Blog

Considering teaching a nose freeze as your alert behavior at source in nosework? In this episode Aleks and I go into both why you might choose this option and how to actually go about it.

Note: After re-reviewing the rulebook, Sarah requested we clarify that the specific food refusal exercise is distinct and while it can happen during check in, it's not supposed to happen during another exercise. However, at higher levels, the field is often "baited" and the dog is expected to understand they are not to eat the otherwise available food.

The food refusal exercise in Mondioring is always impressive to watch... but it might be worth teaching even if mondio isn't a goal for you and your dog. Sarah and I talk about what's involved in teaching the exercise, including learning to communicate to your dog when rewards are and are not available, and why you might just want to give teaching food refusal a try.

Some dogs get overexcited when people come over... and some have decidedly less positive feelings about the experience. Either way, if your dog has feelings about guests invading their home, this episode is for you. Irith and I talk about what's going on under the surface and how we approach dealing with it.

Caden Cristopher joins me for a discussion on training your dog to recall while building a relationship that enables both of you to do more together... we dive into advanced scenarios as well as chatting about the basics.

Petra joins me before picking up a new puppy to chat about how she approaches foundations these days... and what she considers important for a resilient, capable, competition obedience canine.

Many of the sports we do with our dogs require us to play keep up — whether it's running our dogs in agility or following them on a long track. And if we want to keep playing those games with them for the long-term, that means paying attention to fitness on both ends of the leash. 

CANIS is less than a month away, so we brought Michael Shikashio on to talk about what folks can expect and how the conference is coming together behind the scenes. It's not too late to join us — FDSA will be there in booth #114!

If you've ever had a dog that couldn't train around food or who stopped eating in certain environments... you know that training with food isn't always as simple as "Click, Treat, Cookie!" In this episode Sharon and I dive into the ways food can interfere with teaching behaviors and what we can do about it.

In honor of the upcoming multi-dog conference, we have several of the presenters — Christina Young, Kim Palermo, Karen Deeds, Irith Bloom, and Dr. Amy Cook — on the podcast to talk about the realities of living in a multi-dog household. 

What do cues and mechanics have in common? A lot, it turns out! If you've ever asked your dog for a behavior you'd have sworn they knew, only to have them stare at you like you're speaking Greek, this episode is for you. Behavior expert Karen Deeds shares how conflicting cues come to be and what we can do about them.

Laurie Huston joins me for a conversation all about crosses — from what they are (for the non-agility folks), to how she uses her course map and her time walking the course to plan out which cross to use where... and the elements that determine if a cross looks like dancing with your dog or ends in an on-course collision.

Nose work is about so much more than setting and finding hides — in this episode, Michele and I dive into how you can be more intentional in skill building for your nosework dog, both by developing your own observation skills and by thinking through the challenges you set them a little differently.

It's no surprise that jumping is hard on your dog's body... so what can you to minimize that impact and keep them moving (and competing) as long as possible? This week, Kelly and I discuss the impact of jumping on sports dogs, how different sports impact things differently, and how handlers can approach fitness with jumping in mind.

Wondering what it actually means to be a good nosework handler? Join Julie and I for a conversation on how your handling impacts your nosework dog and what you can do to become as good at your role on the team as you expect your dog to be at theirs.  

Ever wondered how leading competitors build the incredible engagement we see in the ring, where the dog stares up at their handler and the team looks totally in sync and in step? Petra Ford joins me to talk about how she builds engagement strong enough to win Obedience Nationals with mulitple dogs.

 Teaching our dogs the concept of "stillness" is more complex than we sometimes realize — after all, how do you teach a dog that what we want is the absence of a behavior? In this episode, Nicole and I talk about how she teaches the concept, and then how it serves as a foundation behavior for teaching rock solid stays to her competition dogs.

In this episode I interview clinical psychologist Dr. Jennifer Kunst about the intersection of dog training and psychology. We look at how her three-strand approach to living a good life—embracing reality, choosing change, and surrendering control—applies to dogs and dog training.

Four of the presenters from the upcoming one day conference, Arousal Modulation: Building a Clear-Headed Dog!, join me for a conversation about how arousal works, why it's not all good or all bad, and what handlers who have dogs that tend toward overarousal should stop doing... then what they should start doing instead. 

In this conversation, Irith and I talk about what causes demand barking, what we can do about it, and why the advice to "just wait it out" is often completely ineffective. 

Dr. Amy Cook and Josefin Linderström, founders of the Social Approach, join me for a deep dive on the topic of touch and our relationships with our dogs. In this episode they share some of the research that's been done on the benefits of touch, their take on how much of our dogs' preferences are nurture vs. nature, and how they'd add touch to training (including as a reinforcer!).