If you are looking for the FREE Pet Owner Education Resources for Dog Owners  CLICK HERE

The content you are trying to access is only available to our Members. Join BEN using the link below.

If you have JUST registered for BEN you have reached this page in error. LOG OFF using the link on the right side of the page – and log back in again using the username and password you’ve created.

If you are a BEN member, please LOG IN now using the Log In boxes to the right.

To join BEN, CLICK HERE to SUBSCRIBE from the Home Page and review the benefits of being a BEN Member.

Looking for a trainer or consultant?
Search our Members’ Business Directory using the link on the right side bar.

CLICK HERE to learn more about Member Benefits and to join TODAY!

What’s Been Happening in Behavior Education Network:

Join BEN’s Facebook group for stimulating discussion!!.  Members bring questions about difficult cases, we discuss feedback from BEN’s webinars and Biscuits, current events important to our field and MUCH more! All in a polite, respectful environment.

Check out the Member Dashboard to learn about two educational opportunities now available  – Behavior Mentoring and Behavior Case Consults.   Email us to schedule a time for your individual session.

Here’s just a sampling from the vault of webinar courses and Behavior Tip articles you’ll find in BEN

Case Consult with long time BEN member Almudena Ortiz Cue from Chaco Dog Training in New Mexico.  It was a great discussion about how we deal with all the different issues of a complex aggression case.

A special article series on “Analysis and Management of Pet Behavior Problems: How Do We Judge the Quality of Scientific Evidence?”  which is based on our own experience with evaluating a medical treatment.  

Articles and Tips on “Why Do People Ignore Your Directives?” followed by “Helping Clients Say NO – don’t pet my dog”;  “Origins of ‘Least Restrictive/Intrusive’ Principle” and “How Do You Use ThunderCaps® and Doggles®?”    

Tips about training techniques that have been in the news lately – Imitation, Negative Reinforcement and Other Training Techniques.  How Does Dog Personality Change With Age? and Give Yourself a Break!  are additional topics covered in this series of articles.

Member Only Webinar Class  “The Outliers: Behavior Cases That Require A Different Approach “, with special guests Sharon Madere, CHBC from Equilightenment and Ms. Barbara Heidenreich from Animal Training Fundamentals.

Low-Stress Owner Absent Veterinary Visits;  Don’t Undervalue Your Professional Perspectives and Objective Explanations;  Finding Your Behavior Starting Point for Intervention; LIMA and The Humane Hierarchy.  

Talk Less, Listen More;   “Kin Recognition” and Reunions Between People and Pets; What’s More Powerful – Stories or Science?; Adding Value and Revenue to Your Classes and Appointments

That One More Thing; Has Science “Proved” Emotional Contagion Between People and Dogs?;  Writing Your Equity and Inclusion Statement; Little Things Can Make a Big Difference When Evaluating Behavior; Why Bite Scales Have Limited Value

OnlineOffice Hours” with the discussion about how behavior consulting and training businesses have changed and strategies to adapt to to ever changing circumstances.   Brainstorming among participants helped us all get new ideas and learn from each other.

Tips and Articles: What’s Your Next Logical Step;  The Value of Tug;  Are We Really Looking at the “Whole Dog”?;  and When Clients Choose Euthanasia

We’ve added a special live Discussion/Q&A session for our course Should I Offer Telephone Consults?” that took place Tuesday April 7th.  The replay is now available on the course page. The Tuesday Tips started with “Understanding and Kindness Go A Long Way”  with more to follow!

The new BEN Pro Member webinar for the month is Our Role When Evaluating Dogs and Dog Bites, a discussion with BEN Member Charlene Sorrentino concerning a recent legal case.  The Tuesday Tips for the month are about How Preconceptions Bias Our Observations, The Value of Having Anxious Dogs Being Still and How We Act As Interpreters of Dog Behavior.

The Tuesday Tips for  concern some recent issues we have recently addressed or thought about. Response Prevention, Throw-Away Comments, What We Didn’t Ask & Play As Cognitive Therapy.

Last month’s BEN webinar we presented a Case History of Feline Housesoiling. We’re featuring another common complaint we hear from cat owners with this month’s BEN webinar “Feline Aggression to Among Family Cats”.

This month’s Biscuit is From Mindfulness to Statistics contains two articles on whether the idea of “mindfulness” can be applied to dog training from either end of the leash, and finishes with three articles on a controversy that has arisen about the appropriateness of certain types of statistics in research.   a mixture of short articles on topics that recently have hit the popular press and may have importance for those of us working with pets or interpreting the scientific literature about pets. Check out  “Mindfulness to Statistics HERE”.

