No-one knows exactly when the wolf came in from the cold and cautiously approached the fire. No-one knows when he started scavenging for scraps around the settlements of men. When did man first start feeding him? When did they first hunt together? When did the wolf, trembling and snarling, first allow the hand of the human to rest on his head, to stroke him, to tug gently at his ears? When did he start to welcome these caresses?

Estimates vary from 7000 to 14000 years ago, and possibly much longer ago. Archaeologists Davis and Valla, working in Israel in 1978, uncovered the poignant skeletal remains, dated at 12000 years ago, of a human being buried holding the skeleton of a small dog. Perhaps the dog truly became domesticated when fear turned to comfort, comfort turned to pleasure, and pleasure turned at last to love.

From these ancient beginnings sprang a cross-species relationship of trust, affection and commitment that is unequalled anywhere else in nature. Companion, guard and comforter, the dog is truly man's best friend.

Over the centuries, the domestic dog, with man as the main selector, has evolved into a great variety of breeds, some of which date from antiquity while others are more modern. The distinctions between breeds originated with the discovery that some dogs were better at certain tasks than others. Some dogs herd, some dogs track, some dogs hunt with their owners, some dogs are guards and protectors - and some dogs are just for fun!

And with the evolution of the various breeds of dogs and their specialised capabilities came the evolution of training methods.

Dog training has been going on for almost as long as the dog has existed, but we'll look specifically at the last century or so.

One of the best and worst developments in the dog world came with the discovery that the dog is in fact a genetically modified wolf. Yes, your Maltese Poodle is a wolf under the fluff! This discovery has taught us a great deal about the nature of the dog and how he interacts socially, but has also had huge disadvantages for the dog because findings in lupine behaviour have been extrapolated unchanged and unquestioned to the canine world.

Perhaps the most pernicious of these notions has been the one that a human needs to behave under all circumstances like a dominant, or 'Alpha', wolf toward his dog, and that doing this will miraculously solve all behavioural and training problems. This notion is faulty for a couple of reasons. In the first place, wolf pack theory has been badly misunderstood by most trainers, and in the second place, the social behaviour of the dog is now understood to be a fragmented and incomplete version of wolf social behaviour, with many differences, so that applying the 'principles' of wolf social behaviour directly to the dog is simply not appropriate.

Nevertheless, entire training philosophies have been developed based on the idea of dominance, and on the very dubious idea that your dog perceives you as another dog, and unfortunately, most of these methods rely on severe physical punishment to get their ideas across.

These methods probably reached their nadir with the publication of The Koehler Method of Dog Training, by William Koehler. First published in 1962, this book contains some of the most revolting examples of animal abuse ever to make it into print. Coupled with an almost total ignorance of the basic principles of learning theory, it is a primer on how to terrify and brutalise your dog into unthinking obedience. Sadly, Koehler's methods are still popular with many trainers today.

But things are getting better...

Fortunately for dogs, in the last few decades the scienctific study of canine behaviour has taken off dramatically, and there has been an explosion of new knowledge available to us.

This comes mainly from two fields, ethology and psychology.

Ethology, a branch of zoology, is the study of animals in their natural habitat, without human intervention. Probably the most famous canine ethologist is Nobel Laureate Konrad Lorenz, whose work has led to a profound understanding of the dog's social and individual behaviour.

Health ethology focuses on the study of domesticated animals in their manmade environment, and has led to a greatly deepened understanding of the dog's physical, environmental and social needs when kept as a domestic pet or working animal.

The other important field which has contributed to our understanding of animal behaviour is psychology, and in particular behaviourism. From this field, and in particular from the work of Pavlov, Skinner, Breland, the Baileys and, more recently, Karen Pryor, we have obtained an elegant and accurate theory of how animals learn. The application of this theory has given rise to modern, leading edge training methods such as clicker training, which relies on precisely-timed delivery of rewards rather than clumsy and inappropriate punishment, and is rapidly becoming the method of choice of serious competition handlers because of its extreme accuracy. This is without doubt a long-overdue and very welcome revolution.

One of the most important realisations to be made from all this research is that much of the dog behaviour that owners regard as problematic is in fact completely normal for dogs. Barking, jumping up, digging, rolling in dung, fighting, urine marking...the list goes on. It's often a great relief for frustrated pet owners to be told that the terrible things their dog is doing are in fact just what dogs do and nothing to be concerned about.

It becomes clear, though, from the above that getting our dog to behave appropriately in our home is usually an issue of training, that dogs don't come with basic obedience commands pre-installed, and that we have to put a fair amount of effort into overcoming what comes naturally if we want a well-behaved, well-mannered dog...

