Blog — Biological Fulfillment
Loose-Lead Walking
Facts are facts: Loose-lead walking requires a dog to suppress natural behaviors. We don't usually like to use straight-up suppression to get "compliance," which is why I teach ways to help the dog channel their natural drives into alternative behaviors. This is by far the best way to help intensely driven dogs become manageable on walks. Here are some foundational concepts to consider… Firstly, have we fulfilled the dogs need for exercise and breed-specific enrichment? Secondly, have you provided proper motivation for the dog to adjust their natural speed and gait to match your own? Finally, we are asking...
Personal Play and Play Fighting: Co-Regulating with Your Dog
The polyvagal theory implies that more attention needs to be paid to the development of interventions that either promote activation of the social vagus or dampen sympathetic tone. One major implication is the need to pay closer attention the therapeutic use of play, rough and tumble behaviors that serve as preliminary exercises to develop adaptive defensive and aggressive behaviors, as a means of shifting people [and dogs] out of fight-or-flight reactions into loving and mutually engaged mobilization. --Bessel A. van der Kolk, in the foreword to: The Polyvagal Theory by Dr. Stephen W. Porges Mirroring your dog during play...
As Your Dog's World Shrinks, So Does His Brain
Enrichment has been trending in the dog training for quite some time now, but do you know WHY it's actually so important? It's not just about providing your dog with puzzles and distractions to drain their energy. Environmental enrichment that provides breed-specific biological fulfillment actually changes your dog's brain! It makes your dog's brain more flexible and open to learning. This is ESPECIALLY important for behavior modification because we need your dog's brain to grow new neural pathways so they can learn and actively choose new behaviors. So while it may make sense for a short time to...
Canine Adolescence
Many people are aware that puppies go through a "fear period" where they are particularly sensitive to experiences, and that it is important to protect them from having bad experiences during this time. Did you know that there is a second "fear period" during adolescence? As dogs become sexually mature, they go through another imprinting phase where positive and negative experiences become especially salient to their learning and ultimately end up shaping their personality. This is a great time to keep training and hand feeding high on the priority list. You will probably see breed traits become...
Confidence Building
"Confidence Building" is one of those trendy phrases in dog training right now. But what types of activities actually build confidence and expand your dog's emotional capacity? I believe our dogs need physical challenges that come with real risks and rewards, as opposed to contrived challenges in controlled settings. What better way to give your dog a therapy session than to do some actual confidence building out in nature? Then you get the added bonus of some much needed forest bathing outside of the city, while providing small but real obstacles for them to conquer! Every time we go to...