By Sean O'SheaWhen it comes to our dogs, we always have a choice. The choice to see problems or to see opportunities.Instead of simply being upset, annoyed, frazzled, or frustrated with your dog's behavior, ask yourself if there's a gift for yourself in the problem.Are your dog's issues offering you an opportunity to challenge yourself, to grow, to become more? More confident, more emotionally balanced, less anxious, less in a hurry, quicker to problem solve than to anger?Are your dog's issues exposing issues for yourself that need work?It's a very rare appointment in which the dog I'm working with isn't reacting from the human's issues and/or wouldn't benefit from the human growing, challenging, progressing, developing themselves into more fully balanced, healthy versions of themselves.If you only look for the problem your dog is offering, that is all you'll find. But if you'll take a deeper, more honest, and vulnerable look, you'll find the gift he is offering as well.Click Here to visit Sean's website. 

Whether It be business, financial, relationship, personal, or even dog training (make that especially dog training!), if you're not harnessing the amazing power of visualization, goal setting, and creating intentions, you're missing out on some of the great secrets of success!I personally am a big subscriber to the power of these tools, and they have helped me tremendously in all aspects of my life.Let's take a super quick look at how these work, and then we'll see how they might just help you with your dog...and maybe more.When you set a goal, visualize an outcome, or create the intention of what you'd like to create, you set several things in motion:1) You cause your brain's filter (known by its fancy name as R.A.S. - Reticular Activating System), to adjust its focus toward helping you accomplish the goal you desire. Your brain filters out most of the information that it is bombarded with, in order to protect your sanity, and to help you survive/accomplish the things you have deemed important. The famous example is where you decide to buy a new car and suddenly begin to see the same car everywhere in great numbers. The amount of these cars on the road didn't increase massively overnight - what happened was that your filter suddenly adjusted itself to find/accomplish the things that are foremost in your mind. In this case the car you are fascinated with/focused on. Some folks call this Law Of Attraction, I personally enjoy the scientific explanation the most. So once you create a goal, visualization, intention, your mind's filter begins to filter out all that is unhelpful to achieving your goal and filters in all that is helpful to achieving your goal. Often ideas, strategies, and solutions will simply pop into your mind as your supercomputer of a brain hyper-focuses all of its power on solving the problem you are working on. Is it magic? It's pretty close to it.2) When you visualize exactly what you want to see, before you create it, you become positively charged with certainty and confidence, rather than tentative, unsure, and clumsy. People actually perform physically and mentally at a much higher level when they utilize the power of visualization. (Star athletes and other performers have used these tools for years, and there many scientific studies that back up the efficacy of the practice) You set yourself up for success when your brain has a defined set of images and goals to shoot for rather than a vague groping. And scientists have also found that we tend to get what we expect, and find what we're looking for.3) Clear set goals have a magical pulling power, they actually pull us in their direction. And the clearer, more defined the goal, and the stronger the emotional connection to it, the harder it pulls you towards it. Without clearly set goals, our focus and efforts tends to wander here and there. We dilute our power to accomplish great things through the scattering of our focus and attention. Defined goals bring us back again and again to our purpose. So if we want to create great things, we simply need to intensify and focus our intentions like a laser on what is we wish to create.4) When you visualize or project an outcome, you create a psychological response, which in turn creates a physiological response. An example would be that you're walking your dog reactive dog and suddenly see a dog walking towards you...you immediately see in your mind's eye your dog whirling around, snapping, lunging, barking like a mad beast. What happens at that moment? Your psychological conversation has now caused your breathing to become shallow, your body to become tense, and stress hormones to be secreted - all signals to your dog that not