Portland Blog Competition: Redirecting Aggressive Behavior
By Dr. Lynn Bahr As cat lovers, we’ve all been scratched at least once. But why do some cats play so rough when others never scratch or bite? Cats, by their very nature, are ferocious hunters. These behaviors are formed when they are very young by instinct, observation and playing with their littermates. Through stalking, chasing, swatting, biting and pouncing on their siblings, kittens develop their precise hunting skills. But when cats are removed from this environment too young or don’t have an adult cat to keep them in line,… Continued
Variety Is the Spice of Life
By Danette Johnston When I opened a dog day care 19 years ago, I did so because I had been working a shelter and noticed that the majority of the dogs in the shelter were there because they were not getting enough stimulation, both physical and mental. I thought a dog coming to day care five days a week would be swell. “A tired dog is a well behaved dog” right? Well, what I found in reality is that five days a week of day care is actually quite stressful… Continued
Over the Moon!
By Debbie Bauer I am over-the-moon proud of my boy Vinny this month! He and I were away from home for three weeks this month, visiting new places, doing new things, and he took it all in stride. We had a blast! It was, of course, so hard to leave the other dogs for that long. Both Vinny and I missed them so much! And this was the first long trip that I did not bring Treasure on since she came to live with me 8 years ago. It was… Continued
10 Reasons Why the Holidays Might Not Be So Full of Festive Cheer for Your Pet
It’s nearly Christmas, traditionally the time of year when we look forward to enjoying lots of yummy food, time with our friends and family, hopefully a break from work and of course – pressies! Lots of us also think about involving our dogs and cats and other furries in the festivities; gifts, advent calendars, novelty costumes etc. but how often do we think about the psychological impact of those couple of weeks? True, it’s lovely to have lots of fun with our pets, they’re part of the family after all,… Continued
Training Your Cat to Sit on Cue
By Jennifer Van Valkenburg I actually came to cat training completely by accident. My kitty was overweight and unhealthy so her vet recommended an entirely new lifestyle. This came with adding exercise (I remember thinking, how do you exercise a cat? – more on that later) and a new food regimen. No more leaving a pile of food in her dish every day, now her diet was strictly controlled. So now instead of eating whenever she wanted, she had to wait for me to feed her twice a day.* The… Continued
Portland Blog Competition: Tips to Reduce Leash Reactivity
By Michelle Wieser When a leashed dog barks, pulls or lunges at other dogs (or wildlife, skateboards, kids, bikers, etc.), it is known as leash reactivity. Dogs may feel trapped and restricted by the leash and, unfortunately, given that they can’t voluntarily remove themselves from the situation (think fight or flight), it can lead to reactive outbursts during leashed walks if a dog is feeling threatened, anxious, stressed, fearful, or, indeed, excited to meet a stranger or another dog. Regardless of the reason, it’s not fun for anyone so here… Continued
Road Trip with Your Dog | Dog Travel Tips
Hitting the open road with a dog can be a great adventure. There are so many great dog-friendly destinations you can explore, but traveling with dogs can be a challenge if you aren’t prepared. To get you and Fido ready for your next vacation with your dog, I have 5 of my best dog-friendly travel tips. 5 Dog-Friendly Road-Trip Tips 1. Plan Ahead– When taking a road trip with a dog, it’s always easier if you plan ahead. You don’t have to have everything set in stone, but researching your… Continued
Dogs and ‘Digging In’
I work with many owners of rescue or re-homed dogs and one topic I’ve thought about many times, sometimes raised by owners themselves and possibly a little controversial, is do we sometimes give up on our dogs too easily? Of course, an important aspect of this is whether we have the necessary, realistic expectations when taking on a dog in the first place. In my experience, sometimes a dog and owner combination just doesn’t work for an infinite number of reasons – just like a human relationship! In this situation,… Continued
Managing Dog-Dog Greetings
Recently I attended a dog event and observed about 30 dogs and their handlers come and go in the course of three hours. Most of the dogs were taken to one another for greetings. Call it the curse of knowledge, but I see such interactions through the lens of human handling skills and canine body language. Sometimes what I saw was relaxing and fun and at other times I worried about the outcome, especially when handlers allowed overly aroused dogs to engage each other. There is a correlation between arousal… Continued
When Day Care Is Bad for Your Dog
By Danette Johnston If your dog currently attends dog day care or you are thinking about starting, here is some food for thought… I have owned and operated a dog day care and training facility for over 18 years now. I have a lot of experience in this arena, have learned a ton (thank goodness) in the past 18 years and my opinions and recommendations on dog day care have changed. When I opened in 2000, dog day care facilities were a brand-new thing. I used to recommend day care… Continued
Litter Box Victory
By Jennifer Van Valkenburg In this post, I am going to talk about a very basic feline need – going to the litter box. Cat owners may wonder, when there is a perfectly good litter box, why does their cat think it is preferable to use the floor, the laundry basket or maybe even the bed to do her business? The answer can be complicated. First, go to the vet to check for any physical/medical problems such as urinary tract infections (UTI). UTIs are very painful. As a result, a… Continued
Portland Blog Competition: Aggression by Any Other Name
By Stephanie Peters “Help, my dog is aggressive!” This is often the first thing that I hear from potential clients when they contact me for a training or behavior consultation. They may be troubled by certain behaviors their dog is demonstrating, and are either panicked that they have somehow caused the behavior, or worried that their dog is inherently “flawed.” Our culture sometimes has a tendency to pathologize aggressive behaviors in our beloved pets—who are, let’s remember, animals—and there is something of a dearth of information available to pet guardians… Continued
Spice Up Your Walks!
