Fetch Professional Dog Services

Fetch Professional Dog Services Professional Dog Services Catering to the DFW area.

Fetch will be attending today. So stop by and see all the adorable babies needing a good home.
07/05/2012

Fetch will be attending today. So stop by and see all the adorable babies needing a good home.

10/05/2011

Today Little Trick Of the Trade

Stay Clam, when you start to get all worked up that is the moment your baby will act their worst. If you start to frustrated take a few seconds and relax and then start right back where you left off.

10/05/2011

Tip of the Day

Stay Clam, when you start to get all worked up that is the moment your baby will act their worst. If you start to frustrated take a few seconds and relax and then start right back where you left off.

10/05/2011

Tip of the Day

Dog communication and Body Language

dog behavior and communicating during play

Dogs are almost always communicating with each other and with their humans. The majority of this communication is through body language. Our problem is that we only understand some of the vocabulary.

If you pay close attention to your pet, you will begin to understand more of what it is trying to tell you.

This is particularly evident when you and your dog are stressing each other socially. When you train your pooch, you are teaching the pet how to respond to social stress in an acceptable manner.

It's dog training that gives most people an opportunity to begin the process of decoding canine body language.

Once you understand your canine companions body language you can start to communicate with your best friend in a language they can understand.

We can supplement the dog's natural language with conditioning (training), that includes verbal and body cues.

A big part of understanding and communicating with your dog is understanding where your pet is physically in relation to other living things. Be aware of your pet's spatial relationship to significant environmental points of reference.
Once you accept your dog as a dog, you must decide if you are willing to change your behavior and how you interact with your pet.

Humans are the ones who control the dog's environment and therefore it's humans who must accept the responsibility for teaching and maintaining the behaviors we desire.

The first thing we must understand when dealing with problem behaviors is that they are perfectly normal behaviors for the dog. As far as the dog is concerned, it doesn't have a behavior problem. Your pet is just trying to adapt to its environment.

10/03/2011

Tip of the Day

Dog Behavior and Communication

Use the dog's preprogrammed behavior to tell the dog of your pack status in a way that the dog was genetically created to understand. One way not to convey this message is with a constant barrage of verbal chatter.
Dog communication and Verbal Behavior

Many people feel their dogs can understand English (language) and that they can explain to the dog like it was a young child. I would disagree and encourage people not to use the explain and coax model of pedagogy with their pets.

It is accepted that dogs do not posses the ability of abstract thought that is necessary to understand language.

While studying Chinese I think I may have gotten a glimpse of how a dog might interpret words. In the beginning if I really listened to a conversation, I could understand a very few words. As I became more conditioned, I could pick out more words and understand some even if I was not paying attention. However, I did not really know what was being said. I only knew what some of the sounds represented or stood for. I only knew sounds that I was conditioned (trained) to respond to. I did not know the context of how the words where used.

The first step to good communication with your dog is: don't talk too much. Your canine friends do not spend hours in long verbal conversations with each other.

Tone inflection can influence how a dog responds to its owners. It may appear to us that our pets do not have many different verbal patterns (howling, whining, barking, growling, snorting, crying). However, when we closely listen to many different canine vocalizations, we discover a wide variety of meanings communicated verbally. These meanings are usually indicated by intensity, duration, tempo, and notably, tone inflection.

When communicating with our pets we should use the tone inflection that is appropriate to the message we are trying to convey to the pet.

Avoid excessive verbalization with your dog, otherwise your best friend may think that its humans have a whining problem, or maybe it's a growling problem, and in trying to adapt to their human's problems, your pet may develop some problems of its own. To ignore the dog is better than excessive verbalization.
Dog communication and Body Language

09/30/2011

Tip of the Day

Dog Pack Theory

Dominance Subordination Hierarchies

One of these genetically programmed traits is the need to be part of a pack. Nature designed dog packs to operate most efficiently with a dominance subordination hierarchy. A clearly defined leader/follower hierarchy or relationship allows for a more efficient pack or group effort. This behavior pattern had a great deal of survival value for wild dogs and it is one of the things that has made the dog so valuable to humans.

This brings us to the first important element in social reinforcement training; establishing the proper leadership role in relation to the dog. As a working model for this type of training, we will work with the hypothesis that the dog views the people in the family as they would view members of a dog pack.

In general a dog will feel more secure if there is a well defined leader/follower hierarchy in the family pack. To avoid dog behavior problems, people in the family should be the leaders and the dog(s) should be the followers. In a dominance subordination hierarchy there will be high ranking members, middle ranking and low ranking members. The dog must perceive a large ranking gap between the people in the family pack and the dog. Otherwise there can be middle ranking conflict between the higher and lower ranking members

09/29/2011

Training Treats

A lot of trainers tell you not to use treats for training your dog. There reasoning, which does make a true point, is the dog will associate the action he/she is asked to do with the treat. They clam that if you don't have a treat in hand the dog will not perform the action requested. To some degree this is true, but as a trainer and a K-9 Behaviorist this statement is not accurate. Here is how we at Fetch execute training with treats.

