Compulsion and "Difficult" Dogs Article

The use of inappropriate, inhumane compulsion based methods in training is something that I am strongly against with all dogs, even more so with fearful, reactive and/or aggressive dogs. Pro-compulsion trainers often use many arguments (and misapplied/understood scientific theory) to justify their methods.

I recently wrote an article explaining why science states that these methods are not going to be effective, aside from all of the ethical concerns. I was lucky enough to get it published in the Pet Professional Guild's (of which I am a proud member) Barks From The Guild (Force Free Training) magazine.

 For those interested in having a read, you can find the Summer 2013 issue here:
http://issuu.com/petprofessionalguild/docs/bftg-summer2013

Happy Training 

Finally an update

I'll hold my hands up and say I've been utterly rubbish about updating my blog but I'm back, promise to update more and for now I've got lots to report.
I've had a busy few months really; I was in Spain for a bit last year working with primates (I've got a couple of interesting zoology ecology related articles coming up) and then returned to then go out to France, complete with dogs to work for two animal rescues. It's been busy and a bit stressful at times for various reasons but at the same time the hounds and I have been loving the space and tranquillity out here. We are soon to return though and got plenty of interesting plans for summer too (back to classes, a visit to the primate etc).
In the meantime here are a few videos of some bits of training we've been doing over here:

And some work on connected/focused entrance/exit points. Sessions 1 and 2. Ongoing.  


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oG9xfL-eJw

Happy training everyone!