Category: Dog Behavior

  • Why Feeding Your Dog Once a Day Creates Problems

    Why Feeding Your Dog Once a Day Creates Problems

    Feeding your dog once a day is common for many dog owners. It’s convenient, for one thing. And when people think about how wolves feed in the wild: feast or famine, it’s easy to see how people might think that feeding once a day is perfectly acceptable. But dogs are not wolves.  Our dogs should…

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  • How to Recognize if Your Dog Likes Tummy Rubs

    How to Recognize if Your Dog Likes Tummy Rubs

    How to Recognize if Your Dog Likes Tummy Rubs, Petting (and Other Helpful Tips)! Humans often misinterpret dog signals.  We think a tail wag means a dog is happy, that all dogs love to be petted, or a dog rolling over on his back wants a tummy rub.  Does your dog like belly rubs? Find out. Relaxed dogs look loose…

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  • Dogs’ facial expressions give them away

    Dogs’ facial expressions give them away

    As dog owners, it is no surprise to us that a dog’s behavior changes according to the situation they are in.  But researchers in Japan have discovered some subtleties in dogs’ facial expressions we may not know about.  Using a high-speed camera to study the subtleties in 12 different dogs they learned that there is significant interaction between the…

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  • Clicker training: an introduction

    Clicker training: an introduction

    Clicker training can be a highly effective approach for many animals (dogs, chickens, horses, dolphins, etc.), but is especially useful for aggressive dogs. It is an extension of training many people instinctively already do: when the dog behaves in a way we find desirable, we give them a reward. In this case, the clicker let’s them…

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  • [VIDEO] How to Fit the Gentle Leader Like a Pro

    You can buy the Gentle Leader almost anywhere now, including on Amazon. It is often recommended when dealing with or trying to control a lunging, pulling or aggressive dog. See more information on managing an aggressive dog with a head halter. Yet there are still a few dog owners (even some trainers) who haven’t learned…

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  • [VIDEO] What Everyone Ought to Know About Petting Dogs

    [VIDEO] What Everyone Ought to Know About Petting Dogs

    If we like dogs, we love to pet them.   And we take it for granted that dogs like being petted, too. In fact some studies show that pet petting can be relaxing for both animals and humans.  But do all of them love it?  Do they always enjoy it every time?  How can we…

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  • Is the interest in shock collars on the rise? What do search trends tell us?

    Here are some charts show search trends around dog training collars and dog aggression. It certainly indicates the interested in shock collars is alive and well. What do these charts say to you? Shock collar search vs other searches trends for dog collars While the amount of people searching says nothing about why they are searching for…

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  • How anxiety relates to dog aggression and why we need to treat it

    How anxiety relates to dog aggression and why we need to treat it

    While you may think your dog is aggressive because of the neighbour’s black dog or the guy wearing that crazy hat, it is now believed by the scientific community that anxiety or uncertainty underlies most dog aggression (1).  That anxiety or uncertainty in dogs underlies dog aggression is not immediately obvious. As a result it…

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  • Secrets to getting your Significant Other on board with your dog training

    What to do when your Significant Others sabotages your dog training. I’ve got difficult challenging kids.  Both have been identified as intellectually “gifted”.  This mean their brains work on a different level – and I mean in other ways than just being “smart”.   They are highly sensitive, intense, argumentative, easily bored, and relentless about their…

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  • What you may not know about rewarding a dog’s fear or aggression

    What you may not know about rewarding a dog’s fear or aggression

    Can treats reinforce a dog’s fear or aggression? A person that posted a comment on our blog asked us such a good question in response to our article, 5 Harsh Realities of Treating Dog Aggression that we thought it was worth a blog post. The question came after a statement that treats can’t reinforce (strengthen…

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