Jumping…A Perfectly Incompatible Solution!
As an animal behavior consultant, one of the most frequently asked questions I hear is, ‘How do I stop my dog from jumping up?’ Now there are, of course, multiple reasons why dogs may jump up – excitement, learned responses to given contexts, continued reinforcement (whether intended or not), or anxiety, to name a few. The first point I would make is that identification of the causes of jumping is paramount – what is the dog thinking and feeling in a given situation that drives the behavior? What is his… Continued
Guess What – That Dog Video Is Probably Fake!
By Eileen Anderson Many of us are beguiled by videos where dogs appear to be doing something very human or beyond what we usually consider to be their intelligence level, and some creators of dog videos exploit this tendency to get clicks. They make it appear that the dog is doing something he is not, or attribute some pretend, human-centric motivation or interest. And there are people who are willing to alter videos or create mashups so one of these things appears to be happening. Innocent Misrepresentation of Dogs Some… Continued
PPG Summit 2020 Sessions: Please Don’t Stress Me-owt! Feline Stress and Stressors in the Shelter, the Veterinary Clinic, and the Home
BARKS presents session details from PPG’s 2020 Summit and Workshops in Phoenix, Arizona Session Details: Presenter: Paula Garber Session Title: Please Don’t Stress Me-owt! Feline Stress and Stressors in the Shelter, the Veterinary Clinic, and the Home Session Type: Lecture (1 Hour) The emotional needs of cats are often not addressed as readily as their physical and health needs, typically because feline emotions are not easily recognized or understood. The impact of the physical and social environment on cats’ physical and behavioral health is significant and should not be underestimated. For… Continued
PPG Summit 2020 Sessions: Building Positive Boundaries for the Refined Suburban Canine – Teaching Dogs to Enjoy Their Yards without the Need for Electronic Devices
BARKS presents session details from PPG’s 2020 Summit and Workshops in Phoenix, Arizona *Early bird discount available if you register before January 31, 2020! Session Details: Presenters: Judy Luther and Niki Tudge Session Title: Building Positive Boundaries for the Refined Suburban Canine – Teaching Dogs to Enjoy Their Yards without the Need for Electronic Devices Session Type: Lecture (1.5 Hours) Electric fences as containment tools are very common in our residential communities. Many locations restrict or ban the use of physical fences leaving pet owners with little choice but to… Continued
PPG Summit 2020 Sessions: Growing Collaborative Care and Your Business
BARKS presents session details from PPG’s 2020 Summit and Workshops in Phoenix, Arizona *Early bird discount available if you register before January 31, 2020! Session Details: Presenter: Tia Guest Session Title: Growing Collaborative Care and Your Business Session Type: Lecture (1 Hour) It is an exciting time to be a dog trainer as the concept of collaborative care grows to reach pet owners, veterinarians, vet staff, and others involved in caring for our pets. It is also a perfect time to position ourselves as a resource. By offering training services… Continued
Feline Behavior Unmasked: Kitten Socialization
By Francine Miller Q: Should I socialize my kitten? I’ve heard that this is important for puppies, but is it important for kittens too? A: Yes! Although very few people are aware of how important this is, the socialization period is the time when all primary social bonds are formed and constitutes the single most important period during the cat’s life. During this phase, striking behavioral changes occur because of growth and experience. Socialization can occur between a kitten and humans, or between a kitten and its “natural enemies,” such… Continued
PPG Summit 2020 Sessions: The Magic of Muzzles
BARKS presents session details from PPG’s 2020 Summit and Workshops in Phoenix, Arizona *Early bird discount available if you register before January 31, 2020! Session Details: Presenter: Dr. Deborah Jones Session Title: The Magic of Muzzles Session Type: Lecture/Lab (1 Hour) For many people, a dog wearing a muzzle can be a scary and upsetting sight. The stereotype is that a muzzled dog must be dangerous. Our goal is to shift that perspective and see muzzle wearing become the accepted norm in many different settings. It is true that, for… Continued
Feline Behavior Unmasked: Why Cats Paw at Water
