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Punishment in Animal Training
How Animals Learn
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A Positive Strategy
As I set up my dog on the start line of an agility course, I want her to feel excited and exhilarated. At the same time, I also want her to feel relaxed within the environment and completely engaged with me, focused on my communication and ...
Predictive Detective Work
I often hear my clients say they don’t understand why their dog is doing this or that, or that there’s no reason or cause for the behavior at all. But of course, there is always a cause for a dog to behave in a ...
Resource Guarding or Rule Setting?
In my experience, it appears that for dogs, possession is truly 9/10ths of the canine “MINE!” law, i.e. if it’s in your possession, you have the right to retain possession. These seem to be the details of what constitutes “mine” in the dog ...
Itchy Dog or Stressed Dog?
The relationship between stress, behavior and animal health is complex and varied. Chronic, long-term stress interacts in various ways with personality type, behavior and immune health in both people and nonhuman animals. It’s not often ...
Reducing Fear – and the Importance of Choice
Counterconditioning is one of the most important techniques in animal training (arguably top five). Simply put, ‘conditioning’ means ‘learning’ and ‘counter’ means ‘opposite.’ Relearning might be another way of putting it. Practically ...
Trick Bunnies
Rabbits are highly sensitive, smart, and sensible. They quickly thread environmental events together in a pattern and have a highly perceptive understanding of what is going on. Teaching them is not unlike teaching puppy class, where you ...
Management of An Aggressive, Fearful, or Reactive Dog
If you cannot walk your dog safely or if you continue to expose him to his triggers, you are better off staying at home. If you do take him for walks, choose locations and times when you are least likely to encounter his ...
The Need for Safety in Learning
It is worth noting that in environments where basic needs cannot easily be met, it is easier to capture feral animals. An animal who is starving or dying of thirst or needs shelter will move into potentially unsafe situations in order to ...