DOG BEHAVIOR HINTS

Aggression---dogs are predators by nature. Our job as pet owners is to understand and control that predatory nature. Obedience training is the most important thing to do with any dog and is vital with dogs that tend to be aggressive or assertive in their relations with people and other animals

Puppies

handle them often and get them used to being touched all over their body
teach them that food is a gift and under your control--take the bowl away and do not allow any lunging or growling from the pup. A sharp deep “No!” is all that is necessary with a pup.

We have domesticated these predators by touching them and feeding them...now they are members of the human family. If one of your “family” members is not behaving properly, seek professional help with obedience training.

Dog Fights--- We tend to want to treat all the dogs in our family evenly and fairly. Dogs are animals that have a pecking order. What does this mean in practical terms? Here are some example families based on real dogs:

Cory was the dog of the house; 14 and deaf and blind, she had always been the top dog in her home and with other visiting dogs. Along comes Lucy, a 5 year old addition to the family. Lucy was also a fairly assertive female. If the owners had tried to treat each one equally, there would have been trouble. Instead, since Lucy was the newcomer and could respond to commands (since she could hear), the owners commanded Lucy to wait to go through doorways, wait to approach the food dish, and to go away when Cory would come into the room. Lucy, an assertive dog, learned to give wide berth to a stumbling, weak, blind old dog and there were no fights. Cory would growl if she smelled Lucy getting too close and Lucy would fall all over herself trying to get out of the way. This allowed Lucy to become a wonderful additional pet without causing any emotional problems to the grand old lady, Cory.

Another dog family were Grover and Maggie, actual litter mates who had grown up together in the same house. As they became mature dogs, they started fighting to the point that surgical closure of wounds was needed! We determined that they could no longer be treated “equally”. Maggie kept trying to tell Grover she was NOT her equal and fights resulted. After the owners made sure that Maggie got to be fed first, got to go through doorways first and got petted first, the fights diminished. The owners even reprimanded Grover whenever Maggie growled...thus supporting Maggie’s dominance, when in the past they had mistakenly thought Maggie was being too mean. We have not had to sew either dog up for a long time now!

For More Help with Aggressive Behavior...

Housetraining

Confine pup to a crate to simulate the "den"---pups do not want to mess up their den

Take outside frequently and always the same door to the same place

Anticipate a pup's needs---it needs to go out after sleeping, eating, and playing

Praise it for urinating or defecating in the proper place--if it makes a mistake and you are present RIGHT AT THE SAME TIME just get it to STOP, then take it outside and praise it for continuing outside. If you do not see it in the "act" you do no good and can actually harm your pup's relationship with you if you yell or punish it after the fact.

Paper training is confusing to most dogs because it allows them to mess in the "den"

CARSICKNESS
To prevent carsickness, train your pup early with short trips. If you have an adult dog that gets carsickness, you must desensitize it to the car ride. Sometimes powdered ginger (available in health food stores in capsules) given an 1/2 hour before travel will help. To desensitize, you should follow these steps but not take the dog for a ride until the process is completed since every sickness episode will reinforce the fear.

With the car off, put the dog in and give a treat, remove dog before any signs of distress or drooling. Repeat this daily for several days.
Next step is to turn the engine on, giving treats and again stopping before any drooling or trembling
With the dog in the car and engine running, back out of driveway or drive a very SHORT distance, again, don't get to the point of distress.
Gradually over the course of several days, take longer and longer trips until you dog is so comfortable it will bring you its leash and the car keys with tail wagging!

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