School For The Dogs Podcast

Last month, the Wall Street Journal ran an opinion piece about how positive-reinforcement dog training is too much trouble, concluding that punishment-based training is faster and, overall, underrated. Quite a few dog trainers wrote to the Wall Street Journal, angry that such a major publication would run something with such spurious facts and no sources. Annie called up her long time friend Kiki Yablon to talk about why so much "journalism" about dog training goes wrong. Kiki, who is a Karen Pryor Academy faculty member and trains dogs in Chicago, was an editor for many years, and turned to a career in dog training around the same time as Annie quit the field of journalism as well.  In this casual chat, the two discuss the errors reporters frequently make when writing about dogs, the traditional media's dismissiveness of pets as a serious subject, the general public's misunderstandings about behavior as a science, and the flubs they both made themselves when attempting to write about dog training before they

This is a rebroadcast of Episode 3, which originally aired on 3/18/18.Training a dog where to pee and poop is a major priority for most new dog owners. But there is a lot of misinformation on how to do it -- we don't even have a term for it that make sense! Are we training the house? Is it still "house breaking" if you live in an apartment? Annie breaks down how to take on this task in a way that can be easy and error-free using smart management tools, good timing, and well-thought out rewards. Download our free eBook on house training at http://schoolforthedogs.com/housePlease make sure to subscribe & give us 5-stars on iTunes!  Click here for show notes! http://anniegrossman.com/2018/03/podcast/podcast-episode-3-modern-guide-house-training-dog/9308/Full Transcript at SchoolfortheDogs.com/Podcasts/https://www.schoolforthedogs.com/podcasts/episode-3-a-modern-guide-to-house-training-your-dog/ This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes,

This is the audio of a live presentation Annie gave for New York City's Animal Medical Center's Usdan Institute for Animal Health Education last week. Annie offers actionable advice for preventing separation anxiety and handling other behavioral issues that may arise as people begin to return to offices after long periods of working from home, with their dogs constantly by their sides.This presentation discusses: How to locate a certified dog trainer and understand what "Good Dog Training" is... Changing a dog's emotional states... Reading dog body language to assess stress levels... Monitoring dogs remotely... Creative dog care arrangements for when owners aren't around... Conducting separation trials in a way that sets up dogs for success...And more!You can view the presentation in full here:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NaAP5Cskd8&feature=youtu.beSchool For The Dogs' trainers are available for private sessions to deal with issues relating to true separation anxiety. Book a session at schoolforth

Nora Moran is a director at Puppies Behind Bars, a program that employs prisoners to raise and train puppies who will grow up to become service dogs, therapy dogs, and working dogs. She first learned about the program when she herself got the opportunity to raise a puppy while incarcerated at New York's Bedford Hills Correctional Facility. Since her release in 2008, she has been working to help more prisoners raise dogs and learn about training. She and Annie discuss the kinds of work the prisoners are doing with the dogs, and talk about the transformations that take place as prisoners welcome dogs, and behavioral science, into their lives.  In this episode, Annie also reads the American Veterinary Society of Animal Behavior's recent position paper on humane training.  Learn more about Puppies Behind Bars at puppiesbehindbars.com Read the AVSAB position statement at http://schoolforthedogs.com/humanetraining Mentioned in this episode:  Treat Everyone Like a Dog: How a Dog Trainer's World View Can Improve Your

Tamara Meyer is a dog trainer with something of a dream job: She hangs out in the woods with dogs. Her Manhattan-based business, Shape Up Your Pup, brings groups of dogs to trails near the city every day. Annie met her when she was very pregnant and was looking for ways to make sure that her young dog, Poppy, got some good exercise. Annie asks her about the origins of her business, her journey to becoming a trainer, and gets tips on how to work with dogs -- one or many! -- off leash.Shape Up Your Puphttps://www.shapeupyourpup.com/Tracking collar mentioned: Garmin Astro 430https://buy.garmin.com/en-US/US/p/545353Bear bellshttps://amzn.to/2VXCV85---Partial TranscriptTamara Meyer:Hi everyone. My name is Tamara Meyer. I am the owner of New York City-based dog hiking and training company, Shape Up Your Pup, which I founded in 2017. Dating back, I have always felt very connected with animals and drawn to them, obviously dogs, especially. But as a kid I needed to stop and pet every dog that walked on the street.It’s

