Tag Archives: Dog Training

Have a plan for your dog to help it through the holidays

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The holidays are fast upon us, which often means traveling, having people visit, and generally a disruption in normal routines. Many people become stressed during the holidays due to all the changes and the expectations. Our dogs often become stressed as well.

Dogs love a good routine, and they don’t understand why 20 of your distant relatives all showed up at the same time or why your nerves are frazzled trying to spruce up the house for the arriving guests.

Always ask yourself if your dogs enjoy the holidays as much as you do, or would they rather just stay home in a quiet room?

While you might not be able to control how you feel about Great-Aunt Gertrude’s 2000th telling of your disastrous first date or stop your brother from turning on whatever football game there is instead of engaging in family conversation; we can help our pets cope more easily with the holidays.

Because we love our dog, we often want to show it off and let people see how wonderful that dog is. However, not all dogs are that excited about meeting all our friends and relatives.

Unlike you, your dog does not have to be in the middle of that family gathering. If your dog is not a social butterfly find him a quite place in the house to relax. One with a door that shuts and is away from most of the activity is even better. If your dog is truly stressed by visitors consider if he would be happier if you boarded him at his favorite boarding facility.

If you are hosting the family gathering, ask your family not to bring their pets, unless you know your dog already had a great relationship with those pets. Numerous dog fights happen each year when extended family members get together and everyone wants to bring their dog. Think of all the high value food that is around which can cause dog/dog conflict, not to mention the crowds of people and inadequate space for dogs to properly meet.

If your family member cannot leave their pet behind, have a game plan for where that pet will be and how it will be introduced to your pet in a relaxed manner. Make sure the visiting pet will have a quite space to be away from the action if needed.

For those of you traveling, ask yourself if your dog really needs to go with you. We often feel bad boarding our dogs, but if you have chosen the right boarding facility, chances are good your dog may be less stressed there. If your dog must go with you; again, have a plan for where that dog will be staying once it gets there and how it will meet any other dogs and family members.

One of the reasons I crate train my dogs is so when I travel, they will not be stressed if I ask them to go into their crate and hang out, even in a strange home. You do not want to put your dog in a crate for the first time when you are already doing something stressful such as traveling or having company.

Crates and X-pens are a great way to help dogs relax and keep everyone safe and happy during the holidays. This puppy is very relaxed as all the action that could be stressful is on the other side of this X-pen

Most of the calls I get after the holidays involve a dog biting a child or biting some other family member’s dog. Even if your dog has been great with adults that doesn’t mean he will be a fan of small children and while he may like the occasional doggy friend, it doesn’t mean he will be friends with all dogs he meets.

I just got a call from a devastated pet owner whose beloved dog bit a visiting 3-year-old child. When I asked what was going on before the bite; I was told no one saw anything because both the dog and the 3-year-old were under the table while everyone was sitting down to a meal. Never, ever leave your dog alone with a child. A good rule of thumb is this: however old the child is, you should be within that many feet of the dog/child. Example: if the child is 1 years old, an adult should always be within one foot of that dog and child. If the child is 4 years old an adult should always be within 4 feet. That means ALWAYS. It means you can’t go answer the door and leave the dog and child in another room or be pre-occupied getting dinner. Many dog bites to children happen when no one is in the room with the child and dog.

Interactions between dogs and children they do not know can sometimes lead to unfortunate encounters. Always teach children to be respectful of dogs they meet and never leave a child unattended with a dog.

Ask your guests of all ages to be respectful of your dog and her personal space. No one should ever go up to your dog and pet it. NO ONE. Your dog should get to choose whether she wants to engage with visitors. Think about what your dog looks like when she wants you to pet her. What does she do? Does she paw your leg? Bump your hand? She is letting you know she is ready for an interaction. If your dog does not use the same signals to visitors, they should ignore her. Your dog’s job is not to be petted by everyone in your home. Your dog’s job is to not bite anyone, and your job is to ensure you do not set your dog up for failure.  

Especially when children are present, keep a close eye on your dog’s body language. Is your dog constantly moving away from a 5-year-old intent on petting it? If so, that dog is politely asking for the child to stop interacting. Is the dog turning its head away when approached, licking its lips or yawning? You might consider putting the dog in a quiet room away from the action or ensure the child is old enough to understand the dog is asking for some space.

Resources are another hot-button issue when dogs are involved in the holidays. A resource is something a dog may want and which it might be unwilling to share. Think of a piece of ham dropped from the 4-year old’s plate or maybe your dog doesn’t enjoy people (or other dogs) coming near you or its favorite sleeping spot.

