The Academy Blog

If I were cornered and had to come up with the briefest of brief description of what we do as dog trainers, it would probably be something like "Dog trainers educate". We certainly wear many other hats: we coach, we cheer-lead, we plan, and of course, we train dogs....

Many dogs enjoy dog-dog play. It’s enriching, it’s welfare-increasing, and it’s good exercise for dogs. But although many dogs enjoy it, the same can’t always be said for the people in the room. Standard, safe, and species-typical pet dog play can appear (to the...

Recently, some dog training colleagues and I were batting around the issue of popular dog trainers denouncing standard dog training technique as an advertising ploy. The rules and methods of changing an animal’s behaviour are pretty well-known, in the way that “tonsil...

Don’t hold back when socializing your young puppy. Create as many positive associations as possible before 14 weeks of age. If you’re a puppy parent searching for guidance on how to socialize your puppy, you risk coming across some concerning misinformation, even from...

The founder and director of the Academy, Jean Donaldson, has a particularly brilliant pedagogical tool. Whether she’s delivering a webinar, crafting an article or chapter, or creating some stand-alone content for the Academy’s core curriculum, she makes sure to answer...