It’s week 1 of our quarterly 7-week dog class and we have some fun and exciting updates in store. First, this quarter two of our student employees, Lynna and Lauren, get to teach one exercise each week. That allows me and co-instructor, Melissa Morris, CPDT-KA, to assist with the demo so that there are more “demonstrators” for the participants to watch. It also allows us to test out our curriculum for training new instructors to teach our specific training program. As usual, the set of classes started off with our introductory workshop-game show. In this workshop, we find out about

Once the owners have made the subtle but important changes to their technique and are getting better responses in their dogs, we work on using the exercises with distractions—the distraction that they actually react to OR any known distraction that they can handle. The goal is to present the distraction at a level that the dog-handler team can handle and then work in progressively more difficult distractions.

What do you need to do to create a perfect puppy or to fix the problem one in under a month? Find out in just 90 minutes in this new lecture DVD by Dr. Sophia Yin. Then train your staff using the DVD and support materials so that they can help clients and future puppy adopters to be successful. Play the DVD in puppy class orientations so that participants know what to expect. Show the DVD to foster puppy raisers so they prepare puppies behaviorally for their next home. It’s the easiest, most efficient way to get everyone up to speed on

Angry Dog Question: My dog loves to jump on people and dogs who pass by. He’s friendly, but often dogs and people aren’t appreciative. Once he even tripped a jogger. He’s ok if we can get 10 feet away but sometimes we can’t get far away. What should we do? Answer: If you already know the patterns for keeping your dog focused on you and can perform these in the presence of distractions relatively close by, you’re 80% there. Here are examples of how you can apply these exercises to situations where you see a human or dog approaching on

Question: My dog knows how to walk on leash but when he sees a cat that he wants to chase or a dog he doesn’t like, he goes bonkers, lunging and barking, and I can barely control him. I try to use treats to get his attention but it doesn’t work. Is there anything else I should do? Answer: You might think the answer is that if you try treats and they don’t work you should move to a method that’s more severe, such as yanking with a choke chain or pinch collar or something so aversive that it makes

Have you heard this statement from so many people that it seems like it’s an epidemic? “We had a Labrador mix when I was a kid and he was perfect. How come our new dog is so much harder? Is it the inbreeding?” Or does the statement go more like this, “We got Lucky from the shelter and she’s so calm. Then we adopted Nero 2 years later as a playmate for her. He’s the same breed and age that she is, but he’s just hyper and crazy! We don’t know what to do with him! The problem here is