A scruffy white and dark grey dog with his face very close to his person's face. Sometimes you need a break from your dog.
Essential Skills
Tiffany Holmes (she/they)

How to Take a Break from Your Dog

How many words is this: When you share space with another living being, there will be times that you would like a little break from them. I think parents can identify with a lot of the thoughts I’ve put down here. In fact, when I was prepping to write this blog, I looked through a few resources encouraging parents to take breaks and meet their own needs.
If you can’t remember exactly who you are and what you like to do outside of your dog, you’re in good company. I changed my whole career because of a medium-sized cinderblock with muppet hair ([Petey the Wondermutt).

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A scruffy white and dark grey dog lying on a mat that looks like a bear, calmy licking a long-lasting calming project treat.
Enrichment
Tiffany Holmes (she/they)

What Treats Will Relax My Dog?

Don’t worry, I’m not here to sell you a CBD treat. I’m here to provide you some strategies for helping your pup slow their roll, calm down, settle, relax, or whatever else you’d like to call it. I won’t shame anyone using herbal treats for the purpose of helping their dog settle. I’m just here to take that instinct a step further to develop enrichment strategies! What are the best calming treats for dogs?​ At Pet Harmony, we love a long term calming project. These are items we provide to our pets that generally have the following characteristics:

They work on it independently.
It’s interesting enough to the dog that they are willing to work on it for a while.
It takes some time to work on (this usually means it takes time to consume).
The outcome of the activity is de-escalation / down regulation / relaxation.

For most dogs, activities that involve chewing and/or licking are your best bet for a long term calming project. So the answer to the question above might be a treat that takes some time to chew and lick! 

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A scruffy white and dark grey dog walking on a long line in a cemetery.
Human End of the Leash
Tiffany Holmes (she/they)

How to Simplify Walks With Your Reactive Dog

When your dog has big, loud, barky, lungey, snarly, scary feelings about [insert entities here], it doesn’t feel like a walk in the park to…you know, walk in the park (or the neighborhood or public trails, or many of the places you might find yourself walking a dog). 

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A close up of a scruffy white and dark grey dog. His face and body is tense with wide eyes and dilated pupils. His ears are pinned back.
Behavior Problems
Tiffany Holmes (she/they)

My Dog Growled at Me…and Other Tales of Resource Guarding in Dogs

What is resource guarding?
Turns out that’s a harder question to answer than I had anticipated. If you’re really interested in the minutiae of terminology around dogs using behavior to control access to resources, this paper will probably do the trick. For our purposes, resource guarding is just what I described, the behavior patterns that dogs use to control access to items of value.

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A tattooed white person practicing yoga while a scruffy white and dark grey dog sniffs them.
Human End of the Leash
Tiffany Holmes (she/they)

What Is a Stress Response Cycle?

I am lying on the floor on my yoga mat, wriggling like a worm. The speaker in front of me is blasting a percussive din of shrieks. My ribcage expands, I inhale. My exhale vibrates in my chest as a long, controlled breath turns into a hum. In the dim light, I begin to move rhythmically, gently coaxing my joints to undulate through their directions of movement.

I am completing my stress response cycle.

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A group of 8 humans against a background of the pet harmony logo.
Essential Skills
Tiffany Holmes (she/they)

Becoming Pet Harmony

Becoming Pet Harmony Every once in a while an inquiry hits our inbox from an aspiring trainer or behavior professional that asks us the best

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