Dr Dunbar's Iwoofs Podcasts

Shirley in New Jersey has a problem with her dog being reactive when off-leash, jumping her fence and chasing down bikers and joggers. She’s tried setting up training scenarios, but the dog doesn’t seem to react when it’s on-leash, so how should she address the problem?

Want to observe a Growl Class right now? Use this link to save 20% off the price of Ian's single-day Growl Class, in the form of an online video you can download or stream online instantly. What is a Growl Class and when might it be useful? These are classes that are intended to help dogs that are

Many veterinarians are sufficiently concerned about the risk posed by canine parvovirus that they advise dog owners to keep their puppies at home until their vaccinations are complete. This poses some serious limitations for socializing your puppy. In this episode the Dunbars assess the true risk of...

  Ian’s been reading up on socialization research and he has some fresh thoughts to share. But first, what is socialization, what do we mean when we say it? Is there another word that might be better suited to what we want to talk about? What is socialization on a scientific, biological,

When it comes to dogs, people say and do a lot of silly things. Sometimes they record those things and publish them on the internet. Today we're looking at just two examples of this sort of behavior. First is a Facebook post by Sarah Palin where she celebrates her son for stepping on their dog as an...

  What is deprivation, and is there a place for it in dog training?  Is it a good idea to keep you dog confined or isolated to get them more excited about training or working with you?  In this episode the Dunbars discuss the concept of depriving a dog of access to desired behaviors and items as a...

  We’ve been talking a lot about puppy class lately, but the vast majority of any dog’s socialization takes place outside of classes.  It’s incredibly important that a puppy’s socialization and household manners training begins in the first few weeks of a pup’s life, and continues...

  In this episode we continue our puppy training  theme by talking about proper puppy husbandry procedures.  What exercises can you do with a puppy to prepare them for being groomed and treated by veterinarians in the future?  Pet dogs will get petted, restrained and handled by strangers, whether  ...

  For this episode we return to an article that was on the Kennel Club’s website which suggests that puppy classes and social play sessions are responsible for increasing reactivity and aggression in pet dogs.   The article focuses on poorly managed classes, and uses this as justification for...

In this iWoofs episode we address an article that appears on The Kennel Club website, by Robert Alleyne, a Board member of the Kennel Club Accreditation Scheme for Instructors.  As major advocates for puppy classes you can probably imagine that we have a few bones to pick with this article.  We

  It’s been awhile since Dr. Ian Dunbar has conducted dog training workshops in the United States, but that’s about to change.  Over the next few months Ian will be giving dog training workshops in locations all across America, starting in Texas, Rhode Island, New Jersey & Maryland.  In this...

A listener has a sweet three-your old Rottweiler that likes to mouth people. He’s never hurt people, but the owner recognizes that this is a potential problem. With a large, potentially intimidating dog like a Rottweiler it’s a particular pressing problem, because people may be very scared.

There are a lot of things that can go wrong in dog training, mistakes which will make any method or exercise significantly less effective.  Dog training is complex and requires some important skills, it requires some patience, persistence and timing.  Also, there’s something about dogs which tends...

Last week we found ourselves in the position of being able to put the SIRIUS Puppy Raising Initiative into practice.  It turns out that one of Jamie's friend's father had bred a litter of German Shepherd Puppies.  Unfortunately, he'd done so quite a while ago and the pups were already nine weeks old by the time we learned about them and no one had given him BEFORE or AFTER You Get Your Puppy.  While his heart was in the right place, he didn't have all the information he needed to help the pups be their very best selves. However, young pups are super-malleable and puppy training and socialization is what we're all about. We offered to help and he was very enthusiastic, so we got to work.  First we helped him set up the housetraining program and address some important socialization issues in their home, then we took all the pups to our SIRIUS training facility in El Cerrito to work on some training and socialization outside the home, which we filmed.

Deborah Flick over at Boulder Dog attended Dr. Dunbar's Science-Based Dog Training with Feeling seminar in Denver, CO this past March, and she wrote a series of wonderful blog posts about her experience.  In this iWoofs we respond to her thoughts on the seminar, which were very interesting.

Hubie got a German Shepherd puppy for his son, who is currently living with his mother.  The mother and boy are scared of the dog and Hubie is at a loss for how to ensure that the dog is gentle with people, so that his son enjoys the dog rather than fears it.   The answer is not physical

This highly devoted owner has a huge Newfoundland that they’ve been working hard to train all through puppyhood.  Now that adolescence has hit though, the owners are having new problems with controlling their dog’s attention and aggression.  As an un-neutered male dog he is the target of additional hostile attention from other dogs.  With such a powerful dog it’s incredibly important to get things under control as quickly as possible.  Fortunately Kelly & Jamie have some easy tips for dealing with the difficulties of adolescence, testicles included.  A rock-solid sit, with eye-contact on cue, will mean your dog is always under control, and unlikely to provoke an aggressive response.  Add in plenty of classical conditioning and your dog can be calm and collected in any situation. Super-Sit: http://dogstardaily.com/training/ultra-super-sit

Our perception of dog aggression is easily distorted by fear. That’s why it’s important to evaluate "dog bites" by an objective measure. The Bite Scale provides a consistent way of looking at a dog’s history of aggression by measuring the amount of injury that was inflicted. 95% of “dog

In this episode the Dunbars respond to and discuss a video by John Rogerson about the declining numbers and quality of mongrel dogs in the UK. You can see it yourself at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1s850_3s0C8. Mongrels used to represent the naturally evolved pet dogs of a village, and so they

Many dogs end up in shelters because of relatively minor behavior problems.  Unfortunately, most dogs then become less adoptable the longer they spend in a shelter, because whatever housetraining or socialization they do have begins to deteriorate.  But it doesn’t have to be that way.  In this