How to teach your dog to drop their toy on cue so you can keep the game going with them.
Low-Cost Enrichment Through Shaping
Shelters can be a stressful environment for dogs. Fortunately, there are simple, low-cost enrichment activities that can be implemented to provide comfort, reduce stress-induced behaviors, increase confidence, and promote adoptability. Enrichment can also be used to teach shelter dogs how to interact with their environments in a way that delivers a positive outcome. One easy way to provide enrichment is with shaping, the process of gradually teaching an animal a new action or behavior by clicking and treating the animal during each step of the process.
Shelter Enrichment for Cats: The Target Game
The shelter environment is stressful for dogs, and for the people who work there, but the environment is especially stressful for cats. In addition to losing all familiar contacts and past comforts, they are subjected to a constant barrage of alarming stimuli, including noise, strange smells, intrusions from unknown humans, close confinement, and the often-frightening sight and smell of other unfamiliar cats. While you can’t always change the physical environment, you can change the mental environment at a shelter by providing low-cost training and enrichment activities.
Karen Pryor Academy Helps Raise Standards for Dog Training Professionals
Waltham, MA, December 16, 2019—Karen Pryor Academy (KPA) will be the first private education institution to join forces with three leading industry associations in the effort to raise professional standards for dog trainers. The standards require trainers to commit to comprehensive education and skill proficiency, prioritize positive training solutions, and follow clear ethical practices in all aspects of their client work.
Karen Pryor Academy Announces 2019 Zoe Shelter Scholarship Recipients
Waltham, MA, October 31, 2019—Karen Pryor Academy (KPA) and Lisa White, DVM, founder of Veterinary Behavior Management Solutions in Cincinnati, Ohio, are pleased to announce and congratulate the winners of the 2019 Zoe Shelter Scholarships to KPA’s Shelter Training & Enrichment course.
Low-Cost Enrichment Ideas for Shelters
Life in a shelter is stressful for dogs—even at the most humane shelters. A variety of enrichment activities can enhance the quality of dogs’ lives while they are at the shelter by reducing stress and anxiety and, in turn, promoting adoptability.
Brain Games for Dogs- Mental Enrichment
Just like people, dogs like and need to exercise their brains every day.