Category Archives: Articles

There are, we have been informed, many ways to skin a cat!! The same can be said for training pooches.  When training a dog, we are often told “this is the best method for teaching the send away” or, “you will get the best results when training a dog to retrieve, if you use this […]

Depending on where one lives, the risk of your best friend being “poisoned” is either boring or alternatively generates a considerable amount of debate. After all, to the pampered pooch in Bond Street London, or the sled dog on the banks of lake Baikal, Siberia, the probability of death due to the premeditated act of […]

ANTHROPOMORPHISM AND INTELLIGENCE Anthropomorphism is a word that is not only difficult to spell, but for the average dog lover, difficult to come to terms with. The dictionary definition available to me at present is: ascription of human characteristics to what is not human.  A dog as we know, is not human, yet most of […]

THE THEORY OF DOG TRAINING. PACK INSTINCT: If you have studied the basic psychology of the dog, you will have seen that the primary instinct that we must work with when training our dog, is the pack instinct. The dog becomes a member of the family pack and you become the pack leader. The trainer/handler […]

STAYS………………………………………. By John Robert Cox: 2016 Depending on the requirements of the handler/owner, the “sound” to “staaaaya” can vary on the scale of importance of commands that a dog owner would need in the toolbox. The command to “come” will always, to my mind, be the most important, no matter what an owner wants a […]

Heel Work by John Robert Cox This is the discipline of ensuring that our dog works as close as to our left leg/side as is practicable and whilst on the move, neither surges nor lags, but happily stays with the handler. Certainly, for the average pet owner, having a dog that behaves nicely during “walkies”, […]