Our Philosophy at ImPAWSible Possible Calgary
Science. Heart. Purpose.
Have you ever wondered what your dog is really thinking? At ImPAWSible Possible, we believe the best starting point for dog training is curiosity. Since 2009, we've been on a mission to understand what makes dogs tick. Whether you're navigating the chaos of puppyhood, managing reactivity, or trying to get your dog to chill out, we combine cutting-edge science, compassion, and a healthy obsession with behaviour to help both you and your dog thrive.
Mission
To connect dogs, people, and communities through Science, Heart, and Purpose.
Vision
To build a better world for dogs and people, one nerdy insight at a time!
What Makes ImPAWSible Possible Different?
Most dog training focuses on what we can see—stimuli, responses, and consequences. So what’s the problem? When we focus only on the surface, we miss the heart of the matter: what the dog sees.
At ImPAWSible Possible, we believe behaviour is more than just a reaction. Our approach is grounded in Perceptual Control Theory (PCT)—a science-based framework that shifts the way we understand behaviour. Rather than seeing behaviour as a chain of cause and effect, PCT frames it as a process of control. Dogs, like all living beings, are constantly working to maintain equilibrium in a changing world. They don’t just react—they adjust their actions to keep their experience aligned with what matters to them.
“Behaviour is the control of perception.”
— William T. Powers
In this model, behaviour isn’t driven by the environment—it’s how a dog keeps their internal world stable as things around them shift. Every dog lives in a unique sensory world—an Umwelt—shaped by their own experiences, biology, and moment-to-moment context. What we interpret as “behaviour” is actually the dog working to reduce the gap between what they’re perceiving and what they want to perceive.
“You can’t tell what an organism is doing by looking at what they are doing.”
— Richard S. Marken
Take a dog who lunges at another dog. It’s not a simple stimulus-response event. It’s the dog’s attempt to regain balance—maybe they want 15 feet of space, but the other dog is only 10 feet away. The bigger the gap between their goal and their current experience, the more intense the behaviour. In this view, all behaviour is purposeful—an attempt to bring the world back into alignment with what they’re trying to experience.
“All animals share a common world, but not all animals share a world in common.”
— Alex Gómez-Marin & Asif Ghazanfar
“The dominant paradigm in neuroscience, the linear causation paradigm, has led to a number of conceptual confusions about how the brain generates behavior. Because biological organisms are a collection of closed-loop control systems, their behaviors cannot be explained by a sequence of causes and effects.”
— Henry Yin
Our Inside-Out Approach
At ImPAWSible Possible, we train from the inside-out. We ask:
What is this dog experiencing right now?
What do they want or need to experience?
The gap between these two is what drives behaviour.
The bigger the gap, the bigger the behaviour.
We work to bridge that gap.
When humans begin to understand behaviour through this inside-out lens—seeing the world through the dog’s eyes—we build stronger relationships and more effective solutions.
This isn’t about “fixing” a dog. It’s about working together toward shared goals. It’s a real relationship—messy, beautiful, and constantly evolving.
That’s ImPAWSible Possible.
That’s inside-out training.