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Posted on Monday, March 14, 2016 8:56 PM
Imagine that you have a condition that is jeopardizing
your health, your relationships with those you love, possibly your very
life. There are, thank heavens,
treatments available. Untold thousands,
probably millions, of laboratory and research animals, from rats to pigeons to
cats to dogs to chimps to college students, have given their tiny alls for
decades to discover exactly how these treatments work. From all this research, two basic treatment
options have been developed: Pill A and
Pill B. |
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Posted on Monday, March 14, 2016 8:46 PM
Oh! My heart is
broken, another crushing blow to me and my geek tendencies… :) The recent hoo-has involving a celebrity TV dog
trainer, a pig, a dog and a whole bunch of folks in the dog training community
made me think (well, so did what I ate for lunch, but y’know.) To the incident itself, I have nothing
helpful to add to the debate. But there
are some lessons in it that go beyond that I think are worth talking about.
I thought I had an answer: Critical thinking skills! |
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Posted on Monday, November 23, 2015 10:51 AM
Good morning!
It’s a beautiful, cold clear day in Mt. Shasta, and I’ve been
thinking. (I do that sometimes.) Here’s my thought for the day:
When it comes to struggles, whether in dog training
or “real life,” there’s a difference between sayingIt can’t be donevs.I can’t
do itvs.I don’t know HOW.
There are things that truly can’t be done: I can’t teach Tinker to fly like a bird (she
doesn’t have wings) and I can’t fly like a bird myself without the aid of
technology. |
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Posted on Friday, July 31, 2015 8:33 PM
Imagine this—my favorite
analogy: we decide we’re going to take
up ballet dancing and we go to the studio for our first lesson. When we walk in the door, how long does it
take us to figure out Who’s the Boss?
For most of us, it’ll take about 30 seconds to recognize that Madam Tutu
is the dance instructor, and since she’s highly acclaimed and looks fabulous in
her leotard, we’ll be brimming with Respect for her. Hooray, it took us 30-60 seconds to arrive at
Leadership and Respect. |
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Posted on Saturday, July 25, 2015 9:06 PM
In the first part of this blog, we
ended with wondering where oh where do pet owners come up with a notion of
“respect,” a word they normally don’t use when discussing dog behavior
concerns. And in my experience, the
choice of words isn’t theirs at all.
Almost always, it turns out that they
were just talking to an old school dog trainer they met. Or neighbor who is a dog “expert.” Or they read a book or saw something on
TV. It comes from somewhere other than
their own direct experience with their dog, and now they’re worried about
it. |
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Posted on Saturday, July 25, 2015 10:54 AM
Well,
there really isn’t any nice way to say it.
The chances are extremely good that—oh, no, it’s true! Your dog has no respect for you at all. If it’s any consolation, I’m fairly persuaded
my dog Tinker hasn’t got a shred of respect for me--zero, zip, none. My cats almost certainly don’t, at least not
in any way that I can tell. I can’t be
entirely positive, of course, but I’d lay good money on it. Depending, of course, on what we mean byrespect.
When
I Google the word, this is the sort of definition that pops up (heavily edited
for brevity): |
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Posted on Sunday, February 01, 2015 12:32 AM
Imagine
you are walking down the street, minding your own business and enjoying a
leisurely stroll in peace and quiet.
Around the corner comes a parent walking their small (or not so small)
child by the hand. Suddenly, the child
breaks free and comes rushing at you, waving a knife and yelling, “&^%#*
you, go away! %$#@&! Get away, you %$#&*@!” The parent shrugs, smiling as he or she says,
“Oh, don’t worry, he doesn’t mean it. He
just does that at first, he’ll calm down. |
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Posted on Monday, January 19, 2015 1:10 AM
If you’re like a lot of people—and you’re reading
this blog—you love animals. Or at least,
animals of your species of choice, be it dogs, cats, horses or exotics. You want to do right by your own pets, and
also by pets everywhere. You want to see
well-run animal control services that keep communities safe, help stray or abandoned
critters and maintain humane, caring facilities. You want to help rescue homeless, abused or
neglected pets. Maybe you’d like to
donate to some worthy cause. |
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Posted on Saturday, November 22, 2014 1:26 AM
In
the first part of this blog topic, I talked about how stress can impact both
our performance and that of our dogs—with an underlying point in mind. And that point was: expecting better performances from our dogs
thanwecould achieve with comparable
training under similar circumstances is expecting way too much.
Dogs
are outstanding at beingdogs,
certainly: Tinker is aces at chewing bones, chasing raccoons and sniffing
poo. If the performances we wanted from
our dogs were entirely up their natural alleys, we’d all have obedience
champs. |
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Posted on Sunday, November 02, 2014 9:09 AM
I
admit it: I am a Behavior Geek. My idea
of a wildly exciting night is curling up with my cats, my dog, a glass of warm
milk and a DVD of the latest dog training seminar from some brilliant expert in
the field. These wonderful seminars and
amazing experts keep me fresh, learning, in touch with all the cutting edge
stuff. They also make me think. About dogs, dog training and us. Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about
performance.
My
handy (and rather old)New World
Dictionary of the American Language, Second College Edition |
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