Creature Coach Dog Training

02/02/2026

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Why Pain Must Be Part of Behavior Conversations

Behavior is often the first sign that something isn’t right.

Before a limp appears.
Before diagnostics show clear answers.
Before anyone thinks to ask about discomfort.

When pain goes unrecognized, training plans can stall, behavior can escalate, and dogs can be unfairly labeled as stubborn, difficult, or aggressive. No amount of skill-building can override physical discomfort, especially when that discomfort is chronic or unpredictable.

Addressing behavior without considering health limits outcomes.

Ethical behavior work doesn’t mean diagnosing medical issues, but it does mean collaborating with the professionals who can assess them. Working alongside a client’s veterinarian helps ensure behavior plans are realistic, humane, and safe for everyone involved.

Ways behavior professionals can support productive vet collaboration:
▪ Share clear, objective observations (what the dog does, when it happens, and what changes it)
▪ Note patterns related to movement, handling, arousal, or recovery
▪ Encourage clients to describe behavior changes, not just symptoms
▪ Ask if pain trials, referrals, or additional diagnostics might be appropriate
▪ Stay within scope while advocating for the dog’s welfare

When trainers, behavior professionals, and veterinarians communicate, dogs get better support and families get clearer guidance.

Behavior doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Neither should our approach to helping it.

12/26/2025

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Something I hear from time to time as a trainer is people saying, "I don't want to bribe my dog with food to get them to listen." And I have a lot of thoughts about that statement! Let me share a few...

➡️ First off, if my time studying literature in college taught me anything it's that word choice matters.

Bribe immediately implies something duplicitous, unethical or even illegal. It's a word with a strong negative connotation.

So when I hear someone try to squeeze that word past me in regards to rewarding their dog with food, I circle back.

Is getting paid for your employment a bribe? Is rewarding a child for cooperating a bribe? No!

Finding a form of currency that motivates a dog and using it effectively to get behavior you want is one of the most time tested, effective ways of dog training.

➡️ If you have a dog who loves treats, count your lucky stars 🌟

Treats are cheap, easy to use, and highly motivating for many pups.

Take a look at the dogs who trainers train to the highest levels and you will nearly always find something in common...they are all dogs who are motivated to earn things.

Trust me, trainers who are consistently training dogs to advanced levels and winning awards are not telling their dogs to do things "because they said so."

Quite the opposite, we are skilled artisans of building high levels of cooperation by channeling things that motivate our dogs.

You might see a video of the end result where a dog is working without food/toys/praise but what you missed are the weeks, months and years behind the scenes of paying our dogs!

➡️ People often want to get rid of using treats due to the effort of carrying them around.

I can't say it any clearer than this: if you're under the assumption that not using treats will be less work to meet your training goals, you are sorely mistaken.

The workload grows exponentially if you don't have an easy and reliable way to pay your dog. Treats are the easy way for an awful lot of dogs.

➡️ Details matter! Often I hear a client tell me that they tried the approach I am recommending (like using treats) and that it didn't work or it created a problem.

This can absolutely happen.

But in many of these cases, small changes can add up to big differences in the end result. It's like following a cake recipe where you left it in the oven just a bit too long and the end result was not appetizing.

So if I have a dog who is way too excited about treats or has rude behavior around treats, that's a great opportunity for us to work on manners rather than avoid the issue.

➡️ When it really counts, my dog loses interest in treats. If your normally treat motivated pup loses interest in treats, they are telling you something important!

And that message = my learning brain is turned off 🧠

Most of the dogs I work work have learning brain turned off because of stress. This would look like a treat motivated dog who no longer pays any attention to their snack when they see a dog approaching.

Other pups get overly excited about something around them and lose interest in food.

These are not failures of using treats, this is information about what kind of conditions your dog needs to practice in.

I actually use treats as one piece of info to check in with a dog about whether their learning brain is turned on or off.

