With two new dog parks in the area, I am asked weekly about whether or not the dog park is a good idea for socialization or exercise - my answer is almost always "no".

When at the dog park, you don't know the education level of the other owners, whether or not a dog is friendly...

Recently it has come to my attention that euthanasia for behavioral problems in dogs seems to be on the rise in my area. However, when I looked into who was making the call, I was disappointed and alarmed. It appears that trainers have taken to recommending euthanasia over the phone for dogs they haven’t seen in person – and people are following their advice.

Many of these dogs sadly could have been helped or worse, might have been displaying behaviors that were normal and were wrongly “diagnosed” over the phone.

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 first thought about this is we have no data to even prove that statement. Someone’s opinion on what they think they have seen a handful of times isn’t enough to make it factual information.

I have had many clients not helped by both other force-free trainers and more punitive trainers. My guess as to why? The trainers both aren’t experience enough in their methods to successfully handle that case. End of story. Nothing more and nothing less.

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.