I’ve always been fascinated by placebos and I never understood why the phrase “the placebo effect” was often spoken with such disdain. Here is a standard definition (from Wikipedia): “A placebo is a simulated or otherwise medically ineffectual treatment for a disease or other medical condition intended to deceive the recipient.” Except, it’s not necessarily…

This is one of the questions I am most frequently asked, and with good reason. It’s a tough one. It’s also relevant to my own life right now, after having just introduced a new dog into the household, and having to make split-second decisions several times in the first few weeks. I should say first…

As some of you know, on January 9 I did a webinar for ASPCApro on adopting a dog into a multi-dog home. It was geared toward shelter and rescue professionals and volunteers, covering everything from how to do the first introduction to managing the household as time goes on, and what to do if it’s…

It’s not just us that sees our dogs as family; apparently, dogs see us as family too. This may not be shocking news to many of us, but it is always good to look at our beliefs objectively. An interesting study was recently published on Plos One about whether dogs are attached to their owners…

  This is Bits. He is a hybrid wolfdog. Or maybe some coyote, no one knows. He is drop-dead gorgeous and is flat out terrified of strangers. He has been living with Jayne and Mike Belskey at the Grey Wolf Central Wisconsin Rescue  for two years now, having been rescued by them as a panicked,…

One of the best things about being an author is being sent pre-publication copies of books. It’s great fun to see what’s going to be out on the bookshelves and eReaders in a couple of months. (Of course, one of the worst things about being an author is being sent pre-pub copies of books. They…

We all know the signs of imminent danger between two dogs right? Immobile stiff bodies, direct eye contact, round eyes. Except when dogs are playing and then the exact same postures and expressions are nothing but pauses between frolics. That is a perfect example of what’s called meta-communication, or communication about communication. Here’s a video…

Last week I posted a blog about giving our dogs more autonomy, and asked for comments about ideas on how to do so outside of working dogs on sheep. Many of the comments sent in response to that post are extremely helpful, and I encourage you to read through them. However, I know that time…

Recently I asked the question, “Can Dogs Tell Stories?” I didn’t mean stories in the sense of fictions we tell children to help them go to sleep at night, or novels about sexy spies, but stories as internal narratives that describe the “who, what and where” of an event in the past. In other words,…

Of course! It seems like a simple question, but as is often the case, our big, complicated brains allow us to add nuance to the answer. I’ve gone on record as arguing that yes indeed, mammals like dogs and horses can be happy, how could they not be? Feeling good is a way for the…

Lots of you liked the idea of doing some case studies, as well as reviewing and discussing photos and videos. I think it’s a great idea, so here goes our first one: Here’s Sleeves on the left, and Patch on the right. I’m sad to report that Patch died just last week and her sister…

On Friday I asked you what you thought was going on here, at least as best one could tell from a still photograph. I’m the first to agree it’s hard to say much from one brief moment in time, but it’s a great exercise nonetheless. It helps us all focus our attention and generate hypothesis…

Here’s an interesting case for you: A good friend has a lab cross, MeMe, who was badly skunked a few nights ago. This appeared to be a direct hit to the eyes, the poor dog was rolling desperately on the ground, gagging repeatedly and batting at her eyes. MeMe got medical care and appears to…

We’re happy to introduce Karen London, Ph.D. as a guest blogger for The Other End of the Leash this week!  Enjoy! If people go running by your home accompanied by their cats, geckos, ferrets, parrots, or rats, then you live in a very different neighborhood, perhaps even a different world, than I do. It’s just…

So much to learn, so little time! I recently did a guest appearance on Wisconsin Public Radio and didn’t do a very good job answering a question about a rabbit who pottied on the couch instead of its litter box. Thanks to an alert listener and member of the Wisconsin House Rabbit Society, I’ve learned…

If you’ve been following last week’s blog and the comments, you know that there’s been an active discussion about whether dogs can (or can’t) form “true” friendships. This was motivated by an article in Time Magazine by Carl Zimmer that discussed the evidence of friendship in several species of mammals, including dolphins, baboons and horses.…

I had an entirely different blog written and about to be posted, but there’s a swirl of discussion going on right now about an article that came out in Time Magazine by Carl Zimmer about “friendships” in animals. He has lots of good information from researchers who argue that true friendships are formed in many…

