Season's Greetings

-
A 1-year old mini aussie under the Christmas tree with presents
Photo: Eric Isselee / Shutterstock

Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year 
from 
Companion Animal Psychology Blog!

By Zazie Todd, PhD
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. As an Etsy affiliate, I earn from qualifying Etsy purchases.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why You Should Never Train a Dog to Come When Called Using a Shock Collar

-
Image
How to get a super reliable recall with positive reinforcement, and why you should avoid using shock collars for such an important behaviour.



By Nickala Squire

Getting your dog to come when called may be a breeze in the home, but how do you get them to listen when out in the real world? Maybe you’ve heard that there are risks and fallout from using shock avoidance to train dogs, or maybe you’re simply put off by the price of shock collars. Here’s how you should begin your recall training journey!

1.Ensure your dog is not suffering from pain, fear or anxiety preventing them from listening- aka caring about anything else. The dog’s physical or emotional well-being needs to be addressed first, for the dog’s welfare as well as public safety. Does this mean painful or fearful dogs can’t be taught recall? Absolutely not. But intentionally challenging them by putting them in stressful or pain causing situations is cruel and unreasonable.

2.Never make coming when called unpleasant, such as scold…
Read more

Interview with Clive Wynne About Dog Is Love

-
Image
"The dog is a highly social living being that needs to have company or else it’s going to be in psychological distress."



An interview with Prof. Clive Wynne about his wonderful new book, Dog Is Love: Why and How Your Dog Loves You, about how he came to realize that what’s special about dogs is not their intelligence, but their capacity for love. Dog Is Love was the Animal Book Club’s  for October 2019 and was also on my winter reading list.

This page contains affiliate links.


Zazie: Your own dog, Xephos, is mentioned in the book. How has she influenced your research?

Clive: I tell people that she’s the book’s spirit animal. She really changed my views on what makes dogs special, what makes dogs so unique. For the first so many years that I was studying dog behaviour and dog psychology, I didn’t have a dog of my own. There were a variety of personal reasons: we’d recently moved internationally, we had a new baby, blah blah blah. But I also had a feeling that I shouldn’t need to …
Read more

Dangerous Dogs: Time for a Rethink?

-
Image
What are the risk factors for aggression in dogs?

By Zazie Todd, PhD

New research suggests it’s time to stop thinking of dogs as either ‘safe’ or ‘dangerous’. In most cases canine aggression seems to be a learned response to a particular situation, not a personality characteristic, since a dog that growls or bites in one situation may not do so in other contexts.
Read more