Soul Dog: Animal Behavior and Science

02/28/2026

Mayor of Divide Fern continues her work in helping shelter dogs with their social skills. Fern met River at the shelter. It was difficult to work on dog social behaviors at the time but an AMAZING family adopted her and contacted Pawsitive Vibes Dog Training LLC. We teamed up to help River and she did absolutely amazing.

Mayor Fern looks forward to many more training sessions.

02/03/2026

New on the blog: Understanding Positive Reinforcement in Dog Training — the science behind how rewards shape behavior and strengthen the human-dog bond. Learn practical, humane techniques you can use today to teach cues, reduce problem behaviors, and build trust with your dog. Read more: https://wix.to/p6UHVwJ

Training a dog can sometimes feel like a mystery. Why does one method work well for some dogs but not for others? The answer lies in the science of behavior and learning. Positive reinforcement, a key principle in applied behavior analysis, offers a clear, effective way to build strong bonds between...

01/01/2026

Whole sequence from beginning alert to the end of things that help me.

Her lifting my head up is amazing and gets me out of tight anxiety to feeling better sitting up.

So, beginning smell, alert, pills, exercise/nature and deep pressure therapy.

She’s the best!

12/26/2025

What happens after my service dog alerts me?

12/24/2025

Kai with laser focus. A live alert captured by my ring camera. She is chillin, then she must have smelled the difference in me. She waited patiently and through other dogs licking her and barking at her. She was so steadfast.

12/23/2025

Kai alerting that I am “normal.” My favorite alert! I am feeling good too, so it’s great to get confirmation from Kai as well.

12/20/2025

Kai has given me my life back by alerting early or clueing me into where I’m at. In this video Kai is scenting depression on me. I know she’s correct but I still sometimes test to ensure. She checked me again with no sample on me, then a cotton ball. Then I added some “normal” samples which she also correctly identified. So I took my PRN meds and hope for the best.

It’s incredible to me that she gives me the heads up of my mood state.

12/17/2025

Kai is a scent based service dog, she can tell the difference between “normal” “psychosis/mania” “anxiety/panic” “suicidal/wanting to harm self” and “depression.”
She is able to do this both in captured scents in those mood states and naturally when I’m in those states.
She is the only dog I know so far that can do this. She was trained during episodes of bipolar disorder. Often she alerted before hallucinations came and I could mitigate with meds or just give me insight into where I was at so I could take appropriate measures. She was clicker trained!
I am so proud of her, here she is practicing and then doing one natural alert based on my mood state.

12/04/2025

Service dog Kai, in action, catching my scent of anxiety and alerting multiple times with a boop to the right hand. I was having a hard time and already took meds, but she let me know that was not enough. Added medication and DPT later and I was able to function better.

She’s an incredible dog.

12/03/2025

This four second video tells the story of a 7 month old puppy alerting to an anxiety attack naturally without the cue he has been taught or body cue. Only recently has he been working with my scents frozen. Even with other dogs in the way. The alert is booping my right hand. He’s never done that and I have not had anxiety issues through most of his puppyhood. But he has worked with my scent and different mood states.
So this alert was incredible to me.
My main service pup also alerted so they had 100% IOA lol.
I just had to share how meaningful this four second video was. I turned the camera on but not expecting his alert! So proud of young Jedi.

11/23/2025

Training run with Kai. Since I’m not in an active episode, I train her with the scents I collected over time.
She was sound asleep prior to lifting her head. I had a psychosis sample hidden in my sleeve. She smelled that scent before I even got passed the gate. Then a perfect alert.

I am so proud of her.