Kate Senisi and Annie Grossman founded School For The Dogs together in 2011. What a decade it's been! Kate, who oversees training and staff at School For The Dogs, is quite busy and can be hard to pin down. But, when trapped in a car with Annie, she agreed to record a casual conversation about the business, the specific challenges faced by city dogs and their owners, and SFTD's unique offerings. She also offered her tempered and reasonable views on two topics about which Annie tends to get highly fired up: Cesar Millan and shock collars. Learn more about Sidewalk Psychoshttps://www.schoolforthedogs.com/services/sidewalk-psychos/Learn more about Stranger Dangerhttps://dogs.pike13.com/courses/267279Played in this episode: Millan discusses shows ABC 7 Chicago https://abc7.ws/2TKmQl710 reasons to watch Better Human Better Dog, from Cesar MIllan's Twitter feedhttps://twitter.com/cesarmillan/status/1421160078812479489Previous episode mentioned: Terrible dog training, sugarcoated with New Age woo: Cesar Millan is ba

To many people, everything they know about dog training has come out of the mouth of one man: Cesar Millan. For nine seasons, on his show, The Dog Whisperer, he told people that they needed to fix their "energy" and become more assertive in order to get their dogs to be "calm submissive." He showed how to get dogs to do what he wanted by using punishment, force and coercion, although he had other words he used to describe his methods... words having to do with "joy" and "positivity." He managed to put a New Age-quasi-spiritual-spin on antiquated methods, and the public ate it up. In anticipation of his brand new show, Better Human Better Dog, Annie discusses her current, and past thoughts about Cesar Millan, and plays several interviews where he talks about his shows and his beliefs about dogs and the humans who, according to him, cause all their problems. 2012 blog posts Annie wrote about Cesar Millan: Cesar Millan’s secret training technique: Kicking dogs in the stomachhttps://bit.ly/2Vk6ZKGCesar Millan’s t

New York Magazine reports that the Pandemic Puppy boom has left many New Yorkers in a kind of do-gooder competition to see who can qualify to get one of a seemingly dwindling number of rescue dogs. Annie talks about why it’s so hard and how that this fact is probably a good thing for the dogs involved. She offers some tips on how to acquire a shelter dog and things to avoid doing when you're looking to buy or adopt a dog. She also argues that it can be a good idea to work with a quality breeder, and gives some advice on how to tell the good from the shady. New York Magazine articlehttps://www.thecut.com/2021/07/why-adopting-a-rescue-dog-is-so-hard-right-now.htmlOrthopedic Foundations For Animals and the CHIC Program https://www.ofa.org/about/chic-programThe Culture Clash by Jean Donaldsonhttps://www.amazon.com/dp/1617811122?tag=thedogs00-20Pets In America by Katherine C. Grierhttps://www.amazon.com/dp/0807829900?tag=thedogs00-20The Dog Merchants by Kim Kavin https://www.amazon.com/dp/1681771403?tag=thedogs00-

Annie was pretty psyched to see The New Yorker had two articles in a recent issue that looked like they'd touch on the science of behavior as it relates to both training dogs and raising children. One article is about pandemic pet ownership and rescuing dogs from China; the other is about sleep training infants. Ultimately both underscore what she already knew: The science of behavior and its applications are pretty misunderstood, and few people share the kind of passion that Positive Reinforcement dog trainers have for molding behavior (canine or human) without using force and coercion.  Mentioned in this episode:  Why People Treat Their Dogs Like Humans https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDFKvCL_JC8 What Will Become Of Pandemic Pets? (Note: Digital version has a different title than the print version of this article) https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/06/28/what-will-become-of-the-pandemic-pets The Promise and Peril of a High-Priced Sleep Trainer https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/06/28/the-promise-a

Maria Skorobogatov, CTC, is a dog trainer who has spent the last six years traveling the world training animals. She's worked with dogs in Hanoi, cats in Tunisia and Rome, and everything from pangolins to elephants to vervet monkeys in Malawi. Originally from Brooklyn, Maria discovered the joys of animal training when she lucked into a client service's job at The Houston Zoo. When she saw the work the trainers were doing there, she started taking classes in behavior at a community college, where she learned to train rats. She later moved to San Francisco, worked at an animal shelter there, and eventually enrolled in Jean Donaldson's acclaimed Academy For Dog Trainers. While working as a trainer and dog walker in Brooklyn, she got the opportunity to dog sit in Vietnam for a month, and that trip ultimately led to her current lifestyle as a world-traveling trainer.  Annie and Maria first met in middle school! They lost touch after eighth grade, but reconnected recently and discovered they both have ended up work

