I use shaping rather than luring with food in my dog training. In the 80s, I was taught to food lure and correct, learned to do it well, and luring brought me a lot of success [...]

We’re geeking out the topic of dopamine in dog training and how it impacts a dog’s motivation. Dopamine is a type of neurotransmitter, and there’s a lot of research on [...]

We use targets in our dog training, which has prompted popular questions on the best way to fade a target and when to start fading. So that’s the topic of this episode [...]

A good dog training plan will set you and your dog up for success and protect your confidence. The planning I do for myself and my students includes 10 key elements. We’re [...]

The way we dog train is different, and there are four elements that are vital to everything we do. It starts with confidence for people and their dogs and layers to grow [...]

If someone says to you that they are a reinforcement-based dog trainer, what does that really mean? There are a lot of ways of training dogs with food or toys. Even though [...]

If you were to google for help for an anxious, stressed, or reactive dog, you’d get many suggestions, many of which are good! But there are critical elements that are essential [...]

If your dog is stressed, anxious or reactive, there’s so much you can do to replace that stress, anxiety and reactivity with confidence. Two things are super important to help our [...]

Inadvertent stress is something we want to minimize when training our dogs, as excessive stress has the same impact on dogs as it does on us. Now, stress is everywhere, but we [...]

If you were to get 100 of the world’s best dog trainers in a room, there would be a lot of disagreements. However, if you asked, “what’s the number one training mistake people [...]

Help, how can I stop my dog barking in the car while I’m driving!? That’s one of the most common questions we receive, and it’s a dilemma as you can’t drive and train your [...]

Do you consider yourself a risk taker? Or maybe you play it safe? What about when it comes to your dog? We all want our dogs to be safe, but there’s one area in a dog’s life [...]

If you’ve ever trained your dog in public or put a video on social media, chances are somebody has offered you unsolicited training advice. Likely it’s advice you don’t need [...]

There are two types of dogs when it comes to water and going for a swim. Some dogs LOVE water and swimming, and others don’t want anything to do with it. How we teach swimming [...]

Understanding the science of dog training is going to help you help your dog with clarity. In Episode 158 of Shaped by Dog, we covered training and using positive interrupters, and a [...]

I have owned nine puppies and had many rescue dogs new to my home, and all have become amazing adult dogs. It might seem I was lucky, but the truth is that I followed a process! [...]

It’s important to realize when a puppy might not be interacting appropriately with another puppy or dog. Some puppies can be bullies, play far too roughly, or be overly exuberant [...]

If you took an obedience class back in the 80s, you could have learned to say things like AH-AH, NO, and HEY to stop your dog from doing something. And if you learned that [...]

If you spend time on social media, you will have seen videos where somebody has a family dog and a young toddler or a baby in very precarious situations. It’s unnecessarily [...]

The best thing we can do for our dogs is protect them from unpleasant events. Fireworks displays can be beautiful for us but can be traumatic for dogs. It’s not just dogs; [...]