Kommetjie Canine College

23/08/2026

I was reminded of this article that I wrote in 2019 about the importance of allowing our dogs to communicate with us by an interesting post by another trainer, sharing how her Rottweilers communicate and asking for others views and experiences. In our work we come across a variety of dog guardians: some who are finely tuned to what their dogs are communicating and others who don't seem to notice until communication gets very "big".

Listening to our dogs communication helps us to understand and meet their needs and so reduce frustration and the behavioural fallout from that.

I thought this article was worth sharing again 🐾😊

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SHOULD DOGS BE ABLE TO GIVE US CUES?

Traditional thinking and has always been along the lines of “You should control your dog; they shouldn’t control you”. People seen to give into their dogs’ requests were told disparagingly that they were allowing their dogs to train them. Furthermore, dogs were expected to jump through all sorts of human-designed hoops before they received anything from us at all (e.g. nothing in life is free programmes).

But there has thankfully been a revolution in how we raise and train dogs and one of the things we are so much more aware of these days is the importance of control when it comes to emotional wellbeing. Being able to exercise some control over things in life is empowering. Having no control over anything can lead to frustration, stress and eventually depression.

Imagine moving to a country where no one spoke your language and you did not have a clue how to communicate your needs. Imagine that every time you attempted to gesture that you needed something or tried to help yourself to something, you were verbally or physically assaulted. Imagine if the people you can’t communicate with decided that every time they deigned to give you something, you needed to sit down or stand on your head and until you figured out what they wanted and did it, you got nothing.

Sounds awful, doesn’t it? Yet, this is exactly the situation that many dogs face throughout their lives. The reality is that we do control pretty much everything in our dogs’ lives. We decide when they eat (and what they eat and how much they eat), we decide when they get to go for a walk (and where they walk and for how long they walk), we decide whether they get to meet other dogs and people, we decided when to play with them, when or if to train and work with them, what toys they can have and where they can sleep. We even control when they have access to us and our homes and for how long. Every aspect of their lives is under our control. So how do we ensure that our dogs do not feel helpless, frustrated, stressed or depressed? Well, we need to give them back control by opening the lines of communication and allowing them to show us what they want and need.

Modern dog training focuses far more on encouraging dogs to be active participants in the training process, by reinforcing them for engaging with us, for offering behaviours, for problem solving and trying new things. This is a very different approach to traditional training, where a dog was expected to do nothing until cued and any initiative shown by the dog was frowned upon. In this sense, by making the dog an active role player in training, we are giving them back some control over the training process and allowing the dog to guide us as to how quickly we can progress from one step to the next. They are able to initiate exercises and, while we may set the environment up to encourage them to perform a certain behaviour, in many cases, from the dog’s perspective they are choosing what to do and figuring it out for themselves. As a result, the level of engagement and enthusiasm we see in dogs in our classes these days is huge in comparison to more traditional schools, even where positive reinforcement is used, but where the dogs are expected to do nothing until they are told what to do.

But it is not just in training that we need to consider allowing our dogs to have more control. We need to consider how we can give our dogs back some control over their everyday needs. We should be aware of what our dogs are asking for and we should be willing and ready to help them. Rosie and Cruz have many ways of asking for things:

1. Rosie will paw the bed, when she wants to get on – she doesn’t need help getting up, but seems to want encouragement, so I say: “Good Girl, up you go!” and she will spring up and settle down.
2. Cruz will stand and stare at the water bucket and then look back at us – this means the water is not fresh enough and he wants us to fill it up.
3. Rosie will moan just a little if Cruz is lying in the way and she can’t get past – she will look at him and look at me and make little noises. She is asking me to ask Cruz to move slightly so she can come through.
4. Late in the afternoon, I usually start getting stared at – this means that supper time is nigh!
5. Both dogs will go stand at the door to go out.
6. Cruz will go to and scratch on our bedroom door at night (which is open), if he wants to get back on the bed with us, but it is too dark for him to see where he is going to land – he wants us to switch on the light so he can see what he is doing.
7. Every morning, Cruz does a little dance that ends in a curtsy (bow) or rest (putting his chin on the ground), because he wants us to get a ball off the bookshelf, to start the day off right.
8. Every time Rosie comes inside after going to the toilet, she runs and stares at the biscuit tin, because she wants a biscuit.
9. Cruz will stare at the “chew” tin where I keep sinews when he is in the mood for something to chew.
10. In the evening, Rosie will paw the pillows on the dog couch, so we can move them so she has space to get up.

