Taryn Blyth

When I came back from a meeting last night, my husband relayed a conversation he had with someone from our neighbourhood on the beach yesterday evening. Afte...

There are many videos doing the rounds at the moment of people playing "catch the carrot" with their dogs. This "game" where a carrot (or a Vienna sausage) i...

I have delayed writing this post, because I think it is a bit of a minefield and I don’t really feel like being blown up with everything else that is going o...

I was asked to write about this subject, as it is something that comes up fairly frequently in the South African context, where crime is fairly problematic a...

A video that I saw a while ago is doing the rounds again on social media. I often just try and ignore these things, as the points made are so utterly stupid ...

I have written several posts on why you cannot reinforce fear (because fear is an emotion, not a behaviour), but it really became very clear to me today on a...

Whether it is a discussion about shock collars, citronella sprays, prong-collars, choke chain corrections, “bonking” a dog on the head with a rolled up towel...

You may have heard trainers talking about creating “optimism” in dogs through training and games. This may sound like a strange concept and you might be wond...

A while ago, on the support group page of a training course I was enrolled in, another trainer posted a question looking for advice about a dog that was goin...

As the New Year gets underway, we have many enquiries coming in for classes for adolescent and adult dogs. It's really great that people are looking for help...

Behaviour that is reinforced grows stronger. That's pretty much what we base training and behaviour modification on as positive reinforcement trainers. Yet, ...

For over 10 years we have been hanging our bathroom towels on the pipes sticking out of the geyser - simply because we had no towel hooks to hang them on (DI...

We always ask on our intake forms for both adult and puppy classes: What do you hope to get out of attending training? We ask this, because it is important f...

How to set up your learner for success! 😊 How and where we deliver reinforcement makes a difference in the learning process and can help us set up our learn...

Something I read recently has been bothering me and I think it is important enough to address, even though it may be a confusing subject. While I have writte...

A client was asking me about another dog in the class they attend who is doing so well in training that it stands out obviously to anyone observing the class...

We are all learning all the time and our dogs can be great teachers if we are willing to listen. A while ago, Cruz ran into a sand dune at full speed and inj...

I wanted to write one more post on why the idea of “Fixing” dogs is problematic. I have already written about why, as trainers or behaviourists, we would be ...

Last week I posted about why there are no guarantees when it comes to working with behaviour problems and I would like continue this, but looking more at the...

How do I define training success? Is it winning a competition? Is it having a dog that responds to every cue first time or executes every behaviour perfectly...