Dogs live on farms, in high rise apartments, suburban homes, and even on the road with their humans. We love our dogs in all of their various shapes and sizes. But can we love them wrong? Can we love them too much? It’s an interesting question. Maybe we can love them to death, literally.

It’s fun to explore things in depth and see where they come from, where they go, and even if we can be better or smarter about them. I tend to be scientific in my approach to most things. I like to break them down, see how they work, and be able to put them back together again. But I recognize that not everyone shares my systematic approach to dogs and dog training. So why is “science” considered a bad thing by so many dog trainers? Just a thing that makes me go “hmmm” I guess.

How do we know when our dog is “doing it wrong”? The immediate answer would seem to be that the dog is not doing the behaviour as requested (cued, commanded, choose your word). On the face of it, it seems a pretty easy thing to determine. But if we dig a little deeper, we could ask why our dog isn’t performing as we expected. And this is where it gets interesting.

Part 3 of a series on rehabilitating a dog after a serious health issue. Trainer and behaviourist Eric Brad could have looked for a training solution to the changes in his dog Tiramisu’s behaviour. Instead, he sought out the help of veterinary health care professionals to help solve the mystery of why a once vibrant and active dog was suddenly shutting down. Encouragement, support, and advice from both friends and professionals ultimately came together to find a solution. And what a relief it was for both Eric and his dog!

One of the things I say frequently about dogs and their owners is , “You can’t tell someone how to raise their child and you can’t tell them how to raise their dog.” Like politics or religion, a discussion about how to train or raise a dog can invoke strong emotions and strong opinions across a pretty wide spectrum. Everyone seems to have their preferred authorities and philosophies.

I’ve had a few random thoughts knocking around the inside of my head lately and this week seemed as good a time as any to toss them out to my readers and see what you may think about them. I offer them in no particular order and they are just things that made me go “hmmm” this week.

We have a saying in our home, “Train it or manage it.” When it comes to dealing with our dog’s behaviour, it seems there are really only two choices. We can either train our dogs to do things in a way that we like or we can manage their situation so that they don’t have the opportunity to do things we don’t. It’s a practical decision.

Dog trainers can, and frequently do, debate which techniques for teaching a dog to do a specific behaviour is the most effective. There is some flexibility in how we teach our dogs to do something new. But what about those cases where our dog is doing something we don’t want them to do? What training methods or techniques are available for dealing with those cases and how do we choose?

There are a few common phrases that float around in the dog training world that get my hackles up. One of those phrases is “I use whatever training technique my dogs need.” The implication being that some dogs are more responsive to one technique over another.