The post Do Therapy Animals Enjoy Their Work? appeared first on International Institute for Animal Assisted Play Therapy ..read more

Below is the position paper of the Association of Pet Dog Trainers on dominance approaches to dog training. This is a very important issue. It is provided here with the permission of APDT, www.apdt.com. The post Dominance and Dog Training appeared first on International Institute for Animal Assisted Play Therapy ..read more

Jake shortly after his foot injury Last week Jake was trying his acrobatics to climb up on to the top of a large set of wire crates that our cats sleep in overnight (the cat “apartment”). He smelled a couple pieces of cat food there and was trying to get to them. I heard him crash from an adjacent room. His foot was bleeding profusely, and his toenail was bent at more than a 90 degree angle to his foot. The photo above shows the blood on his right rear foot after we had gotten it stopped. This led to a veterinary visit, the nail being cut off, a thoroughly wrapped foot, and a cone to prevent ..read more

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If your dog is fearful, anxious, or has fear-based aggressive behaviors, there is hope and help! Risë’s article below entitled Zoom-Zoom-Zoom: Lessons Learned from a Semi-Feral Dog highlights the journey of a terrified dog and the approach used to help her gradually become a much better adjusted family pet. There’s also an excellent website with a great deal of information on ways to help dogs with varying degrees of fear and anxiety, including seriously damaged dogs. Find useful articles, tips, links, and book suggestions at www.fearfuldogs.com ..read more

One of the challenges of play therapy work with canines is to ensure that children use the cues, both verbal and nonverbal, with which the dog has been trained. Kathy Sdao, an associate Certified Applied Animal Behaviorist (and wonderful speaker and trainer on dog training issues), recently suggested during a presentation at the Association of Pet Dog Trainers Conference that owners and trainers actually create a log of all the cues they use with their animals. She also offered ways to test those cues to see what the animal is actually “reading” – the words, tone of voice, body language, and s ..read more

ADPT_2011_ControlCompassionChoicesPart2 ..read more

ADPT_2011_ControlCompassionChoicesPart1 ..read more

PsychViewCrossoverTraining.APDT_09 ..read more

Dori and Norm, Cyndie Kieffer’s Approved AAPT Dogs “But you aren’t a play therapist…why are you signing up for that training?” That was a question asked of me by several people; many of whom were people that I trusted and admired, so being posed such a question did make me stop and think for a beat. My answer at that time was “I want to know more. My dogs have worked by my side for many years and here is someone combining play and dogs so I need to see what I can learn”. At the time that I signed up for the Level 1 Animal Assisted Play Therapy (AAPT) course I was working with adults diag ..read more