Pawsitive Reactions: Positive Dog Training and More

16/08/2025

Does your dog cobb? Do you know what that means? Read here for more on this subject.

Whole Dog Journal‘s mission is to provide dog guardians with in-depth information on dog food, training, behavior, health, and more.

16/08/2025

From the archives, well worth a reshare. Please listen to your dog. You are all that they have.

So you’re at an outing, standing next to your spouse or friend. Someone approaches you with a tray filled with hors d’oeuvres, and offers one to you. You look at the tray, but then say “no, thank you.” The waiter moves away.

Now, imagine if after saying “no, thank you” the waiter didn’t go away. Imagine if the waiter continued to push you to take one, and even your spouse started saying “come on, take one!” So you uncomfortably took and ate one, even though it wasn’t what you wanted. You’d probably be pretty aggravated with your spouse too. But you think it’s a one off and you carry on with the evening.

A few minutes later another waiter approaches with another tray, and the same thing happens. This time you feel yourself get more upset, especially after saying “no” multiple times. But your spouse insists also, even going so far as to take the snack off the tray and try to put it in your mouth. By the end of the interaction, you’re really on edge.

The third or fourth time you see a waiter approach you, you’re feeling either stressed, angry, or both. The waiter hasn’t even gotten all the way over to you yet and you’re ready to yell “no!” You look around for a place to escape to but your spouse/friend has their arm around you and you can’t back away. You end up physically snatching the tray from the waiter and throwing it on the ground, yelling obscenities and getting as quickly out of the room as possible. The guests look at you while your spouse simply says “I don’t know why she’s being so aggressive! They were just wanted to give her a snack!” I’m guessing you would be pretty angry at your spouse/friend by this point too. They aren’t helping support you at all. You can’t trust them OR the waiter.

You see where I’m going with this don’t you?
Try to imagine if your “no thank yous” were ignored. How many times would it take being ignored for you to get angry, get physical, or try to escape, or worse, just shut down completely. Everyone would handle it differently, but we’d all hate it.

Dogs deal with this EVERY DAY. They say “no, thank you” all the time. And we often times are guilty of ignoring that request and trying to convince them otherwise, sometimes even going so far as to force them through something because WE don’t understand. And then we wonder why dogs reach a point of aggressing or avoiding. Whether we are the waiter; trying to push something onto the dog like an interaction, or the spouse/friend not supporting the dog and backing up their request of “no, thank you” we are doing serious harm to the dogs confidence and even more harm to our relationship with them.

Your dog can only use his body language to tell you what he wants, so pay attention. If your dog says no thank you, listen. If they don’t want a stranger to touch them, support them. If they don’t want to meet a strange dog, let it go. If they want to take their time trying something different, let them take their time. I can tell you the more choice they feel they have the more likely they are to actually decide to try when they are ready. Just like you may finally get hungry enough to want a snack from the tray, but on your terms, and one that you get to pick.

Choice and consent matters in ALL species. Respect your dogs “no, thank you” and you’ll get a lot of respect back.

- Helen St. Pierre, No Monkey Business Dog Training. Please if you share give credit.

16/08/2025

Your Saturday funny.

15/08/2025

Excellent information!

It only takes a second to go from polite butt sniff to impolite Arghhhh - be vigil! Remember- dogs reactions are 'nano' seconds faster then yours so never hesitate to say NO to a meet and greet if you think your dog would be uncomfortable. IF they are in greet mode then stay alert and remove them as needed. Remember you know your dog- you don't know other people's dogs!

15/08/2025

Still important information for anyone in the general Pittsburgh area looking for assistance with their dog.

We've put together a list of certified trainers who practice modern, scientifically proven methods that will offer long-term positive outcomes.

Your furkids are family, so treat them with care, not abuse.

14/08/2025

Nailing it!

If you have spent any time with small children you are well aware that they learn and communicate a lot of their experience through sight.

Dogs on the other hand, they experience most of the world through scent.

It's vitally important that we help our dogs meet this basic sniffing need.

It's also not hard.

We just facilitate sniff games like scatter feeding, problem solving and we absolutely allow sniffing on walks.

To stop our dogs sniffing on walks is not just thoughtless but cruel.

Let's slow down and enjoy the moment with our dogs, by letting them use their beautiful noses.

13/08/2025

From the archives, always worth a reshare.

Walk away fast from any trainer who offers a guarantee. There is no way to guarantee the future behavior of a sentient being. Dogs are not robots.

Let's talk about guarantees. Quality dog trainers and behavior consultants who utilize modern rewards-based dog friendly methodologies do not offer guarantees for a very good reason. One cannot guarantee the behavior of another sentient being. One can only help them make better choices repeatedly with the help of their guardians and that my friends, means *you*, the dog parents. We all play a part in this equation.

