For a very good guide to all sorts of dog training processes and dog behavior challenges, I use and recommend Clickertraining ...that link goes to the description of this terrific ebook you download immediately, wherever you are! -- Rosana

Have you heard of Dogwise? I sometimes call it the Amazon of dog information, and I must admit I love it.

Dogwise carries dog books and DVDs that you can find nowhere else, including Amazon. With such a wide selection (over 2000 items), it’s easy to find what you need. Owned by a family who are passionate about dogs and dog information, Dogwise is also fun to browse, just to keep up with what’s being published about dogs.

With my particular interest in clicker training, here’s a link to clicker training books and DVDs at Dogwise.

Not content to just be a distribution center, back in 2001 Dogwise began its publishing arm and has now created numerous very useful books and DVDs. From any page on the site, click on the tab that says Publishing to read about their publishing program, and scroll down a little to see what they have published. I counted over 35 titles just on dog training and behavior.

If you go to a dog show, you may see their booth there. My credit card would be in serious trouble if I did that, but maybe you have more restraint. There’s a tab on the website called Shows & Info which lists the shows they will be attending, all over the US.

While I’m describing the tabs, the Welcome one takes you to their homepage, with featured new items. The Features one I would have called Categories, because it is a detailed list of the many topics that they cover. Bargain Books and Help/Contact, both self explanatory, round out the upper menu. As a webmaster, I like this clear, clean navigation.

On the left side, you can search for anything, and browse a number of interesting things, including their forums, reading lists created by customers, and more.

Click on the image to go explore Dogwise:

[tags]dog books, dog training books, dog dvd, dogwise[/tags]

“Social Networking” is a relatively new, and ever-more-important aspect of the internet. Sites like Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, and many more create ways that we can connect with others who share our interests.

And the dogs have their own social networking site. I can tell it’s for them because most of the posts are written by the dogs, referring to their owners usually as Mom!

It’s Dogster. Free to join, full of things to do… Lola and LarryDog have joined, but I admit we don’t get there as much as they would like, since their messages have to be channeled through me… now if they could type, it would be different!

I really like the way Dogster has defined what it is and isn’t.

• It IS a place to have fun with other dogs and their owners, a place to have good discussions in the forums and to post favorite photos of your dogs.
• It ISN’T a place to promote dogs for sale, breeding services, or other things for sale.
• It ISN’T a place to discuss non-dog matters such as politics and religion.
• It ISN’T a place to post other people’s videos (like from Youtube) or photos… all content must be yours.
• It ISN’T a place for cats, except as they relate to dogs, but there is a Catster.

Come join us there… and be sure to click to make Lola one of your Pup Pals! (LarryDog doesn’t get online nearly as much as Lola.)

[tags]dogster, dog social networking[/tags]

Positive dog training: sounds nice, doesn’t it? But what does it really mean for you and your dog?

It means, well, the opposite, of that old saw "no pain, no gain."

Positive dog training methods are those that use positive reinforcement — praise, treats, a toy, the click of a clicker once the dog knows what that means. The idea is that by teaching your dog what you want him to know using these methods, the dog will be much more eager and willing to learn than if you are training using aversion techniques, that is, shock collars, a jerk on a choke chain, or other pain-causing methods. "You can catch more flies with honey," to use another old saying.

Of course, nothing is completely black and white. While positive dog training methods have been increasing tremendously in popularity in recent years, many trainers and plenty of dog owners use a mix of methods. I created this website to explore the positive methods, and the more I have read and tried out for myself with my own and friends’ dogs, the more impressed I have become with this approach.

But still… I was at a potluck a few days ago and a woman there said she had used every possible training technique she could think of to stop her dog from barking. Nothing had succeeded till she used a shock collar a few times. That had worked. Would I do that myself? I doubt it. But I did add "excessive barking" to a list of things to research that I have going. (Please contact me if you have any ideas on this!)

When you start out with positive methods with a new puppy, you can see such a wonderful blossoming as the little one learns all sorts of things quickly and happily. You aren’t using fear as a motivator, and the results can be stunning.

Give it a try, see where it takes you. Come back and explore this site again, or sign up for my weekly newsletter.

[tags]dog training, dogtraining, positive dog training[/tags]

People often wonder how long their training sessions should be, whether it’s with a puppy or an adult dog. This reminds me of the old joke that goes, “How long should a dog’s legs be?”

The answer: “Long enough to reach the ground.”

Well, that’s the general idea for how long a training session should be… long enough to teach something. It will depend a lot on your dog’s attention span, and this is related both to the age of your puppy or dog and to the breed.

For young puppies, the training session should be very short and should be fun or at least end with some fun. What’s very short? It could even be 30 seconds… in which case, you’d want to have quite a few training sessions per day.

As a dog matures, it can pay attention for longer times but no matter the age, do always end the session on an upbeat note. You can go back to something simpler that the dog already knows, if you want to, for the last command, so that you and the dog both end with success.

Some breeds love to learn things and please you, while others are more independent. When I was training my very independent Basenji, for example, I found that she learned incredibly quickly from the day we brought her home, but that it was always on her terms, when she wanted to. If she felt like playing with the cat when I thought it was time for training, the cat generally won out. (We had a very patient cat at the time.)

On the other hand, the Australian Shepherd we trained (several years before the Basenji) was a much more attentive student, pretty much any time. These breed differences are fascinating to see.

I feel that generally with an older puppy or an adult, somewhere about 20 minutes is good. You can do a lot of repetitions, have enough rewards, and both be ready for something else by the end of it. If you’re working a lot with a young or new dog, you may do better with three or four sessions a day, and they can be less than 20 minutes.

But it also depends on how much time you have! One way to get some dog training in on a regular basis is to do a little bit just before you feed the dog.

Want more tips on dog training? For an inexpensive, downloadable ebook, here’s the page where I review Silvia Kent’s Dynamic Dog Training.

[tags]dog training, puppy training[/tags]