Long explorations in the country, splashing around in the sea, trekking up hills, they’re the reasons we love having our dogs and enjoy their companionship. From time to time though, sometimes things become just a little bit ‘samey’! We can use this special time together as an opportunity to be more enriching and engaging and overall more bonding and fun! GIVE WALKS TIME I know this is easier said than done because we are all short on time, but where possible, allow that extra time for both of you. I’ve… Continued
Portland Blog Competition: Lessons from Bogie
By Shannon Finch I want to warn you at the outset, Bogie’s story doesn’t have a happy ending. Everything that could go wrong did go wrong for this dog, with mistakes compounded by more mistakes. It’s been over 15 years since I worked with Bogie, but I clearly remember every detail about him. He was a 7-month-old German shepherd with severe fear issues that started when he was attacked in the car by his family’s other dog. The owners came back from dinner to a horrific sight of blood all… Continued
Halloween and Pet Welfare
I confess that Halloween is my favorite holiday. I enjoy the creative costumes, haunted house attractions and horror films. For me, the creepy nature of the holiday is fun. Behaviorally healthy dogs may accept Halloween activities like trick-or-treat visitors in costume as just another silly thing humans do. For many other dogs Halloween celebration can be truly frightening. Years ago I trained a cute Dachshund puppy named Manny. I was a rookie trainer and he was a star student who excelled in the group training environment, but when he later… Continued
Five Rules for Humans Living in Catlandia
By Daniel “DQ” Quagliozzi Humans and cats have been trying to peacefully coexist for centuries, and for the most part, we are doing okay…with a little room for improvement. Our relationship with cats has definitely changed over time, with technology allowing us to connect with the masses and disconnect from the very place our cats try their best to meet with us; the present moment, or as I like to call it: “The Meow”. Modern convenience also allows humans to have very specific ideas about how they want their homes to… Continued
Pet Tutor…My Hero
By Smart Animal Training (A letter from Malena DeMartini-Price CTC CDBC) Dear Wes & Amanda at Smart Animal Training, I wanted to tell you about a client that I have been working with for a little while now that has been absolutely wonderful and of course, the Pet Tutor was my hero in this case! The client contacted me about separation anxiety however upon further investigation it really wasn’t quite separation anxiety, but more anxiety surrounding the guardians leaving the house, particularly Mom. Once gone, the dog in question was a… Continued
Five Days from Fear to Fun – Classical Counterconditioning
By Yvette Van Veen I decided to spend some recent holiday time working on a whistle recall. This is when a dog learns to come to the sound of a whistle. Pamela Dennison has a number of resources on how to teach this skill for anyone who might be interested. Unlike other whims, I remembered to grab my camera. When I blew the whistle for the first time, Karma tucked her tail and ran. I probably should have been a bit more thoughtful in my introduction of the whistle. However,… Continued
Why Your Dog Doesn’t Know Sit
By Yvette Van Veen When I was a young girl, my grandmother would send gifts of books from Czechoslovakia. The books were filled with stunning moving pop-up illustrations. I learned a lot from those books. I learned how those illustrations popped up. I learned how one moving part operated another moving part. What I failed to learn was how to read Czech. My attention was so fixated on the illustrations that I memorized the words. I recited the story based on the illustration. I never focused on the letters. Illustrations… Continued
How to Achieve Purrvana
By Daniel “DQ” Quagliozzi Okay cat guardians, summer is coming to an end and it’s time to make some resolutions that are going to count for your cats. It takes a joint effort between cat and caretaker to make positive changes manifest in the right way. If you can make the right causes for your cat, a bounty of kitty abundance awaits in a place that I like to call, “Purr-vana”, where all of your cat’s needs are met in an environment that honors what it truly feels like to… Continued
Reaching the Holy Grail of Training
By Yvette Van Veen Years ago, I taught our Kiki a formal recall using targeting. Systematically I proceeded to work through the exercise. Much to my delight, Kiki developed the most fantastic competition recall. People gasped at her speed and enthusiasm. Her formal recall never failed us over the years. You could say that it had behavioural momentum. Domjan, in The Principles of Learning and Behavior describes behavioural momentum as, “response persistence in extinction.” In non-technical language, behaviours with momentum are enthusiastic, despite distractions. They are highly resistant to extinction. … Continued
“No-Kill” Shelters Are Not Enough
An article I read recently in the New York Times (online) talked about a downside of a heavy emphasis on no-kill policies at shelters: By focusing on getting dogs and cats into new homes, the shelters might be neglecting the reasons many of those animals are in the shelter in the first place. Many people abandon their pets because they cannot afford to feed them or house them or provide needed veterinary care. I don’t for a minute think that that is the only reason animals end up in shelters, but… Continued
Distinguishing Night from Day
By Debbie Bauer Some people living with blind/deaf dogs report that their dogs have trouble staying asleep all night. Often their dogs will wake them during the night and can’t seem to settle back down to sleep. If your blind/deaf dog is unable to distinguish between light and dark, it may be challenging to help her tell the difference between day and night. This can make it challenging for you to get enough sleep on a proper schedule. Keeping a bedtime routine can be helpful. Create as many clear cues… Continued
Reading List for Dog Owners
When I got my first dog in 1983 I knew nothing about living with dogs, so naturally I got a puppy. Needless to say I knew even less about raising a puppy. Samantha relied upon me to teach her, and I relied upon the only source available at the time: a book. If there were local dog trainers or puppy classes in particular I was unaware of them. There was no internet to search nor a Pet Professional Guild to inform me. I bought the best selling dog training book… Continued
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