➡️ I don't want to have to be always reliant on showing my dog I have a treat.

Fair enough. But what I see from most people who are saying this is that they want to skip the crucial foundation of using treats to build buy in and create positive habits and rush to the stage where they get rid of treats. It doesn't work that way.

The single most important thing to me when teaching a dog a skill is am I getting buy in from them? If I haven't convinced them paying attention to me or their person matters, everything else collapses.

So if food can capture their attention to build that foundation, I use it. Then there is a process to gradually reduce/remove food so that it doesn't have to be so blatantly transactional.

➡️ The overall point is, if you have a dog who is willing to cooperate with food and you're working on getting them to cooperate, refreshing their skills, or teaching then something new, don't be afraid to use treats.

I sure do!

-Erin ❤️🐾

12/22/2025

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Great Post!

05/31/2025

Took Isla with me to get dessert in Lake Dallas. She used to use a portable dog cot when we went to restaurants, but is now looking pretty comfortable holding long down/stays on the restaurant floor. The server spoiled her with a gallon of her own drinking water.

09/23/2024

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01/23/2024

I've opened up more appointments for in-your-home dog training. Our weather is warming up in the North Texas area, and it will be perfect for taking nice walks with your dog. If your dog pulls on the leash and the walks are not-so-enjoyable, in-your-home dog training may be a good solution for you! Message me for more information.

05/06/2023

Deer! Polly is trained that if anything interesting happens on our walk, and he looks at me, he gets a treat. When deer run by, he will automatically look to me and expect a snack without me needing to call him or worry about him chasing after the deer.

11/03/2022

I love PORTL (a teaching system to strengthen trainer skills).

We’ve gotten into the busy part of the semester, and I haven’t shared an update recently from our PORTL graduate class.

Over the past several weeks, I have been lecturing to the class about errorless learning, one of my favorite topics.

Last week, we took some time to talk about component behaviors and prerequisite behaviors. During my lecture, I shared this quote from Dr. B. F. Skinner.

Skinner writes that, “The student can be taught how to study and how to think. I don’t see any point in making education chaotic and difficult in order to teach the student to rise above a difficult environment. If you want to teach him to rise above a difficult environment, then program a difficult environment.”

The quote is from a small book from 1968 in which Evans interviewed Skinner.

Traditionally in teaching situations, educators and trainers have often presented problems that were above the learner’s head. Perhaps they thought that the learning experience would be more valuable if the student had to really struggle.

What often happens in these situations, however, is that only some of the learners are able to meet the challenge. Others fail. Still others figure out the solution, but the experience is unpleasant and it makes them not like the topic or learning in general.

Instead, Skinner urges us to “program a difficult environment.” This statement may seem cryptic. However, what he means is that we need to identify the skills the student will need and go through a teaching process so that the student can successfully learn these skills and competently face new problems and challenges.





Photo description: The image is text only and has the Skinner quote that is also included in the post.

09/22/2022

Kazoo had an accident. But it wasn't an accident at all.

I was tired and dragging when I woke up at 5:30am. I let Toast and Kazoo out to potty because I didn't feel like going outside. Kazoo is pretty reliable so I didn't feel the need to monitor his morning potty outing. I got their breakfast put together in their food puzzle toys while they were outside.

Kazoo came back inside and I said, "that was quick", full well knowing he usually takes longer outside. Then I said in a silly voice, "I hope you did your business" and went about my morning.

Kazoo followed me for the most part as I went up and down the stairs, in and out of different rooms, at breakfast, and got ready for the day.

When I went to do something else I found p**p in the hall. This was no accident.

What happened?

I didn't feel like going outside- no excuse. Tired or not, by not monitoring if my puppy p**ped I can't know that he went and that it's ok to give him more freedom.

I was tired- no excuse. Same rule applies as above.

He's pretty reliable- means he's not 100% reliable- he's still a puppy.

"I hope you did your business"- I banked on him being reliable with his house training habits.

