New Content
BARKS Podcast with Valarie Ross from Sits ‘n Wiggles R+ Dog Training: February 18, 2022
Join Niki Tudge and PPG Canine Committee chair Judy Luther as they Chat and Chuckle with Valarie Ross of Sits 'n Wiggles - Positive Reinforcement Dog Training in Cleveland, Ohio.
Listen as they discuss gear, reactive behavior in dogs, inclusivity and diversity in pet-related professions, ...
Straight from the Horse’s Mouth
By Dorothy Heffernan
With a growing interest in ‘least intrusive, minimally aversive’ (LIMA) training methods and the ‘least intrusive effective behavior intervention’ (LIEBI) model, many ...
New Certificate Course: Helping Your Dog in the Post-COVID World
The International School for Canine Psychology & Behaviour Ltd. (ISCP) has a reputation for excellence, with students and graduates in over 61 countries. The ISCP only promotes reward based, ...
Latest Articles
A Puppy in Winter
By Bob McMillan
It’s true, I did not time this very well.
It was Indian Summer when I got my Irish wolfhound puppy, Oona. We frolicked in the yard among the butterflies and roses. This month, Old Man Winter’s hung a big “kick me” sign on my Tennessee county. The Arctic chill let up just ...
My Dog Said “Sorry” To My Cat. I Think.
My dog Huckleberry and my kitten Cato play rough-and-tumble games all day. Huckleberry chases Cato, Cato pounces on her neck, Huckleberry fake-bites his leg, he jumps on her belly and fake-gnaws her ear. They're friends. Not "friends" like the dog and cat who sleep together in the dog's bed ...
Pet Professional Guild Opens Registrations; Announces Impressive Speaker Line-Up for First-Ever Force-Free Convention
Tampa, FL – The Pet Professional Guild (PPG) has opened registrations for its inaugural educational convention, The Force Free Summit - Reaching for a Higher Standard, to take place at the Sheraton Tampa Riverwalk Hotel in Florida on November 11-13, 2015.
Aimed predominantly at pet ...
Pet Professional Guild Raises the Stakes in Virtual Competition
Tampa, FL – The Pet Professional Guild (PPG) is offering an unprecedented range of prizes to entice the participation of members, supporters and pet owners in its virtual community event, The International Day of Celebration for Force-Free Training and Pet Care (ICFF), taking place between ...
Helping a Fearful Dog Feel Safe
If you have a fearful dog, you probably read all sorts of conflicting advice about what to do about that. Everybody’s got an opinion, and unfortunately some of them include very poor methods.
Even if we rule out the methods that are obviously based on aversive practices, like prong collars or ...
“Only You Can Prevent__________”
That slogan, which has been delivered for over seventy years by the iconic Smokey Bear, is so familiar that we automatically finish the sentence with “forest fires”. If Smokey had said, “Only you can put out forest fires”, the message would have been very different; as well, some might have ...
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Happy New Year everyone! Like so many of you, this is a time when I reflect back on the old year and think about how I would like to improve things for the new year ahead.
Dogs just want to have fun.
When it comes to dogs and dog training, there are some many areas that can use our ...
The Dangers of Stereotyping
A couple of years ago I was in England visiting my family just before Christmas. As is usual for this time of year in the UK, the weather wasn’t particularly nice. The rain was pouring down, the wind was blowing and it was icy cold. My mother and I had decided we would go to a nearby ...
Dogs Scared of Men?
As Patricia McConnell says in a blog on her website: Why Dogs are More Afraid of Men, "people in the training and behavior field know that almost all shy dogs are more afraid of men than women, even if men have been nothing but kind to them their entire lives. We've always speculated that it ...