Tag Archives: learning

Teaching the basics of massage

Posted on February 20, 2021 | Leave a comment

Last weekend, my greyhound Izzy and I taught another Learn to Massage Your Dog workshop. I have lost count as to how many dog parents we have taught together, but there are always more who should sign up. In fact, I’d like every dog owner to be able to massage their dog with the basic knowledge of where to massage, why, how and also when not to massage.

Massage is a skill that should be learned hands-on and live. What better way than to attend a class with your own dog and learn together?

Massage is one of the oldest healing skills. It dates back to 3,000 BCE (Before the Common Era) in India and long before pharmaceutical and surgical choices were considered (by many) to be the only options for health care.

Koda was re-homed by Carey and attended Learn to Massage Your Dog; Koda is also a regular customer for professional massage because she has a repaired hind leg injury which she compensates for

Massage by an owner has many benefits. If done regularly, the owner is the best position to pick up on changes that may require professional attention. Lumps and bumps, for example, should always be investigated. When a dog has been injured in some way, even a minor injury, the owner is a great position to help relieve the initial stress through their massage without waiting to see a professional.

Massage is also a great way to spend quality time with your dog – enhancing your love and bond.

For clients of my professional practice, I feel much more confident in giving them a home care program when they have been to a massage class. It’s also very satisfying when an owner gets in touch to say that their dog has had a minor injury, such as a back strain, and I’m able to advise them which strokes of their massage sequence to use for home care.

The winner is, of course, the dog.

My love of dogs and the passion to see them cared for using traditional, natural options alongside veterinary care is the reason I chose this line of work. Teaching and sharing skills is an honor that I hope to share with more dogs and their families in the years to come.

Kathleen Crisley, Fear-Free certified professional and specialist in dog massage, rehabilitation and nutrition/food therapy, The Balanced Dog, Christchurch, New Zealand

Izzy is a seasoned professional demo-dog who is happy to spend most of the class on my massage table

Teaching wolves new tricks

Posted on February 15, 2014 | 1 comment

The process of learning often involves mimicry or imitation. In research published in the journal PLoS One, scientists from the Messerli Research Institute at the University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna report on their behaviour experiments involving wolves and dogs.

The results show that wolves observe one another more closely than dogs and so are better at learning from one another.

Photo Credit: Walter Vorbeck

The scientists found that wolves are considerably better than dogs at opening a container, providing they have previously watched another animal do so. Their study involved 14 wolves and 15 mongrel dogs, all about six months old, hand-reared and kept in packs.

Each animal was allowed to observe one of two situations in which a trained dog opened a wooden box, either with its mouth or with its paw, to gain access to a food reward. Surprisingly, all of the wolves managed to open the box after watching a dog solve the puzzle, while only four of the dogs managed to do so. Wolves more frequently opened the box using the method they had observed, whereas the dogs appeared to choose randomly whether to use their mouth or their paw.

The researchers think that it is likely that the dog-human cooperation originated from cooperation between wolves. During the process of domestication, dogs have become able to accept humans as social partners and thus have adapted their social skills to include interactions with them, concomitantly losing the ability to learn by watching other dogs.

Source: University of Vienna media release

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Posted in Dogs, research

Tagged behaviour, dogs, learning, University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna, wolves

How your dog matches words to objects

Posted on November 24, 2012 | Leave a comment

Researchers at the University of Lincoln (UK) have published a study based on the learning patterns of a Border Collie named Gable. They wanted to see if Gable could match words with objects based on shape, which is the learning pattern in humans of toddler age.

Credit: Sally Smith; van der Zee E, Zulch H, Mills D (2012) Word Generalization by a Dog (Canis familiaris): Is Shape Important?

Gable could identify an object by name, but over time he associated the same word with objects of similar texture or size (not shape).

The researchers concluded that where shape matters for humans, size or texture appears to be the dominating issue for a dog.

This is small study (using only one dog) but it does provide insight into the learning and development of dogs. I’m sure there is more to come in this research field.

Source: Word Generalization by a Dog (Canis familiaris): Is Shape Important?