Welcome!
The Wisdom of Woof, located in uptown Toronto, is committed to providing dog owners with
kind, safe and effective training solutions. By using proven techniques
based on scientific research, I can empower you and your dog to achieve
your training goals.
I
honestly believe that every dog deserves a great home. When we choose to share
our lives with these remarkable creatures, their intelligence, beauty and
devotion can amaze us. When we misunderstand them and become frustrated, the dog
becomes confused and frightened and the bond between us can be damaged.
There are stages that every dog goes through that can seem
impossible to navigate such as house training, nipping/biting, destructive
chewing, selective hearing, grooming troubles, fears, antisocial and unruly
behaviour. Rest assured, they all do eventually grow up but the best time to teach
good manners is during puppy hood. If your dog is starting training a little later
in life, you'd be glad to know that adults are incredible learners, too.
So if you're considering training then now really is the best time to
do it.
What is "the wisdom of woof"?
Dogs have their very own language which they all understand. They learn it
from their mothers and siblings as they grow up together in the litter. All dogs
have this knowledge, regardless of where they live. It's what has kept them
alive as a species for so long. Well-socialized dogs know how to say, "let's
play", "leave me alone", "don't hurt me" and "stop that right now" without
making a sound. Although vocal sounds play a part, a dog's language consists
mainly of visual cues, physical movements and scents.
At birth, a puppy is only able to smell scents and to make sounds. Over time,
hearing, sight, taste and movement develop allowing for a wide range of
"discussions" with its siblings and, eventually, with people. The period from
birth to 12 weeks of age is critical for dogs to become fluent in their own
language. Many behaviour problems stem from a puppy being removed from the
litter too early in life. If the information needed to understand its own
species is not completely learned, an adult dog will struggle to understand what
other dogs are saying. This often leads to a dog becoming overly cautious or
overly aggressive when it meets other dogs.
To complicate matters further, dogs have to try to understand
us.
We have completely different ways of communicating which often confuse dogs:
we
communicate with spoken language, we point and make specific gestures with our hands, when
frustrated we often get louder, we greet others by smiling, approaching directly
and sometimes extending our hand. These actions don't automatically make sense
to a dog since they communicate by using body postures, distance, direction
and positions of ears, eyes, mouths and tails. Dog "words" are often subtle
whereas humans tend to be less so. It's no wonder we misunderstand each other
sometimes!
If we are going to invite a dog into our home to live with us successfully we
have to know how to communicate effectively with it. By taking advantage of a
dog's built-in language we can help our dogs live happily in our world with "words" they
already understand. This is the "wisdom of woof". Everybody can learn it. Soon
you'll realize that dogs are "talking" to us all of the time. But are we
listening?
Contact Me
I would be delighted to speak to you about your training needs. Please tell
me about your dog(s), your home and the issue at hand. The more information you
provide the better idea I'll have which direction we should go. If you
prefer, the feedback page has a form you can fill out
to ask questions or to make comments.
- Telephone
- 647-500-3768
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- Office Location
- Yonge & Eglinton, Toronto, Ontario
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- E-mail
- wisdomofwoof@hotmail.com
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