Level Up Your Dog Training - Maximize the Effectiveness of Your Rewards

FOR A LIMITED TIME Watch our new Rewards vs Punishments webinar for FREE, where Jamie interviews Ian about rewards and punishments and the common mistakes people make when trying to apply these...

Puppies and Shelter Dogs: Two Sides of the Same Coin

I am a dog trainer and I lead a double life. Of sorts. Behaviorally speaking. I am the Director of SIRIUS Puppy Training, a San Francisco Bay Area puppy training school. Our mission is to teach new...

Dog Owner Education: Factual Learning Online; Hands-On Practice in Training Class

Many years ago, one of my Japanese students conducted a survey of off-leash puppy classes in the SF Bay Area. A basic index that she scored was the percentage of time that puppies were off-leash,...

Resolving Dog-Dog Reactivity

FOR A LIMITED TIME Watch the all-new Dunbar Academy Dog-Dog Reactivity webinar for FREE, where Dr. Ian Dunbar explains the common causes of reactivity and how to resolve reactivity using 10 easy and...

Tug Life – How a Love of Tug can Resolve Reactivity (and Hyperactivity!)

FOR A LIMITED TIME Watch the all-new Dunbar Academy Dog-Dog Reactivity webinar for FREE, where Dr. Ian Dunbar explains why teaching your dog to play Tug is one of the smartest things you can do to...

New Free Course – Six Simple Steps to Solve Your Dog's Behavior Problems

We've just published a new FREE course on Dunbar Academy called Six Simple Steps to Solve Your Dog's Behavior Problems. This course is filled with short videos and downloadable documents that provide
Ian Dunbar

Dog Owner Education: Factual Learning Online; Hands-On Practice in Training Class

Dr. Ian Dunbar  |  Fri, 07/26/2019 - 11:04

Many years ago, one of my Japanese students conducted a survey of off-leash puppy classes in the SF Bay Area. A basic index that she scored was the percentage of time that puppies were off-leash, being trained by their owners, interacting (socializing) with other people, or playing with other puppies as opposed to the percentage of time that puppies were on-leash, while owners sat in chairs listening and watching the instructor lecture, or demonstrate. The results were quite shocking. In all of the classes surveyed, puppies spent 50–75% of the time on-leash! Neither an efficient nor an...

 

Quick Tip: The Gift of Gab – Maximize the Effectiveness of Your Training by Talking to your Dog!

James Lu Dunbar  |  Wed, 07/24/2019 - 12:43

Your voice is one of the most useful tools you have in dog training. Sadly, it's also one of the most underutilized. Many dog owners don't understand how much they can communicate by using their voice, and as a result, they fail to give their dogs the feedback they need to learn how to behave. 

Of course, your voice is most powerful when you use words that your dog understands, but even when you use words they don't understand your dog will appreciate the tone and intensity and that can communicate quite a lot!

Watch the video below to learn more:

 

Education Used to Be Expensive; Now, it’s Affordable for All — Anytime, Anywhere

Dr. Ian Dunbar  |  Mon, 07/22/2019 - 15:10

Back in the day, when we used to buy books and DVDs and travel to dog training seminars, workshops and conferences, furthering our education could be pricey. A three-day seminar or five-day conference could easily end up costing $300-$2000, or more. Once you factor in seminar registration, travel, accommodation, shopping and hotel-food costs and time away from family and work, education was expensive, time-consuming, often inconvenient and not that effective — How much information from a one-day seminar was actually retained?

Nowadays, online education is either open-source or very affordable...

 
Tags:  education

Barking Up the Wrong Tree

Dr. Ian Dunbar  |  Wed, 06/12/2019 - 13:24

Why so much learning theory doesn’t work too well in practice.

An applied learning theory is essential for teaching/training all animals, people included 

These days we are being increasingly advised that dog training should be based on peer-reviewed, published studies. I feel this is a bit silly because there are so few research studies on dog training. In fact, there are next to none. Certainly, there are wonderful studies on the behavior of wild canids, on feral or free-roaming domestic dogs and there are some really interesting studies on cognition in companion dogs but … there...

 

Quick Tip: Handcrafted – How to make the best use of your HANDS during training

James Lu Dunbar  |  Sun, 04/07/2019 - 12:37

You have to know how to use your hands correctly if you want to be a good dog trainer. Excellent dog handlers know how to use their hands to energize, calm, lure and reward.

On the other hand, when owners don't know what they're doing, they can accidentally train their dog to become afraid of human hands, which can lead to anxiety and aggression problems.

And of course, the best thing about your hands is that they are one of just a few tools that you always have with you!

To learn more, watch this video:

 

Quick Tip: Superfood – What You Should and Should not be Feeding Your Dog

James Lu Dunbar  |  Thu, 10/25/2018 - 12:23

For many dogs, the most important aspect about the food you feed your dog is whether or not you use it in training. If your dog has behavior problems, you can, and should, use their regular food to help solve those problems.

That's why it's well worth considering a dry kibble that will be convenient to use in training. For many people, if it's not convenient, it's not going to happen, and when you fail to use food in training you really handicap yourself. 

To learn more, watch this video:

 

Quick Tip: Ditch the Dish – The First Step to Resolving Your Dog's Behavior Problems

James Lu Dunbar  |  Mon, 06/18/2018 - 10:29

When it comes to dog training and behavior problems, the number of different solutions are as great and varied as the number of different problems.

But whatever your problem is, there's a good chance that the first step you're going to want to take is getting rid of your dog's food bowl. Feeding your dog form a food bowl really undermines your ability to use food in training, and food, used properly, can make training much, much easier.

To learn more, watch this video:

 

Dunbar Academy Gets a Make-Over

James Lu Dunbar  |  Thu, 06/14/2018 - 12:29

Dunbar Academy is our online dog training and behavior school and presents a more structured and curated learning experience than Dog Star Daily can provide.

But it wasn't always that way. When we started Dunbar Academy a couple of years ago, it primarily consisted of video recording of Ian's many dog behavior seminar and workshops. 

But in the past few months we've totally revamped the website to make it into a very streamlined set of courses that are each tailored to one of several important groups of doggy people: regular pet dog owners, dog trainers and other doggy professionals

 
Dunbar Academy is now on YouTube

Announcing the Dunbar Academy YouTube channel

James Lu Dunbar  |  Wed, 06/13/2018 - 12:05

We're excited to announce that we've launched a new YouTube Channel!

It's going to feature videos of all three of the Dunbars dispensing top-notch dog training informaiton and entertainment! Our goal is to add at least one new video each week and so we've been doing A LOT of filming lately.

We'll feature some of the videos here, on Dog Star Daily as well, but certainly not all of them, so if you don't want to miss any, you should definitely subscribe to the channel on YouTube.

At the moment, we've got three "series" going:

First, there's Mail Bag with Ian, where he answers questions from our...

 

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