I was recently invited for an interview for Radio Tacoma’s series Ain’t Misbehaving with Dr Louisa Beal, a veterinarian with a special interest in behaviour.
In this discussion, we talk about:
how people interested in dogs might still learn something from someone who’s not a dog owner (though I cover this paradox in more detail here)
the difference between jealousy and resource guarding
And so, many dog guardians – or dog trainers – don’t think that I have anything to teach them.
And they tell me so often enough to warrant an explanation as to why in the world I think it’s a good idea for me to teach about dog training even though I’m *not* a dog trainer.
Actually, I’m also not a horse trainer, but the horse guardians and horse trainers that I come across don’t voice that particular concern – at least not to my face 😉 … but this applies equally to them. And yes, the same also goes for all the other animal species out there.
This blog post could be named Animal training is like brain surgery, and everything that I discuss here is equally relevant to other species too.
Just replace the word “dog” in everything that follows with your preferred species..!
I think that the mistake that people make is that they think that dog training is sort of like driving a car.
And naturally, if you want to learn how to drive, you should learn from an experienced driver. They don’t have to be a mechanic or understand what’s going on underneath the hood, but your driving teacher needs to have personal experience in driving, and that’s simply non-negotiable. Anything else would just be preposterous.
And I totally agree! That makes total sense – when it comes to learning how to drive.
But here’s the thing.
I think that dog training is more like brain surgery than it is like driving a car.
Perhaps somewhat unexpectedly, dog training has a lot in common with brain surgery.
Is your dog afraid of fireworks? How about thunder?
Keep reading, this blog post contains everything you need to know. This post is updated and all the links are double-checked about twice a year, last on June 12th, 2025 – look for the “revised” signs in the post to find the latest changes.
Is your dog not fearful of fireworks, thunder or other loud noise?
Keep reading anyway. That may change, and you should be prepared.
It’s the combination of different techniques that produce the best effect (Crowell-Davis et al., 2003: 93%). Nobody’s tried using all the techniques suggested in this blog post, as far as I know.
What follows below is a chapter from my full course Animal Emotions.
To be quite transparent, it’s one of the chapters that has the least practical application when it comes to caring for captive animals, but it is also, hands down, the one chapter in all my online courses that leaves students the most flabbergasted.
And given how the subject of gender identity has become politicized in the last few years, I thought that maybe sharing some very basic facts would be a way to contribute.
There was an article in a Norwegian dog magazine (an English translation is in the comments’ section below) this week, essentially claiming that by delivering an electric shock to a dog a single time as it runs towards a flock of sheep, you can stop it from ever chasing sheep again. Indeed, it gets a diploma to show that it’s “sheep-proofed”. There are no other ways of teaching this behaviour, the article claims, and also, it suggests that it’s a way to increase the overall quality of life of the shocked dogs.
The article implies that a single shock in a single location is all it takes to make dogs sheep-proof forever.
Needless to say, this article has stirred a lot of feelings within the Norwegian R+ community.
And for good reason.
Now, I don’t train dogs myself, but reading through it I found I have four areas of concern:
