Just some quick thoughts to make your life as a dog trainer much easier. After training thousands of dogs, it still amazes me how the little suggestions can make the biggest difference.

I work with dog-dog aggression a lot. I get lots of practice in the congested city of Chicago, and I use techniques that work. As with any training topic, there are many competing strategies out there, but I urge you to think about the psychology of anxiety and aggression.

On Friday I met a client for the first session and met his wonderful 1.5 year old Labrador Retriever named Riley. Our session ended after some fantastic leash work, placement cues and some work on Stay. As I was leaving, my client opened the door for me just as a delivery man was opening the door on the ground level. My client immediately saw the worst. The door was open, the gate was open and Riley ran through both.

We immediately raced after him and, thankfully, Riley did not make it to the very busy street one block away.

While working with a private client on Wednesday, we ran into another local Chicago trainer. It was interesting, because we were both teaching our clients the exact same lesson, using different philosophies. The goal was to have our dogs meet each other calmly. My client and I were walking a 2 year old wheaton terrier, and the other trainer and his client each had a dog that they were working with.

I used one of many strategies to get Misty to greet nicely.

This little word gets so many dogs in trouble. I hear this word used very frequently to describe a dog's behavior. It often is used to describe a dog that will not come when called or perform another behavior such as 'sit'.

Whether you want to call a dog stubborn or not, I think we can all agree on one thing. Dogs have a brain and they make choices.