The Learned Canine

08/26/2024

Cojack says, Happy National Dog Day! 🥰🐾

08/21/2024

06/23/2024

I got to work with one of these today! Can anyone guess the breed?? 🤗

04/25/2024

How cute is wee Roger figuring out his homemade slow feeder?? 🥰

04/12/2024

Have you noticed that physical exercise alone doesn't tire your dog out? Get their brain involved and see what happens! Instead of regular old fetch, Fergus is retrieving a ball from a box in a bin! He is also a very smart and eager pupper, so be sure to work at your dog's level and gradually increase the difficulty as they catch on. 🐾

02/06/2024

It's time to play guess that breed! This little nugget is Roger and his human is making sure she has everything in place prior to bringing him home. I can't wait to meet you in a few short weeks, little man! 😍

02/04/2024

Did you know that Woodbine Beach welcomes off-leash dogs from the beginning of November until the end of March?? I'm not a fan of dog parks but this reminded me of Tofino with lots of well socialized, well trained dogs minding their own business and enjoying themselves. Well done, Toronto! It was also great to see so many dogs being rewarded for their behaviour. 💞

12/25/2023

Happy holidays!! 🥰🌟🐾 My third furkid, Riggs, decided to opt out of the photo... Training goal for 2024 - teach a ferret to "stay"! 😂😁

11/28/2023

Sophie in her element! 😄 I'm looking forward to seeing her today. I hear she has become quite chatty and will likely have lots to catch me up on! 🤣

11/15/2023

This is the type of dog I spent the first 8 years of my life with so I was beyond excited to finally get to work with one! Huey has me so in love that I think I might need to get one of my own some day. 🥰
Does everyone know what breed he is??

10/28/2023

Please don't use lasers to play with your dog. I've seen the damage they can cause and it is heartbreaking.

10/19/2023

Happy Halloween! 😄🐾

10/13/2023

We can't blame dogs for what they do in an environment they haven't chosen, where they get very few choices on a daily basis and where their needs usually come after everybody else's. Meeting their needs properly gives them more resources to cope in this world with.

09/13/2023

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1049407433117648&id=100041452041883&mibextid=Nif5oz

Please don’t use Day - Care to socialise your dog!

We get a lot of inquiries for help with dogs with social problems ranging from reactivity on lead, becoming over-excited and unable to disengage from other dogs off lead and getting into “unpredictable” squabbles with other dogs on walks, where somewhere in the exchange of information comes this: “he goes to day-care 3 times a week for socialisation – he is fine at day-care”.

I am going to try and highlight the problems with this briefly:
1. Is he actually fine? How do you know? Most day-cares do not allow owners to observe what happens while their dogs are at day-care. The dogs are dropped off and left with other people. Most day-care owners have ZERO qualifications in dog behaviour or training and do not understand stress signals or inappropriate social behaviour. Those that might pick up problems usually have absolutely no clue how to address them humanely – some still use pet correctors, verbal reprimands and shake cans to deal with issues. I have seen videos of dogs reported to be “fine” at day-care: dogs that are shut down and trying to avoid other dogs, dogs that are being bullied by other dogs, but have no way out, and dogs that are bullying other dogs and having a glorious time doing so. Many bullied dogs learn to switch off and “tolerate” what is happening around them, but put them in another environment, like a walk, where they are less shut down and they may use aggression to try and avoid other dogs.

2. If your dog is going to day-care to socialise, one would assume that the time there is spent in the company of other dogs. The question is how many other dogs and for how long? Dogs should NOT be playing for hours with other dogs. Yes, many young dogs and puppies will seem happy to keep playing, but without any interruption and down-time they WILL become overstimulated and emotionally exhausted. This is NOT healthy. The typical “happy” day-care dog is the one who then tries to go for a walk with the owner or join a group class for training and ends up screaming his head off whenever he does not have access to the other dogs. Why? Because when a dog is taught that being around other dogs equals continuous play, they cannot cope with being denied this when seeing dogs in other situations and become frustrated to the point of anger (reactivity).

I realise that people want “sociable” dogs, but a well-socialised dog is a dog that knows when it is appropriate to play with friends and when it is appropriate to LEAVE OTHER DOGS ALONE. A well-socialised dog is one that has had the opportunity to learn that they can quietly leave a situation they are not happy with, not one that is forced into shut down by hours of unpleasant experiences. I know the intentions of sending dogs to day-care for socialisation are generally good, but please don’t do it. Don’t leave it to someone else to socialise your dog and remove yourself from the equation – unless you want a dog that has no interest in you and whose behaviour you have little real experience of because you actually are not seeing what is going on when you are not there.

08/31/2023

Some days the cute is almost too much to bear. And his name? Schnitzel. Schnitzel! 😍

08/29/2023

I get it, they are small and cute and you just want to pick them up and smooch them! But consent matters and it is important to respect a little dog's personal space and boundaries just as you would a much larger dog.