Lots of people have problems with their dogs. There are many reasons for this: the dog may be under-trained, the owner may be too busy and stressed to meet the dog's needs, the dog may be temperamentally unsuitable for the owner, and in a few cases, the dog may be psychologically or genetically abnormal.

All too often, the solution is often worse than the problem: beat the dog up, if that doesn't work, beat it up some more, and if that doesn't work, put it down as 'genetically unsound'. Even today, with everything we know about dogs, behaviour problems are estimated to account for up to 70% of dogs euthanased. And dog shelters are overflowing with dogs whose owners couldn't handle them. Man's best friend is getting a pretty raw deal.

Part of the problem is the upsurge of pet ownership in the last half-century. This, coupled with the increasing popularity of conformation dog shows, has led to a lot of breeding which is at best casual and at worst downright unscrupulous. Health and temperament have taken a backseat to looks, and the result is that many dogs no longer adhere to the temperament characteristics for which their breeds were once renowned.

Another part of the problem is our busy, instant-gratification lifestyles. We don't really have the time for dogs, the time to train, the time to understand why a dog does one thing and not another. We tend to treat our dogs as throwaways: if we don't get instant satisfaction, we get rid of the dog. If we're prepared to have a go at solving a problem, we treat it more like repairing the TV than dealing with a possibly deep-rooted psychological ailment.

And this is a great shame, because in the middle of our hectic, stressful lives, it's possible for a dog, even a problem dog, to be an island of peace and tranquility, a refuge from the madness, a little bit of nature in our homes.

At the Dog Zone, our philosophy is that resolving your dog's behaviour problems should be a process which is deeply therapeutic and refreshing, not only for the dog, but for the owner as well...

Our aim is simple: through teaching you a modern behavioural approach to resolving your dog's problems, we hope to help you improve your dog's behaviour in a way which you find rewarding and enjoyable, and thus to enhance your relationship with your dog.

Dog ownership is therapeutic. People with pets live longer, suffer from fewer diseases and have better recovery rates from illness than people who don't have pets. Interaction with an animal lowers your physiological and psychological stress levels in ways which can be measured directly (heart rate, blood pressure, respiration, galvanic skin response etc). Animal therapy, the use of animals to help people deal with problems, is a growing field.

That may seem like a contradiction, though, to someone who has a dog which is difficult to manage, badly behaved and which contributes to stress rather than reducing it; but we believe that the process of learning to manage and relate to a dog like that is therapeutic in itself. I'm one of the many people who got into the field of canine behaviour through owning and having to deal with a difficult dog myself, and I learned an immense amount from watching my dog slowly blossom as I changed the ways I interacted with him. It took discipline and patience on my part, but it was deeply rewarding.

We approach the task of helping you help your dog in a variety of ways. First, we provide up-to-date species-specific information so you can understand what is normal behaviour for your dog and what isn't.

Secondly, we teach clicker training as the preferred approach for doing obedience with your dog. It's accurate, it's scientific and it's fun for both of you. There's increasing evidence that just switching a dog from conventional training to clicker training has significant behavioural benefits in that the dog becomes calmer, less anxious and more confident.

Thirdly, we provide a method for analysing and changing problem behaviour called the 5M system. The 5 Ms are:

• Manage your dog,
• Mind your dog's business,
• Meet the Need,
• Modify the behaviour, and, if necessary,
• Medicate

You'll find detailed information on all of these in our ebook (due out soon).

To back this up, we have a growing collection of resources on the site itself. You will soon be able to purchase our ebook here, or you can play the shaping game (which will give you an insight into how it feels for a dog to be clicker trained!) You can also go through the clicker training primer, which will teach you the basic techniques of clicker training.

We have a growing library of articles, some of which go into the theory of operant and classical conditioning in more depth while others deal with specific topics in canine behaviour.

We also have training blogs and case studies for you to watch work in progress.

We have lots of plans for the future...

We've got lots of plans for extending the site and developing new e-products. Topics we intend to cover include:

• Aggression
• Holistic therapies
• Selecting the right dog
• Information for breeders

..and lots more. We also plan to develop an extensive case study section so you can see what has worked for other people with dogs like yours.

We'd also like to hear what your problems are and what topics you'd like to see covered. Contact us via email to give us your thoughts.

Keep informed about what's new on the site by to our e-magazine, Obedience Online.

Thanks for taking the tour with us, and enjoy the rest of the site!

The Dog Zone