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...
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Back to Basics: Butts in Seats

by lennearbNo Comments
After starting this Back to Basics topic a few weeks ago with Attention and Find It/Name Game, I have allowed my own attention to wander a bit, but now it seems like a good time to refocus on basics, starting with the first behavior most people think about training a dog to do: sit. The ubiquity of the "sit" cue and the ease with which most dogs learn this behavior is both a blessing and a curse for dog training. Of course, it's a blessing to have a dog who will sit when you want him or her to do so. However, although many new students tell me that their dog knows a cue for "sit," a little investigation often reveals that the dogs do not know this cue out of it's usual context. One truth of dog training is that our dogs often do not focus on the same things we focus on. Humans are highly verbal, and we tend...
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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...
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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...
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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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