Teaching Dog To Walk Between Your Legs

Practice your dog training skills by teaching your dog to walk between your legs. It is a fun, novel skill to work on. I call it ‘Peek-a-Boo’ .

Getting Your Dog To Come Inside

I was asked again the other day how to get a dog to come inside from the yard, when the dog clearly does not want to. “She is so stubborn,” I was told. “I can call her over and over and she completely ignores me. I used to be able to lure her in with […]

Home Dog Enrichment Ideas For Your Dog

During this COVID-19 social distancing time, as you are spending much more than usual time at home with your dog, I will be sharing ideas for helping to enrich your pet’s day…and add some fun to yours too. Here are a few ways you can feed your dog and add more enrichment than simply feeding […]

Teach Kids NO Dog Hugs

Hi Parents, A little reminder…dogs in general do not enjoy getting big bear hugs.

Socializing A Puppy During The Coronavirus Pandemic

For puppies, what they experience – or don’t experience – sets the foundation (in addition to their genetics)  for the rest of their life when it comes to so much like whether novel sights, sounds, people and things will frighten them, create no reaction, or cause a positive emotional response. Or whether they will be […]

Is It Okay To Pet Your Dog…And Others’ Dog?

That is an important question for us all. And also as there are a lot more people out walking their dogs these days.

Importance Of Crate Training A Puppy

The importance of crate training puppies comes up a lot with clients as it relates to house training, teething and setting the puppy up for success. It just happened again the other day. When out of his crate, the adorable little fur ball has a lot of freedom to run through the house – scampering […]

Reinforced Behaviors Continue

I thought I would share some of a conversation with a client from the other day as it may be helpful to you. It is a reminder to focus on building value for the behaviors you WANT to see.

Using Primary and Secondary Reinforcers In Training

When it comes to training dogs and other animals, I like to use markers like a click or a word like YES! immediately after a behavior and before I present something my student values like food, a toy, a scratch on the head, or the opportunity to go outside. From an Applied Behavior Analysis perspective, […]

Love Means Using Positive Reinforcement

Valentine’s Day is approaching…the holiday of love. The trainer in me loves this quote by B.F. Skinner. Absolutely, love is the use of positive reinforcement and vice versa. In other words, love is about giving those in your life feedback that you like what they are doing by your doing something back that they value.