Best Of Behavior, LLC. Dog Training and Behavior Consulting

Best Of Behavior, LLC. Dog Training and Behavior Consulting Helping you with dog training and behavior challenges by using science based, positive reinforcement based training and coaching for both your DOG, and YOU.

Learn to teach the skills your dog needs so that you can have happy lives together!

I am so deeply grateful and honored to have been asked to present at ABK in England, in a couple of weeks!  I have learn...
06/26/2025

I am so deeply grateful and honored to have been asked to present at ABK in England, in a couple of weeks!
I have learned so much over the last 25 years from every single one of the other presenters, so this feels a little surreal!
But I hope to bring a different perspective and approach for trainers, and their clients, to approach resource guarding challenges.
Excited to be back on my home soil! 🇬🇧

Speaker Update for ABK Conference 2025

We're sending our very best wishes to Elliot Connor, who has had to withdraw from the conference after being called in for a long-awaited operation scheduled just days before the event.

We wish Elliot all the best and hope to get him involved with something in the future once he has fully recovered.

Stepping into Elliot's place, we have the incredibe Sonia Fetherling who is going to be looking at resource guarding. Sonia is a trainer based in Chicago with an incredible depth of experience working with complex behaviour cases, and a special interest in working with resource guarding.

Sonia's full bio and talk details will be available on our website soon!

06/06/2025
Just over here, sharing that breed DOES matter 🤪😉
05/30/2025

Just over here, sharing that breed DOES matter 🤪😉

This happens quite frequently. 😥And with CAT’S too- especially bags and food bins!! Please take the necessary precaution...
05/28/2025

This happens quite frequently. 😥
And with CAT’S too- especially bags and food bins!!
Please take the necessary precautions to avoid tragedy!!

Getting ready for the long weekend ahead? Remember to destroy all chip and snack bags to minimize the risk of pet suffocation. Follow Prevent Pet Suffocation for more information.

😳Between myself and my colleague, Amy, collaboratively have between 50-55 years of experience of training. 👵🏻 That’s wil...
05/26/2025

😳Between myself and my colleague, Amy, collaboratively have between 50-55 years of experience of training.
👵🏻 That’s wild!
That’s only professionally training pet dogs!
(Amy has years of hands on experience in Veterinary clinics as a tech, specializing in emergency care, on top of that).

❗️Now- with ALL honesty- someone saying ‘We have X amount of years experience training’ can mean absolutely *zero* in what they can actually do for you and how they can help you.

‼️Why? Because if someone beats a dog with a stick for 15 years and believes that is the *only way*, then what are you getting?!
Yeah- someone who had beaten a dog for fifteen years who feels confident in their ability to beat a dog with a stick.

💡 That does NOT equate to a great trainer!
At least, we don’t believe that it does!

❓What makes a GREAT trainer?
Let’s consider that!

🔅Education. Experience. Adaptability. Individual assessment. Ability to pivot and change depending on what the dog is doing/feeling/showing/challenged with or by. Ability to look at the dog AND the owner and assess what the pair truly needs and how to best achieve those goals. Keeping current with science and education so they have the most updated information and techniques to help dogs.

🔆And *so* much more!

❗️Remember- just because you hear ‘We have always done it that way’ doesn’t mean that is the best way to do it- for your dog or you!!

‼️Now - that also doesn’t mean that everything ‘New’ is better either. With years of experience with ALL dogs , one tends to be better able to assess and help a dog in front of them.

⁉️ A trainer should have a metaphorical ’tool belt’ in which to reach into and help figure out the BEST way to help this dog learn!
Because assessing how a dog is handling learning within a lesson is paramount to a dog’s learning and achievement!

Training can (and often should!) look like THIS!!💋 Amy is enjoying loving on Winnie, one of our wonderful clients. Winni...
05/25/2025

Training can (and often should!) look like THIS!!

💋 Amy is enjoying loving on Winnie, one of our wonderful clients.

Winnie 🩷LOVES🩷 ‘Aunty Amy’, and we are using belly rubs as a ‘super charged’ reinforcer for her preferable behaviors (coming when called and coming up to a person with four feet in the floor/not jumping!)
🩵Belly rubs from Aunty Amy= Heaven for Winnie.🩵

Yes, we use food as reinforcers (things that increase the likelihood of a behavior happening again!), but we also use other things!
WE don’t dictate what the dog finds reinforcing - they do!

