by Kate LaSala | Mar 24, 2025 | Dog Training, Fear, Aggression and Reactivity, Puppy Training
Socialization is critical to a happy, behaviorally healthy dogs. Unfortunately there are a lot of mistruths, myths and bad information out there on socialization, including that puppies shouldn’t go out until they’re fully vaccinated. Socialization is not...
by Kate LaSala | Mar 17, 2025 | Dog Training, Dogs and Babies and Kids, Fear, Aggression and Reactivity, Rescue Dogs
Today I’m thrilled to share that my new self-paced course, Introduction to Dog Body Language and Communication is now available! And, for a limited time, it’s FREE to access! This course is packed with quality content with 9 self-paced...
by Kate LaSala | Mar 3, 2025 | Dog Training, Dogs and Babies and Kids, Fear, Aggression and Reactivity, Pet Loss & Grieving, Rescue Dogs, Resource Guarding, Separation Anxiety
Behavioral euthanasia is touchy topic and one that tends to bring out keyboard warriors. Euthanasia for any reason is a difficult decision but behavioral euthanasia is often not given the same understanding as a euthanasia for physical reasons like cancer or...
by Kate LaSala | Feb 24, 2025 | Dog Training, Fear, Aggression and Reactivity, Pet Loss & Grieving, Rescue Dogs, Resource Guarding
We recently adopted a new dog, Gertie, aka Gertrude Wigglebottom, a little over ten months after we said goodbye to our precious BooBoo. Surprisingly, adopting a new dog dredged up lots of grief feelings about Boo, which I’ll talk about another time. I wanted to...
by Kate LaSala | Feb 17, 2025 | Dog Training, Dogs and Babies and Kids, Puppy Training, Resource Guarding, Separation Anxiety
Technology is changing many industries and dog training is no exception. While it may seem counterintuitive to not have someone come to your home to train your dog, distance (or remote) dog training can be a very successful, cost-effective and convenient way to get...
by Kate LaSala | Feb 5, 2025 | Dog Training, Fear, Aggression and Reactivity, Pet Loss & Grieving, Rescue Dogs
I was recently honored to be a guest on Behavior Buzzzzzz with 2 Amys podcast, hosted by Dr. Pike and Dr. Learn, both board-certified veterinary behaviorists chatting about a variety of topics but most notably about my work as a companion animal death doula and...
by Kate LaSala | Feb 3, 2025 | Pet Loss & Grieving, Rescue Dogs
Doulas can provide a broad scope of services but my focus for death doula work is companioning through anticipatory grief (that period before your beloved animal dies but when you know it’s coming), proactive planning and helping clients navigate stigmatized...
by Kate LaSala | Jan 21, 2025 | Dog Training, Fear, Aggression and Reactivity, Pet Loss & Grieving, Rescue Dogs
I was recently honored to be a guest on the The Resilient Animal podcast and had a lovely discussion about my companion animal death doula work and other dog topics. This was a more personal conversation than some of my other podcast appearances, talking about...
by Kate LaSala | Jan 20, 2025 | Dogs and Babies and Kids, Fear, Aggression and Reactivity, Pet Loss & Grieving, Rescue Dogs, Separation Anxiety
What is a death doula, or an end-of-life doula for pets? What do you do? These are common questions I get. Let’s start at the beginning. Most people don’t know what doulas are, or if they do, it’s in relation to birth doulas. The Greek word doula...
by Kate LaSala | Jan 13, 2025 | Dog Training, Dog Training Regulation, Fear, Aggression and Reactivity, Puppy Training, Rescue Dogs, Resource Guarding
Here’s the situation: Your dog barks, growls or jumps on someone (or the counter in the kitchen). You respond with a sudden, unpleasant noise like “eh-eh!” Innocent right? Nope! Unfortunately, when people are frustrated or don’t know how...