only is trouble afoot, but also that you are in no way the person who is capable of either managing the situation or protecting your dog. That little negative visualization almost always guarantees a negative reaction from your dog. But if you develop the habit and skill of instead seeing what you want, rather than what you don't, you have a far better chance of maintaing normal breathing, maintaining a relaxed body, and keeping the stress hormones under wraps - all of which convey confidence and certainty - and this positive visualization process can yield major results as you and your dog work towards solving problem behavior.Personally, I utilize these concepts every time I'm working with a dog. On the large end of goal setting, every dog that comes in to us gets a chart made up of the owners goals and our goals that we wish to achieve before the end of our work together. On the small end, I set goals or an intention for every single training session - even if it is only a momentary issue - set the goal first and watch as that decision pulls you to the achievement of your goal. And in conjunction with the goals I set, I also visualize every outcome, ahead of time working out exactly as I wish it to. The combination of deciding ahead of time exactly what you want and what it looks like are an incredibly powerful set of tools. And the more challenging the dog, the deeper I go into this process. This keeps me positive, totally clear about my objectives, focused on solutions rather than problems, relaxed and confident. And all of these elements give me the extra edge when I'm working with challenging dogs or humans!If you're having problems with your dog or you just want to improve his/her training, you want as much of this creative, problem solving mojo on your side as possible! How do you think a dog (or the world!) would react to a confident, certain, positive person, with a clear image of what he wants to create versus the opposite? I know you know the answer to this one! :)So regardless of whether you're a dog trainer, a dog owner, or just one of those weird people without a dog, if you'll practice seeing what you want, defining what you want, and feeling what you want, you'll be harnessing some of the most powerful tools that man has at his disposal.And you might just create a little magic of your own. 

 By Sean O'Shea - visit our website thegooddog.netYou don't start swinging the bat the day of the World Series. You don't throw your first Shot Put the day of the Olympics. You don't sit down at the piano for the first time the day of your recital at Lincoln Center.Of course all of these examples are silly, and no one in their right mind would actually contemplate them. BUT, as crazy as these examples are, this is exactly what I see so many dog owners do. And it's one of the biggest causes of failure in their attempts to train/rehab their dog. It's fascinating that something that we so intuitively understand in the human world (that being the necessity of using baby steps and constant preparation in order to achieve a bigger goal/accomplishment) regularly escapes us and frequently sabotages our attempts to train our dogs.We somehow believe that the dog with the maniacal door reaction (or even worse, an aggression issue) will respond to our frantic attempts to keep him in "place" the one day someone shows up at our door, rather than practicing, preparing, and conditioning him to respond appropriately, to respect, listen and defer to you for the 3 weeks preceding the visit.Or, we let our dog wander on the walk, smelling here and there, pulling us to and fro, teaching them ever so consistently that they need not respect or listen to us...and then our dog sees the little obnoxious dog from down the street and decides to not only bark, growl, froth, and spin, but also to share a bite on your leg for your trouble.In the dog world, these are all World Series moments, and to think you can simply suit up and knock it out of the park on game day, without having spent the necessary practice, preparation, and skill building time, is folly.If you're looking to train or rehab any serious behavior problem, be sure that you practice, prepare, and condition both you and your dog with massive repetition and small, incremental challenges long BEFORE game day. Much of our success with severe behavior issues comes from utilizing this simple formula.Remember, if you're going to rock the stadium, you gotta work through T-ball, little league, high school, college ball, and then finally, if you've worked your butt off, you graduate to the big leagues. And if you approach your dog training with the same mind-set, you can accomplish something just as amazing!