🧸 And we sometimes layer multiple reinforcers when we see/catch/obtain a preferred or desired behavior.
So belly rubs, praise, petting, access to places, toys, play, attention, eye contact are just some examples of the many reinforcers we frequently use with dogs.

Winnie’s pawrent was told by a previous trainer that Winnie absolutely needed aversive tools and techniques to learn.
❌ That is… Simply not true.

She is thriving in her training and both pawties (human and canine) are enjoying the work and deepening their connection and understanding of one another.

👏🏻 Pawfection!! Look at those happy faces!

Fantastic post and article about spay and neuter beyond the pediatric or typical ‘6 month’ recommendations we often hear...
05/24/2025

Fantastic post and article about spay and neuter beyond the pediatric or typical ‘6 month’ recommendations we often hear!

📖 Canine neutering: embracing the grey

In the latest issue of Vet Record, in advance of their upcoming BVA Live session, Rachel Dean, Kathryn Wareham and Caroline Scobie dive into the complexities of canine neutering, evidence-based care, and why certainty isn’t always possible – or necessary.

Read the article 👉 https://ow.ly/g5Ws50VXHfo

Then join them at BVA Live as they bring these insights to the stage in:
🎤 Canine neutering in context: Who? When? Why?
📅 9am, Friday 13 June
📌 Clinical Theatre 1

⚠️ BVA members can still access a bursary that covers the full cost of a ticket. Access here 👉 https://ow.ly/GZ6p50VXHf6

Librela.I’m not a vet, and I stay in my lane. BUT/ please know that I personally know people whose dogs have suffered th...
05/10/2025

Librela.
I’m not a vet, and I stay in my lane.
BUT/ please know that I personally know people whose dogs have suffered the worst possible side effects from this drug (death).
There are massive group lawsuits being filed against this company.
Beware and do your full homework and research before you allow this injection into your dog!

LIBRELA TRAGEDY
Can't stop thinking about the results of that Librela study by Farrell et al. (2025), published yesterday.

Ligament/tendon injury, polyarthritis, fracture, musculoskeletal neoplasia (new bone growth) and septic arthritis were reported NINE TIMES more frequently in Librela-treated dogs than the combined total of dogs treated with the comparator drugs for osteoarthritis.

Again, 9 times more than all the other drugs combined.

The 18-member expert panel unanimously concluded a strong suspicion of a causal association between Librela and accelerated joint destruction.

Many, like vet Josie Beug, have been warning us for a year to pay heed to the fact Librela managed to accumulate many times more adverse event reports since its release in the US in Oct 2023 (12,234 serious adverse event reports in just 18mths in America alone) than its nearest competitor, Rimadyl has EVER.

Bedinvetmab (Librela) was unleashed on the US pet market in October 2023 with an enormous budget from Zoetis and two small (highly questionable) studies (conducted by them). And that's all it took for, it seems, the worlds vets to start recommending it.

Because that's how it works, isn't it? A brand new, patented drug, shat out by the industry, accompanied by two little studies (run by them) and off we go to the races.

The first study, a safety and tolerance study, looked at varying doses of Librela (1mg/kg, 5mg/kg, 10mg/kg) in young, healthy, intact dogs aged 11-12 months. There was just 8 dogs in each group. After 6mths they did neurological tests, checked their vitals and that was that.

See, the manufacturers tested their drugs on young, robust dogs with no joint issues.

Farrell et al. (2025) were looking at side effects in older dogs with joint disease.

And they can do that little trial as often as they like AND they don't have to publish all the negative ones.

This was followed by, if you can believe it, a 6-month in-field study of 89 client-owned dogs WHO HAD PREVIOUSLY DEMONSTRATED A POSITIVE RESPONSE TO LIBRELA. After 6mths, the few adverse events noted were within predicted norms.

Veterinary Evidence took a look at these couple of studies prior to Librela's launch and concluded the supporting evidence was "weak", that any decision to use bedinvetmab "remains dependent on the judgement and experience of the clinician".
https://veterinaryevidence. org/index.php/ve/article/download/598/903?

See that? The onus is shifted to the clinician.

