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Pet Professional Guild Announces 2023 Summit, Invites Proposals for Academic Sessions and Skill Labs

Event to take place at the Arizona Humane Society in Phoenix, November 1-5 INVERNESS, Fla. – Sept. 29, 2022 – The Pet Professional Guild (PPG) has announced that its 2023 Summit will take place November 1-5, 2023, at the Arizona Humane Society in Phoenix. The in-person event will also be ...

I Pushed My Friend off the Sofa! Whoops… [How to deal with undesirable guest/animal interactions]

By BARKS from the Guild

By Ryan Cartlidge I’m not proud of it, but recently I pushed a friend – who was staying at our house – off our sofa! Find out why below (as well as how to avoid doing it ...

Compulsive Eating in Dogs

By BARKS from the Guild

By Maureen Tay Also known as compulsive eating disorder, compulsive eating is a disorder where a dog tends to eat everything - from food items to non-food items. The specific ...

Scared Dog vs. Happy and Engaged Dog

Here’s a little dog body language study. My dear Zani shows a lot of emotion, which means she is a good dog to observe. She is pretty easy to read and can teach us a lot. The short video below consists of two quick clips taken less than two minutes apart. In one clip, Zani is afraid, and in ...

Lawn Chemicals and Dogs

Spring is a time when people work and play on their lawns. It is also when many folks apply weed killers. I did so for years and thought nothing of it. Then in 2016 I read an article in a local newspaper and learned that a nearby village was spraying a particular brand of lawn chemical in a ...

BARKS Podcast with Marco Adda: May 7, 2019

Guest: Freelance canids researcher, Marco Adda. Topic: PPG Webinar: Free-Ranging Bali Dogs: Behavior, Lifestyle, Personality and Preservation Free-ranging dogs are one of the most widely distributed carnivores in the world, yet scientists are only just beginning to study their behavior. They ...

Dog Tired? When Exercise Wakes him Up Rather than Tires Him Out!

By Sue McCabe Many years ago, at a seminar in Edinburgh, I heard Patricia McConnell say that most dog walks wake the dog up, rather than tire the dog out. ‘But why is he not tired?’ I’m often asked. ‘I’ve taken him for a really long walk.’ We’re just back from a 10km walk followed ...

How to Make the Transition to Full-Time Dog Pro

By Veronica Boutelle of PPG corporate partner, dogbiz If your dream is to work with dogs for a living but you’re still toiling full time outside the dog industry, or juggling a part-time business alongside your “real” job, you need a transition plan: A plan to get you from where you are now ...

How Long Does It Take to Train a Dog?

By Sue McCabe At puppy class recently, we started retrieve training. Students were shown this video (below), with the steps needed to train a reliable retrieve to hand. The video compresses quite a bit of learning (weeks of short sessions) into just under 2 minutes of demonstration. ‘How ...

10 Ways To Improve You and Your Dog’s Behavioral Relationship

Sometimes we get a little stuck in a rut, same old, same old - its easy, life is fast, time is hard to come by. Have you ever sat and thought about your relationship with your dog? Too often it's only when things go wrong that we contemplate uh oh..what can I do here to change things! How ...

Confessions of a Dog Trainer. Part 1: Feeding from the Table!

By Sue McCabe I have a confession. I sometimes feed my dogs from the table. When I go out to eat with my dog we are sharing quality time, and a meal together. So as long as my dog is quiet and calm and settled, he gets to share my food or he gets a Kong of his own to enjoy. Below is a ...

BARKS Recorded Podcast with Alexandra Kurland: April 17, 2019.

Guest: Alexandra Kurland, a graduate of Cornell University where she specialized in animal behavior, whose area of particular interest is the development of a horse's balance: physical and emotional. Alexandra Kurland is the author of "Clicker Training for your Horse"; "The Click That ...