Dr. Ian Dunbar

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Dr. Ian Dunbar is a veterinarian, animal behaviorist, and writer. He received his veterinary degree and a Special Honors degree in Physiology & Biochemistry from the Royal Veterinary College (London University) and a doctorate in animal behavior from the Psychology Department at the University of California in Berkeley, where he spent ten years researching olfactory communication, the development of hierarchical social behavior, and aggression in domestic dogs.

Dr. Dunbar is a member of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons, the International Society for Applied Ethology, the American Veterinary Society of Animal Behavior, the California Veterinary Medical Association, the Sierra Veterinary Medical Association, and the Association of Pet Dog Trainers (which he founded).

Dr. Dunbar joined the Society for Veterinary Ethology (now the International Society for Applied Ethology) over 35 years ago, at which time he was the only member specializing in dog and cat behavior problems. Later he was involved in the establishment of the American SVE (now the American Veterinary Society of Animal Behavior).

He has written numerous books, including How To Teach A New Dog Old Tricks, the Good Little Dog Book and a series of Behavior Booklets—separate educational booklets on each of the most common pet behavior problems. Additionally, he has hosted eleven videotapes on puppy/dog behavior and training, including SIRIUS® Puppy Training, Training Dogs With Dunbar and Every Picture Tells A Story. All of his videos have won a variety of awards. The famous SIRIUS Puppy Training video (the first dog training video ever produced) remains the all-time best selling dog video. For three years running the SIRIUS® video has always been voted the #1 BEST DOG TRAINING VIDEO by the Association of Pet Dog trainers-the largest and most influential association of dog trainers in the world. His books and DVDs can be found at: James and Kenneth

Before SIRIUS® Puppy Training Classes there were simply no puppy classes-Dr. Dunbar developed them in 1981.

Certainly, the SIRIUS® Puppy Training video had a dramatic influence on the pet dog fancy, completely changing the way dogs are trained in a number of countries around the world. Dr. Dunbar’s unique lure/reward, off-leash training techniques provided a delightful alternative to inane and inhumane leash jerking. In a sense, SIRIUS took the jerks out of training. SIRIUS techniques have been adopted and adapted by most thinking and caring dog trainers worldwide. For more information go to: Sirius Puppy Training

Dr. Dunbar was invited to develop and write (for over seven years) the American Kennel Club's Gazette "Behavior" column, which was voted Best Dog Column for a number of years in succession by the Dog Writers' Association of America.

In 1993, Dr. Dunbar founded the Association of Pet Dog Trainers (APDT) APDT in the United States and organized the first two Annual Conferences. Dr. Dunbar's current project is the creation of the K9 GAMES®-an exciting spectator event featuring fast-moving, motivating, competitive games for dogs and owners.

He has been lecturing to veterinarians and dog clubs for over thirty years. In fact, since 1986 he has conducted over 800 days of seminar and workshop for trainers and veterinarians around the world. There are very few educated trainers who have not been strongly influenced by Dr. Dunbar's fun & games, from-the-animal's-point-of-view, dog friendly dog training.

Dr. Dunbar is peerless in his field; there is simply no other person who has his qualifications, experience, and expertise in the realm of modern psychological dog training and behavior counseling-fields which Dr. Dunbar has played a major role in developing over the past 25 years. 

Dr. Dunbar's books, CDs and DVDs are available from the DogStarDaily online digital store.
Also, many of Dr. Dunbar's multi-day seminars for dog trainers and
veterinarians are available on DVD from Tawzer Dog Videos, and
his "Give Them A Scalpet and They Will Dissect A Kiss: Dog Training
Past, Present and Future
" lecture is available from Dogwise.


Dr. Dunbar's Upcoming Seminars & Appearances

Products from Dr. Ian Dunbar

Blog posts by Dr. Ian Dunbar

My Contribution to Cesar Millan's New Book

Cesar Millan’s new book — Cesar’s Rules — features a number of trainers describing a variety of reward-based dog training techniques. The book is both comprehensive and representative with chapters on history of training and learning theory (Bob Bailey), training dogs for TV and film (Mark Harden), off-leash lure/reward training (myself), gentle physical prompting (Martin Deeley), and cancer detection dogs at The Pine Street Clinic. Cesar Millan’s name and fame now showcase reward-based training techniques of other trainers to the dog-owning public. It’s kind of like a vestigial book version of Dog Star Daily’s America’s Dog Trainer.