By Sean O'Shea from The Good Dog Training and Rehabilitation How much impact would 5 dollar speeding tickets have on drivers speeding habits?Probably not much.And why is that? Because the reward for driving over the speed limit  - whether it's running late for an appointment, impatience, or just the thrill of some extra speed - outweighs the consequence. No one is going to change rewarding behavior for a 5 dollar penalty...why would they?When a reward outweighs a consequence, the consequence will be ignored. And the behavior that the consequence was supposed to impact/change/prevent/stop simply continues on.If speeding tickets were 5 dollars, folks would likely be driving like maniacs...it would be chaotic, it would be dangerous, and it would be unpredictable. (This is strangely similar to dogs we see who live in a world of few rules and insignificant consequences for negative behavior).So what changes a driver's speeding habits? What changes anyone's habits? It's simple really. Significant consequences for breaking known rules. When consequences become significant, behavior changes...for all of us. (That's why speeding tickets and the ding they put on your insurance are so heavy...in order for them to be significant)In working with dogs, I see the 5 dollar speeding ticket issued all too often by owners in an effort to stop or change unwanted behavior. And the fallout is: The dog's negative behavior continues; owners become frustrated/annoyed/resentful; the unwanted behavior becomes even more deeply patterned; and worst of all, the dog begins to view the human in a disrespectful, dismissive light...and this spells massive trouble.So knowing that insignificant consequences undermine what we're trying to achieve, and significant consequences help us to achieve what we want, what stands between us and the promised land of stopping bad behavior and creating great behavior? Lots of things. For one, many owners are far more prepared to share affection and fun than they are discipline and rules. For others they are unsure about how to create and share fair and appropriate consequences for their particular dog (and this is an important point - this is not a one size fits all - for some dogs a stern voice is significant, and for others this would mean absolutely nothing). Others still are unsure about which tool or approach or strategy would be best to help achieve this. Some owners are worried that they might hurt their dog's feelings or undermine their relationship. And maybe the biggest one of all, owners have been told over and over that correcting their dog will create aggression or other serious behavioral fallout. In all of the dogs I've worked with, I have never, repeat, never seen this be the case. But, there is an awful lot of propaganda saying otherwise.Once you've clearly and fairly taught your dog the rules of life, the next step is finding just the right consequence motivation that causes him to make good, healthy and safe choices. And in many cases, the best course of action is to hire an experienced, balanced trainer, who can help guide you through the best choice of strategies, tools, and reading of your dog, to ensure that you share exactly the right balance of reward and consequence for your particular dog...and that you leave that 5-dollar speeding ticket far behind. 

By Sean O'Shea from the The Good Dog Training and RehabilitationWhen we start to have problems with our dog's behavior we naturally focus on our dog. It's natural - the dog is doing something wrong, what's wrong with him? Why won't he stop barking? Why is he attacking Aunt Ethel? Why are my dogs fighting? Why does he always destroy the house when I leave? Why does he try to attack every dog on a walk? It's normal to try and problem solve by focusing on the problem at hand, but problems are usually just the result of other issues left untended to, that have now grown into bigger problems.It's easy for us to focus on our dogs, but oftentimes the better and far more valuable question is: How are YOU doing? This is usually the best place to start and the last place examined.If you honestly assess yourself, what percentage of the day do you spend being anxious, stressed, guilty, resentful, sad, fearful, needy, impatient, conflicted, angry, manic, depressed or worried, vs peaceful, calm, relaxed, confident, happy, assured, positive, patient and balanced?If you've spent any prolonged time with a person in any of these negative states, you know how uncomfortable, draining, and agitating the experience can be. Our dogs feel the same way - except they aren't able to leave for a breath of fresh air - they simply have to stay, endure, and absorb all of the negative energy.Two things happen when our dogs are repeatedly exposed to this kind of negative human energy: First, it has a profound effect on their fundamental state - because they are forced to live in an uncomfortable emotional environment, they become heavily stressed, and this stress will cause them to engage in all manner of negative/neurotic behaviors. These behaviors can range from chronic barking and licking, to serious aggression. You cannot force an animal to consistently live in a toxic environment and not expect some serious behavioral fallout.And second, by presenting yourself as an unbalanced, unsafe, inconsistent, unpredictable human, there is no way that your dog can allow you to lead him - it simply makes no sense - why would a dog, or anyone else for that matter, follow an emotionally unstable leader? And if a dog has no leader, he will become stressed from the pressure of having to try to lead, and from the absence of guidance.So the negative impact on your dog is compounded by both of these dynamics - and the effect is fairly staggering.Because our dogs cannot speak verbally, they become convenient scape goats and unfortunate victims of our unresolved issues. But the truth is, if you watch your dog, you'll see in his behavior - whether balanced, comfortable and happy, or unbalanced, uncomfortable and stressed -  that he's speaking volumes about you and the environment you've created for him.So if things have gotten dicey or problematic with your dog, it might be a good time to sit back and ask: How are YOU doing?