Tethering Your Dog: Skills & Opportunities
Spring is on its way! Are you starting to think about weekend camping trips or visits to the beach? Maybe you want to visit a local park or just hang out on your front porch. Having your dog join you in all these fun activities requires you to look beyond leash skills to tethering your […]
Chicken Training
What comes to mind when you think of chickens? Eggs? A pastoral farm? You probably don’t immediately think of a trained chicken running an agility course or retrieving. However, there is an elite group of animal trainers in the world who learned from Bob and Marian Bailey through chicken training to use behavior science with […]
Road Trips with Dogs
Summer Vacation Road Trip! Road trips with dogs can be delightful if you’re prepared. We drove through several states, sleeping in hotels in some of them, to reach North Carolina where I spoke at a national conference for animal shelters. We had fun, shared behavior science with people who need it, and practiced a variety […]
Your Dog Could be Much Happier
Cassandra Seale consulted me before writing this mic.com article about how your dog could be happier. I provided a few tips about how to set up a dog’s life to ensure he or she gets everything necessary for a happy life. Dogs need food, water, and shelter for survival, but they need a few additional […]
Is Your Dog Happy? Help Your Dog Feel Content and Secure
PLAN AHEAD Is your dog happy? Probably. But you can probably increase his satisfaction with his life. Dogs respond well to being able to predict what’s going to happen next. This starts with you doing things the same way every time. If your dog has a history of trying to blast out the front door […]
Leash Skills Series #2: Defining Leash Walking
Dogs learn best through positive reinforcement Behavior science has documented that dogs learn best through positive reinforcement. Use positive reinforcement to teach leash walking skills. The result will be a dog who curiously tries to do what will get him rewards. He’ll readily pay attention to you – the human at the end of the […]
Cooperative Husbandry: Teach Your Dog to Love a Nail Trim!
(The Process Works for Cats, Too!) As I write this, my mentor, Dr. Bob Bailey, is teaching keepers at the Copenhagen Zoo how behavior science can help provide better husbandry for the animals there. Husbandry refers to the management and control of domestic and kept wild animals, most commonly to their medical care and grooming. […]
