Gary Wilkes Archives - Groomer to Groomer

Why Dogs Lose Their Homes

Barkleigh Productions — Thu, 20 Mar 2014 19:02:59 +0000

This month’s column isn’t exactly about behavior. It’s about the broader effects of behavior and why I became a trainer and behaviorist. It all started about 35 years ago. I was out of college with no real desire to pursue my chosen profession: architecture.

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What’s in a Name?

Barkleigh Productions — Tue, 04 Mar 2014 14:58:53 +0000

Bumper was an Australian Shepherd mix who belonged to my roommate, Dan, when I was a young shelter manager. Dan liked to let Bumper run loose through the neighborhood each evening at dinner time. After dinner, Dan would want Bumper to come home. That’s when the trouble started.

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Naughty Vs. Normal

Barkleigh Productions — Mon, 13 Jan 2014 22:37:44 +0000

My first cattle dog was named Megan. When I met her, she was four months old and on “death row” at my shelter. She was about to be killed because of the heinous offense of chasing livestock—a task she was genetically designed for. Go figure.

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Reactive Dog On-Leash: and One Way to Fix It

Barkleigh Productions — Mon, 24 Oct 2016 13:37:20 +0000

I was at a dog park the other night with a 45 pound ABD (American Black Dog). It had the typical medium–length, all black coat and built like a border collie. A couple of weeks ago he pulled his owner off her feet while going after his favorite target—'little white dogs'. He gave no warning before he lunged.

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Barking Bad

Barkleigh Productions — Thu, 21 Nov 2013 21:54:24 +0000

Barking is a problem for just about everyone other than New Zealand shepherds. They use “Huntaway” dogs to drive sheep with incessant barking. I don’t blame the sheep. For most people, incessant barking is a problem. People can be driven from their apartments or condos because their dogs bark incessantly. Shelters have trouble featuring adoptable animals because they cannot hear amid barking dogs in a kennel.

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Ivan Pavlov… Ring a Bell?

Barkleigh Productions — Mon, 08 Aug 2016 13:31:24 +0000

Pavlov is a name well known in the field of psychology but almost nothing about his work is known. At best, you may know that his most famous experiment was to ring a bell and then give a dog a piece of food. He traced the physiological reflexes associated with food – salivation, reduction in heart rate, etc.

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The Dark Cloud Hanging Over Your Salon

Barkleigh Productions — Fri, 09 Aug 2013 15:17:34 +0000

As if you don’t have enough headaches in keeping a successful salon going, there is a dark cloud hanging over your head. That cloud makes clients’ dogs disappear. That’s because some of your clients’ dogs aren’t growing hair anymore; they aren’t breathing, either.

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From Pack to Play Group

Barkleigh Productions — Mon, 13 Jun 2016 14:18:37 +0000

The last 30 years of dog training lore revolves around the connection between wolves and dogs. You can buy 100 books that prattle about dogs being descended from wolves; animals that voluntarily live in groups, called packs. This perspective invariably assumes that dogs are likewise “pack animals”. The underlying implication is that dogs possess the same wolf-like ability to live in harmony with their own kind.

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Dog Spite and Human Imagination

Barkleigh Productions — Mon, 04 May 2015 16:02:38 +0000

Of all the disconnects between dog owners and their dogs, the biggest, most glaring, completely illogical, widely held and damaging myth is that dogs can be spiteful. Nope. Nada. Nicht. Ain’t happening. To understand my adamant belief that doggie spite doesn’t happen, conduct this simple experiment based on actual events.

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10 Steps to Housetraining Success

Barkleigh Productions — Wed, 16 Mar 2016 13:44:37 +0000

Behavior Clips
The Background: Once, at the Everett Animal Shelter in Everett, Washington, we got in about twenty 12-week-old German Shepherd pups at the same time. I think they were seized from a breeder but the source really isn’t important.

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Fraternal Twins: Discrimination and Generalization

Barkleigh Productions — Wed, 08 Apr 2015 14:06:12 +0000

Somewhere, deep within the bowels of my computer is a nifty little pinball game. It is a tribute to the software designers, who have created a marvelous simulation of the real thing. Two of the keys on the keyboard activate the flippers, and two more act to “nudge” the table.

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Behavior Odds and Ends

Barkleigh Productions — Thu, 03 Mar 2016 14:17:11 +0000

Behavior Clips
Here are a few “odds and ends” of training advice that can be shared with your clients or used in your everyday life:

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