Humane Society of Washington County

Presenting… SQUID! 16

 in Animal Training / Dog Behavior Modification / Gold Paw / Peaceable Paws / positive dog training  tagged Behavior Assessment / bite inhibition / clicker training / counter conditioning / dog / dog trainer / dog training / Flyball / Humane Society of Washington County / Pat Miller / Peaceable Paws / shelter by

So, every Tuesday I go to the Humane Society of Washington County to do behavior assessments for adoption dogs, and every week I manage to resist some wonderful faces and personalities. We even play an “if” game at the end of assessments… Teasing ourselves a little we ask each other, “If you had to adopt one of the dogs we assessed today, which one would it be?” I’m pretty safe playing this game – we have five dogs in the family, with no intentions of adding another permanent canine resident. Five is our limit. However, that doesn’t preclude an occasional […]

Giving Back 4

 in Academies / Animal Shelters / Animal Training / clicker training / dog trainer / Peaceable Paws / positive dog training / Scholarship / Uncategorized  tagged clicker training / dog / dog trainer / Dog Trainer Academy / dog training / Humane Society of Washington County / Level 1 Training Academy / Marin humane Society / Pat Miller / Peaceable Paws / positive training / Scholarship / shelter by

An admirable quality of our species is that those who have more are often willing to give back to those who have less.  For many years, much of my own giving has been focused on the animal sheltering world, with an occasional book donation to some other dog-related cause. I decided it’s time to extend that give to the dog training world through an offer of scholarships to our Peaceable Paws Level One (Basic Dog Behavior and Training) Dog Trainer Academies. There are presently three scholarships available, one for each 2011 date, for our Maryland location only. Academy dates are: […]

Contest Winner Announcement(!) and Level 1 Academy 3

 in Academies / clicker training / contest / dog trainer / Peaceable Paws / positive dog training / Travels with PPaws  tagged clicker training / contest / dog / dog trainer / Dog Trainer Academy / dog training / Humane Society of Washington County / Level 1 Training Academy / Marin humane Society / motorcycle / Pat Miller / Peaceable Paws / positive training / shelter by

Exhausted after completing our last Level 1 Academy for the year… so why am I up at 5am on a Sunday morning? Well, clocks turned back at 2am this morning, so it’s really 6am and my internal clock just doesn’t get the message that fast. And besides, there are horses and dogs to feed, a dog-hike on the schedule, and blogs and articles to write. Not to mention laundry to do. Might as well get up instead of lying in bed trying to convince myself to sleep in another hour… Had a great week with a terrific group of dog […]

Behavior Modification Academy 8-10 4

 in Academies / Animal Training / Dog Behavior Modification / dog trainer / Peaceable Paws / positive dog training / Uncategorized  tagged Behavior Assessment / dog / dog trainer / Dog Trainer Academy / dog training / Humane Society of Washington County / Pat Miller / Peaceable Paws / positive training by

Confession time… I’m waaaaaay behind in getting a blog done, and now I have a dilemma – there have been so many things happen that I’ve wanted to blog about, like the Humane Society of Washington County donation jar getting stolen from the table at Martinsburg Bike Night, and the subsequent exciting chase, capture of one suspect, and ultimate recovery of the jar with over $250 in it. (It was the father of the two juveniles who actually went out and found the jar!). Or my observations from the Humane Society vaccination clinic and flea-less market that drew a long […]

Of Marinated Cats and Baseball Bats 2

 in Animal Cruelty / Animal Shelters / positive dog training  tagged dog / dog trainer / Humane Society of Washington County / Pat Miller / Peaceable Paws / positive training by

One of the things I do in my “spare time” is to write short articles about Pet Law for Examiner.com. From time to time I submit Legal Briefs for which I mine the Internet for reports of animal abuse and cruelty cases and present a short synopsis of some of them. While doing this recently I ran across two articles that stuck me as particularly noteworthy. Marinated Cat The first one was just bizarre. Gary Korkuc of Cheektowaga, New York (near Buffalo) had adopted a cat from a local shelter. Sunday night, Buffalo police pulled him over for running a […]

Instructors Course 8-2010 12

 in Academies / Animal Shelters / Animal Training / dog trainer / Dog training classes / Peaceable Paws / positive dog training  tagged Bark / clicker training / contest / dog trainer / Dog Trainer Academy / dog training / Dog training classes / Humane Society of Washington County / Level 1 Training Academy / Level 2 Instructor Academy / Pat Miller / Peaceable Paws / positive training / shelter by

