NEW DVD! Desensitization and Counterconditioning: Teaching Dogs to Willingly Accept Medical Procedures Dr. Sophia Yin’s passion was helping people understand animal behavior in an effort to bring people and their pets closer. She envisioned her Low Stress Handling techniques becoming the standard of care for anyone who works with animals. Her commitment to helping people communicate with their pets in a positive and scientifically sound way led her to create a suite of Low Stress Handling labs focused on the critical skills required to improve animal training and the experiences they have in medical procedures. This most recent release is the

Dog Aggression Dog Aggression available here in our store. You may know many techniques for dealing with your reactive or aggressive dog, but with many dogs, to get the results you want you need a clear step-by-step plan.  First you need to realize that every interaction is a training session, so what you do outside of official sessions may undermine your progress. Second, for fast and enduring results it’s often essential to improve the dog’s impulse and emotional control. Third, your training will require good technique and an integrative approach and should focus on creating a dog who is happy,

Are you looking for a way to encourage visitors to come to your shelter, increase kitten adoptions, and as a result have kittens that are less fearful of being handled, encountering strange objects and people, and that are more tolerant of having their nails trimmed or of being vaccinated?  Watch Kitty Kindergarten to learn how to make scary experiences that might elicit fear in a kitten into scenarios that are pleasant and downright fun for kittens!  Most Behavior Issues Can Be Prevented with Early Socialization Did you  know that most cat behavior issues—aggression, antisocial behavior, potty problems— can be prevented with early

Intro by Dr. Sophia Yin In 2009, I produced the first and only textbook and DVD on Low Stress Handling of dogs and cats in the hospital or shelter setting. Since then the methods and philosophy have spread around the world. In this article, my colleague in the Netherlands, Dr. Valerie Jonckheer –Sheehy details how she used desensitization and counterconditioning to give a cat a pleasant toenail trim. The techniques used in this case are based on Dr Sophia Yin’s protocol for trimming the nails of an anxious dog. Counterconditioning for Toenail Trim Aggression 15 April 2014 History: The owner reports

Every veterinary hospital has canine patients who are anxious away from their owners. Dogs who were seemingly happy when they arrived but as soon as they are separated from their pet parents, they pace and whine. And if left for the day, they bark incessantly in their kennels and can even become unsafe when handled. Take, for instance, the case of Clyde the foster Springer Spaniel. Clyde quickly learned how to focus on and heel for his foster mom and to be comfortable around new people; however, when he was separated, even with her in sight, he paced, whined and

This dog doesn’t like having his toenail trimmed.    We’ll take a few minutes to counter condition him. First, I give him treat while handling him in order to change his emotional state. The assistant should wait until the dog is occupied with eating before she starts handling then stop handling before the dog finishes the treat. This time the dog is focused on the food the entire time he’s being handled, which lessen the likelihood that he will bite the handler. Notice our timing is off the first several times and then we got our team work down better.