So when you see a dog trainer making you a guarantee of any percentage but especially a 100% guarantee on training/compliance/obedience/whatever you want to call it, what you are really seeing is misinformation and that's the nicest thing that one can call it. Generally this type of offer is provided by an individual or a company who utilizes shock collars/e-collars/stim collars. Regardless of whatever benign sounding name they are rebranded as, they are still a means of controlling your dog with the application of pain. That is literally how they work. That is what they were designed for. No matter what someone tells you. That is *not* training by any means. That is a hostage situation.

Real training is changing existing nerve patterns, as well as forming new nerve patterns. That can only be achieved by true behavior modification, with operant and classical conditioning. It cannot be achieved by force. That is suppression. Do you truly want your dog to make better choices? Then choose modern rewards-based methods. Science supports that not only are these methods more long lasting, they also allow your dog to learn with the least stress possible. Forming appropriate nerve patterns for quality go to behavior choices in any context, is what truly training your dog is. Suppressing a behavior out of the fear of feeling pain is not training. Holding a button in your hand to punish your dog when they make a choice that you disagree with is not training. Choose true training and behavior modification . Be your dog's voice.

Below is my dog Kenzo, who is 160 pounds and very well trained, with modern rewards-based methods. He is also a livestock guardian breed. This is a breed that is often used as an example of a dog that "needs a heavier hand". That couldn't be further from the truth. He has only ever known kindness. The originator of this breed in the US was well before her time with the promotion of positive rewards-based methods. Kenzo wants your dogs to be trained with the same modern rewards-based science supported methods. Choose kindness.

12/08/2025

Since my post on dogs not being pack animals triggered someone calling themselves a trainer, who uses outdated punishment based methods, I give you this. Newsflash, when you call someone "woke", that is a compliment. That means that they embrace science, facts, empathy and compassion. As everyone should.

Words decide how you feel about a subject. Words have great power. Words have strong associations that cannot be easily changed. Some words have been so poisoned with inappropriate meanings that they are better of left behind.

12/08/2025

So much truth in this post!

Things that ALL puppies will do, regardless of their breed, where you got them from and how much you exercise them, manage them, or train with them:

🐶Have occasional accidents in your house for several months, and not know to “ask” to go out until they are much older. Some puppies potty train faster than others, but on average most puppies will have occasional accidents the first months you have them simply because life happens and we forget to get them out often enough! If they have an accident, don’t panic, just go back to basics and set your puppy up for success!

🐶Use their mouths to try and communicate with you. Puppies bite. A lot. They bite clothes, they bite hands, they bite feet, you name it they bite it. This is a NORMAL part of their development and should be expected. This means if you have young children, you must be prepared to heavily manage your puppy around your kids. Because they bite. A lot.

🐶Use their mouths to explore their world. Puppies use their mouths like human toddlers use their hands; they chew on things and grab things to figure out their world. It’s our job to make sure puppies are staying safe!

🐶Jump up on you to say hello. Puppies are impulsive and excitable. With impulsivity and excitability comes jumping. Can you start training four on the floor starting the very first day you bring puppy home? Absolutely. Does it mean your puppy will never jump? Nope. Humans forget our manners sometimes, puppies may too!

🐶Put EVERYTHING in their mouths. Again, puppies explore the world with their mouths. It’s normal, natural, and should be expected that your puppy will pick up sticks, and chew on leaves, and grab large wood chip pieces when they get the zoomies. Start training them to trade anything potentially harmful, but know that if you bring a puppy home you can expect them to grab EVERY THING.

🐶Shred and tear things for fun. Puppies are destructive little monsters. Be prepared to need to protect your favorite house plants and to have designated “puppy clothes” until your puppy outgrows their needle teeth!

🐶Need to be supervised until they are well into adolescence. Puppies are puppies until they are about 6 months old, at which time they become adolescents or “teens”. Your puppy is not an established adult DOG until they are 2 or 3 years old. So be prepared to play the long game, and don’t be surprised if your 9 month old teen still needs lots and lots of guidance and supervision!

I think sometimes people fool themselves into thinking that if they get the right puppy from the right breeder or they get the puppy at the right age, or if they start training right away, they’ll be able to side step these issues. But the truth is that all of the above are completely NORMAL developmental milestones for puppies. If you bring home a puppy you must be prepared for potty training, crate training, biting, chewing, jumping, shredding, barking, grabbing, tugging, and more! These are NORMAL puppy behaviors and puppies deserve our patience when dealing with these issues!

11/08/2025

Such important information!

Fight, flight, freeze, faint or fidget are the 5 main responses to fear.
We only have to look at our own behaviour to know different personalities have different reactions and so do our dogs.
So when it comes to observing behaviour, we need to keep our individuals in mind and stay curious as we do so.

Find FREE body language videos on the App. (Link in bio)

How does your dog show fear?