May 13, 2017

Dog House-Training, Potty Training, Housebreaking, Oh My!

A common source of frustration for the puppy or newly-adopted dog owner, let’s simplify potty-training! Potty training, house-training, the traditional term “housebreaking…” It’s all the same thing, isn’t it? It means teaching new puppy (or dog) – we’ll call him Bellhop for the purposes of this article – to eliminate in some places, and not to eliminate in others. As a general rule of thumb, you can assess that your puppy can probably “hold it” for the number of months old he is, divided by two. (So a two month old puppy can probably only hold it for about an …  Continue reading →

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April 13, 2017

Why I DON’T Train My Clients’ Dogs to Heel

In the basic obedience classes I teach as a dog trainer, I don’t spend hours training the dogs to heel. I don’t even spend much time on loose-leash walking as a trained behavior. I simply direct my students to the smorgasbord of anti-pull gear at the local pet store (front-clip harnesses and head halters), and move on to other items on the curriculum, like safety recalls, jumping up, and leave-it. It’s not that training dogs to heel isn’t fun–it certainly can be, if we toss the out-moded leash-pop and use a modern training plan. But few of my students actually …  Continue reading →

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