Earlier I wrote about Willie’s extreme and fearful reaction to a visiting man about a month ago, speculated about its causes and discussed how to respond. Here’s an update, and a few things I that might be helpful for anyone dealing with a behavior problem. The good news (yeah good news) is that Willie is…

So many books, so little time! Here are a few I’m enjoying: Magnificent Mind at Any Age by Daniel Amen. This is a fascinating book by a psychiatrist who began doing SPECT scans of his patients brains and discovered how many psychological/behavioral problems related to brain function. It’s an inspiring book for anyone looking to…

CAN DOGS GET ANGRY? Yup, I’m here to say that they can. Do they get angry as often as humans? Nope, and thank heavens for that. If they did, I doubt we’d live with them, given that they have carpet knives in their mouths. Just like people, they vary tremendously in how often they experience…

No, seriously. And so do you. No kidding. I’m so interested this, a relatively new discovery about what’s called the Enteric Nervous System, that I wanted to write about it today. I’ll get back to emotions in dogs soon, but I’m in the Oh Wow phase of this information, and wanted to share it. (Granted,…

Eeeps, where’d the day go? I was going to write about the emotion of disgust, but it’ll have to wait til tomorrow. But before the day is over I wanted to remind you that the Early Registration for the Jan 7-8 seminar I’m doing with Kathy Sdao is over tonight at midnight. I’m doing a…

Here’s TOOTSIE! Also known as: Little Bit, Mini Me and my favorite, Mop of the Woods. There’s a new kid on the block, or at the farm I should say. Meet Tootsie, a 7 year old King Charles Cavalier who was rescued by Lucky Star Cavalier Rescue from an Amish Puppy Mill, after the owners…

If you’re in the area, I hope to see you on Thursday night at the Wisconsin Humane  Society for a fund raiser and talk, “Dogs Have Owners, but Cats Have Staff.” I don’t get asked to talk about feline behavior as much as I’d like to, so this is a special treat for me. I…

You know I love Willie; sometimes I think almost too much. But I’ve never loved him more than I have this morning, after finishing the book, Part Wild, by Ceiridwen Terrill. Willie is a dog. Inyo, the focus of Part Wild, is a wolf-dog who Ceiridwen adopted as a puppy. The book is a brutally…

One of the things I’m doing right now is grading papers from my UW students on the “Biology and Philosophy” of one of five topics. They could choose to write their papers on one of the following:  Eating Farmed vs. Wild-caught Salmon, Should Apes Have Rights?, Game Farms, Dolphins in Entertainment, and relevant to the…

Karen London and I are working on our edits to the new booklet on adopting adolescent and older dogs, and something hit me as I was writing that I thought was worth talking about. After considering my own experiences bringing “non-puppies” into my home, talking with folks in rescues and shelters, and working with clients…

Have you seen it, the viral video of a “guilty” dog? A yellow lab sits hunched in a corner while his owner asks if he’s the one who got into the bag of kitty treats. The dog turns his head away, squints his eyes (not in a happy way I would argue) and after considerable…

This video tape of me and Willie doing his exercises reminds me how important it is to “honor your dog.” (I think that is originally Kathy Sdao’s phrase, and I just love it.) The video shows us doing two exercises, “Flex” and “Paw,” both designed to strengthen his shoulders before the surgery. We first began…

Here’s one of the great lessons Ken Ramirez had for us at the Clicker Expo in Chicago last weekend: The basics aren’t really all that basic after all. In his experience, one of the most common mistakes he sees in even experienced trainers is forgetting the importance of some of the basics. Here are some…

Many of you have seen the video below, but for those of you who haven’t, here is a reminder that it is not just the people of Japan who are suffering. I don’t want to break your hearts, and don’t pretend that this is easy to watch, but I hope it does inspire some to…

I’ll grant this is as much for me as it is for you all, but I imagine I’m not the only one who could use a good laugh around now. You may have seen this already, and you may have mixed feelings about putting animals in the place of humans . . . but, oh,…

This weekend I visited a wonderful woman doing rescue for small breeds, mostly bichons from puppy mills. I had somewhat randomly discovered that she lived close to me, and went to visit in hopes I could help out a bit. I also had a selfish motivation: as many of you know, Karen London and I…

