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Introducing Cats: Slowly Does It
By Patience Fisher
There are many challenges for shelters in finding adoptive homes for cats. As an adoption counselor, I always found it disheartening to have a cat returned to the shelter for not getting along with the resident cats.
During the adoption process, the ...
Case Study: From Reactive to Relaxed
By Dr. Sheryl L. Walker
Of all my years studying animal behavior and consulting with individual clients and animal shelters, there was one case in particular that stood out, partly because it ...
Stress-Free Car Travel with Your Dog
Just recently I've helped several owners with dogs who've developed real aversions to car travel.
Definitely this hasn't been helped by not going places in the car during lockdown. Maybe ...
Latest Articles
The Top 7 Reasons You Absolutely Cannot Miss The Pet Professional Guild’s Annual Educational Summit
The Top 7 Reasons You Absolutely Cannot Miss
The Pet Professional Guild's Annual Educational Summit
1. You Will Have Lots of Fun
From the Welcome Reception, to Quiz Night, 'Munch and Learn' Merry-Go-Round and the Gala Dinner you will have more fun packed into a few short days than you thought ...
Trick Training Bloopers
I decided a while back to teach my dogs to cross their paws as a trick. I followed the instructions on one of Emily Larlham’s excellent videos: Dog Tricks Tutorial: Cross Your Paws. But I didn’t end up making the neat, quick progression shown in the movie when I tried it with my dog Summer.
I ...
Why Do Dogs Eat Toilet Paper and Paper Products?
I am often asked why dogs eat toilet paper. I would estimate that in every group dog training class I teach, it's asked at least once during the course. And during that inquiry, more than one person's dog eats toilet paper or paper towels, paper, paper plates, you get the picture.
So, just ...
Dining Experience
I’m not a fan of feeding dogs from bowls, as it doesn’t provide any type of enrichment. A bowl filled with food, is typically devoured within a few minutes, and needless to say, there is no particular skill or challenge to that act! Dogs are highly evolved animals that need a job to do. And ...
More Than Training; Examining both Parts of the Relationship
When we’re called out to training and behavior consultations it’s so easy to get completely focused on the animal in front of us. Swept along in the human client's description of what is going on but, what about the perspective of the animal you’re there to consult about? What about the ...
The Dog Decides
“The dog decides what is reinforcing.” Positive reinforcement trainers frequently say that to their human students. What they mean is that people can easily be mistaken about whether something constitutes reinforcement. For instance, we may think praising or petting our dogs are reinforcers, ...
Look at the Whole Dog
In a class I’m teaching on dog communication, we recently discussed a study on how well people interpret dog body language. The study, Description of the behaviour of domestic dog by experienced and inexperienced people, was published in Applied Animal Behaviour Science in 2009. We looked at ...
Compulsivity and the Dog
Since humans are unable to ascertain the aspect of a disorder in an animal that deals with obsessing, animals are not generally given the diagnosis of OCD. However, it is completely possible that a pet can have a compulsive disorder.
Compulsive behaviors include behaviors that are induced ...
The “Choice” Challenge
Thanks to Debbie Jacobs and Randi Rossman for their input on this topic. Any weird conclusions are mine alone.
I have come to believe that most of us who thought we were using “choice” as a reinforcer were mistaken.
Wait! Before you come running after me with pitchforks, let me explain. I’m ...