Do you know why? Because time and time again, once enough money is paid to the right people, dangerous drugs WILL get to market in the full knowledge that our doctors appear completely unable to notice / track side effects from the medications they are recommending.

Much like the absolute explosion in adverse events reported to VAERS following the introduction of mRNA gene therapies into the population five years ago, it's literally incredible how clinicians today will consistently ignore any and all adverse event reporting systems that we have put in place to FLAG ISSUES (since the Thalidomide scandal) until someone else tells them to stop.

Why is that?

In 2021, there was 717,577 adverse event reports submitted to VAERS for all COVID-19 vaccines combiines (nearly 300 million were administered to Americans that year), when typically VAERS receives between 30,000 and 50,000 adverse event reports annually for all other vaccines combined (150 million administered in the US in a given year).

And remember, studies show the figures that are reported to adverse event reporting systems are approximately 1-5% of the ACTUAL events that are going on.

So, for context, that 12,000 adverse events for librela in just 18mths in the US would become 240,000.

Folk say, but 25 million doses were given!! Yes, GLOBALLY. If we guess that maybe half those were sold in the US, it means potential ruin for a dog every 1 in 50 doses. Dogs are taking it monthly.

But worse, it was very predictable that this was going to happen. The drug couldn't pass human trials due to side effects.

Bedinvetmab, marketed as Librela, is a monoclonal antibody designed to alleviate osteoarthritis pain in dogs by targeting nerve growth factor (NGF).

While bedinvetmab itself was not developed for human use, its mechanism of action is similar-bordering-identical to other anti-NGF monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) that have been investigated in human clinical trials, namely tanezumab, fasinumab, and fulranumab.

Exactly like mRNA gene therapies before they were forced through in 2021, ALL trials for NGF monoclonal antibodies revealed major safety concerns that blocked their prior release, mostly concerning patients developing rapidly progressive osteoarthritis and accelerated joint degeneration. Even when adjusting the dose down and placing restrictions on concurrent NSAID use, the risks persisted. The US FDA had no other choice but to halt all trials of all anti-NGF monoclonal antibody treatments in 2012.

As folk will inevitably point out, there's no doubt Librela works for some, yes, the same way the mRNA gene therapies MAY have been useful in the initial stages for older, at-risk folk, maybe (although, side effects aside, studies show the more you took the more likely you were to get Covid...) but when you look at the data overall, its clear there is gong to be a lot of dogs very negatively impacted for life by this one.

At a minimum, please ask your vet for any other options in the osteo-arthritic pain relief department.

There are a plethora of things you can do to help osteoarthritis, the first is by reducing inflammation in the body. This means no more kibble as, studies show, it's inflammatory. Raw dog food is full of fresh calcium, glucosamine, chondroitin, hyaluronic acid, etc, all of which joints NEED. Moreover, the higher protein diets will reduce obesity, shown to greatly aggravate OA. You can jack up the omega 3, add some muscles. And this is all before you consider antiinflammatory, pain-relieving herbs like boswelia, devils claw. There is nutraceuticals. There is red light therapy. There is acupuncture. Massage. Hydro.

Has your vet done all of this with you before reaching for the NSAIDs and pain meds?

I doubt it. It's not vindictive. They know little about all those "alternative" (cheap, effective) treatments.

If you want some more options for osteoarthritis pain, askbradi .com.

If you feel you have been harmed, you can fill in the adverse event report yourself, doesn't need a vet.

UK folk here www. gov. uk/report-veterinary-medicine-problem

US folk here www. fda. gov/animal-veterinary/report-problem/how-report-animal-drug-side-effects-and-product-problems

REF
www.frontiersin. org/journals/veterinary-science/articles/10.3389/fvets.2025.1581490/full

🦮As a certified professional, I adore teaching my clients and local community about dogs and everything about them.My go...
05/08/2025

🦮As a certified professional, I adore teaching my clients and local community about dogs and everything about them.
My goal is to help prevent behavioral problems, as my job is quite often helping clients that have dogs with them!
As they say, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure!
So let’s take about young puppies for a minute…

🐶 Separating puppies from their mother and littermates at 6 weeks old can lead to several problems, including increased risk of behavioral issues like fear, aggression, and reactivity, as well as potential physical health problems like weakened immune systems.
Puppies learn essential social skills and bite inhibition from their mother and siblings, which they may not fully develop if separated too early.

