PhD, MSc, MA(hons)(SocSci), PGCAP, Accredited Talking Dogs Scentwork trainer, and TD Rally Judge.
Topics: Heirs' article in BARKS, Fast and Furious, that discusses training deaf dogs to participate in dog sports such as canicross and ...
Why Your Dog Doesn’t Know Sit
By Yvette Van Veen
When I was a young girl, my grandmother would send gifts of books from Czechoslovakia. The books were filled with stunning moving pop-up illustrations. I learned a lot from those books. I learned how those illustrations popped up. I learned how one moving part ...
How to Achieve Purrvana
By Daniel “DQ” Quagliozzi
Okay cat guardians, summer is coming to an end and it’s time to make some resolutions that are going to count for your cats. It takes a joint effort between cat and caretaker to make positive changes manifest in the right way. If you can make the right causes for ...
Reaching the Holy Grail of Training
By Yvette Van Veen
Years ago, I taught our Kiki a formal recall using targeting. Systematically I proceeded to work through the exercise. Much to my delight, Kiki developed the most fantastic competition recall. People gasped at her speed and enthusiasm. Her formal recall never failed ...
7 Ways to Get Behaviour
Guest Post by Karolina Westlund Ph.D
There are two important questions to ask before teaching an animal a new skill.
In another blog post, I discussed the first question, one that is extremely basic but often overlooked: “what is the cost/benefit of the behaviour”. Is it useful, useless, ...
Pet Professional Guild Responds to the UK Government’s Decision to Ban Electronic Shock Collars in Pet Training, Care, Behavior Modification, and Management
The Pet Professional Guild (PPG) fully supports and applauds the Government of the United Kingdom’s decision to implement a nationwide ban on the use of remote control electric shock collars for the training, management, and care for pets. Further, PPG is in full agreement with the U.K. Kennel ...
“No-Kill” Shelters Are Not Enough
An article I read recently in the New York Times (online) talked about a downside of a heavy emphasis on no-kill policies at shelters: By focusing on getting dogs and cats into new homes, the shelters might be neglecting the reasons many of those animals are in the shelter in the first ...
How to Make Your Training Work!
All dogs can learn amazing things. Sometimes it's us (maybe more than sometimes!) who don't allow our dogs to fulfill their full potential, for whatever reason - time, other commitments, know-how etc. I want to look at a few things here that can help you make your training work better, just ...