From the Horse’s Perspective
By Kathie Gregory There is a general perception that using food in teaching will cause the horse to be rude, mug you, be “pushy,” or start nipping. People often dismiss the possibility of using food for these reasons, but the above situations can arise when working with any animal, it is not unique to horses. There are plenty of dogs who will behave in the same manner if they haven’t been trained otherwise…All of these words are labels from a human perspective. In fact, a horse does not know the concept… Continued
A Quick Fix
By Vicki Ronchette If we expect an animal’s behavior to change, we need to implement changes in the world around them…Quick fixes are generally not permanent, long-term solutions. However, there is one piece of applied behavior analysis that allows us to sometimes get a quick, sometimes immediate change in behavior and that is by creating a change in the antecedent…When faced with a problem behavior with a bird take a look at the environment and see if there is anything you can change in the general set up to affect the… Continued
A Good Start in Life
By Francine Miller The amount of handling a cat receives, the age at which this occurs, and the number of handlers all affect a kitten’s degree of friendliness towards people later in life. Frequent gentle handling and play with varied people including men, women and supervised children is ideal. It is important to encourage the cat to be comfortable with being held, picked up and touched in different places, such as the ears, paws and belly. You can socialize a kitten very well in as little as 15 minutes of daily… Continued
A Life Full of Learning
By Rachel Lane Dustin was scared of many things (for example, the refrigerator, and any sort of extreme emotions on my part, such as being too angry, excited or upset). He was scared any time he made a mess inside my apartment, like urinating or vomiting. I learned that he was happy and content in his crate; liked squishy treats, but not biscuits; and that he was potty-trained, and not destructive. He would play with his toys for hours and he was a little cuddle bug at night on the… Continued
Setting a Course to Confidence
By Diane Garrod Can confidence be built in dogs? If so, how and what does a confident dog look like versus one that isn’t confident? Confidence building requires helping a dog to feel safe, to trust again, and to change habits, while guardians may be changing attitudes, tweaking their home environments and also changing life-long habits. A dog who is not confident portrays this in a way that looks very much like fear. Fear in dogs can be debilitating, stressful, and cause them to act out, react and even aggress. All… Continued
Making Room for the Little Guys
By Emily Cassell Fish, guinea pigs, hamsters, mice, rabbits, and the like are not known for their high intelligence, and bear the undeserved reputation of “untrainable.” It is ironic that in a world of coercive training, the tiniest, fluffiest, and most relatively defenseless animals we work with are the most resistant to aversive training techniques…Prey animals view the world in a completely different way than dogs and cats do. Small prey animals are not as inclined to explore or be open to new things. The simple reason is that, in the… Continued
A Cry for Attention
By Lara Joseph In the wild, it has been noted that parrots can spend up to 60 percent of their day foraging for food. They travel up to 40 mile circumferences in their search for food (Meehan & Mench, 2007). So how does this relate to the behavior of the birds we care for? Their minds and bodies have evolved and developed to incorporate this activity in their daily lives. We, as parrot caregivers, often work with parrots in cages. How we feed them impacts behavior. If we feed in… Continued
Why Do They Bark?
By Morag Heirs Barking is a form of communication for all dogs so it is important that we spend some time thinking about why our dogs might be barking. Are they anxious, over-excited, upset, fearful, thrilled, frustrated? Something else? Avoid concentrating on stopping the barking (particularly through the use of ‘aversives,’ e.g. telling off, harsh signals, water spray or air sprays, exclusion from the room or crating on a regular basis) as this gets in the way of understanding why the barking is happening. Without understanding why our dog is barking,… Continued
Marketing for Service Practitioners
By Niki Tudge You are in the business of solving problems. You help your clients with what matters to them. You are marketing all your products and services to people who need and desire them. In the service industry, however, recognize that this is based on the trust and confidence your clients have granted you. You are marketing both the “sizzle” and the “steak,” or the “peace of mind” that comes from having a qualified, insured, bonded, certified pet sitter or dog trainer, as well as the actual pet sitting or… Continued
Are ‘Free-Shaped’ Dogs Better Problem Solvers?
By Carmen LeBlanc Most professional dog trainers have heard about criticisms of lure-reward training in recent years. These criticisms have been made along with enthusiastic claims about the superiority of free-shaped (unprompted, trial-and-error) clicker training. Those of us who use free-shaping understand the enthusiasm. It is challenging and exciting to communicate with dogs in such a free-form way, developing a new behavior one small increment at a time. As technicians of scientific procedures, however, it is important that we take a collective, critical look at what is being said. Read more.
Target Practice
By Lara Joseph Training animals to target makes husbandry a lot less stressful and much safer. It is also a useful tool to have at your disposal in an emergency situation…There are so many instances where targeting and stationing are beneficial to our animals that we should be training these behaviors consciously. Doing so will make their lives less stressful by giving them an attractive choice of what to do and how to behave in countless situations… I train the mammals to target and station to either the tops of buckets… Continued
August 12, 2018: New Study of Red Fox Genome Assembly Finds Candidate Gene for Tame Behaviour
The study, Red fox genome assembly identifies genomic regions associated with tame and aggressive behaviours, finds a “strong positional candidate gene for tame behaviour” in the red fox (Vulpes vulpes), noting that the fox represents “a powerful model for the genetic analysis of affiliative and aggressive behaviours that can benefit genetic studies of behaviour in dogs and other mammals, including humans.” Read study.
