Janis Bradley

The beagle dog in sunny autumn forest. Alerted huond searching for scent and listening to the woods

The Truth Behind Dog Impulses: What They Mean and How They Shape Behavior

July 14, 2023

You cry. I feel weepy. We all have impulses that just pop up naturally, and unless we have learned to inhibit them for some reason, we tend to act them out whenever the trigger events for them happen. They don’t need to make sense in a “thinking about it” way.  https://nationalcanineresearchcouncil.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Chimpy-Made-with-Clipchamp.mp4 In people, these can be contagious reactions like yawning or crying or laughing when other people do. You don’t have to learn to respond this way; you just see

Two Myths about Behavior Evaluations for Shelter Dogs

May 17, 2023

You might think behavior evaluations make placing shelter dogs safer. But, research shows that some of the most common beliefs about shelter dogs and evaluations are actually just myths. Myth #1 Dogs living in shelters are behaviorally different from dogs living with families There is a prevailing myth that shelter dogs are “damaged” or “have something wrong with them.” This myth can lead to shelters running a battery of tests, called behavior evaluations, on the dogs in their care, in

Building Social Competence: The real deal in dog safety training

November 22, 2021

In 2013 the most comprehensive study to date asked whether the dogs (fewer than 1 dog in 2 million)  involved in dog bite-related fatalities (DBRF) had anything in common with one another. The collaboration of a veterinary epidemiologist, a public health expert, an animal behaviorist and dog behavior researchers examined the available evidence regarding every DBRF in the US over a 10 year period, a total of 256.   They found 7 situations that were often missing in the lives of

A Dog and Her Family Show Us the Importance of Social Competency

September 4, 2021

“Oh behave,” we often say to our children and dogs alike, when they do stuff that irritates us. But no one, not kids and not puppies either are born knowing how to “behave.” Understanding what’s expected of them, and how to read the signals others give off, and generally how to behave appropriately in social situations, even to recognize the feelings of others all have to be learned. In the language of developmental psychology, all this learning is collected under

Words Matter 101: Let’s get rid of the A word

August 19, 2021

I have a personal litmus test for dog knowledge among humans.  If someone asks, “is that dog aggressive?” I understand immediately that we are starting from zero. Karen Overall, the noted behaviorist, once said that as far as she could tell, the word “aggression” simply meant anything a person didn’t like. She was speaking to an audience of dog professionals. More than 60 years ago, John Paul Scott, one of the earliest and most revered of canine behavior researchers, declared

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