This month’s BEN webinar is a Case History of Feline Housesoiling with our very own BEN member Fran Berry.

This month’s Pro Member webinar is looks at a unique way to  influence dogs’ emotional states to work with aggression.

Can all behaviors be explained in terms of their function? What happens when we encounter cases and say to ourselves “I don’t know why this animal is behaving this way”. We explore this problem in this months biscuit series “Explaining the Unexplainable”.

With our first biscuit for month we took a second look at the “Five Must-Know Aspects of Cat Behavior”.  But a recent experience prompted us to then add a second biscuit topic for the month that we know will be of special interest to our BEN members, How To Talk To People On The Street About Their Dog Handling Mistakes”.

For our Pro Member webinar this month we’re helping you talk to your clients about what changes they can easily make to change their dog’s behavior.  “Five Easy Steps to Change Your Dog’s Behavior”

This month’s we welcome another guest – Ms. Laura Monaco Torelli for our Member’s Only Webinar Taking Care of Yourself and Your Clients You won’t want to miss this discussion of how we all deal with the stresses of our job while trying to take care of our clients at the same time.

In honor of BEN’s 10 year anniversary, we thought we’d take a look back, and compare where we were 10 years ago and where we are now relatively to four areas of behavior and training with this month’s biscuit series, “Then and Now”.

We’ve got some special guest joining us for the month’s Members Only Webinar “The Role of Shelters and Rescues in Protecting and Respecting Communities, Animals, and People”. Join us for this thoughtful and important discussion that you’ll be hearing more about at the national level.

This month’s Biscuit will be written as another series of client handouts. “Does Your Pet Show These Kinds of Behaviors?” Our theme will be helping dog and cat owners be aware of and recognize clusters of behaviors important for aspects of their animals’ well-being.

This month’s Science Article for review and analysis asks“What Factors Are Associated with Stranger-Directed Aggression in Dogs?” Click on the title to go to the article post.

This month’s Members Only Webinar looks at often misused and ambiguous words in Applied Animal Behavior and how they muddle the field. “There’s A Word For That…” join us for some fun with words!

For our biscuit series this month we’re taking a look at “Dog Trainer and Behaviorists Pet Peeves: Why They Concern Us and What Alternatives We Recommend. Keep an eye out each Tuesday and see if your pet peeve is included!

The biscuit series for this month takes a look at the practice of labeling aggressive behaviors – are labels helpful? Find out what we think with “Do Category Labels for Aggression Help Us Or Do They Lead to Trouble?”

For this months Pro Member Webinar we’re giving you free access to the 2 session course “Risk Assessment of Aggressive Animals” plus the opportunity to submit your questions which Dan & Suzanne will answer in a live session. Whether you’ve already been called upon to conduct risk assessments, or want to be prepared when you are,  this course will give you a fresh perspective and new ideas for what to do next time.

This months Pro Member Webinar is “The Realities of Dogs That Bite: A Realistic and Compassionate Discussion About How To Support ClientsWe invite you to join this discussion as we partner with Trish McMillan, MSc, CDBC, ACCBC, CPDT-KA, from Instinct Dog Behavior and Training and formerly with the ASPCA to talk about this complex and difficult topic.

The Biscuit series for this month looks at Tips for Evaluating Scientific Review Articles.  We’ll give you tips and examples of good and bad reviews.

This month’s  Biscuit series is “Five Strategies To Make Behavior Cases Less Stressful, Less Scary and Have Better Outcomes.  Read the full description and the dates that each Tuesday Biscuit article will be delivered to your inbox.

We’re doing something special this month for the BEN webinar. We’re giving Pro members FREE access to our paid 5 session webinar – “Shining the Light of Science on Canine Behavior”. In addition to the recorded sessions we’ll also have a live question and answer session on April 30th. Click on the title for complete details and access.

Our Pro webinar this month takes a look at three recent and important research articles, “Dog Bites, Gut Bacteria and Coping with Distress – Cutting Edge Research in Applied Animal Behavior”. If you haven’t had time to read the reviews or just do better HEARING the analysis of the research be sure to join us for what’s sure to be an interesting and informative webinar.

