Did you spoil your pets this Christmas?
In our house, Santa generally leaves a little gift for Everest. Sometimes he doesn’t even wrap it, but Everest doesn’t mind.
Each Christmas, I also go through the dog toys and decide what to keep, what to donate and what to toss.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everyone!
What was your dog’s favourite holiday gift or moment?
Owner and Lead Trainer of Ottawa Canine School. Chantal has a passion for teaching!
Chantal is a Certified Separation Anxiety Trainer (CSAT), an accredited dog trainer (Certified Professional Dog Trainer – Knowledge Assessed), a member of the American Association of Pet Dog Trainers (APDT), a member of the International Association of Animal Behavior Consultants (IAABC) and a member of the Pet Professional Guild (PPG – the Association for Force-Free Pet Professionals). She regularly attends conferences, workshops, seminars and webinars to keep up to date with the latest in the industry.
Dogs are constantly forming emotional associations that inform their decisions. Is it safe, unsafe, dangerous, good, bad or neutral ? This associative learning is also called classical conditioning or Pavlovian conditioning, named after Ivan Pavlov, the Russian scientist who accidentally discovered that dogs learn through association.
All animals learn through classical conditioning, all the time. Some associations can be quite helpful or simply benign. For example, if a dog enters the Ottawa Canine School for the first time and I offer him a fun toy to play with, the dog will likely associate the training school as a safe, good and fun place.
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