Dogs Above and Beyond

06/08/2024

What most people go to a dog trainer for is to fix an adult dog that is driving them crazy or trying to eat every other creature including the other dog they've lived with for years. What they get, all too often, is someone telling them that all they need to do is teach their dog how to sit, down, stay, come and heel. And maybe a few other behaviors like leave it or go to your place. These are fine tricks to know, and they can help in the process of handling inappropriate behavior, but they are not the remedy.

When your dog or dogs are locked in a battle over food or toys or even just space, teaching the dogs to sit is not going to handle their emotions and shared antagonism.

When your dog is destroying your dry wall, chewing up crates and driving the neighbors crazy with the constant howling and barking when you are at work, teaching her to 'come' or 'heel' does not fix the anxiety and loss she feels every time you walk out that door. Find someone who is going to work with you on your dog's emotions, confidence and ability to live in a human world.

06/07/2024

Boundaries & Biscuits is ready for pre-order here:

"Boundaries & Biscuits: My Dog, My Partner, My Boundaries: Navigating Public Life with a Service Dog and Dealing With People Who Won’t Leave You and Your Dog Alone” is a comprehensive guide that delves into the intricate world of navigating public interactions with a service dog. This book offer...

06/06/2024

Seeing too much "need to control" in the world right now. So I pulled this out of the archives.

So you think a good smack in the face is control? It isn't. It just shows that you don't understand what control is. Violence says that you can't handle others doing their own thing, so you resort to brute force.

Real control? Real control is influence without force.

Violence is a dead end. It creates fear and resentment, but it doesn't solve problems or build lasting control. Violence tears things down, it doesn't build them up. Violence only leads to more problems in the long run.

The need to meticulously control others often stems from a deep-seated fear. Perhaps they fear failure, being out of control themselves, or losing something important. This fear can be a telltale sign. A person who constantly tries to manipulate others' actions is likely creating resentment and pushing people away, the very things they fear most.

True strength lies not in controlling others, but in trusting yourself and navigating the world with confidence. Open communication and collaboration are far more effective than manipulation.

06/03/2024

I have seen dogs become more confused and people more frustrated simply because of a lack of communication. Even the least assertive of humans (think wallflower at the prom), affects a dog with their communication (think body language). Just by changing the way you are oriented toward a dog can completely change how they respond to you.

I once stopped a bully bitch from trying to eat me because she thought I was going to harm her pups. By simply assuming a predator body position and thinking with full intention "if she doesn't stop charging she is going to get a fist down her throat". She stopped dead in her tracks, turned around and ran back to the yard her pups were in (I was walking with my ex in the middle of a street).

Dogs read our body language with a lot more accuracy then we think is possible.

06/03/2024

Don't think that Dog Trainers' dogs don't have the same problems you do, they do, since puppies/dogs do things to annoy us but which is totally normal for them.

The difference is, that knowledgeable dog trainers know what is normal and natural for their pups/dogs, and prevent problems before they become ingrained bad habits. They also know that their pups/dogs need to be exercised, trained, taught tricks, given toys, bones, etc for mental stimulation. They need to work, to do something rather than spend the whole day doing nothing and so get into trouble to amuse themselves.

06/02/2024

05/27/2024

Dogs form habits just as we do - and some of them are just as destructive as ours 🙂 When left too long, aggressive behaviors can become a habit. First the dog understands that certain behaviors work either to chase scary things away or to get a human to do something for them. Then they practice and practice and even start looking for the triggers that cause the aggressive behavior. Why? Because it feels good - or so the dog thinks. The behavior is reinforced, that's pleasure, that's survival. It can only get stronger like a drug addict looking for his next fix.

I've seen this with Chesovy over these months of working on his reactivity in the mobile home park. He is so much better now than he was at the beginning, but there is still work to be done. The work centers around the "pleasure" he gets from the release of tension when confronted with a trigger and responding to it. And, it's also interesting to note that it has some to do with trigger stacking as well.

He sees a cat, basically ignores it. Then he smells something and starts huffing. It's at this point I usually get out the tug, but depending on the smell, the tug may not be enough. It's always a smell after that first sighting. He can ignore what he sees now, but if a strange smell is added, watch out.

And of course, this is a 55+ mobile home park. Too many of the residents smoke that wacky tobaccy and he hates that smell. So morning walks (5:30am) are easy, it's the rest of the day that I have to be alert.

