Bad Dog Good Dog Trainer

10/31/2025

A special treat for your dogs this holiday season... classes for fun for the both of you -

Register for these classes directly with Y2K9s Scroll down to the bottom of the class list on the site to find the Mind Games and Parkour classes.

10/27/2025

My views of spay and neuter procedures has been evolving as more information comes out about the health and behavior consequences are studied. I'm not opposed... just more thoughtful about if and when...

*Preventing unwanted litters is a goal we all share—but it's time to rethink the surgical approach. Hysterectomies and vasectomies, which preserve hormonal balance, can safely be performed as early as 8 weeks of age, making dogs sterile without disrupting their natural hormones.

New peer-reviewed study published in Nature:

How a dog’s lifetime exposure to his own hormones (before being neutered) affects how well he handles aging and frailty later in life.

Study Background

• Frailty = when older dogs (and people) become weaker, less resilient, and more prone to illness and death.
• Most research looks at how to prevent frailty — this study looked at what makes some dogs bounce back better after frailty sets in.
• The focus was on the HPG axis — the hormonal system that produces testosterone and controls reproduction.

Key Findings

• Dogs neutered very young (before 2 years old) had:

o A much higher risk of death once they became frail.
o About 16% higher mortality for every small increase in frailty.

• Dogs kept intact longer (more than ~10 years) showed:
o No increase in mortality linked to frailty.
o Their hormones seemed to “buffer” the negative effects of aging.

• Each extra year of natural hormone exposure reduced frailty-related death risk by ~1%.

What It Means

• Hormones from the te**es may protect against the worst effects of aging later in life.
• Removing them too early could make dogs less resilient to age-related decline.
• Frailty isn’t just about getting old — it’s also shaped by early-life events like the timing of neutering.
• This supports a “life course” view: what happens early in life affects health decades later.

Why It Matters

• The study suggests timing of neutering might influence how well dogs age.

09/02/2025

Fall classes start next week -

Fall classes are starting soon. Your pups are rearing to go back to school and learn some new games and new moves to show off to friends and family

07/21/2025

Did you know that play can be used as medicine? Play is important for developing many skills. There is the obvious development of social skills, but play also wires the brain to help with learning and memory. That's one reason anxious animals have a hard time learning. Tune into the latest episode of Living with Pets to learn about the Power of Play

https://livingwithpetspodcast.com/

06/25/2025

Signals can be really easy to misinterpret. It;s better to teach your dog to ignore strangers

06/07/2025

We so often sell dogs short. They are so amazing when we give them the opportunity

04/24/2025

I only have a couple of rules about hu***ng.

1. No hu***ng humans
2. The dog being hu**ed is the one who decides if it's okay... if that dog is trying to get away I will interrupt it
3. Please hump your bed in private.... 😁

HU***NG HOUNDS
It’s not always about what it looks like.

Some dogs do and some dogs don’t, but if you have a dog that humps at the most inopportune times it can be particularly embarrassing or annoying.

Other dogs, other people, visitors, toys, cushions, furniture, anything that can be mounted and clung to may be fair game.

As people, it’s natural to assume that this behaviour is of a sexual nature, that our dogs must be oversexed, sexually frustrated or the all-too-common incorrect belief that our dogs are just trying to be “dominant” or “the alpha”.

Hu***ng, like many other dog behaviours does not always have a simple reason. It can be a complex behaviour which is usually emotionally or socially based.

When hu***ng is annoying another dog or person or causing frustration, discomfort or harm in any way, then obviously this behaviour needs to be addressed, but sometimes we need to consider if it’s really something we need to stop because as people, we see it as socially unacceptable?

Is it just a harmless way of relieving stress or anxiety or a way to release excess energy. Is a little hump now and then okay if it’s not causing any harm?

One of my boys (I’m referring to my dog - just to prevent any misunderstanding!) humps one of my other dogs every Saturday morning without fail.

This happens when we get back from a long walk in nature. I allow him to do this because I understand it’s his way of releasing excitement and calming himself down.

As long as the other dogs don’t mind, I don’t believe it’s causing any harm as it’s a healthy way of self-regulating.

If we prevent this, correct it, or at worst punish this behaviour are we removing a harmless natural outlet and risking another unwanted behaviour taking its place?

Hu***ng is one of the most misunderstood behaviours.

Very often, behaviour is not about the way it looks, but the way we perceive it from our human perspective.

03/26/2025

Chaser was an amazing dog... mostly because John started teaching her words when she was 8 weeks old. He got her specifically to see how many words a dog could remember, and even he was astounded to see how much we have to learn about their capacity to learn new things.

02/08/2025

This is so important.