Of Piglets and Puppies
By Lara Joseph Pigs give a squeal that can send a dog over threshold. If it does not, this same squeal, paired with their jerky movements and fast running, is a trigger for many dogs to chase. The squeal can mean many things but when I hear it, I ask my dogs for a station immediately while I try to remove the reinforcer for the squeal…I see many households living with prey and predator, and my training facility is also full of prey and predator. I train and prepare for… Continued
Focus and a Visual Connection
By Morag Heirs I became interested in obedience and rally after adopting my first deaf dog, Farah, a border collie. She was a bright dog who would have been an excellent working dog if only she could hear, and clearly we needed something to focus on. At the time it was difficult to get into competitive obedience training in my area if you wanted to use reward-based methods, and my deaf dog was met with a great deal of skepticism…Platform training (where the dog learns to stand or sit, or… Continued
Helping Dogs, Helping Families
By Daniel Antolec Years ago, puppy Samantha had come to me at eight weeks of age and, in a move that I thought would help both of us, I bought the best-selling dog training book of the time. The author explained many ways to punish your dog, and I tried them all. It is a choice I have regretted ever since, because even then I saw that it was damaging our relationship. I set the book aside and simply stopped using the aversive methods it expounded. Suddenly my relationship with… Continued
The Need for Self-Care
By Sheelah Gullion As pet professionals, many of us have pets with issues, be they behavioral or medical. Some of us got into the business because of a pet with issues. We wanted to learn how to succeed with that pet and then we wanted to share what we learned. But our industry seems to be unique in that we work largely alone, with little or no support to speak of, using our skills and our emotions, and though the focus is almost always on the pet (dog trainer, dog… Continued
Stimulation for Psittacines
By Amy Martin Imagine yourself sitting on a wooden chair in a room that is no more than 6 feet by 6 feet. There are no windows. You cannot leave and no one ever visits you. You have no radio, television, phone or internet. Someone offers you the same food in the same bowl every morning and evening. Your physical exercise consist only of shifting your weight in the chair. What do you think would eventually happen to your mind and body after a day, a week, a month and,… Continued
Scratch Here, Not There
By Patience Fisher Cats are almost as easy to train to use a scratching post as they are to use a litter box…Cats need to scratch for physical, mental, and social reasons. Scratching enables cats to shed the outer sheath of their claws, to maintain claw health. Sinking the claws in and stretching is also beneficial for the cat’s muscles. Scratching is a natural way for a cat to maintain mental health, especially during stressful times and is a way for a cat to help herself relax. As already mentioned,… Continued
Human vs. Canine Behavior: A Brief Comparison
By Joanne Ometz “The more I learn about people, the more I like my dog.” – Mark Twain This quote has become ubiquitous. It is on coffee mugs, bumper stickers, and T-shirts. But why do so many people feel this way about members of our own species? And why do we attribute such high standards of behavior to our canine companions? Some say dogs are more pure; they love unconditionally and are always there for us. But when it comes to each other, are they really any “better” than us? As a… Continued
The Elephant on the Stairs
By Bob McMillan For the dog owner, the experiences of James Howard Williams are an inspiration not only to train their dogs without force, but to learn and respect the ways of their animal friends…Williams tried something never before done with elephants. He and his workers carved a series of crude “steps” up the face of the soft, limestone cliffs. Then he had to convince the elephants to use them. The way up was barely wide enough for an elephant. It would have to be taken one precarious step at… Continued
Pain Underlying
By Dr. Lynn Bahr Pain is not a symptom that exists alone. Other problems associated with pain can include fatigue, withdrawal from activity and increased need to rest, and changes in mood, including fear, depression, anxiety, irritability and stress. In humans, we know that long-term pain has a profound effect on quality of life and we might assume the same holds true for animals. Aside from the physical suffering that it causes, there are also psychological and personality effects associated with chronic pain. Read more.
The Power of Water
By Charlotte Pimm In conjunction with veterinary treatment, hydrotherapy can improve the quality and rate of healing following surgery and traumatic injury while also helping with the treatment of medical conditions by reducing pain and swelling…Warm water increases the circulation of the blood to the muscles, which increases the supply of oxygen and nutrients and flushes away waste products. This leads to muscle relaxation and a reduction in pain and stiffness. Improved circulation reduces swelling around the injured area and enhances healing. Read more.
August 2, 2018: Netherlands Prohibits Use of Prong Collars
According to the Federation of European Companion Animal Veterinary Associations, Netherlands law on animal welfare now considers it an “act of animal cruelty” to “use or tether an animal with an object with sharp spikes or prongs that can cause pain.” Read article. See also Why Prong Is Wrong – Physically and Psychologically
Ask Your Dog Questions – Overshadowing 2
By Yvette Van Veen How to ask your dog questions…overshadowing part two. My last blog introduced the concept of overshadowing by offering a simple example to illustrate the point. For an explanation of the concept, you can read that blog here. But that basic understanding doesn’t go far enough in my opinion. Many unusual variations exist and can interfere with training. To recap, animals are more likely to attach meaning to information that is more important and noticeable – the more “salient.” Abstract variations can be hard to spot. It’s… Continued
« Previous 1 … 24 25 26 27 Next »