For two decades, Malena DeMartini has been helping people help dogs who have separation anxiety. She joined Annie to discuss her new book, Treating Separation Anxiety in Dogs: Next Generation Treatment Protocols and Practices. In it,  she reveals some surprising updates to the protocols she suggested in her first book (spoiler: she now wants her clients to do LESS training than before).  She and Annie also discuss her virtual school for coaching Certified Separation Anxiety Trainers, her client-facing course, Mission Possible, and how quarantine changed the way people understand what canine separation anxiety really is.  Malena's course: Mission Possible http://schoolforthedogs.com/mission Use code SFTD and save 50% at checkout  Like this podcast? Support it by leaving a 5-star review on iTunes, telling your friends, shopping in our online store, or signing up for Annie's mailing list. Learn more about School For The Dogs at SchoolForTheDogs.com.-----------  Listen to Annie's May 2020 episode with Malena here

Some dogs really freak out about loud noises. Unfortunately, too often, new dog owners learn this on a day when scary sounds abound: July 4th. Annie talks to fellow trainer, Cheryl Gfrerer of Giffy Dog in St. Paul, MN, about her personal experiences dealing with a sound-sensitive rescue dog, and together they discuss protocols and practical approaches to helping dogs who are triggered by fireworks and the like.  Find Cheryl Gfrerer online at giffydog.com and on Instagram @giffydog Like this podcast? Support it by leaving a 5-star review on iTunes, telling your friends, shopping in our online store, or signing up for Annie's mailing list. Learn more about School For The Dogs at SchoolForTheDogs.com.Mentioned in this episode:  DAP (Dog Appeasing Pheremone) products by Adaptil https://storeforthedogs.com/collections/dog-appeasing-pheromone Thundershirt https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0029PY7SK?tag=thedogs00-20 Decoding Your Dog https://www.amazon.com/dp/0544334604?tag=thedogs00-20 Through A Dog's Ear (on Spotify) htt

This is a rebroadcast of Episode 29, which originally aired on 10/15/18. As much as we want our dogs to be social beings, the sad fact is that city streets are not an ideal place for leashed dogs to socialize. The close confines of the sidewalk can keep dogs from having enough space to greet each other properly, and leashes too often can become uncomfortably taught, leading a dog to think that even just the sight of another dog predicts yanking and choking.Like this podcast? Support it by leaving a 5-star review on iTunes, telling your friends, shopping in our online store, or signing up for Annie's mailing list. Learn more about School For The Dogs at SchoolForTheDogs.com. This episode addresses:-Avoiding other dogs on the street-Using the presence of other dogs on leash as a cue for your dog to pay attention to you-Providing your dog with appropriate off-leash socialization opportunities-Choosing which dogs you might let your dog greet-Helping your dog greet other dogs naturally and appropriately ... and mo

Annie has always loved using the Treat & Train, a bare-bones, battery-operated remote-controlled treat dispenser, but she has found it particularly useful for her current situation: Being busy and also largely pregnant in a city apartment with a toddler and a rambunctious adolescent dog. She describes how she has turned the word "Dop" into a tertiary conditioned reinforcer that, with the help of the Treat & Train, she uses to get her dog Poppy to stop jumping, leave her daughter alone, and more. Through the end of June, get 10% off your purchase of a Treat and Train using code TREAT21 at http://Schoolforthedogs.com/TTAlso get 10% off the Revol crate and all of Diggs' products using code DIGGS21 at https://storeforthedogs.com/collections/diggsLike this episode? Please make sure to rate and review School For The Dogs Podcast on iTunes!---Partial Transcript:Annie:So a couple of weeks ago, in the episode I did about products that I think new dog owners can really benefit from, I mentioned that one of my f

One of Annie's best friends is Ilana Alderman, an animal trainer who, over the last few years, has been using what she knows about behavior to help create fun games for her son -- games that enrich his brain and games that require her to consider consequences, appropriate rewards, and antecedent arrangements in order to help him engage in necessary behaviors using positive reinforcement rather than punishment or coercion.  Episode features a special appearance by Magnolia Pedicone, who is 2.5 years old.  Find Ilana on Instagram @baby_enrichment and on the web at Childcooperativecare.com.  Find this blog post at: https://childcooperativecare.wordpress.com/2021/04/13/14-tips-for-brushing-your-toddlers-teeth-without-tears/---Partial Transcript:Annie:So there is this incredible person who I have been trying to get to be on the podcast for literally years. Now, she is one of the most interesting people I know, period. And certainly one of the most interesting animal trainers I know.  Her approach to animal trainin

