Pets are always special to us. Dogs are the most wonderful pets that a person can have. There are certain qualities in this animal which attracts our attention and makes us love them more.

When you decide to keep a pet in your house you need to make sure that you train him. Without proper training the dog would not be able to perform his tasks and might even make your home dirty.

There are certain commands for the dogs which helps them to understand what they ought to do at that point of time. Your dog might be a good and obedient pet who listens to all your commands. But one day suddenly he might pretend to turn deaf to your commands and start ignoring you.

It can be quite frustrating to deal with a dog that is unruly. People who love their dogs more than anything might also find it quite irritating when the dogs start ignoring all his words and only stares at him.

At this point of time you need to find a plan which will help you turn your dog to the obedient pet once again. First of all it is important to find out the reason why your pet is ignoring your commands.

Some of these reasons are intentional while others are unintentional. People who want their dogs to be obedient cannot tolerate the ignorance of the dogs and hence they get angry and scold them.

This can have an adverse effect on the dog and he might turn out to be more disobedient. Your dog might refuse to hear your command just because he does not understand them.

If you want to teach a command you need to repeat it in short training sessions. Always make sure that he has grasped a particular command before you move to a new one. Once he gets one command right give him some rewards.

You need to make sure that your voice is firm while giving the command and it must not vary every time. Some of the common commands for dogs are sit, come, and play and so on.

One of the most important training which must be given is to go out for toilets. You can start the training with the command sit and then move over to lie down and finally over to the tough ones. Try not to begin with the tough commands.

The Philadelphia Social Innovations Lab announced two new cohorts for its 2014 Social Innovations Lab, to develop creative solutions to serious issues in health and health care. The program is supported by an $ 84,880 grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

The announcement was made at the December 17 Winter Philadelphia Social Innovations Journal launch event at Public Health Management Corporation, Pennsylvanias Public Health Institute. Eleven social sector leaders from the broader Philadelphia region will participate in the Spring 2014 Social Innovations Lab at the University of Pennsylvania, Fels Institute of Government. Eleven fellows will participate in the Fall program. The fellows were nominated by regional foundations, University of Pennsylvania faculty and seasoned social and venture capital entrepreneurs.

Founded in 2012, the Social Innovations Lab provides instruction, mentoring, support and expert guidance to social entrepreneurs in developing viable cross-sector models, blending social impact and financial sustainability in addressing the most pressing problems in health, education and more.

The following 11 fellows were selected to further develop their ideas in the Spring of 2014:

Jamie Ware: The Medical-Legal Partnership Sustainability Project will equip healthcare providers to connect across the continuum of care and address social determinants of health through learning networks, to ensure aligned training and best practices. Marian Marchese: New Lease on Life USA Project will create a specialized program to provide wounded warriors suffering from PTSD with service dogs trained by inmates. Linda Samost: Sunday Suppers is an innovative food access program to improve the health and well-being of low income families. Alex Peay: Rising Sons will support individuals 18 to 30 years old to become qualified for competitive jobs through social entrepreneurship. Kristen Gavin: Gearing Up will explore the development of a “Beyond the Bars” program to retain a working partnership post-incarceration with women who are engaged in its program while incarcerated. Ginger Zielinskie: Benefits Data Trust seeks to develop a new model to utilize healthcare and social service data to increase access to public benefits and services, leading to improved health outcomes and reduced healthcare costs. John Smith: Philadelphia Engineering and Math Challenge seeks to come up with a new model to enhance the teaching and learning of problem solving and communication in our citys public schools through a series of school-based collaborative practice sessions and university-based competitive events focused on math and engineering. Charles Levesque: Immaculate Cleaning Services DePaul USA seeks to scale its year old, highly successful social enterprise both in Philadelphia and other cities in which it has programming. Maggie Eisen: Medical Legal Partnership innovation project seeks to adapt the Medical-Legal Partnership model of service delivery by connecting, aligning priorities, and unite a diverse group of community stakeholders to streamline the systems that low-income and traditionally underserved Philadelphians must navigate to meet their basic human needs and become healthier. Tinesha Banks: Public Health Worksite Wellness project through the Health Promotion Council will be developing a worksite wellness public health model by adapting its award winning patient navigation model for employees in the form of a Wellness Concierge service. Alex Epstein: Urban Creators will engage food businesses as investors in the transformation of vacant land in inner-city communities into flourishing urban farms and incubators of integrative service-learning, social innovation, and grass-roots community development.

