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.

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

A reader once asked, “How can a dog bark for such great lengths of time? If I holler and scream for a long time, I lose my voice.” The answer, of course, is practice. And it starts when they’re young. Take, for instance, Alf the Aussie, who lives down the street. He started out at the front window, barking sharply at passersby: “Stay away from my property. Just move it on by.” He was so successful at sending the mail carrier and other pedestrians scurrying that when his owner promoted him to the front yard, he increased his alarm duties,

      low-stress-book-and-dvd Low Stress Handling® Restraint and Behavior Modification of Dogs & Cats Every day, pets are brought to our hospitals in this state of confusion and fear and we expect them to remain calm and cooperate for procedures. We poke them and prod them and carelessly flop them into various positions when they have no clue what we want. Then, in the name of speed, we react to the struggling pet by imposing some type of “death grip” hold instead of taking a step back and evaluating whether a more thoughtful approach might work better. What’s the

National Dog Bite Prevention Week, May 15 to May 21, 2011, is coming to a close today. I hope you’ve enjoyed the articles and downloads. Here is a listing of the resources we’ve provided this week both on this website as well as on the Huffington Post Blog and Victoria Stilwell’s Positively.com.  We will add a few more related prevention articles in the upcoming two weeks too. So stay tuned! Thirty-second animated Dog Bite Prevention PSA for adults and teens shows the precursors to bites and the result of ignoring them.  Please share this PSA. If we have enough views on youtube we will be

Download these illustrations in our “How to Greet a Dog” poster here. The consensus among animal behavior professionals is that the major cause of dog bites to humans is related to the failure of owners and dog bite victims to recognize when dogs are fearful and know how to approach and greet dogs appropriately. But what exactly is the correct approach and why do so many people fail to do it? One issue is that we humans have an instant gut reaction to the cuteness of some dogs. It’s the same reaction we had as a child when we saw a