Book Summary: Dogs: Domestication and the Development of a Social Bond by Darcy F. Morey, 2010. Cambridge University Press, New York, NY. Dr. Darcy Morey is an anthropologist specializing in archaeology. He has focused his research in part on the study of dog remains (particularly dog burials) at archaeological sites in Greenland and elsewhere. Dr. […]

Applied animal behaviorists and veterinary behaviorists can serve an important role in providing information and services to local animal shelters and rescue organizations. One way to do this is by providing informational handouts that shelters can distribute with their adoption packets to new owners. Informational forms like this can help new owners get started on […]

Dr. Ilana Reisner argues that the use of positive punishment to treat fearful behavior is problematic and recommends differential (positive) reinforcement based methods instead. http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/decoding-your-pet/201412/it-makes-no-sense-punish-fearful-dog

Dr. Horwitz relates a brief behavioral history and her treatment recommendations for Princess, a cat who was brought in for house soiling. http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/decoding-your-pet/201411/real-estate-feline-house-soiling-is-all-about-location

Dr. Radosta discusses the problematic “dominance down” – the forced down position mistakenly used by some owners (and recommended by some trainers!) for achieving dominance over one’s dog. http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/decoding-your-pet/201411/the-dominance-down

In this blog post from Psychology Today’s Decoding Your Pet series, Dr. Lisa Radosta presents her opinion on using children in a dog’s training or counterconditioning program. http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/decoding-your-pet/201411/do-your-dog-s-rights-begin-where-my-child-s-rights-end

In this post from Psychology Today’s Decoding Your Pet series, Dr. Carter discusses some of the behavioral changes associated with Canine cognitive dysfunction in senior dogs. http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/decoding-your-pet/201410/help-max-won-t-let-me-sleep-night

Animal Madness Book Review Author Laurel Braitman has a fresh perspective on animal psychology. Her PhD work is in History of Science and she provides interesting historical context for the early days of mental illness diagnoses in animals, and the development of modern-day psychopharmacology. She gets her point across mainly in series of cases of […]

Videotaping is a great way to identify if a patient is responding to treatment, especially with separation anxiety and storm/noise phobias. Unfortunately many people do not have a video camera or the ability to convert the video to send to their veterinarian. There is an inexpensive application called “Lapse-it” available for both android and apple […]

In this blog post from Psychology Today’s Decoding Your Pet series, some suggestions are provided for decreasing problematic barking. http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/decoding-your-pet/201410/barking-mad-how-do-i-stop-my-dog-barking