Canine Nation

Coming to a new understanding of dogs and dog training was a conversion of sorts for me. It has been an interesting journey. I went from skeptic to student to evangelist before finding a way to put it all in perspective. It can be too easy to try to right the big wrongs and fight […]

People are people and dogs are dogs. Sometimes people can “clever” themselves right past their dogs while training and then get frustrated when the dog doesn’t “get it.” Maybe if we learn to keep it simple, we can learn to build amazing things with our dogs – like behaviours and relationships.  We might even learn […]

While I have learned a great deal from books by Karen Pryor, Jean Donaldson, John Bradshaw, and many others, my greatest education in dogs and dog training came from teachers much lower to the ground. My dogs have taught me the most important things about training and dog behaviour. I wasn’t always the best student, […]

Training our dogs is like a game of charades. We’re just trying to get them to do the thing we’re trying to teach them. But who wins and who loses? Well, since we’re the ones running the game, I guess we get to decide. How often does your dog win? How often do they lose? […]

It was Autumn and there were dogs flying up and down the hill in our back yard. It’s a tradition here at our home to let the dogs get their exercise by scrambling up and down the hill in some spirited play. Their recent romp out back reminded me just how important play is for […]

This is something I have wanted to say for a long time but couldn’t figure out how. All of this debate of The Dog Whisperer has always struck me as something of a futile exercise. It isn’t even a show about dog training. It is Reality TV at its finest. The producers at National Geographic […]

Dogs can be pretty persistent creatures. This is especially true if they know they can get what they want. Sometime our reactions can encourage their annoying behaviour even though we are trying to stop it. Maybe we need to think ahead and know what to do before we just react. How we respond when our […]

Wouldn’t you love a perfectly trained dog? I thought so too. Then I did a little reading about “perfect” dogs. The ones who are instantly compliant and never do anything unexpected. My dogs aren’t machines provided for my amusement and required to immediately attend to my every command. My dogs are, well, imperfect dogs. Dogs who […]

Humans are reasoning creatures. We have a tremendous capacity to reason out how things work from the barest of facts. But when it comes to dogs, perhaps we need to take care in how we reason. Observation is often a useful companion for reason. Dogs are not what we think they are. They are what […]

We’re back from our 2 week road trip with our dogs! It’s always fun but it takes a bit of extra planning to make sure the physical and mental needs of our dogs are met while we our on the road. Thinking ahead and bring the things you need is part of it, but taking […]

We enjoy travelling. Many times, we travel off to dog events like Dog Agility Trials. Leaving our dogs behind when we travel is just not an option for us. So even before we ever leave home, we are already teaching our dogs the skills they need to be happy and comfortable travellers. You might be […]

I talk quite a bit about dogs and science in my articles. But other than reading about it in books, it can be difficult to find real research and science on canine cognition, biology, genetics, or behaviour. I was fortunate to attend a conference recently with some of the leading scientists researching dogs. To say […]

We have all kinds of signals for our dogs. Most common are “that’s wrong” or “that’s right.” But do we have other signals for our dogs? There are some we might not even realize we are giving them. They know when it’s time for a walk or when we are preparing dinner. Maybe they even […]

Our dogs are going to make mistakes when we train. And we have a choice to make about how we respond to those errors. The fastest way to get the behaviour we want might also discourage our dog from wanting to learn anything else with us. How we tell our dogs they didn’t get it […]

Giving your dog a reward will certainly encourage them to perform behaviours for you. But what do they find most rewarding? Do you reward them often enough? Do you know how the mechanics of rewards affect your dog’s behaviour? You might be surprised at how it all works. The science of behaviour provides us with […]