Blog — dog training
House Training Your Adult Dog
No matter what age your dog is, it's important to use a crate or kennel when housetraining, and also to keep them on a strict feeding and potty schedule. Dogs naturally keep their "den" clean, so by restricting their movement with a crate or kennel, you are encouraging this natural behavior. Keep to this strict crating protocol for at least six months. Once going to the bathroom outdoors becomes a habit, your dog should start asking to go out. Test them by gating them in a room with solid floors like tile, so if they do have an accident it...
Increasing Your Dog's Emotional Capacity = Building Tolerance to Stress
When potential clients call me because they're having problems with their dog, they usually try to convince me that their dog is actually really smart. The thing is, I never doubt the intelligence of the dog, because almost all of them are extremely clever and eager to learn new things. Learning, however, isn't the dog's problem. Dogs with behavioral issues (as judged by the human) usually have a limited capacity to deal with stress. Therefore, I'm not concerned with the dog's ability to learn their obedience commands, what I want to know is: How can we increase their emotional capacity? Increasing emotional...
Physical Laws of Energetic Dog Training
Follow these simple tips to see BIG changes in your dog's behavior The Energy Equation: Don't add energy to a problem behavior which already represents an energy overload. Examples of adding energy: "Positive punishment" (this means adding stimulus/punishment) of unwanted behavior, this never works! It may seem like it's working in the short term, but in the long term you are literally adding energy to the very problem you are trying to extinguish. Another example of adding energy: puzzles and other games and toys that add "mental stimulation" to a dog who is already over-stimmed. If your dog is truly...
Canine Body Language
Did you know that the most important thing about being a dog owner is being able to read their body language? You can talk to your dog all day long, but do you also know how to listen? It seems many people do not. I have created this slideshow to give you some insight into your dog's only language: Body Language!!!
What is Drive Training?
What does it mean to work with your dog's drive? First, you want to find the thing that most motivates your dog. Think of arousal as the thing that piques your dog's interest, and persistence as the annoying way they obsess over that thing! Some dogs will have more prey drive, some have more play drive. Dogs with high prey drive will even have a preference for different types of prey, this might be a squirrel, chipmunk, or fluttering of birds. Other dogs are more closely attuned to larger prey like skunks, cats, deer, or even horses! Many dogs are...