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The Ahimsa Dog Training staff members are excited to launch our Charity of the Month Program!

For February we have chosen Summit Assistance Dogs, a 501(c)3 Non-Profit organization based in Anacortes, Washington, that provides mobility, hearing and therapy dogs for people living with disabilities. There are more than 55 million Americans living with various disabilities, and the wait time for a service dog can be as long as two to five years. Summit was created to help fill this big need, and provides approximately 6 to 8 trained assistance dogs per year to its recipients, in addition to providing follow up care and support for the life of the dog.  Summit provides dogs to individuals in need, regardless of ability to pay, and also is one of the few organizations which provides service dogs to individuals under the age of 18.

Continue reading February Charity of the Month: Summit Assistance Dogs

Martin Luther King, Jr. Day was yesterday. It motivated me to make some changes and one of them is that Ahimsa Dog Training is going to start having a Dog Charity of the Month. We will give local (Seattle / Puget Sound area) rescue organizations and charities a chance to be featured in our blog. The charity of the month will also have a donation bin at our training center and dog training supply store in Ballard, so that our students can learn about your organization and/or donate.
Continue reading Charity of the Month

Watch this fascinating dog conversation. Any of the behaviors that you hear mentioned are great behaviors to reward in BAT, since they’re all excellent alternatives to aggression or panic in a dog:

Video is from the YouTube user 99Taro99Taro

Here’s a message to a Meetup group, with permission to repost:

*****

I was looking at your meetup group and I thought you all might be interested in something that is going on next Wednesday, June 30th, in Seattle. At Hotel Monaco in Seattle, we are holding auditions for a TV show called “Tales for the Pet Lover’s Heart.” We are looking for people who are passionate about their pets to come and audition for 10 minutes (with their pet) and tell us a little bit about themselves and their pets.
Continue reading Seattle TV audition: Tales of the Pet Lover’s Heart

On Monday, March 29th, I’ll be interviewed live with Margaret Larson on a brand new morning show called New Day Northwest, which runs 10-11 on weekdays. At least 3 trainers will be at their studio in Seattle and we’ll have several Ahimsa Dog Training client puppies with us. We look forward to helping greater Seattle learn more about dog-friendly training. I’ll give you more details if I figure out when exactly we’ll be on during that hour!

Hopefully I will have access to a video that I can post here in the blog.

Finally! Quoted from the APDT website (my emphasis):

There has been a resurgence in citing “dominance” as a factor in dog behavior and dog-human relationships. This concept is based on outdated wolf studies that have long since been disproven. Contrary to popular belief, research studies of wolves in their natural habitat demonstrate that wolves are not dominated by an “alpha wolf” who is the most aggressive pack member. Rather, wolves operate with a social structure similar to a human family and depend on each other for mutual support to ensure the group’s survival.
Continue reading Dominance Training Position Statement by APDT

I just scheduled a seminar for dog trainers and advanced students, to teach a new system for working with behavior problems, called Behavior Adjustment Training, or BAT. The seminar is an hour and a half, Friday January 8th, 2010, from 8-9:30 p.m.

We also have an exciting visit from Patricia McConnell planned for September 12, 2010.

For more information, visit our trainer workshop page.
Continue reading BAT seminar for dog aggression and fear – January 2010

Dreamlist Radio is an excellent website that helps people find the career of their dreams. Melissa Borghorst of Dreamlist Radio interviewed me for the Teen section of the website, and the questions focused on what teens can do to become a dog trainer. The answers, you’ll find, will work for people of any age who are considering becoming dog trainers.

Click to Play Interview

If you have a teen or pre-teen in your home, or are thinking of changing careers, I highly recommend Dreamlist’s main website!

Related Post: How to Become a Dog Trainer in Seattle

Bo Obama, the Portuguese Water Dog, seems to be enjoying his new home in the White House.  The Obama puppy’s big debut is Tuesday (tomorrow) but the press has already leaked his story.

And who wouldn’t enjoy being the First Dog, with two kids to love on you and great parents? When we were there for the inauguration, Jill and I checked out the size of that yard. Any dog in the DC area (heck, even a dog in Seattle) would be happy to have such a big space!

Continue reading Welcome to the White House, B’Obama!

The Seattle area has had their share of puppy mill busts, including the recent one in Snohomish County that is inundating Seattle with little rescue dogs and some big ones, too.

Tomorrow (March 27) ABC’s Nightline is doing a big expose on puppy mills. I haven’t seen it, but I imagine it’s terrible and gruesome and will make you wonder why animals have put up with us for so long.
Continue reading Puppy Mill expose on Nightline March 27

The University of Pennsylvania’s School of Veterinary Science has released a pilot study that found that 1/4 of dogs trained with punishment/pinning/growling were likely to respond with aggression, versus almost no aggressive behavior that resulted from methods like the ones we use at Ahimsa.

Yes, you read that correctly. Methods that have the goal of dominating the aggressive dog with force were likely to cause aggression toward the owner and other people or dogs, rather than preventing it.
Continue reading New Research from Vets – Dog Whispering Likely to Cause Aggression

The American Veterinary Society of Animal Behavior would like to let you know that Dominance – the idea that we need to overcome our dogs by force, lest they try to take over our homes, is outdated and leads to inhumane training.

