I went to a presentation a few months back at the local vet college by a woman named Turid Rugaas. Amazing lady - she can basically "speak dog".

I've been a dog person for a very long time, interested in dog behavior and the like. Well, I thought I knew about dogs. I knew *nothing*. Two hours with this lady and all of a sudden everything dogs do started to make sense. Everything came together. I was absolutely blown away.

She has worked with dogs that other trainers have given up on. And she has succeeded, and in no time. In minutes she can begin reversing the behavior problems of a lifetime (of course the owner has to continue with the training to complete it).

Anyway, enough rambling. Here is her website. I will let it speak for itself:

http://www.canis.no/rugaas/index.php

I <3 Turid Rugaas. That's very cool that you got to hear her speak. I've only read her articles. I've thought of ordering her video or book, but haven't yet.

I highly recommend the book "Click To Calm" which is not by Turid Rugaas, but teaches you how to train your dog to perform calming signals on demand. Calming signals are so important and underlooked in my opinion. My favorite command is "Cool It" (aka "Shake Off") which means I want the dog to stop whatever they're doing and shake their whole body so that they and everyone around them knows that they are done playing/fighting/whatever. I also teach my dogs to kiss on command. Starbucks who is aggressive with strangers, will now kiss strangers if I tell him to, forcing him to show respect and submission to everyone he meets. (He also has to kiss the cat every once in a while, not to get a tasting for kitty, but just so he knows that the cats rule the house.)

Being able to read dog body language and recognizing calming signals is also extremely important when I'm doing dog introductions. I use my dogs as test dogs to see if another dog gets along with dogs or not, so it's important that my dogs display calming signals in the introduction to prevent problems from occuring. If I have two dogs going head to head it could be bad, but if I can teach my dog to ignore the other dog and sniff the ground and raise his paw and lick his lips, and all that stuff that says he could care less, then the other dog will be put at ease. Likewise if I'm confronted by a strange dog that's showing fear or aggression I can perform the calming signals myself, flirtatious glances at the ground, lots of blinking, gazing away, etc, and it helps to put the dog at ease.

Anyways, I said all that to say that I agree, Turid Rugaas has a lot of good information.

I tried to order her book, but it's not available right now, on amazon or anywhere else. :( I think I might be ordering that video though.

I tried to order her book, but it's not available right now, on amazon or anywhere else. :( I think I might be ordering that video though.

Wow, that's weird :down:

Even still, there is a lot of good stuff on her website.