Blog — training

What I've learned so far in my dog training career, is that everything we do with dogs, at least everything that actually works, is counter-intuitive. Do you want your dog to stop barking? Teach him to bark on command. Want your dog to stop jumping on strangers? Encourage him jump on you. Want your dog to be social as opposed to aggressive? Let him play aggressively, even let him WIN the tug toy (a dog who feels good in his natural drive state will not display unnecessary aggression). Want your dog to be soft? Encourage him to bite hard. Want your dog to bite...

The goal of training your dog should really be entraining your dog. To explain this, let's look at the meaning of entrainment as given by Wikipedia: Brainwave entrainment, the practice of entraining one's brainwaves to a desired frequency Entrainment (biomusicology), the synchronization of organisms to an external rhythm Entrainment (chronobiology), the alignment of a circadian system's period and phase to the period and phase of an external rhythm Entrainment (engineering), the entrapment of one substance by another substance Entrainment (hydrodynamics), the movement of one fluid by another Entrainment (meteorology), a phenomenon of the atmosphere Entrainment (physical geography), the process by...

Freya came home in August of 2015 with huge dog aggression issues and very intense prey drive directed towards my cat. A big project, for sure. The focus of this article is to address the cat issues. At first, meaning for the first few months, I basically kept Freya in my office and only gave her housetime when she was on a leash. Here's a quick run-down of her first few encounters with my cat, Pasca:  1. We pass by kitty, who is sitting on a desk, on our way out to the backyard. Freya puts her whole mouth over...