Today, I want to talk about little dogs.  I was at a client’s home a few weeks ago, doing a behavior consultation for their adorable two-year-old Maltese mix.  “Chloe” had a tendency to g…

08/26/2023

Happy National Dog Day from me and mine to you and yours! 💕

08/15/2023

Today I would like to express gratitude to all of my clients, past and present, for trusting me to help you with your dogs. I feel fortunate every day to be able to do what I love and that is all because of you. Give your pups an extra treat from me and keep up the great work! 😊🐾

08/02/2023

A great motto to live by! 🐾

07/09/2023

I don't know about you but there's definitely a dog in my household who would order this if he could! 😅

06/23/2023

I LOVE getting updated pics of puppies I used to work with! Sophie, you are as beautiful as ever! 🥰

04/27/2023

Great article on teaching polite play!

An IAABC Foundation Publication

03/14/2023

https://www.fearfreehappyhomes.com/how-to-choose-a-responsible-breeder/?fbclid=IwAR2dDX0Pgv_pQweJWHwng6chiAgBKvvB7jOE07Cu-E7LYBtaCj_ggIFzIsM

If you purchase a puppy from a breeder, here are some things to look for, to help ensure you choose a responsible breeder.

02/18/2023

PLEASE!! I see so many issues created by this one common mistake that new puppy parents make.

Please. For the love of dogs everywhere, stop taking everything out of your puppies mouth. You’re often creating more problems than you’re solving.

Puppies put everything in their mouths the way newly crawling or walking babies do. It’s the age of exploration and discovery and inquisitive little minds with teething little mouths means everything must be tasted. This is 100% normal developmental behavior. It shouldn’t be punished or discouraged.

When we sn**ch things out of their mouths, or chase them or grab it away from them, we run the risk of several issues, the top two being -

1. We teach our puppy that anything they have could be lost the second a human comes near, and that can very quickly snowball into resource guarding - which is already a natural behavior - but we are actually just encouraging it by validating to our puppy that they lose things when we are around. This is especially true in homes with children and toys out all the time. Then this spirals into all kinds of relationship issues down the road.

2. We can teach our puppy the best thing they can do is INHALE the item so they don’t lose it. This gets dangerous and ugly very quickly. It can also create puppies and dogs to then not even think but just grab consume.

Leaves, sticks, grass, mud, dust bunnies, socks (depending on your puppies size), shoes, all the things within reach are fair game for mouthing and chewing on. And yes, I let my puppies explore them all. Their teeth and jaws at this infantile stage aren’t going to do extreme harm to an item right now, so go head and feel what a shoe sole feels like, get it out of your system. If I don’t want certain things explored, I keep those things out of reach, end of story. Management and supervision is key to safety at this age. Baby gates, playpens, even only pottying in areas of the yard where there’s no gravel. The ONLY things I will readily tackle my puppy over is medicine and/or broken glass. Everything else, even if it’s something I truly don’t want them to have, like a pair of underwear or a doll, I take my time in retrieving it, but more often than not, the puppy will spit it out anyway and move on to graze on the next thing they can find, especially if I toss something more interesting nearby. (Drop that stick to come chase this leaf on the ground)

The majority of puppies will explore the item with their mouth, shred it if they can, then move on to something else to repeat this process with. IF they consume any of it, it’s usually very minor and they will p**p it out later. We have to remember dogs have been existing for 18,000 years, 80% of them still living the way they always have, and going through this stage just fine, our human interventions are not always needed, even though we mean well and are trying to help.

Of course there are exceptions to this, and in those cases we have other solutions, but the majority of puppies I see exploring with their mouths DONT a need hands constantly grabbing them and removing it out of their jaws. If you find yourself doing that all the time, it may be on YOU to manage the environment better!

This process combines with the work we teach in all our puppy classes of having a puppy HAPPY to have you approach them when they are enjoying something in their mouth. We call it the “exchange game” where we teach how to trade. But we also teach the puppy we don’t always take it away either. This helps puppies feel safe in letting you take something from them by learning they won’t ALWAYS lose it.

So, long story short, let your puppy - puppy. Grab a leaf, lay in the grass and shred it. Then find a stick to chew on. We have to get better at picking our battles with dogs if we are both as a species going to enjoy our time together.

Editing this post to add - I’d hope it would be obvious but apparently it’s not, so please know in no way shape or form am I encouraging or saying it’s okay to let your puppy chew or mouth dangerous objects or to leave them unsupervised in places that may have serious objects in them. Environments have to be managed just the same way they are for babies, as I mentioned above, and puppies/dogs need to be supervised. I am however, stating that we have to stop helicoptering around puppies that are just being puppies in order to help alieviate some of the behavior problems that develop from not the managing itself; but the micro managing.