05/22/2024

Clever gimmicks of mass distraction yield a cheap soulcraft of addicted and self-medicated narcissists.
Cornel West

05/19/2024

"One of the basic principles of human behavior is that desires lead to beliefs, and beliefs lead to action. Some critics have deeply held beliefs that conflict with our own. Sometimes those beliefs conflict with scientific and legal principles. But people tend to base their opinions on belief rather than on fact. Changing belief is hard. If we want to meaningfully change actions, our accepted practices, we need to change the beliefs that drive them. To do that we need to accept that belief has to adapt over time to drive our actions and to allow us to adapt to changing expectations." Jim Crosby

05/15/2024

We know so much about so many things but we barely understand the abilities and innate talents of dogs. Dogs operate in the present moment. They know long before we do, using their abilities to smell and to hear, far beyond our awareness. Yet how many times do we say, “Stop barking, Go lay down.” to our dogs? Can we humans know everything they smell and hear?

• Can you smell cancer? Dogs can.
• Can you pick out the scent of a single man from a mile over a huge city? Dogs can.
• Can you smell a 3 month old body under 6 feet of concrete? Dogs can.
• Can you feel an earthquake coming before it hits? My 3 month old puppy and my sister's dog 10 miles away from me, did in the 1972 quake in Northridge, CA.

05/14/2024

"Dog training is sort of like learning to read. You start off with the ABCs, then you move on to Dick and Jane, then you start reading books by Judy Blume, then you eventually get to Tolstoy. When you took your dog to the dog park after only doing a few days of basic recalls, you essentially jumped from the ABCs straight to Tolstoy."
Victoria Schade

05/14/2024

In order for you dog to have any speed with an activity you are teaching her, your dog must be confident in her ability to perform that activity, must desire the activity in and of itself, must have confidence in you as the handler to steer her correctly and must have no fears of her body, the equipment or you.

05/09/2024

PEOPLE TRAINING TIP: Do not assume your dog knows how to meet and greet people properly. Teach them what you want them to do. Sit and wait? Down and wait? Wait for what - to be released to greet. Touch a hand palm to take away confrontation? Be treated? or have a toy? Very important for human reactive dogs to feel safe and to trust. But for a friendly dog - I use the same questions to decide what I want - I might trust my dog, but I do not trust all people to greet my dog. You say when, how and when is enough.

05/07/2024

I want to thank everyone for their wonderful responses to my request for things people say to us when we're out and about with our service dogs. They were all wonderful!! Some were amazing and some were surprising. I got close to 100 individual responses about half of which I'd heard before. It's amazing the lack of common courtesy people have these days.

So here is a sample of what the cards might look like - front and back.

05/06/2024

I see this happening so much in today's world. Change is so hard and yet change is what makes this universe we live in move.

What people do when you try to change things, whether for them or others (this is in order of what they will do, just like the grief scale when a loved one is lost)
1.Ignore you
2.Pretend to agree, but actually do nothing
3.Resist, delay, obstruct
4.Openly attack you (the dangerous phase, but also a sign that change is starting)
5.Absorb
6.Utilize
7.Take credit
8.Proselytize

05/06/2024

The main reason dogs display problem behaviors (aggression, excessive fear, OCD behaviors) and even normal canine behaviors (digging, chewing, marking, jumping) is because it's the only outlet they have for reducing stress.

Get out and "hunt" with your dog. That will release more stress then you could imagine and the problem behavior will start disappearing on their own.

And I've discovered that I feel better when "hunting" as well. Made me start thinking about those who LOVE to shop. Are they hunting?? LOL

05/05/2024

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BRDFL9FS?binding=paperback&qid=1714908972&sr=8-2&ref=dbs_dp_rwt_sb_pc_tpbk

Visit Amazon's Workbooks for Dog Training Skills Page and shop for all Workbooks for Dog Training Skills books. Check out pictures, author information, and reviews of Workbooks for Dog Training Skills

05/04/2024

Crate Training:
Whether your want to crate your dog or not in your home, your dog must still be crate trained. When he goes to the Vet for a procedure, or to the groomer, he will be crated. If you have not previously taught this skill, they will panic and suffer undue stress, due to your lack of preparing them with life-skills.

You owe it to your dog to crate train him. You also owe it to your groomer and Vet.

Monique Anstee
Victoria, BC

05/03/2024

Learning takes place in context. Even for humans, context - environment - is part of the learning process. It's the environment that creates the necessity for "proofing" or as I call it, distraction training. A dog takes in the entire environment as part of the behavior being taught. If the environment changes, it's almost like a new behavior to the dog. Think of it this way - if you learn to sit in chairs and someone asks you to sit on a log, you could think they were nuts or you could wonder if it's actually possible (will the log roll, are their ants or termites that might crawl in my pant legs, etc). Context is everything.

05/03/2024

There is no illusion greater than fear.
Lao Tzu

05/02/2024

https://www.amazon.com/author/accesstoservice

Follow Jamie Robinson and explore their bibliography from Amazon.com's Jamie Robinson Author Page.

05/02/2024

For Discussion

The quadrants aren't a foundational part of operant conditioning. They're one of those things that somehow get translated to gospel when science jargon gets co-opted by non-scientists. All that really matters is reinforcement, punishment, and extinction. Everything else is marketing.