It’s one thing to show class participants how to perform certain exercises and to have them practice in class but providing an opportunity to practice them in the context closer to real life using games and prizes turns a regular class into a spectacular event! We did just this in our first ever Learn to Earn Scavenger Hunt at my house last week, which was week five of a six-week beginning dog training class. The class was comprised of first-time dog owners, experienced dog owners, as well as humans who foster dogs for shelters and rescue groups. What the Learn

One of the most important aspects of any profession is to continue practicing your skills and to continue working on a variety of techniques. As a result, once or twice a week, the staff along with volunteers gets together for either a presentation or hands-on training.

     Training dogs to say please by sitting for everything they want seems simple, but the concept is so new to most dog owners that they frequently continue to reward exactly the opposite of what they want. Our class of beginning dogs is doing great overall. They have good focus outside and can walk on loose leash but we know they can improve even faster if they are diligent about their own and their pooch’s behavior in the house. So tomorrow we’re holding most of the class in a real-life home situation and playing the Learn to Earn Scavenger

So how do you quiet a cacophonous crier? You follow the golden rule of changing behavior—reward the behavior you want, such as sitting quietly, and remove the reward for unwanted behavior—your attention. But if you’re consistent and reward the quiet behavior with enough sequential treats for longer and longer silence, you can fix the meowing in just a few days.

When you live in a country such as the United States, where vaccination of dogs and cats is common, at least in your neighborhood, it can be easy to forget that there’s a reason why we vaccinate. The core vaccines we provide to our pets were invented in response to specific fatal outbreaks and epidemics that have killed many animals but that are much less frequent now due to our widespread vaccination programs. One can be reminded of the negative effects of non-vaccination by looking at shelters statistics or by visiting a developing country. Says Janice Girardi, founder and director

Have you ever gone to a dog training class or taken a private lesson and left with your head swimming?  With so much information, the main messages can sometimes get lost among the more intricate details.  Here are some take-home messages that I use to guide my every-day interaction with my patients as well as my own pets. Every interaction you have with the animal is a training session. So it’s important to be aware of what you may be doing to reward inappropriate behaviors throughout the day especially when you are not having planned training sessions. Animals care about