Joel Silverman's COMPANIONS FOR LIFE™ is a brand that was created to end the needless destruction of hundreds of thousands of dogs and cats. COMPANIONS FOR LIFE™ remains diligent in its efforts toward this goal by showing pet-owners how to build lifelong trusting, mutual relationships with their pets; and by showing potential pet owners the benefits of adopting a new family member from a local animal shelter.

Over the course of years, and after working with hundreds of animal shelters, humane societies, and rescue groups across the nation, Joel has found that many new dog owners make the mistake of rushing into training their dog before a relationship has been developed. The training techinque was not necessarily the issue. The main underlying problem is that far too often the dog’s owner didn’t take the time to get to know their dog and develop a bond before trying to train and or modify the dog’s behavior. When a pet owner tries to train his dog before a bond is created many needless problems will occur. For example, if the dog makes a mistake and the pet owner corrects the animal absent a trusting bond, the correction is perceived by his dog as a very unpleasant and negative experience. Once training becomes a negative experience the dog, or for that matter any pet, ends up going untrained and unwanted behaviors become common place. Sadly, more often than not, this results in too many pets ending up in over-crowded animals shelters or the humane society. Many times this may be a return trip for the pet that is now sadly one step closer to being destroyed. The point is that training should not be a negative experience leading to the destruction of pets; instead, it should be a fun and positive and lead to a life long bond between pet and pet-owner.