Right around Christmas time, I wrote an article about safely traveling for the holidays with your pet. We touched on many things from car safety (using proper harnesses and seat-belts and being in the back seat) to night-safety guidelines and which ‘tools’ were the best to use and which ones to leave at home (with respect to leashes and collars). If you missed this article, here is the link so...
About two months ago, we discussed the ‘overly confident’ child around strange dogs….. We discussed teaching them the appropriate ways to approach, and the right questions to ask before petting any dog they did not know. Now I want to discuss the flip side of that….. The shy, quiet, or fearful child. I would like to teach you some skills to help your child through this for two reasons…. The...
Having been a professional dog trainer for many years, there is always one pitfall we trainers have to be careful to avoid when talking to customers and that is using ‘dog speak’ – or terminology that is very well known among us in the canine world, but to the everyday person means nothing. So to avoid this I use numerous analogies during my training sessions to make sure my clients understand...
Many people who know me and are friends with me now, have a very hard time believing that it was not that long ago that I was a nervous, insecure person with horrible self esteem, and no self confidence. And there are two things in my life that I credit for this miraculous turn around. The first was finding the 12-step fellowship program of Narcotics Anonymous, and getting my act together. But even...
Professional dog trainers talk a lot about being the ‘pack leader’ and setting solid rules, boundaries and guidelines for our animals as well as our kids. We discuss the importance of being consistent so that our kids and animals know what to expect and what is expected of them. But what happens when we are not at our best due to illness or injury? What sort of dangers or difficulties may we encounter...
Many of you have children that either grew up with a friendly, sweet, loving dog, or got the pup after you had your children, so it is easy for those children to mistakenly think all dogs are friendly. It is these same children that often do not think twice about approaching a dog they do not know in an open and friendly manner; just to potentially receive a growl, or even a bite. So how can you teach...
