Question: Thank you for the post [on over rambunctious dog play]. I am relating to this exact situation currently. We have a 5 month old (neutered) pit/lab/shepherd puppy who really loves to play with dogs. His issue is that he doesn’t pick up on the social cues of when the other dog doesn’t want to play, or is done playing. We recently fostered a little terrier/chuhuaua overnight from the rescue that I volunteer with (trying to socialize our pup and help out at the same time). If the dog growled at him (as the terrier didn’t want to play at all),

Note: You can get this down even faster if you’ve used the MannersMinder® to train a down or down-stay because your dog will already love to lie down and will be looking for opportunities to do so since he associates that position with so many rewards in the past. Treat&Train Step 2: Work on down-stay (Full version in chapter 22 of How to Behave So Your Dog Behaves).  Tether your dog by leash to furniture so he can’t get to you if he gets up. Next, have him lie down on a rug or some other comfortable place and give treats

It’s fun to take your pooch to the park for off-leash play and dogs can look like they are having fun, but are they always learning the right things? One owner of a Bulldog knows all to well that the answer is no. “Max took a while to warm up to new people and dogs,” she says. “Then we left him with the breeder where he got to run around with other Bulldogs in what the breeder said was normal rough bulldog play. When we got him back he was suddenly barking and lunging people he would have just stayed

My dog, Milo, loves to explore at the off-leash park but, when it’s time to go home, it takes me 10 to 20 minutes to catch him to put him back on leash. What should I do? Rover loves to rough-house with other dogs but sometimes their owners get mad at me. I think he’s playing so they shouldn’t worry, but they say their dogs don’t like it. If I don’t leave the park, then they do. How can I train Rover to play more calmly? He is also reactive to dogs when on leash and will bark and lunge

In the last blog, you learned about how and why Marian and Keller Breland started Animal Behavior Enterprises (ABE), the most successful and prolific animal training company that has ever existed. In this segment, you’ll find out more about Bob Bailey, how Keller got involved in developing the first scientifically trained dolphin show, and what dolphins were trained for in the Navy. Bob also reveals the four most common trainer errors. Question: Bob, how did you get into animal training? Dolphin and Dog Bob: I was at UCLA. I was an Ich and Herps man while I was an undergraduate. I’d

Every year, the UC Davis Animal Science Department raises and sells yearling horses at their annual auction. While most owners would be happy if their yearlings could lead nicely on halter and load calmly into a trailer, in the Spring of 2000, when I was teaching the behavior courses in the Animal Science Department, I helped the students in charge of the yearlings aim higher. Using a combination of clicker training and natural horsemanship, we trained a number of handy behaviors. One of the first things we taught was lateral and vertical bending. We taught the behaviors using two different