Thousands of people have been asked: What do you think the word treat mean when associated with dog's? Their answers where all the same. They thought of treats as something eatable. While this too was not and is not a wrong answer, you must understand that a treat is just not food related. You can use anything as a treat; their favorite toy, happy tone verbals (good boy/girl), play time, your attention. A treat can be anything they get enjoyment out of, but one of the fastest way to a dog or puppy's brain is through their stomach.Believe it or not your more likely to get stronger and quicker results through treating with food treats. "NO HUMAN FOOD!!!" That will open up a whole other bag of problems for you. You introduce the action you are wanting learned with the treat. and not rewarding until the action is done. Over time as you notice that their executing the command you start withdrawing the treat. So instead of treating every time they execute the act you treat every other time and every few day you increase by 1 between treating. As a result you will see that they execute the action every time asked without treating. What most don't know is that dogs anticipate that treat therefore preforming the action every time in hopes of getting wonderful treat

09/29/2011

Tip of the Day

Dog Behavior Training

Dog behavior training encompasses every aspect of canine education, from the species specific responses that's inherent to canines, to learning theory and operant conditioning, to traditional training methods. When these training techniques are properly implemented, most people notice results immediately. A well mannered pet is now within your reach, all you need to do is optimally structure your pet's environment.
Dog behavior can often be directed and controlled by training

Dog behavior can be thought of as responses that are specific to the species canis familiaris. These responses are controlled and directed by manipulating the social and the environmental variables. We call this training. Training can increase responses that are desirable, just as those that are undesirable can be decreased.

Your pet's problems are often a direct result of the animal's inability to cope with the stress of everyday life. The purpose of training is to raise the pet's stress threshold so your pet can tolerate higher levels of stress.

Canine and human behavior should not be confused with each other.

The response patterns and intellect of a canine is very different from that of humans, although we do share some common traits. One of these traits is the drive to form close social groups with strong bonds to significant others. This bonding can be thought of as a kind of love. Even though this type of bonding is a natural trait in both canines and humans, we must avoid endearing our pets with human emotions.

09/27/2011

Tip of the Day

Establishing the proper relationship through play training a Great Dane puppy
Social reinforcement training involves using the social relationship to control the dog's behavior.

In order to control the dog's behavior with the social bond, one must establish the proper relationship for reinforcement. The term social reinforcement training always brings to mind praise and other overt types of reinforcing social interactions ( touching, talking, or looking in an encouraging way) However, social reinforcement training goes far beyond rewarding the dog's good behavior.

Social reinforcement training involves making the dog feel more secure by being definite and committed, confident, fair, firm, and consistent.

Social reinforcement training is about establishing a balanced relationship with the dog, not an equal relationship. A balanced relationship involves both a well defined dominance subordination hierarchy, as well as the dog's Total Trust. Since we are the ones with the capacity for high levels of abstract thought, it is our job to learn to control our own behavior and to learn to understand our dogs.

To be in harmony with the dog we must blend in with the dog's genetically programmed behavior. We can call these behaviors fixed action patterns or species specific behaviors...
Things you can do to establish and maintain a leadership role in your dog's life

• People lead, the dog follows
• Don't compromise with your dog
• People initiate interaction and terminate interaction
• Don't always attend to your dog's every desire; make an effort to ignore your dog some of the time
• Make corrections sharp and well defined, like a verbal blast. When the dog responds, it's over. In most situations for a short time after the correction, ignore the dog.

Be aware of and use the spatial relationship between you and your dog. Is your dog away from you, close to you, facing you, avoiding you, pushing you, guiding you, between your feet, sitting, standing, turned to the side, keeping its distance, ect...
Using dog behavior along with communication is how you let your dog know that you're a high ranking family pack member

09/26/2011

Not only having your dog trained will insure that he/she will listen to you. That’s where Fetch is different. We don’t just train your baby we also educate you on the reasons why they are doing what they do. Giving you the ability to communicate and know what they’re trying to tell you. With a little practice, you'll quickly understand how to overcome even the TOUGHEST dog training issues, including...

1. Peeing and pooping in the house
2. Out-of-control barking and whining
3. Nipping, biting, and growling
4. Jumping on strangers and house guests
5. Pulling on the leash during walks
6. Being afraid of new people and strange objects
7. Chasing small animals or children
8. Refusing to "come" when called
9. Ignoring basic obedience commands like "sit"
10. Destructive habits like chewing and digging
11. Suffering from severe separation anxiety
12. Constantly begging for food at the table
.. plus tons more! At Fetch we focus on each and every issue you might be seeing or will be encountering. With our one of a kind free hands-on evaluation we can design a custom training plan just for your . So call (469) 44DOGGS (463) 443-6447 or email at [email protected] to schedule your free evaluation today

06/08/2011

So what a great new beginning!!! Loving the new condo and DFW. Fetch is one of the newest, freshest, out going business in DFW. So come along and follow the fun and watch my students grow

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1550 Oak Lawn Avenue
Dallas, TX
75207

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