Dr Dunbar's iWoofs Podcasts

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5.02 Beyond Puppy Classes

 
iWoofs Seas:  Season 5

5.01 Puppy Husbandry Practices

 
iWoofs Seas:  Season 5

4.13 Are Puppy Classes Harmful? (Part 2)

For this episode we return to an article that was on the Kennel Club’s website which suggests that puppy classes and social play sessions are responsible for increasing reactivity and aggression in pet dogs.   The article focuses on poorly managed classes, and uses this as justification for condemning the whole concept.  The Dunbars explain how a well-run class or socialization session is actually the best way of preventing reactivity and aggression, and creating friendly, easy-to-handle and reliable adult dogs.  

 
iWoofs Seas:  Season 4

4.12 Are Puppy Classes Harmful? (Part 1)

In this iWoofs episode we address an article that appears on The Kennel Club website, by Robert Alleyne, a Board member of the Kennel Club Accreditation Scheme for Instructors.  As major advocates for puppy classes you can probably imagine that we have a few bones to pick with this article.  We find many of the assumptions to be flawed, along with much of the reasoning and the conclusions.  We do agree with the article that there are some puppy classes that are not as good as they should be, and we agree with some of the criticisms that are made of poorly managed classes. 

 
iWoofs Seas:  Season 4

4.11 Ian's Fun & Games Training Workshops

 
iWoofs Seas:  Season 4

4.10 Dealing with a Mouthy Rottweiler

A listener has a sweet three-your old Rottweiler that likes to mouth people. He’s never hurt people, but the owner recognizes that this is a potential problem. With a large, potentially intimidating dog like a Rottweiler it’s a particular pressing problem, because people may be very scared.

 
iWoofs Seas:  Season 4

4.09 It Didn't Work For Me

There are a lot of things that can go wrong in dog training, mistakes which will make any method or exercise significantly less effective.  Dog training is complex and requires some important skills, it requires some patience, persistence and timing.  Also, there’s something about dogs which tends to short-wire some people’s critical thinking skills.  Probably the biggest problem people run into is expecting too much from their dog, too quickly.  They don’t recognize the incremental improvements, which means they don’t ca

 
iWoofs Seas:  Season 4

4.08 German Shepherd Litter

Last week we found ourselves in the position of being able to put the SIRIUS Puppy Raising Initiative into practice.  It turns out that one of Jamie's friend's father had bred a litter of German Shepherd Puppies.  Unfortunately, he'd done so quite a while ago and the pups were already nine weeks old by the time we learned about them and no one had given him BEFORE or AFTER You Get Your Puppy.  While his heart was in the right place, he didn't have all the information he needed to help the pups be their very best selves. However, young pups are super-malleable and puppy training and socialization is what we're all about. We offered to help and he was very enthusiastic, so we got to work.  First we helped him set up the housetraining program and address some important socialization issues in their home, then we took all the pups to our SIRIUS training facility in El Cerrito to work on some training and socialization outside the home, which we filmed.

 

4.07 Boulder Dog at SBDTwF

Deborah Flick over at Boulder Dog attended Dr. Dunbar's Science-Based Dog Training with Feeling seminar in Denver, CO this past March, and she wrote a series of wonderful blog posts about her experience.  In this iWoofs we respond to her thoughts on the seminar, which were very interesting.

 
iWoofs Seas:  Season 4

4.06 Protecting My Boy

Hubie got a German Shepherd puppy for his son, who is currently living with his mother.  The mother and boy are scared of the dog and Hubie is at a loss for how to ensure that the dog is gentle with people, so that his son enjoys the dog rather than fears it.   The answer is not physical domination, which is really only an option for the father.  Fortnuately, everyone in the family can proactively train the dog to inhibit the force of its’ mouth.  They can also use lure reward training that can let them assert control over the dog whenever they need it.  What this dog needs most is bite-inh

 
iWoofs Seas:  Season 4

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