Happy Dog Happy You

Most people think of basic obedience training for dogs as a series of commands that the dog, reluctantly, learns to execute. On one level, this is accurate.
However, before we begin the mechanics of teaching specific commands, let us look for a moment beyond training as the dog learning a series of orders. Underneath it all, […]

Calmness means the appropriate response in any given situation. It is a quality we must completely understand in order to properly train our dogs.
A dog gains calmness by focusing on an objective and then attaining it through action. He can’t think his way to calmness nor can he learn it through the example of another.
A […]

The fundamental  aspect of most approaches in dog training is to appeal to this faculty: the desire to please, which is supposedly at the core of the domestic dog’s character. All an owner needs to do is to gain his dog’s respect and then his dog instinctively will want to please him.
There is no intellectual […]

Even the gentlest, most loving dog can be induced to bite. Dogs’ teeth are important tools, and every dog is aware of their potential use as offensive or defensive weapons.
Every dog has a bite threshold (a point beyond which, if pushed, he will bite). Some dogs’ bite thresholds are low; some are high. Aggression is […]

All dogs learn through experience. However, the number of times a particular action must be repeated for a dog to learn and to commit it to memory varies. If the dog perceives the action as being particularly advantageous to him, he may learn it on the basis of one experience.
Similarly, the dog learns to avoid […]