Do You Need To Be A Pack Leader?
This is a video from 2014. I was testing the waters for producing podcasts. The audio gets cut off a bit in the beginning, but I think you'll get the gist.
Behavioral Medications To Help Fearful Dogs
There are behavioral medications that can help dogs struggling with fear and anxiety. We would not deprive a dog of available treatment for pain or infection. We should consider the suffering a dog experiences due to chronic fear and anxiety as important to treat.
Growing Pains in Dog Training
I suspect that all industries experience growing pains. It may be that they are a constant in any kind of industry, change for the better always being a shining light on the horizon we should be striving for. Thirteen years ago when I first began my search for information to help my extremely fearful dog Sunny, it wasn't unusual for there to be responses to [...]
The 3 Steps To Helping Fearful Dogs
It has been over a decade since my fearful dog Sunny came to live with us from a rescue camp set up to help care for the animals impacted by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. I met him at Camp Katrina where I went to volunteer several weeks after the hurricanes hit. As much as I thought I knew about dogs and dog behavior, training and [...]
Between A Rock & A Hard Place
Sometimes we have to do something because it needs to be done. If we grab someone about to fall off a cliff we can worry about having to apologize later for having touched them without their permission. But we need to be careful not to use the excuse that needing to get something done absolves us from understanding what it is we are doing. If ever [...]
Clean-up On Aisle Dog
Photo courtesy of Olathe Animal Hospital If you happen to be privy to the chatter that goes on between dog trainers, what I am going to say will not be new to you. Daily, dog trainers are contacted to help an owner with a dog, a normal, healthy, fully functioning dog, whose behavior has become untenable or even dangerous. Sometimes we're contacted within [...]
Do Something
I call them "chiselers." Not the swindler kind, but the kind with chisels who show up and whittle away at your resolve, confidence, and enthusiasm. I can be one and cringe when I observe it in myself. We can be quick to point out the flaws in an idea or plan, or why it won't work or shouldn't be done. The internet even coined a [...]
The Bad News About Fearful Dogs
I am contacted regularly by people who have found themselves living with a fearful dog and looking for help. They are to a person, kind, compassionate, caring folks looking for answers. And I have them. But I routinely have to tell people things they do not want to hear. When I mention that veterinarians and vet behaviorists can prescribe medications to help dogs who are [...]
High Risk Activities
"I'd rather not." "So?" One of the primary goals I have for this blog, the seminars and webinars, and consults I do for folks living or working with fearful dogs is to help them understand how to think about fear based behaviors. When I am contracted to help someone train their dog I can directly and specifically tell them what to do. But that's just [...]