We generally respond to all these requests from our dogs. They are not unreasonable requests and they are all for things that make their lives comfortable and cause us no harm whatsoever. These little things help our dogs to have some control over the good things in their lives and keep them willing to communicate and engage with us. The key is to identify subtle and polite cues from your dog and respond to those, before they become less subtle and possibly inappropriate. I am sure that many dogs “demand” bark, because it is the only thing they have found that is annoying enough to actually get a response from their humans. Every other subtle signal is ignored and barking becomes the only successful option. If you want to avoid having a dog that barks to get you to listen, start looking for other ways your dog may be communicating their needs and responding to those.

These days we like to claim that our dogs are our partners and not our slaves, so why should we be the only ones ever allowed to ask for anything? Our dogs should be able to ask for things. If we allow them to do so, we can give them back some of the control that we have over their lives and make an enormous contribution to their emotional wellbeing.

Photo: Cruz doing his best "Please can I have my ball" curtsy 🥰

SHOULD DOGS BE ABLE TO GIVE US CUES?

Traditional thinking and has always been along the lines of “You should control your dog; they shouldn’t control you”. People seen to give into their dogs’ requests were told disparagingly that they were allowing their dogs to train them. Furthermore, dogs were expected to jump through all sorts of human-designed hoops before they received anything from us at all (e.g. nothing in life is free programmes).

But there has thankfully been a revolution in how we raise and train dogs and one of the things we are so much more aware of these days is the importance of control when it comes to emotional wellbeing. Being able to exercise some control over things in life is empowering. Having no control over anything can lead to frustration, stress and eventually depression.

Imagine moving to a country where no one spoke your language and you did not have a clue how to communicate your needs. Imagine that every time you attempted to gesture that you needed something or tried to help yourself to something, you were verbally or physically assaulted. Imagine if the people you can’t communicate with decided that every time they deigned to give you something, you needed to sit down or stand on your head and until you figured out what they wanted and did it, you got nothing.

Sounds awful, doesn’t it? Yet, this is exactly the situation that many dogs face throughout their lives. The reality is that we do control pretty much everything in our dogs’ lives. We decide when they eat (and what they eat and how much they eat), we decide when they get to go for a walk (and where they walk and for how long they walk), we decide whether they get to meet other dogs and people, we decided when to play with them, when or if to train and work with them, what toys they can have and where they can sleep. We even control when they have access to us and our homes and for how long. Every aspect of their lives is under our control. So how do we ensure that our dogs do not feel helpless, frustrated, stressed or depressed? Well, we need to give them back control by opening the lines of communication and allowing them to show us what they want and need.

Modern dog training focuses far more on encouraging dogs to be active participants in the training process, by reinforcing them for engaging with us, for offering behaviours, for problem solving and trying new things. This is a very different approach to traditional training, where a dog was expected to do nothing until cued and any initiative shown by the dog was frowned upon. In this sense, by making the dog an active role player in training, we are giving them back some control over the training process and allowing the dog to guide us as to how quickly we can progress from one step to the next. They are able to initiate exercises and, while we may set the environment up to encourage them to perform a certain behaviour, in many cases, from the dog’s perspective they are choosing what to do and figuring it out for themselves. As a result, the level of engagement and enthusiasm we see in dogs in our classes these days is huge in comparison to more traditional schools, even where positive reinforcement is used, but where the dogs are expected to do nothing until they are told what to do.

