Praise the Pup

03/05/2025

When dogs have agency - even in small, everyday interactions -

👉🏽 They behind to feel in control of their world
👉🏽 They're not longer just reacting - they're thinking, processing & making conscious decisions

26/03/2025

Resource guarding in dogs

11/01/2025

If someone asks me, how raising Candy & Russel changed me for good - it's this one!
🌻

23/12/2024

Positive reinforcement is commonly believed to be synonymous with mere 'treat training', but it's so much more.

Positive reinforcement: Adding a desirable or pleasant stimulus after a behavior. The desirable stimulus (treat for eg) reinforces the behavior (down) that it succeeds, making it more likely that the behavior will reoccur in the future. It’s about adding something your dog values (the ability to move freely on a leash, sniffing, etc) to increase the behavior just before that. If it didn’t work, here’s why:

🐾 Misunderstood Basics: Often, what’s being reinforced isn’t what you expected. A dog barking at a passerby on the balcony is being self-reinforced, you don't need to add a treat or scold the dog for that behavior, it's not what is maintaining the behavior. The same goes with counter-surfing or trash bin raiding (with these self-reinforcing behaviors, what happens after the dog has scored something is NOT going to serve as a consequence, yes scolding can add avoidance, but the dog won't raid the bin in front of you)
🐾 Motivators & Needs: Did you check if your dog was hungry, in pain, or stressed? The surface is slippery. Unmet needs and distractions in the environment matter.
🐾 Too Much, Too Soon: Asking for complex behaviors before the basics are in place leads to frustration
🐾 Timing is Everything: If your reward timing is off, your dog might associate it with another behavior. Take the sit and jump to get a treat behavior chain. Be quick or the dog tries other behaviors to get access to the reinforcement.
🐾 Learning Takes Time: Put that time & effort into building a solid learning history
🐾 Focussing too much on what the dog does & not enough on how the dog feels

While training isn’t one-size-fits-all (every dog is unique), the science of behavior and learning doesn’t change whether you have a Spitz or a Rottweiler, understanding how to effectively apply positive reinforcement is the real game-changer. Having said that there is SO much more than just the quadrants (reinforcement/ punishment)

13/11/2024

31/10/2024

Some ways to help your dog relax after the festivities 🪔💥

17/07/2024

In the last post in the "Pain in dogs" series we talked about how Pain can affect various other behavioural aspects and how subtle these signs of pain can be.

We discussed how there is no golden rule to be followed to diagnose pain, but looking for subtle changes, behavioural, physiological, outward appearance - can be important when discussing with your Vet.

There are several grading and scoring scales available that are used by Vets worldwide and there are several limitations to how they are used and interpreted.

We also discussed how it can be difficult to assess Pain in dogs in a veterinary set-up where the dogs are usually in a lot of stress and how a collaborative approach between the Vet and the Pet parent is the best way forward.

Comment down "Pain free" or "Painfree" to get a 🔗 in your DMs to read more about these grading scales

👇🏽

19/06/2024

Pain is an often overlooked aspect of a dog's behavioural health.
Often we don't consider pain until we see more severe signs like a dog limping or whimpering but dogs are so good at masking their pain, since it has been a survival instinct for them to protect themselves from predators, now making it difficult for pet guardians to spot these signs