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

Before she became a dog trainer, Jenny Efimova was working human trauma survivors for a living. Her job involved being empathetic and meeting people where they were. It wasn't immediately obvious to her that a lot of the lessons she'd learned at work could be applied to someone in her home who was suffering: Her dog. Her young rescue, Larkin, was increasingly afraid to go out on walks in her neigh...

In his work as a set designer, Saturday Night Life staffer Ken MacLeod had seen many well-trained dogs, and had even done commercial work with his own Jack Russell, Mac. But then he got a dog named Scooter and he realized that every dog has different needs. This realization led him to decide he wanted to become a certified dog trainer. Today, he splits his time: Part of every month, he can be foun...

Oftentimes, the toughest thing about training dogs is dealing with people. Strangers out in public, however well-intentioned, can be major obstacles to a fruitful training session, further complicating things in what is most likely already a high-pressure environment for your dog. Annie feels for dogs who are basically bullied (often unintentionally) by strangers, or even their own owners, during...

The Netflix docu-series Bad Vegan  is about the owner of a raw food restaurant (which happened to be located on Annie's street) who was conned out of millions of dollars by a narcissistic sociopath who claimed he could make her dog immortal. The story leads Annie to think aloud about how genius manipulators use coercion, punishment and classical conditioning in order to get the behaviors they want...

Did you know that The Dog Whisperer and Jada Pinkett Smiths are longtime best friends? Two weeks ago, Will Smith calmly and confidently sauntered up on to the stage of the Oscars and slapped someone who said something he didn't like. His vibe and techniques struck Annie as a bit Dog Whisper-y. Maybe that's because she was aware that Cesar Millan, aka The Dog Whisperer, was supposedly made famous i...

Annie interviews Katya Lidsky, a writer, podcaster and frequent dog fosterer who lives in Austin, TX. She recently started a podcast called The Animal That Changed You, and interviewed Annie about an animal that changed her (head over and check out the episode ! https://www.katyalidsky.com/podcast ). Katya, who refers to herself as a "soft core" animal activist, tells Annie about loving and losing...

Annie recently received an email from a producer who had a request: Were there any School For The Dogs students who were big men with tiny dogs? Or people who had big dogs who wouldn't mind their dogs being humorously mocked on Youtube?  The request came via Douglas Widick, a Brooklynite who had recently brought his young Scottie, Skye, in for playtimes at School For The Dogs. A musical comedian,...

High-fat diets are popular right now in the human realm, but should your dog be "low carb" too? Annie speaks to Daniel Schulof, who left a career in law in order to help combat the canine obesity epidemic by getting people to stop feeding their dog food that is high in carbohydrates. He is the author of Dogs, Dog Food, and Dogma, and founder of a new company that makes low-carb dry food for dogs:...

Every day, School For The Dogs trainers meet one-on-one with puppy owners in private sessions designed to help pave a path of success for all the species in that unique, particular household. Annie attempts to take an unbiased peak at what happens in these sessions by cold calling two clients who recently attended private ninety-minute sessions with a School For The Dogs trainer. She speaks to Dan...

Susan Mravca is an entrepreneur with a mission: To help people spend more time with their dogs, without their dogs bothering them. Bully sticks, she found, are great at keeping a dog occupied, but she didn’t like having to hold her dog’s chews in place in order to keep her from burying it or swallowing it. She decided to try to design something that could work—something unlike any other product sh...

In celebration of School For The Dogs' recent ten year anniversary, this podcast's fourth anniversary, and Annie's birthday last week, she shares two gems for anyone who loves dogs and loves reading, or writing, about them. One is an obituary for Finn, a Manhattan-based dog who died last month. He belonged to Dr. Alexandra Horowitz of Barnard's Dog Cognition Lab. The other is a fictional piece abo...

In 2014, Meredith Witte decided she needed a Border Collie. The fact that she lived in a studio apartment in Manhattan did not deter it. But how was she going to train a puppy? The day the dog arrived, she called Annie. At the end of their first training session, Meredith was in tears. But they were good tears! Fast forward eight odd years: Meredith and her super bright dog sidekick, Roma, now liv...