But it is not just in training that we need to consider allowing our dogs to have more control. We need to consider how we can give our dogs back some control over their everyday needs. We should be aware of what our dogs are asking for and we should be willing and ready to help them. Rosie and Cruz have many ways of asking for things:

1. Rosie will paw the bed, when she wants to get on – she doesn’t need help getting up, but seems to want encouragement, so I say: “Good Girl, up you go!” and she will spring up and settle down.
2. Cruz will stand and stare at the water bucket and then look back at us – this means the water is not fresh enough and he wants us to fill it up.
3. Rosie will moan just a little if Cruz is lying in the way and she can’t get past – she will look at him and look at me and make little noises. She is asking me to ask Cruz to move slightly so she can come through.
4. Late in the afternoon, I usually start getting stared at – this means that supper time is nigh!
5. Both dogs will go stand at the door to go out.
6. Cruz will go to and scratch on our bedroom door at night (which is open), if he wants to get back on the bed with us, but it is too dark for him to see where he is going to land – he wants us to switch on the light so he can see what he is doing.
7. Every morning, Cruz does a little dance that ends in a curtsy (bow) or rest (putting his chin on the ground), because he wants us to get a ball off the bookshelf, to start the day off right.
8. Every time Rosie comes inside after going to the toilet, she runs and stares at the biscuit tin, because she wants a biscuit.
9. Cruz will stare at the “chew” tin where I keep sinews when he is in the mood for something to chew.
10. In the evening, Rosie will paw the pillows on the dog couch, so we can move them so she has space to get up.

We generally respond to all these requests from our dogs. They are not unreasonable requests and they are all for things that make their lives comfortable and cause us no harm whatsoever. These little things help our dogs to have some control over the good things in their lives and keep them willing to communicate and engage with us. The key is to identify subtle and polite cues from your dog and respond to those, before they become less subtle and possibly inappropriate. I am sure that many dogs “demand” bark, because it is the only thing they have found that is annoying enough to actually get a response from their humans. Every other subtle signal is ignored and barking becomes the only successful option. If you want to avoid having a dog that barks to get you to listen, start looking for other ways your dog may be communicating their needs and responding to those.

These days we like to claim that our dogs are our partners and not our slaves, so why should we be the only ones ever allowed to ask for anything? Our dogs should be able to ask for things. If we allow them to do so, we can give them back some of the control that we have over their lives and make an enormous contribution to their emotional wellbeing.

Photo: Cruz doing his best "Please can I have my ball" curtsy 🥰

19/08/2026

Our beautiful Monday Advanced Class working on their loose lead or off lead walking - they are such a lovely, clever lot 🐾😎💞
No chokes, no pinch, no head collars - just fun and encouragement - and look at those happy tails 🥰

16/08/2026

You don't need to try out aversive tools to understand how they work and why they're harmful.

I saw a post today which claimed that we are teaching training and behaviour students ideology rather than real education. That we are deciding what should and shouldn't be used in dog training and behaviour modification and passing that on to new students in the field, without allowing them to experience other options for themselves. That we are pretending that things like punishment and negative reinforcement don't exist and robbing those on the journey to becoming dog training professionals of a proper education.

I'm not sure who is supposedly doing this, but I formally taught behaviour and training for many years and we certainly did teach students about all types of learning. No one pretended to live in some fantasy land where punishment and aversives didn't exist.

Of course we taught students about them - but of course we also taught students about the potential fallout of positive punishment, negative reinforcement and even negative punishment. We had to teach them about all of these things, because our students learned how learning takes place in the brain itself, the emotional drivers of behaviour and the emotional consequences of training and behaviour modification techniques. Any decent and comprehensive education in behaviour and training has to cover all of this in order to create a proper understanding of the science behind learning and behaviour.

