About Four Paws, Four Directions Dog Training & Behavior Consulting, LLC

Four Paws, Four Directions Dog Training & Behavior Consulting is a behavior-consulting practice in Freeville, run by Laura Donaldson. It is the narrowest and most specialized of the practices in this part of the Finger Lakes: the site is not organized around obedience classes but around behavior cases, and the owner states plainly that her special focus is on dogs struggling with aggression and trauma.

Method

The stated approach is positive and force-free. The site describes a philosophy that uses positive training to build the relationship between dogs and their people, and says the aim is to give dogs confidence and make them eager participants in learning rather than subjects of it. The business name is explained on the site as a reference to the Four Sacred Directions and the idea of balance and wholeness.

Slow Thinking is Lifesaving in Dogs

The practice's signature program is called Slow Thinking is Lifesaving in Dogs. It is described as drawing on research into canine cognition, on the premise that changing how a dog thinks changes how it behaves. The published description centers on cognitive reappraisal – teaching a dog to change how it processes something in the environment it finds worrying – through interactive games that build self-interruption and problem solving. The stated goal is a dog that can stay calm and focused around distractions it would otherwise react to.

Online consulting

A large share of the work is delivered online, and the site makes an argument for it rather than treating it as a fallback. It states that an online session covers almost everything an in-home session would, including live exercises and real-time coaching, and argues the format is often more productive for dogs who struggle with aggression precisely because no unknown person enters the dog's space. Clients are named as having been worked with from the Yukon to Hawaii and the United Kingdom.

Credentials as published

The site states that Laura Donaldson holds a PhD, is a Certified Dog Behavior Consultant through the International Association of Animal Behavior Consultants, and is a Karen Pryor Academy Certified Training Partner, having graduated with distinction from the academy in 2009. It also states she has completed master's-level coursework in applied behavior analysis, animal behavior, ethology, and companion animal psychopharmacology, and that she mentors trainers completing the CATCH Canine Trainers Academy program. She describes herself as the only Certified Dog Behavior Consultant in the Finger Lakes region. These are the site's claims. Neither IAABC nor the Karen Pryor Academy is covered by the registry pulls available for New York, so none of them is independently confirmed here.

Writing

The site also lists published writing on dog behavior, including an article awarded the 2018 Maxwell Medallion by the Dog Writers Association of America, and keeps an articles section.