Here’s some info from their Position Statement on Dominance issued in December, 2008:

“AVSAB is concerned with the recent re-emergence of dominance theory and forcing dogs and other animals into submission as a means of preventing and correcting behavior problems. For decades, some traditional animal training has relied on dominance theory and has assumed that animals misbehave primarily because they are striving for higher rank. This idea often leads trainers to believe that force or coercion must be used to modify these undesirable behaviors.”
Continue reading American Veterinary Society of Animal Behavior Speaks out Against the Dominance Model

Imagine being chained to a tree year after year. You watch the door, hoping someone will come out to play. No one ever does. You long to run, but you can only pace. You shiver in winter and pant in summer. Loose dogs come to beat you up, and you can’t run away. Children taunt you and, again, you can’t run away.

Beverly Hills Chihuahua opened in movie theaters this weekend. Chihuahua lovers everywhere have flocked to see it. People in the dog business have mixed feelings when we see dog movies. The dog-lover part of our personality is glad to see an oh-so-cute dog movie. The part of us that cares about the dogs cringes, because we know that the next thing that will happen is that people will be getting Chihuahuas, Dalmations, etc. for their children and then promptly returning them to the shelter when they turn out to be less fun than the movie actors. Yes, those dogs are actors! Even Chihuahuas can act!

Continue reading Beverly Hills Chihuahua Movie

I get contacted a lot by people who have fallen in love with dog training and want to learn how to become a professional dog trainer. I decided to write this blog post so that I can quickly give a helpful answer.

Continue reading How to Become a Dog Trainer in Seattle (and elsewhere)

It’s official. The “Dog Whisperer” TV show uses outdated, inhumane dog training methods. I’m so happy to have found out that it’s not just me, or the many, many dog trainers that I know – in Seattle and around the world – that think the Dog Whisperer show has done more harm than good.
Everyone has been so afraid to say anything possibly libelous, but it’s just the truth, and we need to stop hurting these dogs.The American Humane Association, founded in 1887, officially announced late last summer that they found the techniques on the “Dog Whisperer” inhumane, and stated that the National Geographic Channel should take Cesar Millan’s show off of the air as soon as possible. Continue reading Dog Whisperer Training Techniques Inhumane

CityDog Magazine had it’s annual readership poll for TopDog in various categories. In 2006, we were voted TopDog in the Dog Trainer/Behaviorist category. In 2007, CityDog wrote that we were a “close second” to a facility in Woodinville. When I asked my clients for suggestions for what to say about Ahimsa getting the most votes of any dog training facility in Seattle proper, here’s what one of them wrote: Continue reading Voted Best in Seattle – again!

I could have used the headline that others used, “Pit Bulls maul sleeping woman…” but I think the more important detail here is how this happened. It’s not the breed, it’s the fool who chained them up outside. Yes, some pit bulls are dog aggressive. And yes, they are powerful. But I have seen dogs of all breeds that are aggressive to dogs and to people. And “Pit Bull” isn’t even a breed, it’s a description of several breeds of dog. When a pit bull gets into trouble, “Pit Bull” is in the headline. When it’s a labrador retriever, like the mauling of that woman in France who got face surgery, they don’t usually even bother stating the breed.

Continue reading Woman breeds, chains dogs, who escape & kill others

Who knew that dogs could actually copy each other? Scientists have always said that dogs can’t learn by “modelling.” That is, they thought dogs couldn’t see other dogs doing something and then copy that behavior. Turns out they do that, and they do it in context! If they watch another dog going after a treat with his paw (rather than the mouth), they only copy that behavior if it looked like the dog had a reason they couldn’t see. If the dog had a ball in his mouth, they wouldn’t copy, maybe thinking, “well, he would’ve used his mouth, but it was full.” But if the dog had no ball in his mouth, they seemed to be thinking, “hmmm…Fido did it with his paw – must be a good idea!” They would paw at the food rather than following their instinct to go for it with the mouth. Now, we have no idea what they’re actually thinking, but this selective modelling is pretty amazing stuff. More info is in this Washington Post article from June. Amazing! So be careful about digging in the garden around Fido…

The Seattle Dog Play Classifieds have made news twice lately. They were featured in Seattle Metropolitan Magazine’s “Best of the City” issue, July 2007) and in the Seattle Times (“It’s a Dog Meet Dog World,” August 2006)

In the Seattle Dog Play Classifieds, you just list your dog or search for friends, based on play style, age, location, etc. The service is completely free and is used by dogs, puppies, and their humans throughout the Puget Sound. It’s open to the public, not just students of Ahimsa Dog Training.

I originally created this service as a way to find play friends for my own dog, and it worked! I’m glad to have a chance to help other dogs find friends, too!

Click here to visit the Seattle Dog Play Classifieds.

I was interviewed by Susan Paynter at the Seattle PI about what’s new and interesting in the dog world. Click here to read the article. Wilson is now taking classes at Ahimsa.

This was one of the few times that I felt well-represented by a news article, probably because I was interviewed for a good amount of time and Susan had a chance to see what we do in person. Still, it’s rare, and I’m grateful!