The following 11 fellows were selected to further develop their ideas in the Fall of 2014:

Raymond John: 12+ led seeks to cultivate a college-going culture beyond 12th grade in lower income schools by building PLUS Centers within the walls of a school to serve as hubs of college, career and academic support services and staffing them with a cost-effective, qualified workforce to provide individualized guidance for every student. Sarah Rosenberg: Nursing Portal Project proposes to create two different online social/professional collaboration and networking forums for nurse practitioners (NPs) and registered nurses (RNs) to connect with their colleagues globally and have access to resources they utilize on a daily basis in their job which will improve patient outcomes and quality of care. Natalie Cramer: Welcoming Center for New Pennsylvanians seeks to develop and promote an online platform to sell healthy and local food products while the growth supporting each individual vendor through the newly formed Philadelphia Healthy Food Association. Jim MacMillan: Gun Crisis Reporting Project seeks to build a hub to help citizens understand the epidemic of homicide by gunfire in Philadelphia, to evaluate and illuminate effective interventions, and to create opportunities to participate in gun violence reduction. Ryan Kuck: Greensgrow Philadelphia Project by the Fresh Food Hub will further develop and expand a mobile farmer’s market and healthy corner store delivering fresh food items and community health resources to underserved neighborhoods. Maureen and Larry Platt: The Philadelphia Citizen non-partisan media organization seeks to provide deeply reported journalism emphasizing solutions that can move our region forward — summarized by the phrase — what happened, what it means, and what you can do about it. Barbara Doyne: 5 Start Women will further develop a program to improve the lives and secure the future for women veterans and their families, both while transitioning to civilian life and thereafter. Tatiana Garcia-Granados: Common Market proposes to further scale its mission to making the local bounty accessible to communities in the region, connecting public and private schools, hospitals, universities, grocery stores and workplaces to good food grown by the regions sustainable farmers. Neville Vakharia: Drexel University Community Arts plans to increase community arts and cultural engagement and participation in underserved neighborhoods through the development of hyperlocal communications tools. Dawn Holden: Transition to Success by Turning Points for Children will test and implement the evidenced based Transition To Success (TTS) model which approaches treating poverty as a disease.

About Philadelphia Social Innovations Journal PSIJ is the first regional publication in the U.S. dedicated to social innovators and innovations. The volunteer-leveraged Journal is published quarterly and is distributed free of charge. All content is available on the website at http://www.philasocialinnovations.org.

About the Philadelphia Social Innovations Lab The Lab nurtures social enterprise models from ideas to implementation. The Lab’s goal is to increase the chances that the strongest ideas of Social Innovators will take root, attract capital, and ultimately have a significant social impact regionally, nationally, and internationally. Selected participants from a competitive screening process and diverse sector cohorts of private, government, and nonprofit organizations will refine and test proposals, research and tap into external resources, and build the necessary infrastructure to get their idea or organization up and running.

About the University of Pennsylvania, Fels Institute of Government The Fels Institute of Government is the University of Pennsylvanias graduate program in public policy and public management. Its practical approach to public management education, its Ivy League pedigree and its relatively small size make it one of the nation’s leading boutique programs in public affairs. The Institute was founded in 1937 by Samuel Simeon Fels of the Fels Naptha Soap Company. Fels prepares its students for public leadership positions in city, state,

Training your dog at home may be one of the most rewarding activities known to pet owners. Just seeing your pet respond to cues and commands can bring immense satisfaction, because you will see concrete results from all of your training efforts.

Pet owners who are just starting out with their training sessions will often encounter small problems that can directly impede the progress of the dog. If your dog is not responding to more classical training approaches, you may want to try clicker training. Clicker training (or operant conditioning), emphasizes the relationship between target actions and rewards.

Since the association between rewards and actions are continually reinforced during training sessions, dog trainers have minimal problems when teaching their dogs new tricks. Clicker training is so simple that it can even be done by a ten-year–old child.

There are two indispensable elements that must always be present during clicker training: the clicker, and the treats. Some people offer toys, and even verbal praise, as treats. But for the purpose of quickly getting your dog’s attention, I highly recommend that you find a tasty treat that your dog will not mind eating again and again.

Expert tips for trainers

If the dog is not following your commands, it is possible that the dog has yet to establish a solid connection between the command, and the action itself. Review the lesson and repeat the cycles to see if the dog is responding to the nonverbal cues.

If the nonverbal cues are not working, that means the dog has made no association between the action and any signal. Go back to square one, and repeat the association games. Use the clicker to mark the target behaviors during the action, and not after.

Verbal signals can be added to the training equation only when the dog has become an expert in responding to nonverbal commands. Nonverbal commands are easier to master than verbal commands (this is why some folks who use classical conditioning often have a difficult time teaching the simplest of actions).

Training sessions should not be drawn out and boring. Ten minutes is already a long session for an active dog who has never been trained before. During the first few sessions, limit your training timeframe to just three minutes. If the dog responds well to the clicker training, it can probably complete 20 successful cycles in three to five minutes.

Don’t be harsh with your pet if it does not immediately respond to your commands. Review the information signal (the cue), and check to see if the dog has made the association between the cue, and action itself. If the dog looks unmotivated, the problem may lie in the reward that you are offering. Change the reward and see if the dog will respond.

Punishment should be limited to a neutrally toned word such as “wrong”. Don’t scold your pet for not understanding. It doesn’t help the animal learn, and the animal may associate training sessions with being scolded. That is never a good thing for home-trained dogs.

Animal Behavior College

The dog days of summer are coming to an end, marking the arrival of the last official summer holiday, Labor Day. Celebrations often include barbeques, picnics and an assortment of other outdoor activities. As with many other holiday commemorations, Animal Behavior College (ABC) reminds pet owners to take precautions to ensure they keep their pets safe and secure on this special day.

