House Rules & Good Manners

You may think of it simply as a convenient vessel, useful for keeping your dog's food gathered in one place, off the floor. Your dog probably has a very different perspective. For him, the bowl is likely to be a high value object of great import, especially if he's a hearty eater. In this magical dish, one or more times a day FOOD appears.

Week 2 of my Peaceable Paws Good Manners class, I ask the question, “How many of your dogs jump up on people?” Generally at least 80 percent of the dog owners in class raise their hands. “Why do they jump up?” I ask. I usually get at least one incorrect answer of “Dominance!” but most of my students realize their dogs jump up for attention. And because much of the time the behavior is successful, it’s a challenging one to extinguish.

which includes social facilitation, mimicking, and trial-and-error learning.üFollowing the dog who responds properly to the Come!" cue helps the newcomer learn it

Whether you have a pup with normal puppy energy or an obstreperous teenager who has good manners lessons to catch up on, clicker training can be a magically effective and gentle way to convince a dog to calm down. No yelling, no physical punishment; just clicks and treats for any pause in the action. That said, the biggest challenge with a hyper" dog is that any praise or reward may cause her to begin bouncing off the walls again. It is nearly impossible to deliver a treat to an excitable dog while she is still in the act of being calm. By the time you get the treat to her mouth she is once again doing her Tasmanian devil act."

When they fill out their evaluation forms at the end of a six-week course, my clients frequently name the Off" exercise as one of the most useful behaviors they have taught their dogs in class. "Off" means "Whatever you are paying attention to right now

My nine-month-old Bouvier puppy is in training, but I am having trouble finding a positive way to stop his lunging; he is very strong. I am using a choke chain, and my current trainer feels I'm not firm enough in my corrections. I don't feel comfortable using the choker, but also don't like the idea of the Halti because it might be even more dangerous if he lunged.

Each month, I stand in the middle of my training center during the second session of my newest Level One class and introduce my...

One of the best things about being a WDJ product review writer is having the opportunity to play with all the fun stuff that we review. As a professional trainer, it helps me in my business, too, to be able to try out new products before I invest in them myself (or encourage my clients to buy them). So it was with great interest and curiosity that I agreed to test products designed to keep dogs “off” or “away from” forbidden furniture, counters, or other areas of the house. I must have been temporarily senile; for a moment I forgot how very opposed I am to most aversive training tools. When the products arrived and I removed them from the box I immediately realized my ethical dilemma.

I have a 1 1/2 year old Labrador Retriever. She is very smart – and very stubborn! My husband and I have been to puppy school, obedience school and we have also worked with a personal trainer. She does the “normal” puppy things – jumping up when I come home from work and when people come to visit, etc. But one of the reasons we went to the trainer was because she seemed to be exhibiting some aggressive tendencies.