Some of the recent posts have brought up the question that many of us live with on a daily basis: how much training and attention do our dogs need every day? I get asked this a lot, and as I wrote in my essay in Tales of Two Species, I suspect that there's another fundamental question driving it (she says, speaking from experience). How much exercise, training and attention do our dogs need for us not to feel guilty? Fess up, don't you sometimes wonder if you are doing enough for your dog, and don't you sometimes feel guilty about not doing as much as you should? I am sure that many of the people reading this blog will say no, they don't feel guilty, and for good reason. I know that many of you take your dog out to classes several nights a week, take long walks in the country with Read More
Why Dogs are More Afraid of Men
Clients often tell me that their rescue dog must have been "beaten by a man" when the dog was younger, because the dog is afraid of men and not woman. However, people in the training and behavior field know that almost all shy dogs are more afraid of men than women, even if men have been nothing but kind to them their entire lives. We've always speculated that it had something to do with the way men walked (more assertively?) or their bigger chests, larger jaws, and/or deeper voices. But we've never really known for sure what it was--perhaps it is related to scent: obviously men smell different than woman, and it could be that just 'maleness' is more intimidating. A recent study reported in Scientific American Mind might have shed some light on this topic. (Actually, I read it and jumped Read More
Positive Training for Hunting Dogs
I'm curious if any readers have some advice for me and a friend of mine. She and her husband have a young German Shorthaired Pointer they'd love to train to hunt, but are having problems finding any professional trainers who don't use ear pinches, forced retrieves and a basic attitude of "Do it because I say so!" This is not the first time I've been asked about positive trainers in this field, whether for retrievers or pointers, and I haven't had a lot of luck finding professionals who take dogs in and train them using primarily positive methods. If you know the world of hunting dogs, you know that there is a long history of "positive punishment" and dominance-based training in the field, perhaps more so than any other, at least in my experience. Do any of you, wise readers, know of a Read More