So glad you have stopped by the Knowing Dogs website! The site has recently been reconfigured so that it will display properly on all mobile devices such as cell phones, Ipads, etc. as well as regular computers. Please be patient while I gather and edit dog training articles that you may have found helpful in the past, and work on putting together new material for your enjoyment.
At this point in my life, I am not taking on new dog training clients, but instead spending my time helping dog owners, dog trainers, and especially people who work with dogs and children to understand how to work with dogs in a manner where canines and people will be able to have safe relationships. In addition to articles, I hope to soon have a YouTube channel that will “show” dog training techniques, since I realize that many people prefer to listen and watch instead of just read information. Again, my primary goal will be to teach people not only how to train their dog to be a good family pet, but how to interact safely with dogs of all varieties.
There are many things in our current society that are working directly AGAINST this goal. I know that sounds a bit odd, but it is true. Once animal shelters and animal rescue organizations bought in to the “no-kill philosophy” we began to see more and more serious behavioral problems in the pet dog population as a whole. In addition, municipal shelters became forced to release dangerous dogs back to their owners even after they had bitten people, or to rescue groups after their ten day quarantine period for biting someone was over. Each year on the list of fatal dog bite attacks, we are now seeing dogs who were “adopted” making the list. It is not dogs being purchased from Pit Bull fighters who are roaming the streets and killing people, in many cases, the dogs who are attacking, maiming and even taking the lives of people are family pets that were “adopted” from a trusted organization.
This has affected every part of the dog world in the past decade. Dog trainers started to accept dogs from rescue groups for “rehab”, putting them through in-house dog training programs that often taught the dogs basic obedience skills, but did not prepare the dogs to live safely in a home environment. Unfortunately, rehabilitation of an aggressive dog is not the fifteen minute process you may have seen on an episode of Cesar Millan’s Dog Whisperer television show! And the dog training industry is still unregulated in most areas of the world, meaning that anyone who wishes to do so may hang out a shingle and call themselves a “dog trainer” or even a “dog psychologist”, without any proof at all of their education or experience.
I know I am throwing many ideas out at once, and it may come across that these are simply my opinions, without facts to back them up. Please stay tuned, because I will indeed give you factual information concerning these issues–information that you can use to help keep yourself, your family, and those you love safe, plus help you make good decisions with your own family pets, those you may now own, as well as helping you make good choices when it is time to purchase or adopt a dog in the future.
Feel free to Contact me with questions. I cannot respond promptly to every email, but I do read every email that I receive. If you would like permission to reprint an article on this site, just write and let me know where you would like to use it. Many trainers have in the past used my articles as hand-outs and some animal groups have permission to post my articles on their website in order to help their adopters. In most cases, reprint permission will be granted.
Soon I will post articles for parents and teachers to use in teaching children dog safety tips, and these articles can be printed and used as hand-outs without writing for my permission, as long as printed in their entirety and with my copyright included at the end. Any such article will be contain a notation at the end of the article, stating that it may be reprinted for non-commercial use.
Thanks for stopping by–I look forward to staying in touch as we take this journey in to learning as much as possible about my favorite four-footed creature–the dog!
Melanie