Christine Hibbard, CTC, CPDT Not to put too fine a point on it, but dogs bite because they’re dogs. It’s what dogs are biologically programmed to do. Every dog has the potential to bite, no matter how well socialized or friendly. I thought it might be useful to explore the different reasons why a dog… [Read More]
Why We’re Against Breed Specific Legislation (Breed Bans)
Christine Hibbard, CTC, CPDT The city council of Bothell, Washington is considering enacting breed specific legislation that would ban residents from owning certain breeds of dogs. All of us at Companion Animal Solutions believe that Breed Specific Legislation is the wrong approach to making our neighborhoods and ourselves safe from vicious dogs. We believe that… [Read More]
When Behavior Modification Isn’t the Answer
Greta Kaplan, CPDT, CDBC When we talk to clients about what we’ll do at our initial consultation, we explain that we’ll take some history about the situation, discuss management that needs to be put in place to ease tensions and help the training work better, and then talk about and actually start training your dog… [Read More]
Confrontational Behavior Modification Techniques and the Risk to Owners
James Ha, PhD, CAAB I have expressed my concern about confrontational behavior modification techniques in earlier blogs: the use of “positive punishment” or dominance and pack theory-based techniques, especially in the hands of untrained users, has been shown to be ineffective and to produce negative side effects. Hiby and colleagues demonstrated that positive reinforcement techniques… [Read More]
Dog/Dog Aggression, or Is It?
Christine Hibbard, CTC, CPDT One of the most common calls we get from prospective clients starts with something like, “My dog is aggressive with other dogs, can it be fixed?” I’ve learned over the years that dog/dog aggression is sometimes in the eye of the beholder. The situation is further complicated because there are different… [Read More]