Positively | Victoria Stilwell | Forum

agree completely jacksdad, i was a bit wary of mentioning it in those terms too - and as claire's sister has shown, it can be EXTREMELY confronting being asked to consider that someone you love dearly might actually be abusive. unfortunately, the two are not mutually exclusive - people you love and ...

hello lacey! firstly keep in mind 4 days is absolutely NO time at all, she's still getting used to her whole new environment and has no way of knowing what the rules are unless you show her what you want. to that end, would you mind clarifying - you say you "put her out" in the yard to toi...

claire, and others, i am so sorry for what you are/have gone through with your mothers :( if i may offer some additional thoughts, and please do let me know if you want me to remove/edit any suggestions if it makes you uncomfortable - claire, what you describe sounds like classic abusive behavior. y...

oh i love that video - thanks elisa! from there i also found this article written by one of the guys donig the experiment (callie the dog's human) - http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/plus2sd/201204/canine-fmri-reveals-what-dogs-think-humans it also links to the scientific papers if your science br...

i have not heard of this sort of research being done before, though when i think about it i'm surprised it's taken so long! though on the surface it seems fairly obvious (the hand signal for "you get hot dog" activates the dog's reward centre in the brain - of course it does!) i think it's...

being "in control" means quite different things to different people, though (just as "rigorous" does, as you mention!). alot of the "pack leader" philosophy that gets thrown around is about being the "boss" or "alpha" of your dog which ARE bullying a...

So, that was it for us. He knew where he was going and he made it clear that he wasn't interested. We didn't want to force him to go be miserable. So, we called the daycare and let them know he wouldn't be back. Of course they tried to convince us to just give him more time, but I just can't. We th...

most: (besides sniffing and peeing on everything, of course) there is a tiny little cat that lives in a house at the end of one of the laneways we walk down, and over the past 6months or so they've become very polite to each other to the point of stopping and touching noses through the fence. if the...

oh honey HUGE hugs to you and abby. best of luck with the neurologist / MRI appointments.

all depends. sometimes jack is VERY gentle, sometimes not. it's a nice clue to his emotional state same with gypsy! also depends on context, with training treats she's pretty snatchy as she has trouble containing her excitement - but after human-dinner she is terribly polite and takes whatever her ...

To combat the food aggression issue, don't set his food bowl with food in it or give him any food, until you do the following: place his empty food bowl down and let him see it; then, take a piece of kibble or piece of food, show it to him, and if he doesn't growl or snap at you, go ahead and place...

we just use pH-neutral/non scented baby wipes for wiping over gypsydog when she gets messy. i giggled at the thought that maybe you were trying to clean her newly-pigmented regular skin, though!

if your advocate is the same as the one in my area (australia), it also does heartworm too - and again depending on your area, if heartworm is prevalent i wouldn't risk it (personally) previously when we had separate flea/tick and worming treatments we could let her flea treatment lapse pretty much ...

gypsy's paws smell like warm puppies

gremlin's paws used to smell like sunshine on grass

just to up the weirdness level, both smells are actually incredibly comforting to me. kind of like wearing a partner's t-shirt or something? comfort/closeness/warmth. think of that what you will

thanks guys - the upside is i have got my guard back up, so many good encounters recently and it was just that moment's hesitation that changed it from "hmm, kids and a dog in the park today, better cross the road" to "hmm, kids and a dog in the park...i'm sure it will be fine!" ...