***February 2022 Special: New to School For The Dogs?  Book a free virtual consult with a trainer at http://schoolforthedogs.com/freeconsult*** This episode is a rebroadcast. It first aired on May 15, 2020.   There is one behavior we teach every dog we work with at School For The Dogs: Touch!  This is an easy-to-teach building block that you can use to build... whatever you want! In this episode,...

Someone in a dog-related Facebook Group reported being bitten by a dog in School For The Dogs' neighborhood. The person wanted the dog owner to pay his medical bills  -- this seemed, to Annie, to be reasonable. But then a client reached out to Annie, upset about the rancor in the comments section. It seemed like an angry mob was forming to lobby that the dog be euthanized. Could Annie maybe chime...

When Ionelee Brogna decided to bring a Miniature Schnauzer puppy into her NYC apartment a couple of years ago, she knew she didn't want to employ the punishment-based or "balanced" methods that her family had used on their dog back in rural Massachusetts. But she wasn't sure what other options there were. Her research led her to... this podcast! And then to classes at School For The Dogs, and then...

James Joyce said that Catholicism means "Here comes everybody." But does "everybody" mean our Yorkiepoos, too?  Earlier this month, Pope Francis made the remark that "many, many couples do not have children because they do not want to, or they have just one – but they have two dogs, two cats… Yes, dogs and cats take the place of children [...] And this denial of fatherhood or motherhood diminishes...

Dog parks aren't appropriate for every dog, and urban dog parks have their own unique challenges--a revolving population and small foot prints, to name a few. If Annie had her way, all dogs parks would have life guards! She gives some reasons why you might think twice before bringing just any dog to any dog park. If you've decided the dog park might be a good thing for your dog, take some tips fro...

Introducing a new series: Best Pet Ever! Wherein Annie talks to interesting people about their interesting pets. Inspired by Betty White's 1970s show, The Pet Set, Annie interviews one of her closest friends, Jessica Vitkus. Jessica is an East-Village based writer and TV producer — she was Annie's boss ten years ago on the Animal Planet show, Too Cute: Puppies and Kittens. Jessica, her kids and he...

School For The Dogs' Behavior Therapy Trainer Jen Nastanski came to work at our New York-based facility after two decades of working with dogs at professional and competitive levels. She tells Annie about getting trained to be a trainer at PetSmart, getting involved in competitive Obedience using positive-reinforcement-based techniques, teaching (and helping to raise) guide dogs, and, most recentl...

While doing the NYC's annual workplace Sexual Harassment Prevention course, Annie noted that people are being told to assume that many things other than the word "No" may mean "No."  This might be a good thing, but it's also potentially confusing! In the world of dogs, she's seen how the word "No" can also be a confusing concept, as it is frequently used ineffectively, and can even end up positive...

Spencer Williams, the founder and CEO of Bozeman, Montana-based company West Paw, grew up on a working ranch where the dogs slept outside, worked hard, and, when they played, they did so with sticks. And... they were happy! Some twenty-odd years ago, he decided he wanted to help modern non-working dogs be that happy too, and wanted to do so in a way that wouldn't just improve doggie lives: It'd al...

A School For The Dogs Instagram Reel that was meant to help dog owners understand how to tell if a trainer is a "positive reinforcement" trainer or not resulted in a battle in the comments section about what kind of dog training methods are best. Annie considers how the very title of "positive reinforcement dog trainer" is problematic, and talks about how the conversation led her to consider the p...

Earlier this week, TikTok user @becs.richards posted a video of herself chasing her cat around her house while holding her Christmas tree like a bayonet; in the text that goes with the video, she explains that she saw a TikTok explaining that if you traumatize your cat with your Christmas tree before you put it up, the cat will leave the tree alone. The video and a few follow ups (showing that the...

It costs a lot to run a small business in New York City, which can be a conundrum for a mission-driven business like School For The Dogs. Annie talks about some of the ways that she and Kate have worked to offer services and goods at prices that can make "Good Dog Training" accessible to everyone, and what it means to "shop small" in a world when the little guys are selling products that can so of...

A bunch of media outlets have recently done stories about private dog runs in NYC, and have mentioned School For The Dogs' School Yard sessions, which are playtimes for dogs. School Yard is members-only, by-appointment and trainer-supervised. Annie talks about why the service is so special, and also why it's so expensive. She addresses some of the negative feedback she's gotten to the articles. Sh...