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 maintaining our connection throughout this adventure together. In human psychology we talk about ‘flow’ as being ‘in the zone,’ i.e. giving the task at hand our full attention, oblivious to whatever else is happening. Flow is also what we want to achieve with our… Continued
Playing It Safe
“Predation by domestic cats Felis catus can be a threat to biodiversity conservation, but its mitigation is controversial. Confinement and collar-mounted devices can impede cat hunting success and reduce numbers of animals killed, but some owners do not wish to inhibit what they see as natural behavior…” (Cecchetti et al., 2021). So, instead of interventions which work on impeding hunting behavior – including complete confinement indoors, for instance – the study looked at what it calls “non-invasive” interventions which aim to reduce a cat’s want or tendency to hunt and/or… Continued
Ask the Experts: Mastering a Schedule
A master schedule is a powerful tool, but it’s not magical. Organizing how you use your time can make you more efficient and remove a lot of stress, but it can’t change the natural laws of time. If you’re trying to fit in more than is possible to get done in a day your master schedule will break down. So your next step is taking a hard look at all that you have on your plate, and then doing the (sometimes painful) work of reducing it. What can be set… Continued
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 certain way, no matter how perplexing it may seem. Sometimes, to get to that root cause, we have to don our best detective gear because it’s not always easy to figure it out. In this article, I’m going to focus on one such behavior, often described… Continued
The Complete Picture
A tail held high usually means a high emotional state of arousal or excitement, but that on its own does not tell you whether an animal is in a positive or negative emotional state. High arousal can be appetitive, meaning the animal is interested and anticipating something good, or the emotional state can be in threat and protect, so the animal is expecting confrontation. A lifted tail generally means mild arousal of interest or anxiety (threat and protect). The emotions are not strong and can easily go one way or… Continued
Thinking Outside the Box
Hei Hei is a 13-year-old male cockatiel who, at the time of relinquishment, displayed plucking behavior. During my first week observing Hei Hei, I noticed that he preferred to be outside the cage. I didn’t notice any plucking occurring at this time. At the same time, each morning I would find a few smaller feathers at the bottom of the cage but could not determine if this was related to molting, preening, or plucking. During the second week, more behavior started to surface. One night I woke up to a… Continued
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 world: • You can hold it in your mouth.• You can eat before anyone else does.• You can carry it away.• You can lay on or near it.• You can cover it with your head, neck and/or chest.• You can control, deny or permit access to the… Continued
The Essence of a Dog: A Free Education from a Free Choice Walk
One cold day last spring, snow still clinging to the ground and ceding to the warm sun only on the tips of south-facing hillocks, I decided to do something new. I wouldn’t walk my dogs; nor would I walk with my dogs. I would instead be walked by my dogs. I decided to simply follow my dog Mischa for our whole walk. Wherever he chose to go, well, I’d go just the same. I crawled under logs, I lumbered across frozen wetlands sinking thigh-deep into the granular spring snow, and… Continued
Fear at the Vet: Examining Risk Factors
BARKS: How important is the behavior of the guardian in the context of attending the vet; was this found to have any influence on the dog’s behavior/emotional state? Petra Edwards: Behavior of the guardian wasn’t investigated in the above study (Edwards et al., 2019b), however Csoltova et al. (2017) found that guardians patting and interacting with their dog in a positive and supportive manner had dogs that showed fewer signs of fear than guardians who did not interact with their dog. I love this because it also beautifully discounts that… Continued
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 straightforward to decipher which causes which when we evaluate chronic stress and health, however. Skin conditions have long been considered to be indicators of psychological distress although only recently has evidence for this begun to accrue. A growing number of research studies now provide evidence that emotional stress is linked to skin conditions such as… Continued
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 speaking, it’s about changing someone’s learned associations. An example! Let’s say we have a dog, who’s started trembling and panting whenever she arrives to the vet’s office. She has probably learned to associate the vet’s office with aversive events. Strange sounds and smells. Unfamiliar people looming. Needles poking. A string of events that ends up with something painful…… Continued
Ask the Experts: Virtual Training
Benefits: Emphasize the benefits of online training. Don’t just state that you’re offering it, sell it! Tell potential clients on your website and when you talk to them how thrilled you are with the advantages (and outcomes!) of this way of training. It Works: Show people how it works. Help potential clients understand what training this way will be like—both to inspire them and to assuage concerns or confusion they may have about it. Sometimes we just need to be able to imagine ourselves in a situation. You can do… Continued
Ask the Experts: Innovation, Creation
…the pandemic essentially hurled our industry into the future as trainers were forced to adapt quickly to continue to serve dogs and their people. We probably would have gotten here eventually, but at our industry’s usual snail’s pace the things we’ve learned (such as the benefits of working online and all the lessons learned there) would have taken far longer. The fast track may have been a bit discombobulating, but many trainers who stepped outside the box and took a good look around have decided to put that box in… Continued