Yesterday was the closing day of yet another Peaceable Paws Academy – this one our Level 2 Instructors Course. We tend to not get as much interest in this one as our Level 2 Behavior Modification (BMod is sexier), but it’s an excellent opportunity for trainers to hone their teaching skills – teaching humans is a very different skill set from training dogs. The students take turns teaching our Peaceable Paws Basic Good Manners exercises to each other, and as we do in our Level 1 Academy, students are working with shelter dogs. This week’s group consisted of: Bob Ryder, […]

Academy Time!

 in Academies / Animal Shelters / Animal Training / dog trainer / Dog training classes / Life on the Farm  tagged dog / dog trainer / Dog Trainer Academy / dog training / Humane Society of Washington County / Level 1 Training Academy / motorcycle / Pat Miller / Peaceable Paws / shaping / shelter by

Summer is certainly our very busy time here at Peaceable Paws, and the endless weeks of 90-plus degree heat seem to be making our academies and workshops more tiring than usual. So here it is Thursday already, the AC in my office is not working again (and it’s going to be over 90 again), and I’m waaaay behind on getting this blog done. I intended to get to it last Sunday, immediately after our Level 1 Academy, but Sunday was the Humane Society of Washington County’s “Bone to be Wild” motorcycle ride, and I was just too hot and tired […]

Maggie Faith Follow-Up 9

 in Animal Shelters / Animal Training / Dog Behavior Modification / dog trainer / Gold Paw / Uncategorized  tagged Behavior Assessment / bite inhibition / dog / dog trainer / dog training / Humane Society of Washington County / Pat Miller / Peaceable Paws / shelter / Tug by

Okey Doke – I promised you a follow-up on the Westie pup left abandoned in our driveway, so here it is. Never let it be said I don’t keep my promises… Maggie spent the week while we were on our biker vacation happily making friends at the Humane Society of Washington County. They assessed her at the end of her stray holding time, and found that she was friendly, outgoing, resilient (as in nothing rattles her) and very quick to use her mouth. They weren’t sure if she was using it aggressively or not, so were not willing to make […]

You Just Never Know… 14

 in Animal Cruelty  tagged abandon / dog / dog training / Humane Society of Washington County / Pat Miller / Peaceable Paws / shelter by

You just never know what surprise is waiting around the corner. I was wrapping up a private consult at about 5:30pm yesterday when one of our 6pm class students arrived and informed Shirley that there was a dog in a carrier halfway up our driveway. Since our drive is about a half-mile long, there’s no chance this dog crate bounced out of the back of a passing pick-up truck; someone must have left her there deliberately. PPaws apprentice Jenn Rutter and I hopped in my van and drove down to investigate. We found the world’s most adorable 12-week-old Westie pup […]

BEHAVIOR MODIFICATION TRAINER ACADEMY

 in Academies / Animal Shelters / Animal Training / Uncategorized  tagged dog / dog trainer / Dog Trainer Academy / dog training / Humane Society of Washington County / Pat Miller / Peaceable Paws / shelter by

Okay, I’ll admit it, I have favorites. I teach several different trainer academies throughout the year, and my Level 2 BMod is always my favorite. I sometimes forget how much I like them until another one rolls around, but the group that just finished last week reminded me, in spades, how rewarding this work is. I like the BMod academy for several reasons – one of which is I get to see return students. Successful completion of my Level 1 Academy is a pre-requisite for Level 2. There are some “equivalents” but most of the Level 2 trainers are Level […]

PEACEABLE PATHWAYS: BACK TO THE FUTURE 1

 in Animal Shelters / Travels with PPaws  tagged dog / dog trainer / dog training / Humane Society of Washington County / Pat Miller / Peaceable Paws / seminar / shelter / Wisconsin by

I’m back home from an excellent seminar experience in Brookfield, Wisconsin, with 60+ (sold out!) attendees for a day-long discussion of dog body language and behavior. A well-educated, very positive and responsive group, who actively participated, asked great questions, and bought lots of Pat Miller books and videos – thank you!!! A huge thanks to AWARE for hosting me, and especially to Holly Lewis for making all the arrangements and playing very gracious tour guide on Sunday (more about that in a moment). I even got to see some of my Facebook friends: Crystal and Renea introduced themselves – it […]

ASSESSING THE SITUATION 6

 in Animal Shelters  tagged Behavior Assessment / dog / Humane Society of Washington County / Level 1 Training Academy / Pat Miller / Peaceable Paws / shelter by

Every Tuesday morning 9:30am finds me doing assessments of prospective adoption dogs at the Humane Society of Washington County (www.hswcmd.org) in Hagerstown, Maryland, where my husband Paul is the Executive Director. I am committed to this volunteer time because I firmly believe that shelters have a responsibility to make every effort possible to place the most appropriate canine companions in the best homes available for them. Assessments give us information that can help make the best placements. The history of shelter behavior assessments goes back only about 15 years, and is fraught with controversy. Sue Sternberg, who founded Rondout Valley […]