With all the stories of dog bites in the news plus any personal experience you may have had of being lunged at or chased when walking or jogging by a house, have you ever wondered what you should do in case you ARE ever attacked by a dog? As a veterinarian and animal behaviorist, I deal with aggressive dogs on a daily basis and have rarely been bitten. Here are some tips that can help you: First, if a dog charges you, stay calm and stand still! That can be easier said than done, but here’s why it’s important: Most

       Play Dead/Bang2     Step 1: Start with a tasty semi-moist treat shaped such that you can let her gnaw little bits off. Or use a series of small tasty hard treats that you can give sequentially. Hold the treat right up to her nose in a position that causes here to turn her head slightly. Once she’s finished with the treat, remove your hand and start again.     Play Dead/Bang3       Step 2: Once she will consistently turn her head to get the treat while remaining lying down, place the treat a little further back such

This week newspapers and television news have splashed an alarming headline for those pet owners who love to share their bed with their pet. The headlines warn that sleeping with your pet can make you sick and even prove life-threatening in a few rare cases. These headlines are based on an upcoming February 2011 article in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases entitled “Zoonoses in the Bedroom.” In this peer-reviewed article, the authors, veterinarians Bruno B. Chomel, a professor of zoonoses at the University of California, Davis, and Ben Sun, the state public health veterinarian for the California Department of Health,

Trainers often debate about the use of electronic shock collars. Some trainers find these collars unethical and unsafe. The pro-collar camp takes a different stance. Some say it just distracts the dog, calling it “tap technology” and others say it may be painful at the instant but then the dog learns to behave and there are no lasting negative effects. In 2003, researchers from the Netherlands, Matthijs Schilder and Joanne van der Borg assessed the short and long-term behavioral effects of dog training with the help of shock collars. They wanted to know three things: Do shock collars cause pain

I recently saw a great video  that laid out the steps for teaching a dog to identify objects that match the item you are holding. That is, if you hold up a squeaky toy in the shape of the mouse and there are 5 different-shaped toys on the floor, the dog should pick up the one that matches the toy you’re holding. This is a dog trick that KayLaurence, a member of the ClickerExpo faculty from England has been teaching to students for several years. With the steps laid out so clearly, I decided I’d train my dog, Jonesy as well as my dad’s dog, Lucy

In the last blog I summarized a research study (A comparative approach to dogs’ (Canis familiaris) and human infants’ comprehension of various forms of pointing gestures by Gabriella Lakatos, et. al.) that found dogs can use human pointing cues to infer the location of food. The dogs in the study chose the correct location 80% of the time if the human pointed with a straight arm. In fact, according to the study, dogs could even infer location if the pointing was with the leg or elbow but only somewhat (about 65% of the time). To see whether this could possibly be true,