Behavioral Problems:
Puppies who are separated from their mother and littermates too early may develop behavioral issues like fear, aggression, reactivity, and separation anxiety. They may also exhibit less developed bite inhibition, leading to more biting and more aggressive behavior.

Physical Health Issues:
Separation at 6 weeks can also increase the risk of physical health problems, such as weakened immune systems and increased susceptibility to illness, as well as potential nutritional deficiencies.

Socialization and Learning:
During the first few weeks of their lives, puppies learn essential social skills and bite inhibition from their mother and littermates. Separating them too early can prevent them from learning these crucial skills, which can lead to difficulties in interacting with other dogs and humans later in life. We often see pups with ‘harder’ mouths which means harder biting of humans as they learn not to bite us. The duration of which can also go on much longer than ‘normal’ puppy mouthing period.

Nutritional Needs:
Puppies rely on their mother's milk for essential nutrients in their early weeks. If separated from their mother too early, they may not receive adequate nutrition, which can impact their overall health and development, for life.

Overall Development:
Early separation can negatively impact a puppy's overall development, including their physical, emotional, and social well-being.

Separating puppies from a mother should be avoided at all costs unless the mother is aggressive toward them, or in some way detrimentally affecting her puppies.
Further separation from ALL siblings should be avoided until well after 8 weeks if they are already apart from the mother to avoid further disruption during this CRITICAL developmental period.

Having all puppies kept together should be a priority as puppies differ in a litter, and will have a more balanced exposure to other puppies and behavior when they have more of their siblings with them.

A behaviorally well balanced dog starts with their genetics, and epigenetics, after that, it’s their developmental stages that really matter- this is the nature and nurture.
If you adopt, you have no idea about the nature…but you can ask about the nurture.
Make sure your puppy has been correctly nurtured during their critical socialization!

Want to know more? Reach out to us and ask!
We love to help prevent problems before they ever become one…or more than one!

Attached is a paper from Cornell University.

https://www.vet.cornell.edu/departments-centers-and-institutes/riney-canine-health-center/canine-health-information/how-long-should-puppies-stay-their-mother #:~:text=Research%20has%20found%20that%20puppies,for%20at%20least%20eight%20weeks.r

05/04/2025

😳 Don’t worry Cora!

We got you!

💡We know that your Mum is learning ALL the things she needs to be successful- she loves you and we know that you love her.

☎️ We are here to help! Problem busters!! That’s what we are!

💃🏽 We will continue to swoop in and give her the info that she needs to help you (and her) so this will all be a distant memory one day!

😜 I promise you, you will laugh together at all this one day!

Welcome to Best of Behavior, Jordan! Look at this handsome boy with his soft eyes, soft mouth and that sweet face 😻You d...
05/04/2025

Welcome to Best of Behavior, Jordan!
Look at this handsome boy with his soft eyes, soft mouth and that sweet face 😻
You did so well today, sweet boy.
We know that you are going to blossom with your wonderful, loving owners as you all learn how to work through your big feelings with the best guidance and knowledge to help you on your journey.

P.S- I think Amy loves you back 💋 😉


We will be having a ‘Puppy Pop-up’ event at The Rock Shop in Homewood on March 9th. Lots of fun details to come! (But of...
02/16/2024

We will be having a ‘Puppy Pop-up’ event at The Rock Shop in Homewood on March 9th.
Lots of fun details to come!

(But of you want to come and get your puppy breath fix- mark your calendar!! And if you have any puppy, dog and cat related questions- come and ask away! 🙂😸) (Also….if you’re in the market to adopt, the puppies are up for adoption!) 🤭

Rockhound Pepper (she is speaking with her eyes, trust us) says tune in March 9 from 3-5 for a Best Of Behavior, LLC. Dog Training and Behavior Consulting pop-up tackling all things pup-related

Address

Homewood, IL

Opening Hours

Monday 9am - 5pm
Tuesday 9am - 5pm
Wednesday 9am - 5pm
Thursday 9am - 5pm
Friday 9am - 5pm
Saturday 10am - 2pm

Telephone

+18138101071

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Train for and Bring out the Best Of Behavior!

Helping you with Dog training and behavior challenges by using science based, positive reinforcement based training and coaching for both your DOG, and YOU. One to one in-home training and Zoom online virtual sessions available.