Is masking wearing an example of human behavior being motivated by negative reinforcement? What if the government made better use of positive reinforcement to motivate people to get vaccinated? Annie looks at the current state of our COVID-impacted lives from the point of view of a reward-based, science-based dog trainer.Like this podcast? Please subscribe, rate and review on iTunes!---Partial Transcript:[music and intro]Annie:Hi.  So I just wanted to share some dog training point of view type thoughts I’ve been having about the current state of our COVID/quarantining/social distancing world, which I think is, overall, I think we’re coming out of the most difficult part of this period.  At least I hope so. And it raises some interesting behavioral, I dunno, problems, questions, I guess, that I’ve been thinking about in terms of dog training.Firstly, I’ve been thinking about masks and why people are still wearing masks. I actually was listening to an episode of All of It with Alison Stewart which I listened to

This is a bonus episode: A recording of a live Q and A.Join Annie Grossman for a live Q and A most Thursdays on Instagram @schoolforthedogs.Get alerted about the next one or ask a question in advance at http://schoolforthedogs.com/qanda.She also sometimes goes live to answer questions on Clubhouse. Find her there: @anniegrossman.Today she answered a listener's question about keeping her young dog from attacking her cat. ---Partial Transcript:Annie:A quick Thursday Q and A for you, if you’re here and you have a question, you’re welcome to ask it. But I have a question that I got at Anniegrossman.com/ask that I really liked that I thought I’d share.And I’m rocking a side ponytail today. What do you think of my…what do you think of this look? [laughs] It was the best quick hairdo I could come up with. If I was going to have to show my face. Does it look, does it look intentional? Hey there, Dustbin Terrier, great name. Hi, Bo…Uh, Pixel.Okay. So, this question comes from Melissa and, did I lose it? Okay. Melissa,

Annie catalogs the 10 dog training products that have been most useful to her and her family in the 5 months since they adopted Poppy. Find most of these items in our shop: bit.ly/tenproductsShare your fave products! schoolforthedogs.com/community1. The Revol Dog Crate by Diggs   Purchase from Diggs: schoolforthedogs.com/diggs   Purchase from StoreForTheDogs: bit.ly/revolcrate2. The Squishy Face Flirt Pole    bit.ly/flirtpoles   Make your own: bit.ly/diyflirt3. Work To Eat Toys (take our Work To Eat toy quiz at schoolforthedogs.com/wte)   bit.ly/wtetoys   Previous episodes on Work To Eat Toys:    Ep. 72: bit.ly/snufflematepisode   Ep. 20: bit.ly/slowfoodbowlepisode4. Grass Patch   Doggie Lawn    schoolforthedogs.com/lawn   (Get $5 off  1st order with code Affiliate5)5. Bully Grip Bully Stick Holder    bit.ly/bullygrips    Bully Sticks     bit.ly/bullystix    Previous episode on the Bully Grip:     bit.ly/bullygrip    Previous episode on Bully Sticks     Ep. 79: bit.ly/bullystickepisode6. Liquid Treat Dispense

Dr. Bob Bailey first started training animals professionally more than six decades ago, when he was hired by the military to train dolphins at sea. On that job, he first crossed paths with a couple whose work he'd read read about: Keller and Marian Breland. The Brelands had learned how to use operant conditioning to train animals while working as graduate students in BF Skinner's lab at the university of Minnesota, and were the first to bring the technology out of the lab. Keller's guide to using operant conditioning to train dolphins majorly influenced the career of Karen Pryor, who would later work to bring these force-free methods to dog owners. Dr. Bailey would joined forces with them, and eventually helmed their business, Animal Behavior Enterprises. In advance of a screening of Dr. Bailey's short film Patient like The Chipmunks, Annie interviews Dr. Bailey about his incredible career, the origins of "clicker training," the importance of learning how to train chickens,  the progressiveness (or lack there

This is a follow up episode to last week's "journey" through the world of pet insurance. Annie mentions some companies she's heard good things about from listeners in the wake of the episode airing, and dives deep into what insurance will cover in terms of dealing with behavior issues. Her guest is trainer Briana Balogh, who is the Client Care Coordinator at Behavior Vets. https://behaviorvetsnyc.com/our-team/briana-b/Looking to get some help with house training? Download our free guide at http://schoolforthedogs.com/house---Partial Transcript:[intro and music]Annie:Hey there. So this is sort of a follow-up last week’s mammoth pet insurance episode. I just wanted to mention or reiterate a few things and respond to some feedback I’ve gotten. And then I do have an interesting interview to share.But I just wanted to reiterate that I think it’s a good idea to get pet insurance as early in your dog’s life as possible, because I don’t think there are any companies out there that are really gonna cover preexisting c