Origin of a Bad Habit

by lennearbNo Comments
This is a story about a pizza. Fortunately, given the fate of the pizza, it was not mine. But that's not really the point of the story. Once upon a time, let's say in June, someone left a pizza on the counter in my house and walked away from it. At this point, we had had Sirius Black for six years and eleven months, and he had no history of going after things on the counter. In fact, I had a somewhat problematic habit of forgetting things on the counter, and he never went after them. On the other hand, before this, they weren't ever hot delivery pizza. This time, they were. When the owner of the pizza returned, some period of time later, the pizza box was on the floor and the pizza was almost completely gone. Before pizza, Sirius had no history of reward for grabbing things off the counter. Frankly, the counter wasn't all that interesting to him. After the pizza, there...
Read More
Recognizing Our Limitations

Recognizing Our Limitations

by lennearbNo Comments
This article came to my attention today via a couple of animal professionals I really admire. One of them asked for other professionals’ opinions. I thought about responding via Twitter, but I decided this topic deserves a more extended and thoughtful response. First, let me say that despite my background in both psychology and animal behavior, I am far from an expert in emotional support animals. I am a believer in the ability of animals to help us feel better, including by providing comfort during emotional upheaval and on-going mental crises. In fact my own professional career with animals had its modest beginnings when I sought out volunteer opportunities with animal rescues while in college because I felt sad. All that is to establish that while I don't know a lot about emotional support animals, I am open to the belief that in some circumstances, they may be just what the doctor—or therapist—ordered. What concern me about the article cited above, and...
Read More

Happy Independence Day!

by lennearbNo Comments
Happy Independence Day! I hope this long weekend is spectacular—for you and your pets. Of course it will be, I can almost hear you thinking, friends, families, barbecues, fireworks... What else could we want? Of course, I agree that all these things are fantastic, but do your pets? As I have mentioned before, Fourth of July can be one of the most dangerous holidays for pets. Many pets get spooked by the sound of fireworks and end up getting lost. Any home firecrackers or sparklers can also pose a threat to any pets that are around while they are being used. And, of course, having guests in your home that are not used to being around your pet may result in things such as poisonous foods left at pet-level, open doors, and so on. So, make sure your Independence Day stays wonderful by following a few simple guidelines: If you're having people over, consider preparing a quiet, safe area for your pet out of...
Read More

A Quiet Walk in the Park

by lennearbNo Comments
When I left the house Saturday morning and spotted the sun, I admit I did a bit of a doubletake. What was that? After so many straight days of rain, it was easy to forget that the sun would be coming back again eventually. Since we did get lucky with some beautiful weather this past weekend, we decided to take advantage of it by going to the National Arboretum on Sunday for a walk. If you live in the DC area and haven't been to the Arboretum, it's well worth the trip. It's very family- and dog-friendly, but still has plenty of wide open places if you want to avoid getting too close to other people. Usually. That was less true than normal on Sunday, as the combination of sunny weather and Mother's Day had the Arboretum more full than I think I have ever seen it. If you are working on the basics of training your dog to be comfortable around...
Read More

Who Needs a Hug?

by lennearbNo Comments
Should we hug our dogs? This is a hot topic around the internet today, so I thought it was worth a few thoughts. Dogs are typically not big into hugging (and often not big into petting, especially the short "pat pat" variety). These behaviors that are reinforcing to humans, which often leads us to believe (hope? wish?) that they are reinforcing to our dog as well. Such a belief is unfair to our dogs, since, after all, we appreciate their dog-like qualities in so many other ways. Who else will like our face when we're having a bad day or be so excited to see us, even when we have massive bedhead? I can almost hear you right now saying, "I hug my dog all the time and he's fine." Most of our dogs will tolerate some of these behaviors, at least from people they know. The level of tolerance will vary greatly from dog to dog. For each dog, it will...
Read More

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...
Read More

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...
Read More

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...
Read More

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...
Read More

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...
Read More
«‹34567›»