Dogs can learn an amazing variety of behaviors, but few so fundamentally important as the ‘sit’. Beyond the basic need to establish that the human of the pair is the alpha (leader), it has a number of practical benefits. When a dog sits he’s more attentive, making it easier to follow further commands. His eyes [...]

Teaching your pet tricks is easiest when you work with their nature, not against it. Most dogs are eager to please and respond enthusiastically to rewards. Teaching tricks is often as much a matter of simply using those rewards to direct or build on a spontaneous behavior as it is teaching an entirely foreign one. [...]

No training is more important and more basic for dog owners than that first important lesson: Do it outside! Teaching your pet to eliminate outside the home, not in it, usually starts between six and eight weeks of age. Dogs as young as four weeks have been started on the program, but at that age [...]

Most people simply don’t have the time, energy or patience to devote to training their dog or puppy. For some, the answer is to outsource the effort to a professional trainer. As with any profession, quality and costs vary. And, like many professions – especially those involving human-animal interactions – training philosophies vary considerably. So, [...]

Dogs have a natural tendency to seek and adhere to a hierarchy with an alpha (leader) at the top on down to an omega at the bottom. ‘Down’ is one effective technique for enforcing your alpha status. It also has practical benefits. When a dog is in the ‘down’ position, it isn’t knocking over the [...]

Most dogs display a tendency to jump on people that visit and this can quickly become bothersome for you and your guests. One theory about why dogs jump suggests that they are trying to get close to the person’s face – not to attack, but to interact. Other dogs, especially of the same breed, have [...]