The Dog Zombie

It's been hard to train two dogs at once. My old dog, Jack, never minded when I trained my young dog, Jenny. He was happy to chill out o...

I’m lying on my bed, cuddling with the person I love most in the world, periodically eating chocolates. And yet I’m shaking with fear. Just ...

This dog is clearly enjoying being trained. There's been an interesting discussion recently on a mailing list for animal behavior ...

The Nature versus Nurture debate is over: we no longer ask if genetics governs personality or if environment does. They work together, and i...

Today I was privileged to visit Dr. Greg Berns' laboratory to see awake dogs in an fMRI. In vet school, of course I saw dogs getting MRI...

Tonight I tweeted: “Dog training is sexy. I wish more people understood how cool it is to train.” And then I thought: but who better than me...

I was a geek before I was a dog zombie. I am a fan of The Guild , which is a web-based show produced by Felicia Day. Day also has a YouTube ...

I just finished Plenty in Life is Free: reflections on dogs, training and finding grace, by Kathy Sdao. It was revelatory. It is funny to s...

I’m in the middle of two weeks out of state shadowing sea lion trainers. (I am planning a detailed post on what that’s been like.) Back home...

In What is classical conditioning? (And why does it matter? ), Jason Goldman asks, “Can you think of other real-world examples of classica...

I recently finished Control Unleashed: Creating a focused and confident dog, by Leslie McDevitt. This book is designed for people training ...

Today I heard this sad story third-hand: as a baby is crawling away from Grandma’s dog, who has always been fine with him before, the dog wi...

Sadie was a rambunctious young shelter dog whom I had been assigned to exercise and train. We were working in an auditorium, the best space ...

The nice thing about having weekends free on your ambulatory rotation is that you can do the things normal people do with their weekends, li...

I am clicking everything with Jenny now! The click marks the behavior which I want to reward. If I just toss her a treat when she does somet...

When last I reported on the state of my shy dog Jenny , she was submissively urinating every time I went to put a leash on her. We nicely so...

I adopted a shy dog two days ago. You can see how tense she is in my house in the first picture. I’m including a second picture to prove tha...

Are clicks better markers than words? (The Other End of the Leash): Patricia McConnell gets nerdy about the mechanics of operant conditioni...

Pluto's demotion is a great opportunity for science . Timmer concludes that scientists need to do a better job of communicating with the...