And any student with a handful of functioning brain cells, a modicum of common sense and an ounce of compassion or empathy will immediately recognise the harms that result from using positive punishment, negative reinforcement and aversive tools as your go-to training method.

Do teachers or child psychologists get to practice slapping children or shocking them with graduated electronic devices (yes, this used to be done) to "get the feel" for how these things work and decide for themselves whether it's okay or not okay to use them?

Well then....

09/08/2026

If only there was more clarity about this where we live and work.

Important quotes from this excellent article by Canine Connections LLC:

"At reputable service dog organizations, puppies are carefully evaluated, socialized, exposed to an enormous variety of environments and experiences, and prepared for the demands of future service work. Even puppies produced by an organization's own carefully selected breeding program may ultimately be released from the program because of temperament, health, behavioral, or other concerns."

THIS IS SO IMPORTANT⏫️⏫️

"After appropriate socialization, puppies typically receive foundational obedience and life skills before entering more advanced service-dog training. As the dog matures, there are ongoing objective evaluations to determine whether the dog has the temperament, health, stability, work ethic, environmental resilience, and other characteristics necessary to continue toward a career as a service dog......

Once an appropriate dog has been identified, another enormously important process begins: matching the right dog with the right human partner......

A legitimate service-dog team has worked extraordinarily hard to reach that level of reliability.....

The dog may have spent months or years being evaluated, socialized, trained, tested, and carefully matched with its handler."

Does any of this sound like you can just go and adopt a puppy from your local shelter or buy a random puppy of your choice from a breeder and turn the dog into a service dog? No - so please stop trying to do this.

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/19HpWVYkqG/

A VEST DOES NOT MAKE A SERVICE DOG. A DISABILITY DOES NOT MAKE A PET DOG A SERVICE DOG.

I feel compelled to say this because there is so much misinformation about service dogs—and because the consequences of that misinformation affect people with legitimate disabilities and the organizations and professionals who work hard to train genuine service dogs.

I am not speaking from a casual interest in the subject. I have been a professional service dog trainer with one of the largest and oldest service dog organizations in the country, an organization accredited by Assistance Dogs International (ADI). In that role, I trained service dog teams and was also responsible for assessments that took place before training and placement. In addition, I am a highly experienced licensed healthcare professional who has worked with people with many different types of disabilities.

So let me be very clear:

Putting a "Service Dog" vest on a dog does not make that dog a service dog.

Buying an online "registration," certificate, ID card, or other document advertised as "official" does not make a dog a service dog.

Having a disability does not automatically make the dog you own a service dog.

Having a letter from a healthcare provider does not, by itself, make a dog a service dog.

And emotional support is not a trained task.

Under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), a service animal is a dog that is individually trained to do work or perform tasks for a person with a disability. The task must be directly related to the person's disability.

There are, absolutely, psychiatric service dogs. They are legitimate service dogs. But they are still service dogs. They are not simply emotional support animals with a different label. A psychiatric service dog must be trained to perform one or more specific tasks that mitigate the person's disability.

A dog that simply makes someone feel better, provides comfort, reduces anxiety by its presence, or offers companionship may be enormously important to that person—but those things, by themselves, are not trained tasks under the ADA.

"But I have a disability, so my dog is a service dog."

No.

A person's disability is not what makes a dog a service dog. The dog's training and function are what matter.

And this is where I wish more people understood what goes into producing a genuine service dog.

Training a service dog is considerably more complicated than training a pet dog.

In my professional experience, it starts long before a dog is ever matched with a person.

At reputable service dog organizations, puppies are carefully evaluated, socialized, exposed to an enormous variety of environments and experiences, and prepared for the demands of future service work. Even puppies produced by an organization's own carefully selected breeding program may ultimately be released from the program because of temperament, health, behavioral, or other concerns.

After appropriate socialization, puppies typically receive foundational obedience and life skills before entering more advanced service-dog training. As the dog matures, there are ongoing objective evaluations to determine whether the dog has the temperament, health, stability, work ethic, environmental resilience, and other characteristics necessary to continue toward a career as a service dog.