By Tabitha Kucera Q: Why does my cat paw at the water in her bowl prior to drinking it? A: Pawing at, playing with or even splashing in a water dish is not as strange for cats as you might think. There are multiple reasons that may be motivating your cat to do this. Cats’ whiskers are very sensitive because they are filled with sensory collecting nerves that collect information about objects, vibrations, and wind currents around the cat. Some cats may become uncomfortable when their whiskers are regularly being squished… Continued
Icy Conditions Put People and Pets at Risk
My childhood winters were cold and snowy and I do not remember any freezing rain when I walked to school or played outside. Climate change has since warmed our region and I now find myself having to deal with winter rain, often creating unsafe icy conditions. That makes daily animal care far riskier. For one month last winter in southern Wisconsin (USA) we had intermittent light snow and freezing rain. My barnyard, driveway and the trails upon which I walked my dogs became dangerously slick. Just walking 100 yards up… Continued
PPG Summit 2020 Sessions: Enrichment in the Shelter – Using Science to Guide Us to the Most Efficacious Practices
BARKS presents session details from PPG’s 2020 Summit and Workshops in Phoenix, Arizona *Early bird discount available if you register before January 31, 2020! Session Details: Presenter: Dr. Lisa Gunter Session Title: Enrichment in the Shelter – Using Science to Guide Us to the Most Efficacious Practices Session Type: General Session Lecture (1.5 Hours) The use of behavioral interventions designed to improve the welfare of shelter dogs has become much more commonplace today, yet many such interventions have not been empirically tested. Within the literature, animal scientists have explored the use… Continued
3 Reasons a Little Dog Might Not Lie Down on Cue
By Eileen Anderson When I first started training dogs, things that didn’t work were a mystery to me. Why couldn’t I reward Summer with chasing squirrels like everybody said I could? Why couldn’t I find that slot in the layout of her teeth where the experienced trainers said she should hold the dumbbell? And why, oh why, could I not teach Cricket to lie down on cue? At first, I saw everything through the lens of disobedience: my dogs were wrong when things didn’t work out. As I learned more… Continued
Feline Behavior Unmasked: Nighttime Wakefulness
By Paula Garber Q: Why does my cat wake me up in the middle of the night? Is it because cats are nocturnal? A: Cats are actually crepuscular, which means they tend to be most active at dawn and dusk when the animals they prey upon (e.g., rodents and birds) are most active. This activity pattern often doesn’t match the owner’s schedule of getting up, going to work all day, and then coming home to relax and unwind. Many cats adjust their activity patterns to those of their owners, but… Continued
Ask the Experts: To Discount or Not to Discount?
Stand your ground when clients ask for multidog discounts. If it helps, consider the discount request in any other field or context. For example, no one would dream of asking for half off their second child’s college tuition, or dental exams. Most vets don’t give clients discounts on treatment for second and third animals, and pet supply stores don’t offer half off your second dog’s food. Treat your services with the professional regard they deserve, and clients will follow. Read article.
Professionalizing the Pet Industry
In industries such as the pet industry, where quality impacts public safety and protects against dangerous practitioners, there may be room for a model of regulation that provides the necessary competency and operational guidelines, as well as a level of oversight and ethical supervision for trainers and behavior consultants, while protecting the needs of pets and their owners and providing for transparency and consumer protection. Licensing alone that requires an annual fee with oversight solely from a government body is just not going to cut it. Read article.
Sam, I Can
People would ask me, “How do you prevent him from flying?” and my response was always, “A blind bird isn’t going to want to take off in flight if he doesn’t know where he’s going. Just don’t scare him.” A few times I also heard, “Why wouldn’t you just euthanize the bird. What kind of quality of life does he have?” Quality of life? I’ll show you quality of life! I began live streaming my work with Sam and soon the whole world fell in love with this amazing creature… Continued
Cooperative Care: It’s Not Just for Dogs!
