Mountain Life Positive Dog Training

02/06/2025

If you are planning to take your dog places this summer, there are just a few things that we recommend to make life easier. And one of the things we did was spe

02/06/2025

01/06/2025

Your dog can literally smell how you’re feeling 🧠👃🐾

Dogs don’t just have a good sense of smell — they’ve got a superpower. While we have around 5–6 million scent receptors, dogs can have up to 300 million!

The part of their brain that processes smells is about 40 times larger (proportionally) than ours. This allows them to detect incredibly subtle chemical changes — including the ones your body gives off when you're feeling stressed, angry, or anxious.

This is how your dog can smell your emotions.
And it explains why some dogs appear to “look guilty” when you’re upset — not because they know they’ve done something wrong, but because they’re picking up on your emotional state and reacting with appeasement or fear-based behaviours.

That so-called “guilty look” is actually your dog saying, “You feel different, and that’s making me nervous.” 😔🐶

Understanding this helps us respond with compassion instead of blame. 💜

👉 Have you ever seen your dog respond to your mood like this? Tell us below.

20/05/2025

19/05/2025

We Come to Know Things in Many Ways



Two days ago at the Canine Science Symposium, I listened to Dr. Nathan Hall explain how detection dogs are brought into the learning environment.

Before training even begins, they’re given up to 7 days to just settle in. Incidentallly, when i bring a new dog into rescue, i dont ask anything of the dog for up to 3 days. No formal introductions with people or dogs. Just introduction to routine.
No formal expectations. No pressure.
Because—and I’m paraphrasing here—

“If it’s uncomfortable, learning doesn’t happen.”

That moment stuck with me. Not just because it’s true.
But because it came not from someone that researched emotion, but from someone with deep experience in the high-performance world of scent detection.

And it’s a reminder:

We come to know things in many ways.
Through science.
Through experience.
Through mistakes.
And through paying close attention to what the dog is really telling us.

Countless trainers—including myself—have moved away from heavy-handed approaches not because someone convinced us with a study, but because we saw it for ourselves:

The dog was scared or uncomfortable—
And they weren’t learning what we thought they were learning.

That realization changed everything.

I don’t know how many papers Dr. Hall has read on the neuroscience of fear.
But I know what he’s seen in the field looks like the research. At least the small observationion he availed the audience to.

The brain doesn’t learn well under stress.
Not when it’s afraid.
Not when it’s coping.
Not when it’s just trying to survive the moment.

So if your training plan doesn’t start with comfort

You may get behavior.
But you’re not getting learning.

15/05/2025

12/05/2025

We are hopefully leaving behind a culture of pushing dogs until they behave the way we want them to. Let's be so very aware that behaviour is a symptom and as dog guardians and professionals our role is is work out what it's a symptom of. Not sure? need help? drop us a line below.

07/05/2025

There's a lot of myths out there about prong collars, but this is one of the top ones.

Not only does it hurt, it was patented and "designed to create pressure and tension on a dog’s neck to stop the dog from pulling." By definition and design, it's intended to hurt when the dog pulls. "This results in the application of pressure to the neck of the animal being trained." I link to the patent description in my post if you want to read the whole thing.

We know there are better ways. Know better, do better.

And, as a reminder, promoting aversives on this page will not be tolerated and that includes "if you use it correctly." There is no correct way to hurt a dog. This is an educational post, not a debate forum.

https://rescuedbytraining.com/2025/05/05/fallout-prong-collar/

06/05/2025

Sign and share the petition!

https://www.change.org/p/certified-trainers-demand-humane-standards-end-ccpdt-s-support-of-harmful-tools?recruiter=876456161&recruited_by_id=3c0389b0-5a92-11e8-8c55-4bc699bbce5b&utm_source=share_petition&utm_campaign=psf_combo_share_initial&utm_term=psf&utm_medium=copylink&utm_content=cl_sharecopy_490554495_en-US%3A4&fbclid=IwY2xjawKHGIRleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHvIinCBPgiW_XUIlhMsWIh8YNY5EvBa6JZbh4t2shioFlSDBvbEAjRx9-bNZ_aem_cmOXFthsdxOPkOrG9QLwag

Certified Trainers Demand Humane Standards: End CCPDT’s Support of Harmful Tools

05/05/2025

Let's not assume that behaviour is automatically a problem. Let's be aware that our dogs are telling us something crucial...

27/03/2025