Sometimes the answer is no.

And that is not a failure.

A dog may be an excellent dog and still not be an appropriate service dog. That dog may be "career changed" and go on to have a wonderful life as a pet or pursue another suitable career.

Once an appropriate dog has been identified, another enormously important process begins: matching the right dog with the right human partner.

That is not simply a matter of handing someone a trained dog.

A successful match requires considering the person's disability, needs, abilities, environment, lifestyle, physical and functional requirements, the dog's temperament and capabilities, and countless other factors. A good match is critical to the success and longevity of the team.

"I'll just rescue a shelter dog and train it myself."

It sounds wonderful—and occasionally it works.

But it is not as simple as taking a dog from a shelter and teaching it a few tasks.

The vast majority of dogs entering shelters have unknown histories. Many have not received the extensive early socialization that is desirable for a service-dog candidate. Some have behavioral or health issues that may not be apparent immediately. Service dogs need exceptional stability because they may have to work calmly and reliably in environments that would be overwhelming for many otherwise wonderful pet dogs.

There are exceptions. For example, some dogs may be suitable for certain hearing-alert work. But even a hearing-alert dog needs an exceptionally stable temperament if it is going to accompany its person into public environments.

Being a wonderful shelter dog does not necessarily mean being a suitable service dog.

"My dog behaves well, so why can't I call it a service dog?"

Because good manners are only part of the picture.

A well-behaved pet dog is not automatically a service dog.

A service dog needs to be reliably trained to perform disability-related work or tasks and must be capable of behaving appropriately in public. That requires much more than sitting, staying, walking nicely on a leash, or being friendly.

And this is an important point:

There is no magic vest, registration website, certificate, or online purchase that turns a pet into a service dog.

The internet has unfortunately created an entire industry selling people the appearance of legitimacy—"official" registrations, certificates, ID cards, vests, and other products. These purchases do not train a dog, and they do not create legal service-dog status.

Likewise, a healthcare provider's letter may be relevant to an emotional support animal in certain contexts, but a letter does not substitute for the disability-related task training required for a service dog under the ADA.

Service dogs, psychiatric service dogs, and emotional support animals are NOT the same thing.

They can all be incredibly valuable to the people who rely on them. But they have different roles and different legal protections.

Service dog: Individually trained to perform work or tasks directly related to a person's disability.

Psychiatric service dog: A service dog whose trained work or tasks mitigate a psychiatric disability.

Emotional support animal: Provides comfort or emotional support through its presence. Emotional support alone is not a trained service-dog task.

The fact that an emotional support animal is tremendously beneficial to its owner does not make it a service dog.

Individuals with emotional support animals do not have the same public-access rights under the ADA as people with service dogs.

Why does any of this matter?

Because fraudulent or uninformed claims don't just bend a rule. They can have real consequences.

When an untrained dog is brought into public places under the claim that it is a service dog, the dog's behavior may negatively affect businesses, employees, other customers, legitimate service-dog teams, and the public's perception of service dogs.

A legitimate service-dog team has worked extraordinarily hard to reach that level of reliability.

The dog may have spent months or years being evaluated, socialized, trained, tested, and carefully matched with its partner.

The person may depend on that dog for essential disability-related assistance.

That deserves respect.

So please don't confuse a vest with training, a certificate with qualification, a disability with a service dog, or emotional support with a trained task.

And please don't assume that because you love your dog, your dog is exceptionally well behaved, your dog comforts you, or you have a disability, your dog can simply be declared a service dog.

A genuine service dog is not created by a label. It is created through appropriate selection, training, disability-related task work, reliable behavior, and the formation of a functional working partnership with its handler.

I have seen firsthand how much knowledge, skill, evaluation, time, and work goes into creating successful service-dog teams.

It is a noble profession.

It is an extraordinary partnership.