Horses, as a species, are prey animals. They are often space conscious and uniquely aware of their surroundings and sensitive to the elements within them. Physically large and robust animals, horses easily dwarf their trainers or handlers and are incredibly strong. Although these are important traits for livestock animals, their size and strength can result in a “heavy-handed” approach being taken to physically manipulate and coerce them into a specific behavior or position. This approach still pervades all aspects of traditional horsemanship and even extends to routine medical care or… Continued
Starting Friendships on the Right Hoof
Bear was clearly not happy being on his own and needed company. Toffee’s owner thought he only had a few weeks left and wanted him to have some happiness and time out of his stall. The hope was that Bear would no longer be on his own and that Toffee could live out his last few weeks in a natural environment. Pertinent to that was the knowledge that Bear had already lost a companion, and the loss of another so soon might not be in his best interests. The plan… Continued
The Impact of Social Isolation
Current protocols available vary widely in suggested human interventions to prevent fights. I wonder, though, how much our methods affect fight frequency and intensity. Are there more fights and more injurious fights when we elicit frustration (and frustration related behaviors like barking, thrashing and lunging) by overmanaging social interactions with leashes and restraint? Are we creating, or reinforcing, fear of other dogs by punishing any normal, noninjurious display of aggression or distancing signals? Or, as some people do, punishing normal displays of even nonaggressive behaviors like mounting or chasing? Read… Continued
The Right to Choose
So much of what we provide for the domesticated cat is not about their choice at all. In reality, our domesticated kitties are not that far removed from their wildcat cousins, genetically speaking. And yet we have placed them in an environment in which humans make all the decisions – where they live, who they live with (humans and other animals), whether they have access to outdoors, whether they are desexed, what they eat and when, what enrichment they have, where they toilet, and so on. Read article.
A “Spoiled” Dog or a Frustrated Dog?
Respond to behavior, not the dog’s history. Imagine that you just found this dog in the Piggly Wiggly parking lot with no information available. What would you know? You’d know what the dog shows you in his behavior. Start there. Do not bring the judgment of “he is spoiled” into an assessment of how the dog is behaving, or how you will respond to him…“Ignore unwanted behavior and it will go away” is inaccurate, and often ineffective. If you ignore a behavior that requires external reinforcement, then yes, that will… Continued
Testament to Targeting
Training is not a luxury, but a key component to good animal care,” states Ramirez (qtd. in Gordon, 2012). Working with an animal on a targeting behavior helps to build a solid foundation for a positive relationship; because it does not involve any physical manipulation it is less “scary.” Instead of taking hold of an animal’s body part, we are helping him to use his brain to touch a nose, ear, or chin to a target and thus to gain access to favorable consequences. We teach that touching the target… Continued
The Top Ten New Simple Solutions to Help You and Your Dog in the New Year
Helping Pet Dog Guardians Get It Right! Did you know that good management is an essential part of any training or behavioral change plan? In fact, management is an important part of your dog’s life, in the same way that it’s important to manage your children’s environment. If your dog is behaving in a way you do not like, then limit his opportunity to practice the unwanted behavior. Management strategies can be put in place while you learn how to teach your dog new and more appropriate behaviors. Here are… Continued
Teaching Your Dog to Self-Interrupt
By Eileen Anderson Here is something I taught with positive reinforcement that enhances Clara’s life and mine. I’ve taught her to respond positively to being interrupted, and even to interrupt herself. This trained behavior helps us get along smoothly from day to day, and also helps keep her safe in the world. Self-interruption is related to a whole batch of desirable dog behaviors. I mean desirable to us humans, but they are beneficial to the dogs, too. People refer variously to reorientation, offered attention, checking in, and more. Even recall is related. By whatever name, these… Continued
A Little Doggy “Me Time” this Holiday Season!
Okay, you’ve unwrapped the pressies, eaten the turkey, spent time with the family, watched endless hours of TV….what next? If you’ve got the luxury of some time off, why not use the festive period to spend a little more time with your dog, building relationships or even future planning? 1 – Walks for you and your dog only – Take some time to enjoy each other’s company – no phones, no headphones – nothing! Just you and your dog! Watch what your dog does on walks, how he interacts with other… Continued
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