We truly believe that you and your pet are a team; you learn new things, explore, play, and have fun moments with your pet each day. These experiences create special memories in which you, and your pet, learn something new while having fun. Sometimes, when our pets start exhibiting unwanted behaviours, we forget that changing the unwanted behaviour can be just as fun as creating it was (of course, we probably created it by accident!).

 

By using minimally aversive positive reinforcement training, you can change your pet's behaviour (...yes, even the cat's). You can teach them that when they listen to you, or you work together, good things happen... and these good things don't have to always be treats! It can be some other reinforcer (e.g., play).

 

Training does NOT need to be aversive to be effective! In fact, punishing your pet (e.g., hurting, shocking, or hitting them) might appear effective right away as the behaviour you are punishing might disappear, but it will create more severe problems down the road! It should be AVOIDED. Instead, we can use positive reinforcement and the errorless approach to set you and your pet up for success and minimize failure. 

 

Each time we work with a client to change a pet's behaviour, our solution and training plan are created uniquely dependent on the situation. This means that your pet's specific needs and personality are considered (e.g., is your dog motivated by food or toys? Do they have a health condition? etc.). Your family dynamic, abilities/limitations, resources (e.g., time), and goals will also be considered. This is because if you want to change your pet's behaviour, it often involves changing yours. Furthermore, in order to be successful, we all need to work together to create a solution that will work for each party involved. Most importantly, we analyze why the behaviour is occurring - what causes and maintains it? Once we know this, we can change almost any behaviour.

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