Companion Animal Psychology

Not “Sit, Sit, Sit” but “Rewards are the best way to train your dog…” Phot: Medenka Nera/Shutterstock By Zazie Todd PhD This page contains affiliate links which means I may earn a commission on qualifying purchases at no cost to you. Do you ever feel like you are saying the same thing over and over again? Do you ever think about whether or not it’s useful? I’m not talking about those times when you see someone repeating a cue to their dog over and over while the dog keeps on doing something else. That’s not a good idea because the dog is simply learning to ignore you. (Instead, say the cue like “Sit” once, then wait, and the instant your dog sits give them a tasty treat as a reward). I’m talking about training methods. Repetition on dog training methods It’s important to use reward-based methods to train your dog because there are risks to aversive methods ( positive punishment and negative reinforcement ). Plus, reward-based training can be a fun enrichment activity that improves yo...

Training your dog to search for a scent isn't as hard as you might think—and it's great enrichment for your dog. Photo: Barb Elkin/Shutterstock By Izzy Swanston, Sienna Taylor, and Ben Brilot This page contains affiliate links which means I may earn a commission on qualifying purchases at no cost to you. There’s no doubt that dogs have amazing noses. For example, dogs have 300 million scent receptors compared to our measly 5 million (Else, 2020) and possess the ability to detect odours at concentrations of up to 500 parts-per-trillion (Johnson, 1999)—the equivalent of one teaspoon of sugar in two Olympic sized swimming pools of water.  We use dogs’ noses as biosensors for the detection of all sorts of things: explosives, bodies, drugs, cancers (Beebe, Howell and Bennett, 2016) and cryptic wildlife and/or their faeces (Karp, 2020). But the more we learn to understand our dog’s needs, the more scent work is being used not just for our benefit but also as a form of enrichment to b...

“Equal parts science and doggy diary, [The Year of the Puppy] charts how our irresistible fur babies develop personality.”—People.  By Zazie Todd PhD This page contains affiliate links which means I may earn a commission on qualifying purchases at no cost to you. This month, the Animal Book Club is reading The Year of the Puppy: How Dogs Become Themselves by Alexandra Horowitz. From the publisher, “Few of us meet our dogs at Day One. The dog who will, eventually, become an integral part of our family, our constant companion and best friend, is born without us into a family of her own. A puppy's critical early development into the dog we come to know is usually missed entirely. Dog researcher Alexandra Horowitz aimed to change that with her family's new pup, Quiddity (Quid). In this scientific memoir, she charts Quid's growth from wee grub to boisterous sprite, from her birth to her first birthday. Horowitz follows Quid's first weeks with her mother and ten roly-poly l...