Canine Nation

Is your dog “dominant” or willing to submit? Could you be living with a dog determined to take over and control your household? Dog Trainer Eric Brad looks as his own dog to see if the “warning signs” described by so many web sites could mean his dog is a tyrant in the making!

The Greek philosopher Aristotle once said, “The high-minded man must care more for the truth than for what people believe.” Our best source of information about dogs is the dogs themselves! This is a great time to try something new and learn something about our dogs. Question everything and be prepared for some surprising answers

The words and phrases we use when talking about dogs and training can influence our perceptions. Sometimes our inner dialogues can work against us. Are we being fair to our dogs and looking objectively at our own training skills?

When training dogs, it’s sometimes helpful to prompt them for the behaviour we are looking for. Trainer Eric Brad cautions that “prompts” can be as much a distraction as a help. Knowing how to “fade” them out of the picture can be just as important in good training.

Training your dog can be an incredibly creative experience. Communicating with a different species is challenging and can be very rewarding for both the dog AND the trainer. You just need the right approach and the ability to think outside the box a bit. You might be surprised at what's possible with positive training and a little creativity.

Food is something every dog has every day. Unless they are ill, there should be no reason for our dogs to turn down any snacks we offer them. But many dog owners claim their dogs won’t work for them for food treats as a reward. How can this be? Dogs are scavengers by nature. Could it be something we humans are doing that puts them off sometimes?

It’s been a great year. 2011 was a very positive year for Canine Nation and I want to thank all of my readers and podcast listeners for their support and comments over the past 12 months. I've learned a lot writing and producing the podcast and reader/listener comments have been a great source of information for me as well. Here’s wishing you all a successful and joy filled 2012 with your dogs!

Sometimes our dogs don’t want to do what we ask of them. Sometimes the rewards we offer them are not enough and they turn to “self-rewarding” behaviours. But are those behaviours really self-rewarding? It’s what our dog chooses to do so it must be. But what else is “self-rewarding” behaviour? The answer might surprise you.

Training, behaviour, and science are important parts of my life with my dogs. But there are simple, almost poetic moments that I also cherish. Working, playing, and sometimes quiet moments that help me appreciate the rapport that positive training has given me with my dogs. It starts even before I open my eyes each day.

If our dogs could talk to us for just five minutes, what would they say? I think the answer might be as surprising as it is simple! Decades of misunderstanding might give way to a more open and positive relationship with our dogs if we could change some of our assumptions about our dogs.

Not so long ago, my enthusiasm for what I had learned about positive training and behavioural science turned me into an evangelist for modern training. But is pushing my training philosophy any more acceptable than pushing political or religious beliefs?

Our dogs don’t always do what we ask of them. Sometimes it can seem that they even enjoy being bad. But is this really the case? The science of behaviour, both canine and human, tell a very different story. Chances are your dog isn’t taking any joy in misbehaving after all!

Good training can’t happen without failures but too many can make it frustrating and no fun for either the human or the dog. If failures are going to happen, why not learn from them and use them to make things better? You only fail if you didn’t learn something from the experience. Good trainers try to keep their emotions in check and stay observant.

Every time we work with our dog, the history of all of our experiences with this dog follow us. For better or for worse, our dog remembers. Your dog’s expectations of you and your time together will depend on how you have shaped those memories. Our dogs are always observing but they don't remember every detail. Mostly they recall general patterns and emotions.

Most dog owners make more or less effort to train their dogs. If they are like me, they first learned to train dogs by rote. By that I mean, you followed some particular recipe for getting the dog to do what you wanted and at some point it was "trained." As I've learned more about dogs and behaviour, it's become clear to me that it isn't quite that simple.

Training our dogs can be fun and frustrating, both for us and our dogs. Humans and dogs have very different responses when progress goes slowly or in an unexpected direction. How we, as humans, respond to those frustrating moments can have a large impact on our dogs ability or willingness to learn.

Managing your dog when out in the world is just as important as training your dog to be a "good citizen." Sometimes we can't anticipate all that the world can throw at our dogs and if they behave inappropriately, it could land you in serious trouble. Your dog may even be taken away to be euthanised. But there are lots of great ways you can protect your dog with a little common sense, the right equipment, and some vigilance.

Good communication with our dogs relies on positive reinforcement, consistency and fairness. When that breaks down, our dogs can get frustrated with us. They can't be sure what we're asking and they risk being scolded for not complying with our cues to them. That frustration can take an emotional toll on our dogs.

When we went through our difficulties with our dog Vince ten years ago, I’m not sure I understood what a life-changing experience it would be. It can be a difficult and scary thing to leave behind the things you thought you knew and try something new with an open mind. What I didn't realize was that it would open my heart as well.

We make a lot of assumptions about dogs.  We pass them one.  And, over time, these suppositions can turn into things we believe as TRUE about dogs.  But ours is an age of reason and science.  Shouldn't we devote as much effort to finding out about our dogs and their behaviour as we do to a new appliance or software program?  The scientific method of posing questions, testing to see what we find, and making conclusions based on experience rather than hearsay has taken mankind a long way.  If it's good enough for modern medicine, it should be good enough for "man's best friend" shouldn't it?  Is it easy to let go of some of our beliefs about dogs?  No.  But examining what we think we know might just be the key to a better life with our dogs.  It has certainly made all the difference in my life.