I am glad you found your way to this site! Let me present how this site should be understood in a couple of words.
Like many people out there in the world, I love animals and dogs in particular. I am continually fascinated by the bond between people and all kinds of animals, be it birds, horses, polar bears or dogs.
On the other hand, I like science and therefore – on top of the emotional dimension – I am also interested in scientific explanations of what I intuitively perceive every day.
I had dogs when I was a child, but they were family dogs. They were reasonably well educated, but they certainly had their defects, like aggression, running away from home, chewing shoes etc. When I got my first own, properly my dog, I decided to actually learn about dogs and to avoid – if possible – raising another misbehaved dog that would be difficult to control.
That’s when a couple of years back I started to read all kinds of books and articles, watch videos and do online courses about dogs and their behaviour. I spent a lot of time on those activities and my own ideas started to emerge, what I believe about dogs, what – in my opinion – is good for them and how they should be handled. These ideas are a big mix of all the external inputs that I had, but also include my own observations of people and their dogs in the street, how they act and the visible result.
The aim of this blog is to formulate some of those worldviews and insights that were formed inside my mind over time. Many are heavily inspired by the books I read, but some of them are also my own conclusions. Whenever there is an external basis that I heavily rely on, I will cite it, of course, as it is not at all my intention to take credit for anyone else’s work. Concerning my own conclusions, I do not have any more scientific backup than my amateur observations, and crosslinks that I might have drawn from other people’s discoveries.
As many people seem rather militant about which ‘school’ should be followed in dog education, I feel like I should comment on that. I don’t consider myself as from the ‘positive school’ nor from the ‘traditional school’ or whatever else there exists. I do not think that these categorizations matter very much, but much rather what is the best for a specific combination dog-owner. And when you look closely, you will find negative reinforcement in ‘positive only’ schools, and people spoiling their dogs outside the field even when a minute before they kicked them in training. Things are not that easily separatable, and instead of trying even harder to do so, I prefer to drop it altogether and look at each method with the criterion of ‘what is best in any given situation’.
If you find anything in this blog that you disagree with and you have any reasoning or sources to back up your vision of things, please do not hesitate at all to communicate your view in the comments! My opinions are not fixed once and forever, so I am open to new inputs!
Enjoy the site !
Your team toteetown