 Say hi to Tyson, a 4-year old Miniature Bull Terrier, and his little brother Rocky, 4-months old. Tyson will get a refresher of his basic manners, while Rocky will be joining Puppy Kindergarten.
 "A dog's first language is body language. We owe it to them to understand what they're telling us."
Jill Breitner, dog trainer We taught both Jack and Maeby Down and Stay tonight. We did it in adjoining rooms so
they would start to get used to each others' presence while good things were happening to them.  TIP #1: THE PROBLEM WITH PUNISHMENT
Aversive training methods are often rooted in the assumption that dogs are biologically driven to dominate their human owners, who, therefore, must assert their own dominance in order to control their dogs’ behavior. However, this is a fundamentally flawed concept. The behavior problems most often seen in dogs - aggression, fearfulness, destructiveness, inappropriate elimination, excessive vocalization, and inappropriate attention-seeking - are associated more frequently with anxiety or frustration than with confidence and social assertiveness. Punishment is defined as any stimulus change that reduces the probability of occurrence of the behavior preceding it. Positive punishment refers to an aversive stimulus that is applied to the animal (in contrast to negative punishment, which refers to removal of a desirable stimulus). Positive punishment is not recommended for management of behavior problems for several reasons:
TIP #2: REDUCING EXCESSIVE BARKING Dogs bark the most right after you leave home for the day. So if you are not there, how can you stop it? The easiest way to immediately reduce this type of barking is to feed your dog from hollow chew toys. Each evening moisten your dog's kibble and stuff it into a Kong or hollow marrow bone and put it in the freezer overnight. In the morning give your dog his stuffed toy, and he will spend well over an hour extricating his breakfast from the toy. And if he is busying himself with his toy he will be lying down quietly and not barking! - Dr. Ian Dunbar The puppies learned Come When Called at class tonight. We played recall games so they learned that coming to us is fun!
We played some recall games to teach Farley how to Come When Called, and the
management techniques we are using for Stella's fear anxiety resulted in her taking food from me for the first time. Sometimes, the walk is so stressful for a dog that leash aggression develops. By teaching
Emmett how to walk with a loose leash he is now comfortable around the things that used to trigger his outbursts. What a turnaround! Paisley did so well learning Wait and Stay today that we jumped ahead and taught her
to go to a spot and stay when someone comes to the door. She did great!  "An animal's eyes have the power to speak a great language."
- Martin Buber Our client reported that Duncan now has no problem meeting new people due to the
desensitization and counterconditioning we have done. He still needs more work with dogs, but that trigger is very strong and it will take more time. |
AuthorJeff Dentler, CPDT-KA, FFCP, CTDI Archives
May 2022
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