How many times have you heard that “dogs have no sense of time”? I’ve heard it and read it over and over and over again, and always wondered why anyone thought they knew it to be true. Or not. How would we know? I’ve been asked this question often, and always answered I simply didn’t…

Recently there have been some debates and discussions about whether it is possible to be a “100% positive” trainer. This has become an issue because some seminar hosts have policies that they will not hire anyone for a seminar unless they only use positive reinforcement and “never use punishment or aversives.” Some people are being…

With virtually no objectivity what so ever, I’m excited to announce that registration is open for a completely new seminar, to be held in Madison, WI on October 29th & 30th. I’ll be working much of the summer on creating an up-to-the-minute summary of what we know about canine behavior and cognition for Saturday, and…

Like many of you (great comments!) I’ve been playing this week with what words Willie defines the same as I. As suspected, most of the words I have used to communicate with him are verbs (to him), and that appears to be his “default” understanding. He HAS learned however, names for living things, me, Jim,…

Move over Rico. Have you heard about the new article out in Beh’l Processes about a BC named Chaser who has not only learned names for 1022 objects, but has shown that she distinguishes between verbs and nouns? There’s more to this study, but let me start with the noun/verb issue. This is an especially…

There’s a new book out for children that is designed to help them cope with the death of their dog. It’s titled “Give a Dog your Heart” and is written by Aubrey Fine, Ed.D., a child psychologist who has been using dogs in AAT as long as anyone. I’m not completely objective, Aubrey and I…

I wrote this before I left for New Zealand, and I hope I can get on line to read the comments about this video. Many of you have undoubtedly seen the video of the now famous Snowball dancing to music on Youtube. Here’s another one, which had me practically wetting my pants I laughed so…

Thanks for the discussion about the use of Body Blocks for teaching Stay, and to re-iterate a comment I made, they work equally well with dogs of all breeds and sizes (but you have to be a bit quicker with some breeds and with small dogs).  If your dog is getting around you to the…

Working Willie on sheep in preparation for tomorrow’s trial reminded me of the first time I made a connection between the way Border Collies herd sheep and dog training in general. As you all know,  BCs control sheep by what I call “space management.” They don’t bark, rarely bite, but “take the space” away from…

Aubrey Fine’s new book on AAT just came out, Handbook on Animal-Assisted Therapy, and I am pleasantly surprised at how much of general interest is in it. If you’ve been reading the blog for awhile you might remember that Aubrey and I wrote a chapter for it together on “what therapists need to understand about…

A quick post today, trying to catch up before I leave for Toronto on Friday.  Sunday at the BFF conference was great, I’ll write a post soon about Pam Reid’s talks on cognition, her talk about stress, and Emily Levine’s talk on compulsive disorders in dogs.  All of them were great, very valuable. I thought…

Thanks for your comments with examples of what looks like imitation in dogs and cats. I was especially intrigued by the cat stories, having had a cat myself who did a perfect imitation of a herding Border Collie after watching me work Luke every day. Luke and I would drive the sheep up the hill…

One last comment, for now, about our relationships with our dogs.  I had mentioned in the last post that I believe that dogs do better if they see us as what I call “benevolent leaders,” in the sense of good parents or good teachers. Here’s my thinking: Dogs are dependent upon us, granted some more…

One of the great comments on my post about the new Puppy Book reminded me that training “step by step” is not intuitive. Someone may know that there are multiple steps between a dog sitting on cue when asked in the kitchen at dinner time, versus being asked to sit when barking at the visitors…

Wheeee! I’ve been working on an updated version of the Puppy Primer for six months now, and it feels SO good to finally hold the finished product in my hot little paws. In it, co-author Brenda Scidmore and I emphasize the benefits of positive reinforcement, of letting dogs initiate the correct action themselves when possible,…

There’s been a lot of hugging lately, from dear friends expressing love and sympathy after Lassie’s death. And oh, a good hug feels so good, doesn’t it? Thinking of it reminds me of how very differently dogs and people express affection and care, and how hugging is so hard-wired in humans, but not natural to…

Lassie went home today. I am thinking of the famous story about Hemingway, in which he challenged his writer friends to write the shortest story possible. All agreed that he won. Here’s what he wrote: For Sale. Baby Shoes. Never Worn. Since then, summarizing one’s life in six words has become something of a parlor…