These resources often cause a lot of conflict between dogs and between dogs and people they don’t know well. When people are eating it is a great time to give your dog a quiet break away from the action. Encourage people not to share food with the dog, especially if there are multiple dogs in the home.

To simplify everything; just ask yourself how your dog feels about visitors. If she is a social butterfly then let her mix and mingle, but still watch for signs of stress or anxiety and give her a break if needed. If you know your dog is worried about visitors then don’t even attempt to change how she feels during the holidays, instead work with a professional trainer who has behavior modification experience and maybe your dog will be up for the holidays next year.

The social pressures of a public dog

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There is a lot of peer pressure involved in having a dog.

If you are out walking your dog and someone says, “may I pet your dog?” and you reply “no,” you are often met with a version of “oh, is he mean?” We immediately shame the dog and often make the owner feel bad. When I work with clients who have a dog that has snapped at someone in public, I ask why the person was so close to the dog. Often the owner tells me how hard they tried to keep the person away but were unsuccessful or they were pressured into allowing contact.

Dogs that go out in public are asked to tolerate other dogs that might rush up and sniff them, complete strangers who want to crowd their space and pet them, and they are supposed to remain calm with the chaos around them.

There are dogs who are great in public and are social butterflies who appear to have no issues with what life throws their way. These dogs often make other pet owners feel bad, especially those who have a dog that isn’t so happy in public. We may think, “Why can’t my dog behave like that?”

After hanging out for five days at a dog friendly beach on Lake Michigan, I decided more of our dogs could be happy in public if the public would just leave the dogs alone.

This dog was enjoying the beach while on a long lead. Other people with off leash dogs did a great job of keeping their dogs away from this one.

As I walked the beach in the early morning, I would often see dogs off leash running in and out of the water and doing zoomies on the sand. Some of them would come up and sniff me, but most of them ignored me. I ignored them in return. If a dog did come up to me, I stopped, turned slightly sideways to the dog and was silent. I did not look at the dog directly. I kept my hands at my side. If the dog stayed with me and bumped my hand or in some way appeared to want to engage me, I would open my hand and let the dog come in for petting. Generally, the dogs just sniffed me, then dashed away again. Of the 50 or so dogs I saw, I only petted two.

This dog was having a blast on the beach playing ball.

Unfortunately, I saw many people actively trying to get dogs to come to them, or people bending over to pet the dogs that came up to them for a sniff and then the dogs ducking down and dancing away.

Like many people, I felt conflicted. I wished I had my dogs on the beach as I know all three of them would have loved the waves and the sand. But I also know my dogs would not have enjoyed people trying to pet them, or other dogs rushing into their spaces. My dogs are happy to ignore other people and dogs, but they do not enjoy close personal contact with strangers.

These dogs ignored everyone and were very attentive to their person.

So, I don’t take my dogs to places like this and I feel confident that if my dogs could speak English, they would thank me for not putting them into situations where they might feel the need to defend themselves.

There are many dogs who are happier just staying home and while we might wish for our furry friends when we are out and about; it is ok if they aren’t there.

It is important to know your dog. Will he or she be happy in a public place with people who may be rude in terms of canine communication? And if you do take your dog out in public and especially if you are in a place where the dogs are off leash; be sure you have a good recall. Even if your dog is friendly, not everyone wants to meet your dog.

In one case, I was sitting on a beach chair and a dog came running toward me. The owner called to the dog, the dog looked back at the owner, looked at me and came over anyway. The reward of visiting a new person was greater than the reward of going back to the owner. The dog was super friendly and as soon as she sniffed me, she dashed back to her owner. I didn’t mind and found the dog delightful, but there are people who might have been terrified of seeing a large dog dash up to them. In another case a border collie saw me out walking and ran a big arc to get behind me. He kept right in my tracks and put his nose on my leg a few times. He was trying to herd me somewhere. Again, the dog was friendly, but I am sure the herding behavior could have worried a non-dog person. I stopped walking and the dog immediately went back to his owner.

So, do your part to help social dogs remain social in public settings. Just ignore them unless they tell you directly, they want to engage. Remember not all owners know what their dog is saying, so don’t ask the owner if you can pet the dog. Ask the dog. And if someone asks you to not engage with their dog, THANK them for letting you know and give them kudos for knowing their dog vs shaming them into letting you interact with the dog. If your dog doesn’t enjoy the chaos of places such as public parks, farmer’s markets, etc.; then don’t take it. Instead find enriching spots where your dog can have fun.

This post is not meant to debate the off-leash dog aspects of this beach. It was a private beach and it appeared to be accepted behavior for the residents to let their dogs off leash.

