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Understanding Calming Signals in Dogs

Calming Signals is a term coined by Turid Rugaas, a Norwegian ethologist and dog enthusiast. Her obvious love and long term devotion to observing dogs with their own kind has led to her ground breaking work in articulating these signals into written language (Norwegian, English and no doubt dozens of other written languages — ironically, [...]

PTSD Revisted

Three weeks ago I wrote about the interesting case of Stoli the Rottie rescue who I diagnosed with a case of PTSD. You can read about her background and earlier experience HERE. Now, as promised, an update. Stoli came for a second  DIP session on August 9, directly after which her owner and family went [...]

Mental Health & Illness in Dogs

The range of dogs I see in my dog training/behavior practice run the gamut from easy going and happy happy joy joy pups to radically disturbed dogs. The disturbed dog can be an especially unsafe dog — to other dogs (dog/dog aggression), people (dog/people aggression), stuff (destructive) or in some cases, self destructive. NOTE: A [...]

Passive Interactive Dog Treat Recipe – Kong Parfait-cicle

This summer I’ve seen a slew of active, ADD (attention deficit disorder) or ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) dogs. Accompanying them are and often over stressed and anxious dog parents at loose ends. In need of ideas for quelling the seemingly endless needs of their dogs. These aren’t always puppies or even teenage dogs. Dogs [...]

Spring into Action – Summer Group Classes Starting Soon!

George Gershwin’s classic, “Summertime, and the living is easy.”, should hold true for all. But if you’re dealing with an unruly pup or young dog, maybe not so much. Bring back the easy, learn how to hone that unbridled enthusiasm. Take your pup from the forces of “evil” into “good” and have fun in the [...]

Hippotherapy: Service Dog, Boy + Equine Assistance – Four Paws Up

Today’s outing with Bubbles involved a new species of animal — for Sam and for Bubbles! We decided to try an evaluative session on horseback to see if Sam could benefit from equine therapy. Many researchers have noted that often, when autistic children are first introduced to hippotherapy, the new environment may prompt crying, screaming, [...]

Rescue — Who saves who?

A little more than a year into my relationship with ‘rescue dog’ Tommy the Wizard, the shih tzu I reluctantly took in and then fell in love with and fully adopted, I find myself once again fostering a dog who arrived with issues, uncertainly and no formal training. Roxy is a nearly 5 year old [...]

Tommy The Wizard – A Rescue Gone Right

Time can be measured in many ways. the blink of an eye, seconds, moments, minutes, hours, days, weeks, years, decades, lifetimes, centuries, millennium and yada yada yada. The benefit of such measure is often comparative –  to reflect on how things are the same, how things are different. Then getting subjective — how things are [...]

So ya wanna be a dog trainer?

I have had the pleasure of working with hundreds of people and thousands of dogs over the past 13 years as a licensed independent social worker passing herself off as a professional dog trainer. Privately, in group classes or both, I work on helping teach people — of all ages, backgrounds, and abilities –  the [...]