This month’s Biscuit Series is on “Understanding and Improving Client Compliance.”  It’s good information based on a panel discussion at the recent IFAAB meeting.  It’s a little bit different way of thinking about compliance issues.  Click on the title to go to the post  and look for the Biscuits in your email boxes.

The Science Article reviewed this month asks the question “Do gut bacteria have anything to do with dog to dog aggression?”  It may sound a little strange, but read our review to find out what’s going on.

WHY questions about behavior are important, but they aren’t always easily answered. In fact, understanding the different layers, or levels of answering the WHY question is a foundation principle of animal behavior science. We’ll address the “why” in this  months Biscuit series “How To Answer The “WHY” Questions About a Pet’s Behavior”.

For this month’s Pro webinar we’re doing something a little different.  We have a fabulous 3 session course for you called “Professional Tactics For Your Behavior and Training Business That Will Save You Time, Increase Your Revenue and Decrease Your Stress”.  The course includes personal worksheets, homework and MORE that will includes time-saving strategies, how to successfully recruit new referral sources, how to better craft your business’ messages and MUCH MORE!.  We learned many of these strategies from our business coach and also from our own experience in the 30 or so years we’ve been in business.  We’ll be doing a LIVE discussion group to go over your homework

 

In our search for research papers to review for you every month, we often run across attention grabbing headlines about the latest research findings having to do with some aspect of pet behavior. We’ll discuss what we often find when we dig a little deeper in this month’s Biscuit series “Examples of Mis-Represented Research Results.”

Our webinar this month is case history of a little rat terrier who reacts in unwanted ways to a variety of stimuli. In “How To Help Dogs Showing Low Threshold, Generalized Excitability” we’ll discuss the full case history, and explain and show you through videos how a very dedicated owner and a very skilled trainer, with some coaching from us, are making a difference in a long standing problem.

A recent experience with a health care provider reminded us of how important good interpersonal communication skills are to successful client relationships.  We’ll review some strategies with this month’s Biscuit series “Essential Communication Skills For Attracting and Keeping Good Clients.”

The  month’s webinar is Part II of How Do Early Experiences Affect The Well Being Of Animals?”, This month we look at experiences that can improve welfare in the young and adults.

This month’s CAABChat is our annual Rants and Raves Chat.  We’ll be discussing topics our three guest Chatters found particularly inspiring or annoying during this past year.

Our Biscuit series this month is “Four Personal Policies To Manage Your Behavior Cases More Successfully and With Less Stress!”.

CAAB Chat this month is a report on the “Progressive Equine Behavior and Training Forum” which took place recently. Even if you don’t work with horses, learning what came out of this forum broadens our perspective on the dog training field.

In our monthly webinar “How Do Early Experiences Affect The Well Being Of Animals?”, we’ll review the literature on early experiences and behavior with an eye towards how they affect well-being throughout life.

The Biscuit series for the month is “BEN Resources on Aggression: Valuable Resources on a Complex Topic”.

“Environmental Enrichment for cats: Implementation and owner attitudes” is our CAAB Chat topic this month with guest chatters Dr. Mikel Delgado, CAAB and Dr. Jessica Lockhart, CAAB.

With this months webinar we’ll get an inside look at “The Best of Las Vegas:  Report on the  Clinical Animal Behavior Conference”.

The Biscuit series for the month is “Operationally Defining Common Labels For Dog Behavior”.   What does it mean when you or a client says a dog is stubborn, confident, smart, or dominant?  Those are the labels we will attempt to define in this Biscuit series.

This month’s webinar is Part II of  ” How to Do Court Ordered Evaluations”.

CAAB Chats topic is “Rehabilitating Horses with Aversions to Healthcare and Handling Procedures”.

The Biscuit series for the month is “Four Ways To Improve Your Customer Service: Lessons From Our Move”.

This month’s webinar is ” How to Do Court Ordered Evaluations”.

CAAB Chats return from a 2 month summer break for “What We Learned At The Animal Behavior Society’s Conference That YOU Need to Know!” 

This month’s webinar is  Part II of “Social Learning in Dogs: Teasing Apart Stimulus Enhancement, REAL Imitation and Social Facilitation”.

We’re revisiting some oldies but goodies with “The Best of the Biscuits” series this month.

The Biscuit series for the month is “What rats and mice can teach us about dogs and cats and horses and parrots.” There’s a lot more there than you might think.

This month’s webinar is “Social Learning in Dogs: Teasing Apart Stimulus Enhancement, REAL Imitation and Social Facilitation Part I”.

