How To Train Your Dog With Love + Science - Dog Training with Annie Grossman + Anamarie Johnson PhD (Formerly known as School For The Dogs Podcast)

In this episode, recorded on November 6th, I recap some of the weird moments having to do with pets and other animals in the run up to the election, from Peanut the Squirrel to Kristi Noem shooting her puppy, several stories about people eating dogs and beyond. But the apex of the weirdness came to me in in a speech where Carlson Tucker starts off talking about how American’s are too nice to dogs,...

Everything seems crazy and awful right now in the world and then, on top of it all, people are… putting costumes on dogs. Anamarie and I delve into the weirdness and ethics of dressing up dogs. Additionally, we talk about Brian Hare and Vanessa Wood’s Atlantic article about a third wive of domestication in dogs, and the Monks of New Skete’s feature in the Associated Press. Ultimately, my 5-year-ol...

Anamarie and I recorded this episode separately because we had different things we wanted to communicate in a format that wasn't really right for conversation. Me first: What if you're someone who has strong feelings about putting dogs in shock collars and... one of your friends publishes a paper on research she did that involved putting shock collars on dogs? What if that person is your podcast h...

Meet Anamarie Johnson! She was one of my first hires at School For The Dogs nearly a decade ago. She recently got her PhD, and she'd coming on to join me as a co-host! Me= Annie Grossman, dog trainer, business owner, human. I started this podcast in 2018. I had to take a little time off, mostly because... I was working on a book! It comes out next week! Learn more at SchoolForTheDogs.com/book...

Annie reads a post from Denise Fenzi's page that sparked some interesting comments on labels in the world of dog training. Some dog trainers are considerate about the use of some punishment in training and others work to avoid it at all costs. And then there are trainers who simply don't know what they're doing at all. Like... Dog Daddy. He calls himself "balanced" but no edu...

Today I caught up with Zak George to hear the latest about his public feud with Dog Daddy. See Dog Daddy's petition against Zak George at Change.org https://www.change.org/p/stop-zak-george?source_location=search Dog Daddy, Part 1: The face of modern "bad" dog training https://spotifyanchor-web.app.link/e/IZ8rDgtkWEb Dog Daddy, Part 2: Zak George calls out animal abuse masquerading a...

Annie went to see Dog Daddy live in New Jersey this weekend and reports back about the odd experience of being in a room where what looked to her like animal abuse seemed didn't seem to bother anyone else. The episode then includes a rebroadcast of a 2020 interview Annie did with School For The Dogs trainer Erin Whelan. Erin was a professional French Horn Player. Then she adopted a beagle mix...

Zak George, one of the most influential dog trainers of the 21st century, has been using his large virtual platform to bring attention to the problematic methods being used by the Internet-famous dog trainer known as Dog Daddy. Zak and Annie discuss the origins of this work, his efforts to get his followers to picket Dog Daddy's events, and more. Annie also talks about why the conversation abo...

Annie reads from How We Got By, a new book by Shaina Feinberg & Julia Rothman which includes a chapter about how School For The Dogs got started. She also gives an update on the bizarre/sad Dog Daddy world tour, and shares how excited she got when she first read about a man being called "the hot dog trainer." Who was the handsome fella? November giveaway: Enter to win a "Hot Dog...

Annie talks about why she is generally against costumes for dogs and suggests some alternatives to dressing up your dog on Halloween. She also discusses some feedback she got about last week’s episode, which featured an interview with the lawyer representing the woman who was mauled by Cesar Millan’s dog. Lastly, she shares two anecdotes: one about how she is using a Buy Nothing group on Facebook...

A trainer who goes by the name "Dog Daddy" has millions followers and has recently incited arguments on social media: His critics accuse him of harming dogs and calling it training; his fans accuse his detractors of being sissies who can’t face reality. These two vociferous groups are facing off online and at his in-person events around the world. Annie puts the saga into the context of...

Sometimes you stumble on something amazing and free. Maybe that's how you feel about this podcast? That's how Annie felt this week when her dream office chair appeared outside her door... You can buy good dog training (or great chairs). That's what School For The Dogs sells. But you can also get a lot of valuable dog training advice for nothing, if you're lucky. You, dear listener,...

