Fixing The Reactive Dog

Does your dog bark, growl or lunge when he or she catches sight of another dog?  Do you walk your dog at odd hours to avoid running into other dog walkers?If any of this sounds familiar you might have a REACTIVE dog.Dogs that are termed reactive will commonly show aggressive type behaviours when they see their particular poison.  This can be other dogs, humans or in some cases both. We see a lot of reactive dogs in our practice. You could...

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Off-Leash Dog Control

"My entire philosophy and training system is designed to make life with your dog easy for BOTH of you." - Haz OthmanImagine a dog that promptly obeys you whether he is next to you or 100 yards away. That comes when he is called, does not make pointless noise or destroys your house. This is only possible through a balanced training approach. I don’t rely on bribery nor do I rely on punishment. Instead I utilize a consequence based system that teaches the...

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The Problem with Purely Positive/Force Free Training #1 – Intro

In this series of articles I speak to some of the common thinking errors and myths perpetrated by the purely positive or force free type training community. Allow me to preface this series by saying that I am well aware of how to use a clicker, treats, toys, manage thresholds, stimulation, and motivation in dog training. In fact I use many of these training tools in my own practice often in concert with other techniques. In this series of articles we examine...

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The Problem with Purely Positive/Force Free Training #2 – Science Based…or is it?

Let us first address the concept of science based training.  Many force free training advocates will tell you that their approach is supported by science.  That animals trained with positive reinforcement are proven to learn new behaviors more quickly then if they are punished.  Guess what!  This is absolutely true. Unfortunately this is not the complete truth.BF Skinner is the noted behaviorist best known for his development of the learning theory, 'Operant Conditioning' which is recognized as one of the...

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The Problem with Purely Positive/Force Free Training #3 – Motivation, what could go wrong?

The fundamental basis behind all positive training systems is using motivators to teach and strengthen behaviors. A motivator is anything that your dog desires, usually food or a toy. The trainer offers the motivator to the dog after he performs the desired behavior thus making that behavior more likely. Seems simple enough, what could go wrong?The trouble with relying exclusively on motivators to train your dog is that they change day to day, hour to hour and minute to minute....

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Board & Train Cheat Sheet

Download this articleKey PointsMoving forward your job is to make accountability with the dog in relation to the obedience and overall behavior of the dog. You achieve accountability with a combination of Motivation and Obligation. Motivation is created with praise and food or toy rewards, you do not use these things to bribe the dog into compliance but to reward the dog for a job well done after completion of a command or a good behavior choice. Obligation is created by correcting the...

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Selecting a Trainer or Training Method

The following is an excerpt of our upcoming book on dog training..If you are the kind of person that is motivated enough to find and read this book you have probably researched dog training at least a little bit. Enough anyways that you have probably read several different methods that swear up and down that they work and that the other way is abusive, cruel, useless etc. If you are not a professional how do you sort the wheat from...

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Stress and Pleasure in Dog Training

The following is an excerpt from our upcoming book on dog training..STRESS and PLEASURE in DOG TRAININGI will start with stress as this is a topic often misunderstood in dog training. Stress is something many trainers and owners fear and avoid at all costs often to the detriment of the results they produce and ultimately the dog they are responsible for helping. That is because they refuse to think about stress logically and are never able to get past their...

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