Spreading knowledge and education for humane, force free treatment of all animals with …
EMPATHY & COMPASSION
How often do your take your dog to the vet office for a “fun” visit? If you are like most people, we only take our pets to the vet when they are sick or need vaccines. If this is the case, it is likely that your dog does not like to go to the vet. […]
Our lives are very busy and sometimes it seems like there is no time to train the family dog. However, this does not need to be the case. Studies have shown that dogs learn best with short (3-5 minute) training sessions. With this in mind, there is no need to plan a 30 minute training session, instead just put training into your daily routine. […]
Many people think that positive reinforcement, force free training is all about bribing our dog’s to do things. This is simply not true. Unlike traditional, punishment based training, positive reinforcement training is science based. Numerous studies have been done to show that learning is more effective when the learner is reinforced for desired behaviors. […]
Relationship experts Dr. John and Julie Gottman, as well as other well-known psychotherapists have spent years researching what creates happy marriages. These researchers looked at many different aspects of relationships regarding age, personalities and a host of other factors. However, at the end of the day, the most telling factors regarding the health of a relationship has more to do with the little day to day reactions between couples. […]
It is a misconception that positive reinforcement trainers just give treats for every behavior. This is simply not true. With positive reinforcement training, we are looking to reinforce behaviors that we like, and ignore or redirect unwanted behaviors. When behaviors are reinforced, they are repeated (if you did not get paid, would you still go to work every day?). For example, if a dog is reinforced for sitting when he approaches a person, he is more likely to sit than jump. With “traditional training” the trainer is always looking for what the dog does wrong so it can be “corrected”. The biggest problem with this method is that most people “correct” too late or when the dog is actually being good! I was once at an event and saw a dog sitting nicely by his human and out of the blue the person “popped” his pinch collar! That made the dog stand up, then “popped” again! The poor dog was so confused he began to pant and cower from stress! If I could not tell what the owner wanted, how could the dog? Positive reinforcement trainers spend their time setting the dog up for success. They prevent or redirect [...]