Annie has been on podcast-hiatus working on her book, but... she's back! Join her for a conversation with longtime friend of the podcast, British pet marketing guru Dom Hodgson, who is coming to New York City to lead a seminar at School For The Dogs later this month. Dom shares his thoughts on the current state of the pet service industry and gives some really excellent advice on how to turn h...

SFTD Podcast is still on hiatus, but Annie is popped on to say "Hi" and tell a quick story about her daughter.  Join Annie in the Online Campus !  Get full access to Don't Be a Dick to Your Dog at dogtraining.substack.com/subscribe

Annie was recently browsing her local dog Facebook group, when she came across a post by a woman named Michaelle who was reaching out for training help with her reactive foster dog. Several of the replies recommended a trainer in the area who was not professionally certified, and Michaelle posted that she had decided to work with. When Annie, perhaps a little too aggressively, responded with criti...

Texas-based trainer Beth Berkobien has a master's degree in animal behavior, specializes in dog aggression, and offers virtual training sessions internationally. She was raised on a farm with field-trial Labradors and grew up around punishment-based dog training using aversives. After being encouraged by a trainer to use an e-collar on her dog that caused him to completely shut down, she moved awa...

Anamarie Johnson, a former School For The Dogs trainer and current PhD candidate in Behavioral Neuroscience and Comparative Psychology at Arizona State University, returns to the podcast to discuss her research on language used by dog trainers on their websites. In addition to discussing some of her findings (like what it means when a trainer talks about "nature" and some of the stranger New Age-y...

Hang out with any Positive Reinforcement dog trainer and they're bound to have a shirt in their wardrobe from the online store Woof Cultr: An apparel company that has a very niche market: Force-free trainers. Woof Cultr is the brainchild of Mandy Boutelle, who originally left a career as a hairstylist to become a certified dog walker in San Francisco. When she started doing off-leash group dog wal...

Sara Caron had a leash-reactive dog, and as she started to research a quick fix for the problem, she threw out a wide net and tried lots of things. With guidance from this podcast, she began to see a way of dog training that made sense to her. When felt she had reached a plateau in her own solo study of animal behavior, she enrolled in the School For The Dogs Professional Course last year. She got...

Leeyah Wiseman is a recent graduate of School For The Dogs Professional Course. If you follow us on TikTok or Instagram, you probably know her from the videos she does for SFTD. While she never thought of herself as a "dog person," she ended up adopting a puppy, George, and falling in love with him. But then she realized she had an issue on her hands: Separation anxiety. Her work figuring out how...

The term "misfit" originally referred to people who were considered to be not great fit for their surroundings -- an ill fit. I miss fit. At School For The Dogs, we see it as our goal to help dogs -- whenever possible -- exist comfortably in an environment that may not be the best fit for them. New York City certainly isn't the best fit for many  individuals of any species, which is perhaps one re...

Everyone is impressed by a dog whose eyes meets a human's gaze with magnet-like intensity on cue. Teaching a dog to "touch" his or her eyes to your eyes is a great exercise to practice no matter what the pooch's training level is. When teaching this attention-based behavior to a dog-- whether you use a word such as "Look" or the dog's name -- Annie suggests focusing on your training mechanics befo...

Elise Mac Adam and Annie first met in 2002 when Annie wrote up Elise's engagement announcement for her column in The New York Observer. Both of them were terrier lovers, writers, and native Manhattanites: They became fast friends. When Annie and Kate first started School For The Dogs in 2011 and running classes out of Annie's Manhattan living room, Elise and her dogs were among their first clients...

Jessica Maddox, an assistant professor of digital media at the University of Alabama, is the author of the forthcoming book The Internet Is For Cats: How Animal Images Shape Our Digital Lives. Her research has largely involved looking at how people share and consume photos of animals on the Internet. She and Annie discuss a variety of topics relating to social media pets. Maddox offers an academic...

Karen Pryor turns ninety on May 14th! Annie is celebrating today and... plotting continued celebrations on this podcast in the coming year.  If you're a Karen Pryor fan, join the celebration! If you're not, you'll enjoy learning why she is so worthy of it. In this episode, Annie interviews BF Skinner Foundation president Dr. Julie Vargas, about the importance of this incredible scientist, writer a...