Back to Basics: Me and You

by lennearbNo Comments
With the recent hubbub over Beverly Cleary's 100th birthday, I have been spending a lot of time lately thinking about Ramona Quimby. Does anyone else remember the scene (in Ramona the Pest, if you're wondering) where she arrives for the first day of school and is told to "Sit here for the present"? She thinks she is getting a gift, and she stays sitting in her chair for hours, waiting. All right, I may not tell that story as well as Cleary does, but my point is that instructions are only valuable if the recipient understands what is intended. Unfortunately, we often ask our dogs (cats and other pets too!) to follow instructions that they have not been prepared to understand. With that in mind, this seems like a good moment to review some basics. We'll start this week with two games I usually teach to my students as "Attention" and the "Name Game." These are not only great exercises for starting training, but...
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Preparing for a Post-Surgery Routine

by lennearbNo Comments
Note: I wish this were going to be a post full of answers, but it is mostly full of questions. The answers are something I am still looking for. There are three things you should know about me to understand this post: I have lived almost my whole life with either cats or dogs or (most frequently) both. I travel fairly frequently, and have practiced routines in place to care for my animals when I travel (if they don't come with me). I had the first surgery of my life that required anesthesia and a significant recovery on March 17, 2016. I knew that I this surgery was coming for several months before it actually happened. I thought I had had time to prepare. My husband and I tried to be prepared and ask my doctors every question we thought would be relevant to my recovery. We missed a few, of course, but overall, I thought we did a pretty good job. I thought I did...
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Ignoring the Outside World

by lennearbNo Comments
I always try to emphasize the importance of finding times to practice in your daily life. It's important for so many reasons, especially because if you save practicing for "when you have time," you probably won't practice (maybe at all, certainly as much as you want to). In addition, everyday life is when you want your dog to be able to perform whatever behaviors you are practicing, isn't it? That being said, there are always moments when we are not as on top of what is going on as we want to be. In those moments, we are left reacting to what happens, and figuring out what happens next. We had such an incident when a delivery person came to our door and I was unable to respond either to the door or to redirect the dog. (I was home on sick leave with limited mobility.) For once in my life, I was even without a cheesestick! A few minutes after that issue...
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Permission to Enjoy Spring

by lennearbNo Comments
Over the past few weeks, the weather has been rocketing between warm (60s and 70s with SUN) and threats of snow. I always feel pulled in a bunch of directions with this type of weather, because I am afraid the beautiful weather will disappear again, and I want to do all the nice weather things. What are all the nice weather things? Well, I definitely want to get some extra-long walks in with Sirius, but I also want to clean up my garden, since I never did get around to that in the fall. (And then there is all the cleaning that is more enjoyable with the windows open, and... the list goes on.) Every time a warm day passes without my having succeeded in doing all the nice weather things, I feel guilty for missing this opportunity. Do you ever have those same feelings? Well, today I am giving us (both you and me) permission to stop feeling guilty. If you...
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Where I Came From

by lennearbNo Comments
People often ask me how I came to be interested in animal welfare. The answer is simple, even if I think of it more as s state of being than a process. When I was born, my parents had three dogs and a cat*. All were rescues or otherwise unwanted animals that they had taken in from various places: the runty kitten, the dog found in the supermarket parking lot. So, you see, I was born to a legacy of animal rescue. This trend continued throughout my childhood, as we adopted various animals from hard-luck backgrounds. I think, however, that the background of the animals mattered less to me than their presence in my life. We almost always had at least one dog and one cat in the family, sometimes more, and their presence has always been warm and comforting to me: the presence of animals makes the house feel like home. At the same time, rescuing animals from different backgrounds convinced me early...
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When We Change the Rules

by lennearbNo Comments
Like any good trainer, I am always looking for professional development opportunities. Sometimes what I learn gives me more immediate insight into my own relationship with my animals then my clients' relationship with theirs. Currently, I am enrolled in a class to become a Family Paws Parent Educator. (More about that at a future date.) The point today is that a recent class discussion brought to mind the rules and expectations we create for our dogs--and what it does to them when we change those expectations. I always tell my clients and class students to set expectations for their dogs, and stick to them. Within certain boundaries, I am not usually concerned about what those rules are. Is the dog allowed on the couch? On the bed? Who goes out the door first? I don't really care what the answers to those questions are in most cases, as long as the answer is consistent within the family. However, the flip side of creating...
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About Group Classes

by lennearbNo Comments
I welcomed new students to my classes this past Saturday. Every time I do that, I am reminded of the questions people have about classes, including questions about what they can and cannot do for you. So here are some quick tips. Things Group Training Classes Can Do Provide a support community. Group training classes, especially age-based classes like puppy training, provide a great place to meet other people with similar experiences who can help you with issues you might be facing. Connect your dog with playmates. Especially in puppy classes and play-based classes, you may find a good play match for your dog, even if you don't have any in your circle of family and friends. You may even find someone you can meet up with outside of class. The class will be supervised, and the instructor will provide guidance about what to look for in safe dog play. For young dogs, this socialization experience is especially important. Provide a grounding in the...
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Prepping for Snow: 4 Tips

by lennearbNo Comments
We adopted Sirius in July of 2009. In December of that year, we had the first of what turned out to be three major snowstorms of the winter. On the day the first storm began, I was home and trying to get some chores done before I planned to venture out into the snow to meet a few people coming from the metro. Sirius came up to me and asked to go outside. I didn't want to have to stop what i was doing or bundle up twice, so I told him to wait. He looked at me plaintively for a moment before peeing on the floor. He couldn't wait. Except during illness, it remains the first and only accident Sirius has had in our house. When he has to go, I take him out, as safely as I can, be it blizzard or hurricane. I am not proud of this story, but I tell it as a lead in to my tips...
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When Change Isn’t Progress

by lennearbNo Comments
We often think of dog training as a progression: first teach sit, then down, then stay. Many classes and manners of instruction are set up this way, my own included. Class names also tend to reinforce this progression mentality: Basic Manners, Intermediate Manners, Advanced Manners. There is some truth to this perception, of course. By starting training with simple behaviors that make use of dogs’ natural behavior patterns, and therefore are easy for our dogs to learn, we help them learn how to learn and plant the seeds for success in more advanced training down the road. However, having once learned a behavior is not a guarantee that your dog will continue to know and perform the behavior forever. Dogs, like people, respond to incentives, and they also form habits. If the incentive to perform a certain behavior is removed, the behavior is likely to fade. We use this to our advantage when we work to discourage undesirable behaviors like jumping up...
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Cats Can Can Learn Too

by lennearbNo Comments
How is your 2016? We are several days into 2016, and, crowded gyms notwithstanding, it's likely that many of us have already broken our well-intentioned new year’s resolutions. Last week, I said that my goals for 2016 were to work with Nefertiti on her polite behavior around food, especially wet food. I started working on this goal in late December. I think I have already made some progress but you can judge for yourself (sorry for the poor video quality): When working with cats, it is always important to keep in mind that they are not just agile, undersized dogs. I don't mean that to sound facetious. It is very common for pet owners to expect their cats to respond to stimuli, including cues, the same way that a dog would. However, cats are driven by a set of instincts that have developed to fit a very different social structure and environmental niche. Training cats is more effective when that training can tie into...
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