Dog Training & Behavioral Advice

    What is Deep Pressure Therapy? Deep pressure therapy, or DPT, is when a dog uses its body weight to target specific pressure points on the handlers body to help relieve the symptoms of their disability. This task can assist with an array of disabilities. Some of the most common things this task can help with is pain management, lowering the handlers heart rate, and helping reduce anxiety in handlers with disabilities like panic disorder, depression  and (C)PTSD.  How Do I Train DPT? First, decide a command name and do research to discover what pressure points need to be stimulated to help relieve your symptoms. After you have come to a decision on the above, grab some treats and your dog! As it would be virtually impossible to go over how to train this for every single pressure point, I will be using the ones on the upper thighs to go over how to train this. The training is the same for the most common ones!  To begin, sit on the edge of a chair or your couc...

 I have been getting an influx of messages asking what is a service dog, and how do they differ from other types of assistance animals? In this article I will be going over the differences between the 3 along with the laws pertaining to them.  Service Dogs: A Service dog is any dog that has been trained to perform a task to aid their disabled handler. some of these tasks (but not all) are described below: Deep Pressure Therapy: this is when a dog is trained to use its body weight to target specific pressure points. This can help lower heart rate, bring someone with PTSD out of a flashback or panic attack, lessen the time someone has a seizure, reduce pain, and so much more! This can be compared to someone who has sleep insomnia using a weighted blanket to help them sleep. It may look like the handler is cuddling with their dog, but the dog is actually working when you see it laying on its handlers lap or chest.  Medical Alert: This task is one of the most common. Dogs hav...

 When you think of a prong collar, without knowing better, you imagine pointy spikes getting forced into your dog's throat any time pressure is put on the leash. Many people believe the point of a prong collar is to cause pain when they pull to thus stop the behavior altogether. This is simply false. prong collars actually very rarely cause any pain to your dog. When they do, it's because of poor placement and misuse.  The prong collar was invented by an animal behaviorist and a vet who wanted to keep dogs safe. you may be asking, how does a prong collar keep my dog safe? Here's how.  These collars are designed to evenly distribute pressure around the dog's neck. A traditional flat collar puts pressure directly against the dog's trachea and can actually collapse it. This can be fatal. It's actually unsafe for an extreme puller to wear a flat collar for this reason. Many will say, why not just use a no pull harness instead? No pull harnesses are linked to causing...