Oh, the joys and frustrations of living with a senior dog….Nine and a half year old Shepherd/Lab mix, Ozzy, doesn’t usually say much, unless another dog or (heaven forbid) a cat should happen to trot past the front of the house. But if he could talk, I think these Ozz-isms would be pretty close to what my old guy is thinking: 10 Old Dog-isms: Bedtime is at 8:30pm strict. Unless you’re watching a reality singing competition on TV, then it’s definitely earlier, in the spare bedroom, and with my head under the bed. They say that most dogs sleep about 17 hours on average per day… but I’m an overachiever. Unless you’re planning on feeding me sometime soon or scratching my butt for a while, I reserve a 20-second time limit on standing. I’m not slow to respond, I just build in a 6-second delay to give you time … Read More
No Mistaking!… Another Great ClickerExpo
There’s nothing I love more than a weekend at ClickerExpo. Okay, so I’ve only been to two of them so far, but most recently it was in the country music capitol of Nashville, Tennessee at the Sheraton Music City Center Hotel between March 30th and April 1st. If you’ve never heard of ClickerExpo, here’s a brief description from the website: “The [2012] ClickerExpo program is filled with innovative courses, creative teachers, and fun events… Our faculty brings you to the frontier of understanding and best practices, sharing each year’s newest research, techniques, tools, and skills” on positive animal training and clicker training. It’s always an exciting weekend. For me, it’s like fun family reunion. I get to see people that I know from my Karen Pryor Academy class. It’s also a pleasure to get to know the newest KPA graduates and see their enthusiasm for positive training and the practical … Read More
Giving Up on Perfect
There was a time early on in my dog training career when I wanted to be perfect. And I wanted a perfect dog, too. At the time, I was volunteering at a service dog organization, and was obsessed in my interactions with service dogs who were bred and born to be working dogs. They started training at 8 weeks old, were trained every single day, attended class once a week for 18 months with their puppy raisers and then had another 6 months of dedicated training by advanced trainers. Whew! That’s a lot of training… And these amazing dogs, seemingly, were perfect. They never barked in public, they never bothered anyone, and no noise, distraction, crowded mall or cramped space seemed to phase them ever. (Of course, as you might wonder, they did have the opportunity just to run and play and “be dogs” when they weren’t working, too.) But … Read More
Why You Should Invest the Extra 20 Bucks: Collars and Harnesses
Halters and collars and gentle leaders, oh my! There are so many positive training equipment options out there right now, it can make your head spin, and the selection grows each and every day. The enhanced selection that you can now find in big box pet stores and online stores alike is a very positive thing… and a positive step in the right direction towards exposing dog owners to less aversive equipment options, and thus less aversive training methods. But I don’t know if you’ve noticed or not, but we’re sort of in a recession. (Okay, not technically, but we all feel like we’re broke… so there.) And some of the recommended items of dog training and management equipment, like Freedom harnesses and Sense-ation harnesses, can sometimes be expensive, not to mention the amount of money that could be spent on training treats can rack up at an accelerated rate. … Read More
Is It Time to Make a Doggy Resolution?
Well, well, well, here we are… at the end of another year. Was it a year filled with music, flowers, friends and family? If your answer was a resounding yes, fantastic. If your answer was yes – but the music was on to drown out the endless barking, the flowers were continually knocked over by an expert counter-surfer, and your friends and family have been jumped on so many times this year that now they refuse to come over next year – then not so fantastic, right? Celebrating a new year marks the symbolic end of a great journey in our lives. Sure, it was only one calendar year. But the best part about celebrating a new year is the renewed hope that, even though things may not have been great in the past year, there is a chance that things can start anew… fresh… unspoiled. It’s time to put … Read More