The Dog Blog

When I worked as a veterinary assistant, the most common questions the vet asked the pet owner when a small animal came into the office sick were not about the animal itself but about the environment in which the pet lives. What size is the cage? What temperature is the habitat? What food are you…

You’ve probably heard me say it before, but being your dog’s advocate is one of the most important things you can do as your dog’s owner. You should be the first one to say, “my dog has had enough” or “It’s time for us to go” when you can see the first signs of your…

Whether you are a parent or not, at some point, your dog is going to be around children. Dogs get rehomed every year in large numbers and one of the large contributing factors is kids. Young couples get a dog together and it isn’t until years later, when they decide to have a child, that…

We get the question all the time: “When can I stop using food?” While this can be a complicated answer, the short version of my response would simply be: “It depends.” Just a few reasons you would continue to use food include: The dog is still learning the behavior in new environments (example: sit in…

Being a behavior nerd, I’d be lying if I said I never watched an episode of the Dr. Phil show. I found people’s behavior, and his analysis of it, fascinating at times. Although the show was largely too over the top for my taste, there was one major thing that I took away from his…

When was the last time you filmed yourself training your dog? If the answer is never, then chances are you are doing things you weren’t even aware you were doing. One of the biggest mistakes I see is regarding our need to be heard. Training a dog is not an easy thing to do. The…

Before I was a dog trainer, I was a theatre major in college. Back when I was studying acting there were many different schools of thought, different methods for achieving acting perfection. There was only one rule that seemed to be agreed on by everyone: when it comes to improvisational acting (improv for short) there…

5 Things You Should Do After You Adopt Your New Dog SLOW DOWN! You will want to introduce your new pet to your whole family, your whole house and all of your friends and neighbors. Just remember that from the dog’s point of view, he or she was just kidnapped!  Give them some time to…

If you’ve ever been to a party where you didn’t know anyone and nobody seemed interested in talking to or including you, you can probably remember how that felt. You might have felt a little lost, isolated, and you most certainly weren’t having a very good time. You may have wondered why you were even…

All the time, I see dogs who are easily distracted or particularly high energy and “all over the place” with owners right beside them desperately waving food in their face, making all kinds of noises, in an attempt to get their dog’s eyeballs back on them. Meanwhile, the dog continues to blow them off, no…

Every year thousands of families prepare for fall with a trek to the mall, various outlet stores, as well as the big box stores to stock up on back to school supplies and clothing for their kids. Although I hated spending half a day in the Reebok outlet store with my mom and sisters trying…

This month I had a crazy thought: Open floorplans will be the death of dog training! Not really… But it makes for a great headline, doesn’t it? That being said, hallways are a great place to teach your dog certain behaviors because of the long and narrow shape and the lack of distractions. Don’t have…