My name is Steve Huxter, founder of TRANSFORM Animal Behaviour Solutions.

My former career of working with wild and exotic animals, including eight years as the director of animal training and care, for an aquarium which was home to Orcas, Sea lions, Seals, and other oceanic mammals, prepared me well for working with companion animals.

Over the past ten years of working with dogs, my research and experience has taught me much and I learn more with each passing day.

My mission is to teach animal owners how to successfully correct and manage the behaviour of their animal companion in a positive, proactive manner; through the use of communication techniques that are familiar to, and clearly understood by their dog.

Rather than “dominating” a dog through force and coercion I am focused on identifying and resolving the root cause of the misbehaviour so that the need to apply discipline is minimized. Rather than punishing the symptoms; barking, aggression toward other dogs, destructive when left alone, I am focused on curing the disease; fear, social insecurity, separation anxiety. Cure the disease and the symptoms go away.

If I were to chose one sentence that states my philosophy regarding dogs, it would be:

Dominance and Leadership are not synonymous.

Dominance is defined as a relationship between individual animals that is established by force/aggression and submission to determine who has priority access to multiple resources such as food, preferred resting spots, and mates (Bernstein 1981; Drews 1993). Most undesirable behaviors in our pets are not related to priority access to resources. More often, they are due to accidental rewarding of the undesirable behavior.

Trainers or behavior consultants who coach and advocate dominance hierarchy theory and the subsequent confrontational training that follows from it are doing a great disservice to the dog, and it’s owner. Instead, the training emphasis should be on behavior prevention strategies. A behavior modification program should follow the scientifically based guidelines of positive reinforcement, operant conditioning, classical conditioning, desensitization, and counter conditioning.

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