ABC recommends the following 6 Pet-Safety Labor Day tips:

Keep Them Hydrated. Hot weather can overheat your pet, increasing the chances of dehydration. The symptoms of dehydration include increased heart and respiratory rates, loss of appetite, dry mouth, sunken eyes and listlessness. Ensure your pet has easy access to plenty of fresh water, and if the weather is unbearably hot, move him to a cool air-conditioned room.

Watch Them Around Children. Children are naturally curious about animals and enjoy playing and petting them. However, some dogs and cats do not interact well with kids. Dogs can become anxious, stressed and exhibit verbal behaviors and aggressive actions such as growling and biting. Cats can scratch and bite. To avoid potential problems and signs of trouble, keep cats indoors and away from the fray. Closely monitor all interactions between your pet and children. If your dog ignores commands and becomes combative, move him to a secure area or crate.

Set Ground Rules for Guests. Labor Day food staples such as hot dogs, barbeque ribs, spicy foods and alcoholic beverages are hazardous to your pets health. Alcohol is toxic to dogs and cats. Dogs can develop inflammation of a digestive gland and other painful and serious conditions. Ask guests not to feed table food or snacks to your pets. Instruct them not to leave unattended alcoholic beverages within their reach.

Watch Your Dog Around Water and Avoid Too Much Sun. Not all dogs can swim, so do not force your dog into the water. Supervise him around pools and large bodies of water. Additionally, dogs and cats can get sunburn especially if they have short hair, pale skin and thin coats. Sunburn increases their risk for developing skin cancer. If it is not possible to you are your pet out of the sun, be sure to apply sunscreen that is made especially for pets.

Hire a Pet Sitter. With an abundance of activities and guests to tend, hiring a pet sitter is an option. They provide personalized care, giving owners an opportunity to enjoy a worry-free celebration.

Lastly, Keep Your Pet Calm. Guests and celebration activities can overexcite your pets. Be patient with them. If possible, safely secure them in a quiet, relaxing place and be sure to check on them often.

Animal Behavior College offers certification and continuing education programs. To become a dog trainer, obtain dog-training certification or to learn more about the college, visit our website at http://www.AnimalBehaviorCollege.com.

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About Animal Behavior College Animal Behavior College is the premier international vocational school specializing in certified animal career training programs. ABC has created a powerful team of skilled advocates who are devoted to nurturing the human-animal bond The founders of ABC have spent years developing and perfecting affordable career programs, many of which combine home learning with hands-on training externships with professional mentors. To date, more than 28,000 students have enrolled in ABC programs including over 1,900 in ABC’s cat training program.

Many athletes come home with remarkable photos of their outdoors adventures and misadventures. These are some of their tricks.

Camera is the Most Important
Now in the age of digital photography SLR cameras are the best ask. Invest in a mid to high-end SLR (single-lens reflex) camera such as the Nikon D40 or D60, or a Digital Rebel EOS XSi or XTi. Today’s digital SLRs create high-quality, high-resolution shots in a multitude of settings and modes.Many brands are comparable in price and most cameras in similar price ranges match up well in head-to-head comparisons. Plus, digital SLRs will produce fantastic, professional photography results in the outdoors.

Point and shoots cameras are the main trend today since they can be so light and portable, the camera quality is also exemplary. However, they limit one’s ability to add lenses and filters that enhance the quality and effects of outdoor picture-taking. If a point and shoot is the only camera available, experiment with the tips listed below that do not pertain to attaching filters, and fantastic outdoor sporting photos can still be achieved.

Tripod- Utilize a tripod for ultra-clear shots when a scenic panorama is involved. You cannot easily have a steady hand during action, it will also help to avoid the focusing problems. Athletes willing to take photographs will also have some other problems, they will be tired, breathing hard and adrenaline will be pumped during action etc and all these can be avoided.

The natural sunlight offered will open wide range of opportunity to experiment with the light setup. Accessories like tripods and lenses will help a lot for the athletes for taking some of the quality photos focusing the subject in action. There are many types of tripods available so that you can choose one that are more suitable for your type of photography. You should look for one that can be easily carried around without adding great weight to your already heavy sports kit.

Polarizer- Circular polarized filters virtually eliminate the glare and reflection caused by the sun bouncing off of water and particles in the atmosphere. Polarized filters turn ultra-bright rivers into see-through water wonderlands. And when the sky appears hazy and dull on the brightest of days, a polarized lens will transform the sky into an exquisite, cobalt blue.

There are many modes to choose from on most digital cameras. Determining the desired effect of a photograph is the first order of business. Reading the manual that comes with the camera is highly recommended for familiarizing oneself with modes and settings. But to break it down in the simplest of terms, try experimenting with the follow tips when taking outdoor sporing pictures.

You can avoid camera slippage using a good camera gear. Stick on to some of the basics of camera for getting those wonderful pictures. Experiment with camera settings, angles, composition, and time of day. Combining these tips and techniques will greatly-enhance any outdoor photographer’s sporting adventures.