Leaps and Hounds Behavior

11/27/2025

Happy Thanksgiving, Friends! 🦃🍁🙏

11/23/2025

The families we support are learning all about the POWER of predictable patterns (PPPs) and how to identify and build these with their dogs. PPPs leverage contextual or environmental cues, to convey meaning for our dogs (and us) and inform what's coming next - they're such a critical aspect in our Family Dog Mediation work!

Here's an excellent video from one our fellow FDMs Miss Behavior Training, where she walks through the concept of PPPs and how we can harness them to create predictability, safety, stability, and trust for our dogs!!

Dogs are expert pattern detectors. Whether we plan it or not, our daily rhythms—alarms, shoes, coffee, leashes—create meaning for our pups. In this video, I ...

11/15/2025

Just came across our feed!! This is an excellent FREE resource for supporting the needs and welfare of deaf and blind dogs 🐕 ❤️🙏

Free e-book Your Blind & Deaf Dog: All You Need to Know to Get Started on the Right Path, by Deb Bauer, Blind and Deaf Dog Expert

https://uniquely-paws-able.teachable.com/p/blind-deaf-dog-ebook

11/14/2025

Luna “Looney Tunes” first visit to a rich and beautiful 10 acre Sniffspot yesterday. Look at the pure bliss and joy when she found this bone!! This is the perfect space for dogs to romp and do dog things in nature 🌳🌎🐕

11/06/2025

One of our FAVs for adventures with our clients dogs! A beautiful 10 acre Sniffspot with many affordances for natural behaviors, located in Roberts WI, just 10 minutes east of Hudson.

*Check out the listing to make sure this property meets you and your dogs criteria (note: it’s 3/4 sheep fenced with the Kinnickinnic River as a natural barrier for the remaining end of the property): https://www.sniffspot.com/to/XF6XjIU9

11/05/2025

We've been shouting it from the rooftops for years now... DOGS ARE NOT BROKEN!

Every bark, lunge, or sigh is a reflection of welfare, not disobedience. Each behavior tells a story about how a dog feels, what they need, and how they’re coping with the world around them, breadcrumbs showing us the way.

Welfare is not a single moment in time.
It’s the ongoing story of a dog’s life across the Five Domains, viewed through the lens of their unique L.E.G.S. (Learning, Environment, Genetics, Self):
▪Their nutritional needs and experiences
▪Their physical environment, comfort, and freedom from distress
▪Their health and fitness
▪Their ability to express natural behavior and experience agency
▪Their emotional and mental well-being

A dog’s welfare is our responsibility. And it’s about much more than enrichment.
It’s about environmental optimization*, creating the right conditions for each dog to function, adapt, develop, and thrive within their world.

A “calm” dog is not always a happy one.
A “quiet” dog is not always at peace.
Real wellness cannot be judged by a single moment or photograph. It’s measured by patterns of behavior over time, by the choices dogs are free to make, and by the trust they have in their environment and the people within it.

When we shift our focus from behavior to welfare, everything changes.

This November, we’re grateful for the professionals who see beyond “good behavior” and into the heart of what it means to live well, for those helping dogs find the Good Life.

If you’re ready to deepen your understanding of dogs through the science of welfare and evolve toward a truly welfare-conscious profession, the L.E.G.S.® Applied Ethology Family Dog Mediation Professional Course, now including the Total Welfare Framework, will change the way you see behavior forever.

✨ 50% off sitewide | Code: GRATEFUL50
💛 Flash Sale: Nov 5–10 (Staff & Friends Pricing included—up to 80% off)

Because when we understand welfare, we finally understand dogs.


*(Littlewood et al., 2023)

11/04/2025

Chocolatey labby lab must have all things in mouth!! The squeak just adds a whole other level of intensity 🤣👏

11/04/2025

Awesome Sniffspot adventure with Sagey the adolescent lab!! Doing all the doggy things!

11/04/2025

We’re rockin’ the Sniffspot adventures with our clients dogs! Here’s Sagey doing ALL the doggy things at a wonderful new Sniffspot this morning!! Chewing, scavenging, retrieving, carrying sticks, and even leaf snorkeling— there’s so many adolescent ‘gun dog’ needs being met in this environment! After this, we’ll work on some pattern games for walks🌞🌎 🙏

11/03/2025

Rosie’s Sniffspot adventure was incredible yesterday! Let’s talk about the affordances of the environment, “what it offers the animal, what it provides or furnishes, either for good or ill. … It implies the complementarity of the animal and the environment.” — James Gibson, The Theory of Affordances

This 10 acre sniffspot provides an abundance of affordances for her as a lively Doodle at the end of adolescence— the freedom to explore and go where the wind takes her, plentiful sniffing, playing, running, chewing, dissecting, scavenging, digging, and more!

The opportunity to perform these healthy natural behaviors/interactions in this environment is ESSENTIAL to her welfare. These affordances “for good” are just as important to provide as reducing or managing those “for ill”, I.e. the events that cause or lead to elevated fear/anxiety/stress and conflict in her life.

Rose and her peeps have come a long way, through a ‘welfare first’ approach aimed at MEETING ALL THE NEEDS. This has included cooperative care which they’re now excelling at, thanks to an integrated care team! It’s been a joy to watch Rose and family thrive ❤