"That was quick"- I knew he wasn't out long enough.

Kazoo followed me around as I was doing things... for the most part. Which means I didn't have eyes on him for some of the time to notice any signaling that he needed to go.

I set Kazoo up for failure. He had no chance of being successful with house training. I should have went out with him to be sure he went potty. I didn't. When he came back inside quickly, this was a chance to redeem myself and help him get it right... and I didn't.

This was no accident. The p**p in the hall was a direct result of me not following my house training plan. Trainers are humans, too. We all make errors.

08/23/2022

Really cool research on using a clicker and always following with a treat or using a clicker and sometimes treating.

Congratulations to Pamela L. Peiris and Jesús Rosales-Ruiz for their recently published article in the Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior.

The article, which is titled “Some detrimental effects of conditioned reinforcement on the maintenance of dog behavior” will appear next month in a special issue that focuses on animal behavior and animal training.

Many positive reinforcement animal trainers use a clicker, whistle, or some other marker signal as a “conditioned reinforcer.”

However, trainers disagree about whether the click should always be followed by a treat (or another type of primary reinforcer) or whether it is okay to sometimes double click. That is, whether it is okay for the trainer to sometimes click and not give the animal a treat.

This research study investigated this question. The article explains the results of the study, as well as the implications for both animal training and basic behavioral research.

I particularly like this quote from the paper’s discussion section:
“Conditioned reinforcers are not static. That is, conditioning is happening all the time.... Rather than letting conditioned reinforcers develop haphazardly, communication during training may be clearer if the trainer teaches and maintains a well-defined and consistent conditioned reinforcer, such as a clicker, that can serve as a discriminative stimulus for collecting the reinforcer.”

Here is a link that you can use to read the article:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/share/author/DNPISC98HXFWAXAASNBR?target=10.1002/jeab.790

08/17/2022

Training tip Tuesday: If you know your dog is likely to do something “naughty” or “bad”, don’t wait for them to do it! Get in front of the behavior.

Yesterday I was driving down the street in my neighborhood, and I saw a dog that I often see being walked. This dog tends to bark and lunge at other dogs, and the owner struggles with the dog’s behavior. There was another dog on the other side of the street, and as that dog was passing by the other dog stared. And stared. And stared. And THEN, after probably 5 seconds of staring and getting worked up, the dog started to bark and lunge, at which point the owner started to pull and yank on the dog in an effort to STOP the behavior.

When dogs have a long history of behaving a certain way, we have a pretty good idea of WHEN the behavior is going to happen. Old school dog training had us wait for the undesired behavior, and then CORRECT the behavior using all means of nasty techniques. But we know now that training that way can have negative consequences for our dogs and our relationships, so we no longer want to train that way.

Instead, if your dog has a history of a problem behavior in predictable contexts, focus on getting in front of the behavior proactively, instead of waiting for the naughty behavior and reacting instead!

In the case of the dog in the first paragraph, if his dog was able to take food in the presence of the other dog we could have tried scatter feeding, using a food lure to move the dog away, or asking for an alternative behavior (although this is usually a bit too difficult to start with!) BEFORE the barking and lunging started and then reinforcing heavily for these behaviors, which would have prevented the explosive outburst.

If your dog has a long standing jumping issue, don’t wait until your dog is already jumping on you! Instead, anticipate that they will probably jump on you when you get home, and either use management like gates and pens to prevent the jumping from happening at all, or ask your dog for a sit or four on the floor as they approach you and BEFORE they have jumped up on you. Don’t have them practice the jumping in the first place!

It’s so, so important to minimize the rehearsal of unwanted behaviors in our dogs, and one way to do this is to anticipate the behaviors and get your dog doing something else instead, before they’ve even been “naughty”!

08/10/2022

Extremely responsible breeders do this sort of thing to allow the puppies to explore and acclimate to noises, moving objects, etc. Training and socialization can start super early.