Stop! I did not say you could pet me

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Imagine you are walking down the street, just taking in the sights, sounds and smells when suddenly a stranger rushes up and starts shouting, “OMG, I love your hair, that is so soft looking, I must feel it.” And you realize in that moment that you are trapped in a corner and have nowhere to go; plus, it turns out the person approaching you is speaking a foreign language you don’t understand. You have no idea they are talking about your hair. You just see a person rushing at you with their hands out going toward your head.

Really use your imagination and ask yourself what emotions you would be feeling. How about if the stranger was doing that to your child instead of you?

My guess is you would feel panicked, possibly afraid. Will you laugh it off, tolerate the stranger touching you or will you defend yourself with whatever you have available?

Most of us would never tolerate this behavior. And yet we allow it to happen to our dogs daily when we take them out in public and allow people to pet them. Or when we invite visitors into our home and allow the visitors to interact with the dog.

I get emails weekly from people whose dog has growled or snapped at either a visitor to the person’s home or someone reaching to pet the dog on a walk. In most cases the dog was minding its own business when the person approached it and reached out to touch it.

Dogs on a walk are on a leash; they can’t run away if they are worried. Dogs in a home may feel trapped as well.

Why do you think it is OK for people to touch your dog without the dog’s permission? Often, we don’t want to appear rude by telling someone not to touch our dog. We don’t want strangers to think our dog is “aggressive.” And people often do shame the owner by saying, “what’s wrong, does he bite?” if we try and ask that the dog be given space. Or you get the overbearing, “but all dogs love me” person who insists on doing whatever they want.

Most of the time we just don’t know the dog is unhappy until the dog growls, snaps, or bites. Then we blame the dog for being “bad.” Yet, if someone were behaving inappropriately to you or your child and you defended yourself by hitting the person; you would most likely be congratulated for defending yourself. No one would call you “bad” or “aggressive.”

Sadly, many pet owners don’t know their dog is speaking until the dog does growl. But dogs are communicating with their environment constantly.

While we are always telling children “ask permission to pet the dog” we should also ALWAYS be asking the dog what he thinks about being petted.

First, think about your dog. How do you know he wants to be petted? Does he bump your hand, does he paw your leg, rub up against you, give you liquid eyes that implore you to touch him? Believe me, he is doing something that says, “please interact with me.” If your dog is not doing that same thing to the person attempting to pet the dog, then the dog may be saying “not right now.”

If you are on a walk and your dog is on a leash; does the dog back away from the person attempting to pet it? The dog is saying “no.” Does the dog turn its head away or duck its head down when the person reaches in? The dog is saying “no.”  

This dog came up to me. I did not ask it to come to me, she came in loose and wiggly and had plenty of room to get away from me if she decided to. She was clearly communicating, “please interact with me”

And please remember that a dog wagging its tail does not always mean the dog is happy. Many tail wags are asking for social distance. So many people call and say, “he was wagging his tail and then he bit.”

If you have company and a person is sitting on your couch and the dog comes up to sniff the person, that is NOT an invitation for being petted. That is just the dog’s way of gathering more information. Does the dog sniff the person and then walk away? If so, the dog is saying “ok, sit on the couch, I’m going to ignore you for now.”

If the dog is moving away from the person and the person then decides to follow the dog, please step in, and help your dog. This is often when children are bitten as they see the dog leaving and follow it. The dog was probably trying to be polite and get out of a stressful situation. From the dog’s perspective he was clearly communicating. So, what is the dog to think if someone totally ignores that communication? The dog may feel he is being threatened.

Ask yourself if your dog must be friendly to everyone he meets? Would it be ok if he ignored them instead? If your dog must be friends with everyone, then work hard to associate strangers with fun and food and enlist the help of a reward-based trainer if the dog is stressed.

There are always going to be exceptions. There are dogs that appear to solicit attention and then suddenly growl or snap. Dogs can be conflicted. They may want attention, then once it starts happening decide it is too much. These are often dogs who have been stressed over and over by previous encounters with strangers. Please immediately contact a reward-based trainer if this describes your dog.

And when I say stranger, I don’t always mean a person the dog has never met. Dogs can have conflict with your neighbor or a relative, even if the dog has met that person in the past. Maybe the dog just isn’t feeling the love that day, he still gets to say “no” if the neighbor wants to pet him.

Remember, your dog is always communicating. We need to do a better job of listening to what the dog is saying.

This dog has plenty of opportunities to run away if he gets too stressed by this encounter. He has a paw slightly lifted and his ears are down, possible indicators he is not 100 percent sure about this encounter, but when the child stepped away from him a few seconds later, he followed her and asked for more attention.