It can be heartbreaking to see your dog cower in fear or tremble with anxiety. Maybe you just adopted a new dog and they aren’t as outgoing as you hoped. Or maybe your shy dog has always been a little more reserved than others. Regardless of the reason for your dog's fearfulness, there are things you can do to help ease their anxiety and make them feel more comfortable in their home environment. Here are five things you can do if you find yourself living with a fearful, shy, or anxious dog.

Owning an aggressive dog can be a life-changing experience. A dog owner can quickly go from being the central hub for their entire family at Thanksgiving to never having anyone enter their home because they fear what their dog might do. Oftentimes, when a dog exhibits aggression, dog owners start to think euthanasia might be their only option after training technique after training technique fails. Before making this difficult and painful choice, it is important to gather information from a professional dog behavior consultant (we are quite different from dog trainers!) about your dog's behavior.

If you're a dog owner, you know that there are a lot of different services out there purporting to help with your furry friend. But how do you know which one is right for you and your dog? In this blog post, we'll be discussing the difference between dog training and dog behavior consulting, and outlining when you might need each service.

Often when dog owners come in for training, they immediately expect us trainers and behavior consultants to judge them.

They will say things like:

"My dog sleeps on the bed. I know he isn't 𝘴𝘶𝘱𝘱𝘰𝘴𝘦𝘥 to, but..."

"Sometimes I give my dog a treat just to give them a treat. I don't make them do anything to earn it. I know I am not 𝘴𝘶𝘱𝘱𝘰𝘴𝘦𝘥 to, but..."

Spring is almost here - which means it is time from spring cleaning! While completing my spring cleaning this year, i noticed that I do something that probably most normal people don’t do: I arrange my furniture and spaces in a way to prevent dog fights and disagreements in my home.

You may be thinking to yourself, “What? How could your furniture arrangement cause dog fights?” There are many reasons this could occur like spatial resource guarding in dogs in the household, dogs bumping into each other by mistake due to limited space, or even dogs becoming conditioned to get overexcited or frustrated in a certain space.

Our first public dog park, Dog Park at the Rez will be opening this weekend, and that means many owners inexperienced in dog park culture will be there to try out a dog park for the first time. I noticed many of my clients were becoming anxious about the grand opening and still on the fence about going to the dog park. While I am not a huge fan of dog parks myself, I think that with a community understanding of dog body language and safety, they can be enjoyable for a select group of dogs and owners. To help ease some anxiety and help everyone have a safe and fun weekend at the dog park, I give you my tips for having the best dog park experience.

My Australian Kelpie, Beretta, has gained popularity among my Facebook friends as the “dog who couldn’t, but now can.” You see, when I got Beretta, she was a free dog on Craigslist. I had so many plans for this dog. I wanted to train her in agility and compete with her by my side, I wanted to make her a demo dog for my training company, and my most difficult goal to achieve, I wanted her to become a service dog for my non-combat related PTSD.