Companion Bird Foster Programs – A Review
I have volunteered at several local brick-and-mortar rescues (private shelters) in my area (north of Boston, Massachusetts) and have seen, over time, companion birds being returned because of the same behavioral issues. Adopters may say that a bird was “not trainable” or “would not bond” with them. Now, the rescue’s policy is to improve the welfare of the companion bird by getting him into a good and knowledgeable home. This strategy may reduce the undesired behavior. However, some rescues avoid placing birds in foster homes because, if returned, the upheaval… Continued
Dominance: The Horse’s Perspective
In reality, dominant behavior in the world of the horse is a way of gaining and maintaining access to valuable resources without breaking the elastic connection between herd members. It is a way of reducing the risk of injury and lowering the stress — and, according to Linklater et al. (1999), the resultant impact on health — of constant aggression. A horse who is very thirsty may use a dominance display to gain preferential access to a water hole. But that’s it. He gains access, he drinks and he leaves.… Continued
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 watch the puppies catch onto the behavior more quickly than their humans realize they are learning something. Rabbits respond quickly to the environment, which makes them perfectly suited to learning patterns and chaining behaviors, which often means that the rabbit has learned the behavior before the trainer even realizes it. Our team has… Continued
Once More, with Feeling
Observation of cats across a multitude of research studies shows they frequently monitor their environment, evaluating what’s around them and adjusting their responses to suit. Those responses are influenced by their emotional systems. If we take the definition of an emotion as “a strong feeling deriving from one’s circumstances, mood, or relationships with others” (Lexico, 2020), there’s no way we can deny that cats have emotional responses to situations and therefore experience emotions – or feelings – as drivers of that response. (Issue 45, November 2020, pp.38-39). Read article
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 triggers. When walking a dog with reactivity/aggression issues, you must be constantly aware of your environment. It is not a time to be daydreaming, thinking about tomorrow’s schedule, chatting on your cell phone, conversing with a friend walking with you, or listening to music. If your dog… Continued
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 satisfy the basic need(s). By contrast, in a resource rich environment, if the animal has ready access to food, shelter and water, they may consistently avoid any situations that make them feel unsafe, such as a bowl of food placed in a humane trap. we can artificially elevate… Continued
Playgroups for Shelter Dogs
Barrier frustration is a common phenomenon…The barrier prevents the dog from accessing other dogs for normal social rituals, resulting in emotions of frustration that wouldn’t be present if the barrier were not present. Barrier-frustrated dogs often play well with other dogs off-leash. This behavior occurs frequently in many shelters where dogs have limited access to other dogs. Even professionals cannot typically eyeball whether aggressive behavior seen when dogs meet through a fence or when on leashes is “true” aggression or simply frustration. They look the same. Unfortunately, this results in… Continued
Creating Puppy Zen
As soon as puppy comes home, allow her to have a designated place to sleep and rest away from everyone else and the busy household. Puppies will usually sleep 18-20 hours per day (Reisen, 2019). That’s a lot of sleep! Sleep is “essential to healthy growth, contributing to the necessary development of his central nervous system, brain, immune system, and muscles. All of that sleep also helps him rest up during growth spurts.” (Reisen, 2019). Buzzing noises and lights from household appliances, external lights and people walking past can all… Continued
Handler Signals in Dog Training
While much of dog training seems to be focused on the dog, smart trainers know that handlers can and do affect their dog’s behavior and learning. Masters of body language subtleties, dogs are finely attuned to us, aware of how we move, act, speak, breathe. Many training problems are rooted in communication issues, caused by a handler’s body language and unintended messages… A straight on, frontal approach to others is often considered to be confident and polite. Unfortunately, in dog language, the same approach can be threatening, whether subtly or… Continued
Cats: In Crisis
Cats are hunters. Seeking out food, catching it, and playing with it is their mental engagement and physical exercise. It is their reason to be awake. We know a cat’s stomach is only the size of a ping-pong ball and that they hunt and eat at least 8-12 times in a 24-hour period, mostly at dawn and dusk. We know they are solitary survivors that hunt and eat alone. So, why are we feeding them from a bowl and taking away the most important activity in their life? Removing this… Continued
Harassment? Or Assault?
The majority of pet trainers, behavior consultants and pet industry service providers are self-employed or independent contractors and are most at risk from sexual harassment or sexual assault via nonwork-specific locations, such as public training areas, clients’ homes, conference locations or workshops…For those of us operating solo in the pet services industry, who may find ourselves, as individuals, at risk of being sexually harassed or assaulted, we must take into consideration some of these identified traits and behavioral settings. Our personal safety must take into consideration that most individuals who… Continued
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