Choosing a puppy is a very important decision, and everyone who lives in the household should agree before any puppy is brought into the home. If the puppy is to truly become a member of the family,...
Give Your Dog The Gift of Sniff with Nosework!
What if We Practiced Dog Ownership First?
We’ve all heard the familiar pleas: “Can we get a dog?” “I want a dog, look how cute he is!” Dogs are tons of fun and having a canine companion is great, but what’s involved with owning
How to Use Food Intelligently in Lure-Reward Dog Training
Based on Dr. Ian Dunbar’s lecture (of the same title). Only available on The All Access Pass at DunbarAcademy.com
Food is extremely useful when training a dog …
Food is simply unmatched for...
The Importance of Early Socialization
Socialization is the process of becoming familiar with all kinds of animals, people, places, and things; as well as learning how to behave in society. All puppies need socialization regardless of
Edward Lee Thorndike showed that behavior is modified by its consequences and in 1905, he published his Law of Effect, basically stating: Any behavior followed by pleasant consequences will increase in frequency and be more likely to occur in the future, whereas any behavior followed by unpleasant consequences will decrease in frequency and be less likely to occur in the future. The notion of binary feedback is the quintessence of learning theory. The Law of Effect was a wonderful start but as theory was put to practice in education and training, something went very wrong along the way. Over...
Living with a reactive dog is a humbling experience on many levels. The understanding of the world that humans gain via language, experience and rational explanations for nearly everything are not part of the reactive dog's natural repertoire. However, we might be more similar at a basic level than we choose to admit. Taking time to shake off the clinical topography and protocols now and then and just reconnecting with how fear really feels can make us better trainers.
One of my dogs, Niki, came to us at 2 years old from the greyhound racing industry where he grew up and raced his entire
I’ve raised a few puppies in my time and it has always puzzled me why anyone would want to purchase a puppy that hasn’t already been housetrained, especially since house soiling and other behavior problems, such as excessive barking and destructive chewing, are a major source of frustration for new owners. Most kennel-bred puppies are allowed to eliminate anywhere and everywhere, chew anything and everything, bark at will and run around uncontrolled, which of course, is exactly what they’ll do in their new homes. Consequently, far too many eight-week-old puppies already have behavior...
Dogs may be taught manners and basic obedience at anytime in their lives. However, training puppies is just so much fun and so, why wait? Similarly, behavior problems may be resolved at any time in a dog’s life but of course, they are annoying and frustrating for owners and so, why not teach good habits from the outset? Temperament problems, however, must be prevented during early puppyhood because rehabilitating adult dogs is complicated and extremely time-consuming. For example, whereas It takes just a few days, or a week at the most, to resolve incipient signs of shyness, fearfulness,...
Is aggression on the rise with pet dogs? Who knows? We certainly don’t get to the bottom of this question in this episode where we meandered a bit off the original topic, into the realm of punishment and discipline and how they fit into the practice of dog training. How do we correct our dog’s behaviors when they aren’t appropriate?
Shirley in New Jersey has a problem with her dog being reactive when off-leash, jumping her fence and chasing down bikers and joggers. She’s tried setting up training scenarios, but the dog doesn’t seem to react when it’s on-leash, so how should she address the problem?
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What is a Growl Class and when might it be useful? These are classes that are intended to help dogs that are aggressive towards other dogs, but friendly towards people. These days there are a lot of dogs that fit that description, and it can be a very difficult and time-consuming problem to address. Growl classes can be stressful, but they can also produce a lot of progress very quickly. Before admitting a
Many veterinarians are sufficiently concerned about the risk posed by canine parvovirus that they advise dog owners to keep their puppies at home until their vaccinations are complete. This poses some serious limitations for socializing your puppy. In this episode the Dunbars assess the true risk of Parvo, and how you can socialize your puppy without putting them at risk of contracting this disease.
At SIRIUS Dog Training, we’ve started a Puppy Kindergarten class level that welcomes pups as young as 8 weeks. Done correctly it is perfectly safe and does wonders for the pup’s developing...
Ian’s been reading up on socialization research and he has some fresh thoughts to share. But first, what is socialization, what do we mean when we say it? Is there another word that might be better suited to what we want to talk about? What is socialization on a scientific, biological, structural, neurological level? Research shows a lack of sufficient socialization in young social animals leads to permanent and physical brain damage. So please, socialize that puppy!
Anthropomorphising animals isn’t a good idea and usually gets us into all kinds of trouble. Dogs are not furry babies. They are their own species, with a totally different set of day to day priorities & communication signals. However spending time with nieces, nephews and god-children over the years, I’m amazed that the toddler stage in kids has so many similarities with puppy development. Both in terms of how puppies explore the world and how we deal with the frustrations such interaction may bring, puppies and toddlers aren’t all that different at all.
