The Blog
Give a Little
Give a Little How to help dogs without owning them."Giving does not and should not always have to mean getting something back in return."I mentioned in my post about the Secret Lives of Streeties how humans often think we are the only ones who can provide dogs with...
Muzzle Nuzzle
Muzzle Nuzzle A dog-friendly alternative to human forms of affection.It's worth noting at the beginning of this post that a dog's reaction to our human behaviours and ways of interacting with our dogs will vary from dog to dog. Some dogs will be very trusting and so...
Hugs & Kisses
Hugs & Kisses And other weird things humans do..."We should not assume that whatever we think we might be communicating to our dog is understood by the dog the same way."You might think that hugging your dog, giving them a pat or a kiss on the head, or even gazing...
Doubting Dominance
Doubting Dominance Why it's not a sound basis for dog training methods.Continuing on from last week's more general blog post on Dominance in Dogs, in this post I will focus more on how the dominance theory has and continues to affect dog training methods and...
Dominance in Dogs
Dominance in Dogs What is it, and why is it so controversial?"Dominance is often thought of as dogs' attempt to obtain leadership, or an "alpha" role, over their "pack"."Humping, jumping, pulling, barking...you might hear any or all of these sometimes referred to as...
New Year Same Dog
New YearSame Dog As the year changes, your dog, most likely, does not, but take this opportunity to review his/her wellbeing.We humans often have ambitious ideas about what the transition into a new year can do for us personally. We sometimes view it as a magic pill,...
Stress Busting
Stress Busting Helping you notice signs of stress in your dog, so that you can help your dog deal with it.I already covered a lot in my other post about stress, and something that was repeated a lot in that post will be repeated here once more: observing your dog is...
Let’s Talk About Stress, Baby
Let's Talk About Stress, Baby Let's talk about all the good things, and the bad things, that it brings..."You need to observe them and know them when they are well in order to recognise when something is amiss."It might be easy to assume that dogs have an easy life....
Happy Walking
Happy Walking Work on the walk. In summary: Teach your dog a contact/attention sound - a valuable tool, which you can use in any and all situations to help ensure your dog's safety and wellbeing. Create distance between your dog and the situations in which your dog...
Trouble With Walking?
Trouble with Walking? Common challenges on dog walks."You want the dog to learn that when the leash is loose we move, not before."I'm going to start this post off with just a few key words: patience, contact, and distance. What's so special about patience, contact,...
Signals & Vocals
Signals & Vocals Worksheets to help you understand your dog better.I've written about and provided resources for calming signals in my previous posts. But as with anything, it's no good knowing something if you don't do anything with that knowledge. Knowing about...
Barks & Growls
Barks & Growls Understanding "aggression" and vocalizations in dogs.Dog language and communication is about so much more than subtle body language. If their subtle body language, i.e. their calming signals, are not heeded they will often have to resort to...
Observing Instincts
Observing Instincts Observe, understand, foster.My previous post on "Instincts" already covered some of the most common instinctual behaviours in dogs in some detail, so I won't go into those details here (but go and read the previous post from the link above if you...
Instincts
Instincts Knowing and understanding dog instincts."In the minds of dogs behaviour is not categorised as "good" or "bad"; they are just being dogs, acting on their instincts."The Merriam-Webster dictionary provides the following definitions for "instinct": 1. a...
How “Street” Are Your Dogs?
How "Street" Are Your Dogs? Provide your dogs with the best parts of "street life".We make so many decisions for our dogs; we choose when they eat, what they eat, when they get to go to the toilet, how long their walks last, when they sleep, sometimes even where they...
The Secret Lives of Streeties
The Secret Lives of Streeties What street dogs can teach us about our pet dogs.Street dogs. They break my heart. They break my heart because I would like every dog to live as part of a caring, loving family. Isn't it funny though how we humans think that we are the...
Calming Signals Infographic
Calming Signals What are they, and how you can recognise them.Calming signals, mystery to some, misunderstood by many. Learn to notice and respond to dogs' calming signals though and you'll find a completely different level of understanding and communication with your...
Walk This Way
Walk This Way The art of dog walking.You wouldn't think there would be any need for a blog post about walking dogs, but here I am writing one anyway. Dogs and walking are synonymous with each other; many people get a dog in the hopes that it will get them out of the...
Dog Language
Dog Language Can Dogs Actually Communicate?Some of the greatest sources of stress and worry for me used to be situations where I thought something might be bothering my dogs or where I wasn't sure how my dogs would react in certain situations. The stress and worry was...
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