 

 
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The Onset of Adolescence and Aggression

A little ditty about how to deal with the changes that occur in doggy adolescence ("what happened to my sweet, obedient puppy?") and how to prevent these minor bumps in the road from becoming major roadblocks to living with, and enjoying, a solid, social, adult dog.

This is just an hors d'oeurve of what's on the menu of my latest seminar series, check out my 2010/2011 appearance schedule if you'd like to take a bigger bite!

 
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A Proper Puppy Class

This is one of my favorite topics of all time. I am passionate about puppy classes and have worked very hard over the years to develop the perfect formula for raising a safe, solid canine citizen and well-behaved companion dog. However, over the years the idea of what a puppy class is has drifted, and in many cases, has lost the primary objective of the benefit of training young puppies. Here's my idea of a proper puppy class.

 
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Puppyhood: A Golden Opportunity, Often Wasted

Dr. Ian Dunbar explains the absolutely critical nature of puppyhood. Young puppies are impressionable, adorable, and eager to learn. With a little preparation and training they can learn so much, and they can learn it so quickly that they'll be inoculated against the problematic behaviors that are so very predictable and cause adolescent dogs to end up in shelters.

 
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My First Vlog Entry!

If this works, I've found my medium and will be off and running!

This is just an hors d'oeurve of what's on the menu of my latest seminar series, check out my 2010/2011 appearance schedule if you'd like to take a bigger bite!

 

Bribes!

Some forty years ago, when I started to re-popularize the use of food lures and rewards in dog training, many trainers were adamantly opposed. ”I don’t want to bribe my dog.” “I want the dog to do it for me.” “That’s sissy training.” I knew these knee-jerk statements stemmed from a lack of understanding of basic learning principles and so I wrote a number of articles, explaining how the temporary use of food as lures and rewards was very different from using food as bribes.

 
Not A Wolf, White German Shepherd

Let's Just Be Humans Training Dogs

Basing dog training on a misunderstanding of wolf behavior is as useful as basing human education on a misunderstanding of chimpanzee behavior.

Dogs are not wolves and dog behavior is not the same as wolf behavior. In fact, the most striking difference between dog and wolf behavior is their interaction with people.  Wolves have been naturally selected to grow up to be wary of people, whereas dogs have been artificially selected for their ease of socialization towards people. Consequently, it is hardly sound to use wolf behavior as a template for dog training.
Also, dog-dog interactions are very different from wolf-wolf interactions. Dog behavior is like watching simplified wolf behavior in slow motion. By and large, dogs are easy to read and usually give ample warning (intention signals) of their actions and reactions, whereas watching wolves requires a brain with a few more GHz and a bunch more Gigabytes.

 

Dog Training Is As Easy As 1-2-3-4 (And 1-2-3)

Well, the party’s over! After spending a most relaxing five weeks at home (with some mega sunny gardening days), I shall now pretty much be on the road until the 8th July, with seminars in Washington DC, Seattle, Tarrytown NY, Phoenix and England. I’ll have one week at home and then off to Japan for the opening of Hotel WOOF and then 10 days at home and then off to the South of France for a K9 GAMES Workshop. And then, two whole months at home! Whooooo Hoo! A bit of a busy schedule but I am so excited about my upcoming lectures. It feels so good to be back on the seminar circuit and with lots of ultra new information.

 

Humping is Normal, Yet Rude and Lewd

Recently, I received a question from a dog owner who was concerned that her neutered male was a dog park predator — hooked on humping. She was worried whether there was any harm in letting him mount, or whether she should be discouraging the behavior.

 

Unlike most other mammals, neutered male and to a lesser extent, neutered female dogs will continue to mount other dogs. Quite common and quite normal. In fact, neutered male dogs tend to mount more than intact males, presumably due to a lack of discriminatory experience.

 

 

REINFORCEMENT SCHEDULES

Laboratory study has revealed a variety of reinforcement schedules. Puppy training has revealed that most of these are notorious ineffective, or impossible to administer in practice, with the notable exceptions of variable ratio and especially, differential reinforcement. Yet educators and trainers persist in using these relatively ineffective schedules of reinforcement when trying to teach children and employees and when attempting to train husbands and dogs. Wake up! Puppy training has taught us that most of this stuff doesn’t work too well.

Continuous Reinforcement (CR) — the dog is rewarded after every correct response, for example, the dog is rewarded after every sit

 

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