And it deserves to be treated seriously.

Cindy Ludwig, M.A., B.S., R.N., KPA-CTP, CPDT-KA
Owner, Canine Connection LLC Willard, MO USA
Serving Southwest Missouri & Beyond

26/07/2026

I wonder if people will ever understand the importance of early socialisation?

I've been running my own puppy classes for 16 years and was a puppy class instructor for 10 years prior to that.

Puppy classes used to be the "fun" part of being a behaviourist. We'd get to work with puppies in the socialisation period, where introducing them to new things would be pretty easy. Puppy classes were fun for the puppies and their families. Lots of smiles, lots of laughter, lots of cute moments and the joy of watching pups happily interacting and playing with their own kind.

I'm not saying that every puppy was easy, that there weren't some pups who were shyer and took a while to feel comfortable with new things and others who needed careful management to prevent them being too much for other pups and learning bad habits.

We have always carefully managed interactions and carefully matched puppies for the best outcome. We have always ensured that play was only one aspect of class and plenty of time was spent on building a strong bond between pups and their human parents and developing other skills for healthy emotional and social development. But we have nearly always been able to integrate puppies into some enjoyable play time to develop their canine social skills and meet the very real need for conspecific play which most young dogs have.

Yet this is sadly changing. This year for the first time, I can count on one hand the number of lessons where we have been able to let puppies interact at all off lead. It's not because we don't want to or because the puppies' guardians don't want this - it is because a very large proportion of the puppies we are getting in our classes are unable to interact with their own kind even remotely competently. Instead of outgoing puppies with a natural affinity for their own species, we see:

❗️Fearfulness
❗️Reactivity
❗️Over-arousal
❗️Complete lack of communication skills
❗️Approach-avoidance conflict
❗️Confused body language
❗️Inappropriate behaviours

The average age of puppies when they began classes used to be 9-12 weeks. Sadly, we are now lucky if we get them by the age of 16 weeks. And even then the socialisation period is largely OVER. If these puppies have been out and about with their families, then they are still okay. Unfortunately many have not been anywhere.

Do you know what the most common answer to the question on our enrolment form "how often do you walk your puppy" is?
Sadly, it's "We don't yet - too young" or "Not fully vaccinated". Literally people are still being told by certain vets, breeders and even some rescue organisations that their puppies cannot leave home until they have had not 1, 2 or even 3 vaccinations, but 4 or 5 of them🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️ This means that most puppies will not leave home before they are 5 months of age.

I saw an old clip of Dr Ian Dunbar earlier today where he spoke of the leading cause of death in dogs. It's not Parvo. As he said, viruses like parvo kill a fraction of the amount of dogs that die as a result of behaviour issues.

Why have we gone backwards in this regard? Why are we sabotaging a puppy's only chance at an emotionally and socially healthy life for unrealistic safetyist nonsense? It's not scientific. It's not logical. It's not reasonable.

While we do have a cut-off age for puppy class, I'm getting to a point where I want to insist that all pups begin before 12 weeks . And if you wake up too late, tough. It's not our problem. Because for the one or two pups whose guardians did start early enough, it's not fair for them to be subjected to what ends up being a socially frought environment with the best we can hope for being desensitisation and counter conditioning, as opposed to genuine socialisation.

Puppy classes should not need to be remedial classes. Puppy classes should not be stressful for puppies or people.

I get that many people are adopting puppies these days and they can't help the age the puppy was upon adoption. But in most cases, people have puppies for a month or more before they bother to do anything. And if puppies do end up not being homed timeously, then the rescue organisations need to be actively providing for their socialisation in the meantime. Homing an unsocialised puppy is as bad as homing a puppy they didn't bother to vaccinate. Socialisation is emotional vaccination. And it's even more important for a healthy long life.

This post may seem blunt, but I won't apologise for that. What is happening right now is absolutely catastrophic for so many dogs and their human families. Things need to change.