courtesy of www.dogstardaily.com

You are probably aware of how important it is to socialize your puppy.  Having good socialization skills will help your dog respond with acceptable and healthy behaviors when faced with situations that may be disturbing or disrupting to their normal routines.

Siblings and Roommates Don’t Count

posted by Cindy Bruckart, February 24th, 2010, dogstardaily.com

I’m often asking dog owners about their dog’s socialization history.  Even if the dog owner tells me that their dog is “good with other dogs”, I have to ask more questions.  Time and again, the dogs that their dog is good with include the siblings he played with at the breeder’s home, the dog he lives with and a relative’s dog.  That’s it.

When I tell them that siblings and roommates don’t count, we get to the truth of the matter.  The dog may be nearly a year old and have only met one or two other dogs, besides siblings and roommates.  Now, I know that dog owners reading this might not see this as a big problem, as long as the dog was good with those dogs, we should be able to assume he’d be good with others, right?  Wrong.

Socialization is a continuing process, not a single event.  We can’t say that a human is well socialized if the only people he sees until his teen years are his siblings and his parents.  Imagine a child who had only played with his siblings for 14 years being dropped off at middle school!  No matter how well he may have played with siblings, I think we’d expect him to be lacking severely in social skills.  It’s certainly unfair to expect dogs, with their shorter “childhoods”, to become masters of social grace after being exposed to only two or three of their species.

Read the rest of Cindy’s article.

Socialization is a post from: Dog Obedience Training Blog

Do you have a passion for dogs?  If you’ve ever considered a career working with animals, being a dog walker or a pet sitter might be right for you.  If you think you have what it takes, read on.

Posted by Wishbone and Amber on Tuesday, February 9, 2010

healthypets-happyowners.blogspot.com

If have big heart for the pets, you are reliable, honest and hard working, and are interested in a career that is both fun and challenging, you’ll want to join the wonderful world of professional pet sitting and dog walking. That way the pets can do all the hoop jumping for you (which will really only be when you’re sitting or walking circus pets).

There are two ways to get your foot in the proverbial door of this job. First of all, you can join an already established agency or train under someone who has set up a solid business and needs to hand jobs over to someone else. Or open door number two and start your own pet sitting company. Of course, both options have their ups and downs. Working for someone else will mean a boss, and perhaps less money than if you were working for yourself, but you’re also not doing the difficult behind-the-scenes tasks, such as getting clients, liaising with clients and dealing with problems as they arise so better get ready and always be prepared. Just make sure you are reliable when it counts.

If you do decide to work for yourself, you need to build a reputation. Bully all your friends into using your services and get their friends to hire you, too. Post ads on veterinary bulletin boards, Craigslist, and pass out fliers around town. It may take awhile to see the fruits of your labor, but usually the larger the effort, the larger the payout.

Read the rest of the article.

Is this profession for you? is a post from: Dog Obedience Training Blog

This is a great video of Aidan Bindoff from PositivePetzine.com teaching Tess a 13mo old GSD how to walk on a loose leash.  Through much positive reinforcement Aidan is able to show Tess that pulling and tugging on the leash is not the best way to get what you want.  Read what Aidan has to say on this here.

You can also check out our loose leash training information.

Loose Leash Training is a post from: Dog Obedience Training Blog

Most dog owners try to train their dog the way most of us were trained by our parents when we do something bad.  We yell, scold or swat our dogs for doing what we think is an inappropriate behavior.

While this is sometimes an effective training technique, you should be aware of what’s REALLY happening when you use negative punishment as a training technique for dog’s who are aggressive towards others on their leash.

What most pet owners aren’t aware of is that when you use punishment you automatically program the brain to ALSO feel a negative emotion.  So while you may be able to train a dog to not growl at another dog by beating him, you may have enhanced the negative emotions your dog has for the other dog approaching… in effect, creating dog aggression where it normally shouldn’t exist.

What’s really happening when you punish a dog for acting aggressively while on his leash is to SUPPRESS his outward display of emotions.  Or said another way, you eliminate the WARNING signs your dog gives off when he gets upset.  This increases the likelihood of so called, Random biting attacks where the person being bit couldn’t tell the dog was upset until it was too late.

This is why I’m a HUGE advocate of what I call Emotion Training, where you reprogram your dog how to feel POSITIVE emotions instead of negative ones.

If you’re interested in learning more about Emotion Training and how it can be used to re-program your dog’s aggression issues towards others in his environment, read my free report titled, Reprogramming the K9 Mind.

Most dog owners don’t even realize it’s possible, or how easy it is to train.  And to those skeptics who don’t think you can train a dog’s emotional reactions towards things in his environment I like to share a story from a great dog training book called “Control Unleashed” by Leslie McDevitt.

In her book, Leslie tells a story about how she trained her dog to stop chasing squirrels by turning the act of her dog seeing a squirrel into a cue to turn around and look at her… instead of chasing the squirrel!

Most people would think this is impossible, but she outlines a very common sense approach for how she trained this behavior that is worth picking up a copy of the book to learn.

This training philosophy works off of environmental cues that you can train your dog to recognize.  In cases where your dog get’s aggressive on his leash, think about what would happen if you changed the rules on your dog…

What if instead of your dog feeling the urge to get protective of you when on a leash, you started giving him a piece of cheese every time he saw another dog from a distance?

You may not notice a change the first or second time you gave your dog some cheese, but if you consistently tossed your dog a piece of cheese EVERY time he saw another dog for the next month, most dogs start to realize seeing other dogs can be a good thing.  Many dogs will even start to get excited about seeing other dogs because they realize it means a piece of food is coming their way.

Of course there are a hundred different ways to apply this method of Emotion Training dog fixing your dog’s aggression while on a leash, and if you’re interested in learning more techniques and strategies for fixing your dog’s leash problems make sure you read my report, Reprogramming the K9 Mind.

Fixing Dog Aggression On Leash is a post from: Dog Obedience Training Blog

This one was done with Sylvia Tyree, who knocked it out of the park with her simple solutions for how to use halters (a specific kind you’ll need to listen for in the interview) to cure your dog’s bad habit of pulling on that leash.  Get more leash training information from our site.

And the greatest part is that the halter only has to be used temporarily.

It was a GREAT call, and I’m excited to do more calls with Sylvia in the future

Here’s the recording:

No More Pulling On The Leash! is a post from: Dog Obedience Training Blog