In this short post, I’d like to talk specifically to people who treat their dogs as if they’re kids. Now, I love both my dogs and my kids. Sometimes even I feel that I love my dogs as much as my kids. But even if you do, there has to be a distinction drawn between …
Today I’d like to share my story about a bad haircut and how it relates to your dog training. (It does, I promise!) https://youtu.be/1ZFlQWKFOjk Right now I’m in Savannah, Georgia for my bother’s wedding. I never bring a razor with me when I travel, so I really needed to shave and my hair was getting …
In this post, I’d like to share a few of my thoughts about dominance. There is a preconception out there among dog trainers that dominance doesn’t exist, founded on the idea that dogs aren’t actually pack animals (which may or may not be true). This idea has gained a lot of traction during the last …
It’s gorgeous here in Utah—75 degrees, clear sky, no wind—and easily the nicest day we’ve had all year. Up in the Northeast, though, they have a huge storm coming in. Some places are getting upwards of three feet of snow. This winter, we had several big storms. While we were being pummeled by those, I …
It’s Saturday evening. I’m dirty, sore, tired—and fulfilled! That’s unusual. If you know me at all, you know that I despise manual labor. I always joke that I’m the hardest working lazy man you’ll ever meet. I don’t mind getting a leash in my hand and working with dogs, but other manual tasks like mowing …
I opened up my email today and saw a question from a person looking for advice. “My dog is six months old and he’s starting to get aggressive. Do you think he’ll grow out of it?” My very frank response was “No, he’ll probably grow into it.” My experience suggests that he’ll start to do …
In this post, I’d like to devote a little time to the idea of calmness in our dogs. I know some people might want hyper, crazy dogs for hunting or other activities. But in general, most owners want a dog who is calm and controlled. One thing I’m fond of telling people is that calmness …
I’d like to begin this post with an inconvenient truth: there are some people out there who get a little too hung up on dog training commands. To illustrate this, let me share a story with you that always makes me chuckle. A few years ago I had a client with a Doberman. We were …
In this post, I actually want to talk about one small element of the heel command that I’m asked about frequently: why do we teach dogs to heel on the left-hand side? I’ve been teaching dogs to heel on the left for twenty years, and if a dog is trained on the right I get …