The Science Article Review follows up on one of our Biscuits and asks “Can Dog Laughter Reduce Stress in Shelter Dogs?” 

Our CAABChat for this month with guest chatter Dr. Lisa Gunter is “Identifying Behavioral Indicators of Welfare Using A Converging Evidence Model of Health, Physiological, & Cognitive Data”. Click on the title for full description and register for the live chat.

This month’s webinar is “How To Tell Owners What They Don’t Want To Hear: Facilitating Client Communication In Aggression Cases”  Click on the title for a description and to register.

The Biscuit series for this month is “Five “Must-Have” Skills If You Work With Aggression Problems”

The webinar for this month is Everything You Need To Teach Preparing Your Dog For Baby Classes.   The Biscuit topic for the month was Dog Bite Prevention: Whose Responsibility Is It?.   For the CAABChat this month we welcomed Dr. Erica Feuerbacher to talk about her research on Evaluating the Effectiveness of Reinforcement Delivery  

This month’s webinar Part II of “Estranged From Science?  Concepts and Terms That Have Taken On Lives of Their Own.”  The Science Review Article for the month is  Dog Training Science: A Review of 10 Articles.  The CAAB Chat was How To Get Your Hands on a Hands Off Cat, with guests Adi Hovav and Dr. Jessica Lockhart, CAAB.  Our Biscuit series was Four Behavior Characteristics of Cats You Need To Know About. 

The webinar for this month was “Estranged From Science?  Concepts and Terms That Have Taken On Lives of Their Own”, Part I.   The Biscuit topic for the month was Four Proven Strategies for Successful Conversations And Getting People On Board with Behavior Change.   The CAABChat this month was a special one about mentoring where the replay is available for FREE to everyone. “Recognizing the People Who Helped Get Us Where We Are”  The Science Review Article for the month asks the question “Do Dogs Prefer Food over Petting as Reinforcers?”

The CAABChat for the month is “Dogs, Fruit Flies, Behavior Genetics and The Nobel Prize” with guests Dr. Steve Zawistowski and Dr. Jessika Hekman.  The Biscuit Topic for the month is “Don’t Let the Job Get To You: Strategies For Staying Behaviorally Healthy”.  The webinar topic for the month is Resolving On-Leash Problems: Two Case Histories” .  Our Science Article Review for the month is actually reviews of 4 science articles dealing with coprophasia in dogs, AND an overall analysis of these articles and the state of knowledge about this behavior.

The CAABChat for the month is Rants and Raves of The Year with guests Dr. Patricia McConnell, Dr. Kristina Spaulding and Ms. Nancy Williams.  The Biscuit Topic for the month is Four Things To Know About Fear Free Pets.  The webinar topic for the month is Leash Encounters of What Kind?: Reactivity, Aggression, or Something Else? – Part II 

The CAABChat for the month is Walking the Terminology Tightrope with guests Dr. Ellen Lindell and Dr. Megan Maxwell.  The Biscuit Topic for the month is Four Under Utilized Sources of Income.  The webinar topic for the month is Leash Encounters of What Kind?: Reactivity, Aggression, or Something Else?  

Our webinar for the month was “Creating and Managing Safe Relations Between Dogs and Children” Find out the latest thinking about this important topic. The reviewed science article this month asks the question “Can Body Posture Predict a Dog’s Learned Performance?”  The BEN Biscuit series this month is a bit different – we did Audio Biscuits!  The topic is Four Sacred Cows in Dog Training and Why They Shouldn’t Be.  The CAABChat was “Intriguing Papers from the Canine Science Conference“.

The Pro Members webinar for the month is Part II of “The Scientific Guide to Reducing Fear in Pets’ Lives and Enhancing Their Quality of Life”  The Biscuit Series is “Four Ways Trainers Can Help Pets Be Happy.”  This month’s reviewed science article addresses the question “How Do Dogs Respond to the Visual, Auditory, and Olfactory Cues of Cats?”

This month’s Biscuit series is “Musings from Two Animal Behaviorists”. Although the Biscuits don’t really seem to have a common theme, what ties them together is the practical nature of each of the subjects.  The BEN Pro Member webinar is “The Scientific Guide to Reducing Fear in Pets’ Lives and Enhancing Their Quality of Life”  The Science Article for Review and Analysis asks the question “Can Pressure Vests Reduce Fear in Noise Phobic Dogs?” It goes along with this month’s Pro Member webinar.

 And that’s just a small sampling of what happens in the Behavior Education Network!