She stood arguing with me. She’d had German Shepherds all her life, but never a high drive dog. She’d only had this one for three months, and had been trying to get it to stop reacting for six weeks. Nothing was working.  It was a smart dog. More than one experienced dog person had taken this dog and worked ‘miracles’ within two or three minutes. But, well – as far as the dog was concerned…   Continue

We had an interesting discussion a week ago. Despite the wolf dog relationship has been disproved for over 15 years the belief in the ‘dominance’ or ‘alpha’ theory is still entrenched firmly in today’s dog training world. I tried to keep emotions out of this article, and relate the research in a way that can be validated, online. Wild dogs live in families, not the ‘packs’ that we believe. These families do not have an…   Continue

Note: I could not have written this article as well without some clarity and structure from Susan Garrett’s training courses. What is a Verbal Cue? A verbal cue is a word that tells your dog what you want it to do. In all dog sports, except scent, luring, and tracking we want to tell the dogs what we want. Even basic obedience has cues that tell the dog what we want. Unfortunately, we tell the…   Continue

“Cortisol, a glucocorticoid (steroid hormone), is produced from cholesterol in the two adrenal glands located on top of each kidney. It is normally released in response to events and circumstances such as waking up in the morning, exercising, and acute stress. Cortisol’s far-reaching, systemic effects play many roles in the body’s effort to carry out its processes and maintain homeostasis.” Dina Aronson MS RD. Cortisol is an important part of your immune system. But like…   Continue

I have a new client this week and it brought me to the whole Cortisol problem. They wanted me to ‘train’ the reactivity out of their dog. Their exact words were ‘he needs some discipline to teach him some manners.’  I cringed, and tried to explain. One of the hardest things to explain to people is that: Your dog cannot help being this way Your dog does not enjoy feeling stressed Your dog is not…   Continue