Companion Animal Psychology

With ever more opportunities to learn about reward-based dog training, comments from so-called balanced dog trainers are still concerning. Photo: Kseniia De Netto/Shutterstock By Zazie Todd, PhD This post contains affiliate links which means I may earn a commission on qualifying purchases at no cost to you. There have been huge strides in positive reinforcement training over the last decade. While celebrating those changes, it’s also frustrating that there are still dog trainers who take people’s money to use aversive methods to train their dog. This despite the fact that aversives aren’t necessary and have some rather serious downsides. We’ve known for a long time that the use of aversive methods, like shock and prong collars and leash “corrections”, has risks for dog’s welfare and can affect the dog’s relationship with their human.  As well, punishing a behaviour out of a dog doesn’t teach them what to do instead or change their feelings about the situation that caused that behav...

Zazie and Kristi learn more about wasps, mosquitoes, vultures, sharks, and other unloved animals from Dr. Jo Wimpenny, author of Beauty of the Beasts . By Zazie Todd, PhD This page contains affiliate links which means I may earn a commission on qualifying purchases at no cost to you. Listen to episode 57 of The Pawsitive Post in Conversation wherever you get your podcasts ( Apple , Spotify ) or below, watch on Youtube or below, or scroll down to read a transcript. Why we should love the beasties In our conversation with Dr. Jo Wimpenny, we talk about:-     why Jo wanted to write about the beasties     how everything is connected     the value of wasps and mosquitoes to the ecosystem     how sharks are not necessarily out to get people (even if sometimes they are)     whether some animals are over-rated     which animal Jo most loved writing about     and finally Jo told us which book she's been reading. Beauty o...