Who's Walking Who? Training for dogs with aggression

Training isn’t always the best solution for every dog. Sometimes the best solution isn’t the one we want to choose. I recently received a call from a distraught mother of an 18-month-old child, her dog had bit the infant in the face twice. She was looking for help.  Anyone that has ever had an 18-month-old child, knows they get into things, and they move fast.  This is a dangerous situation at best when the dog has already bit the child. I have been training dogs long enough to know that parents with toddlers are fighting an uphill battle, they do not have the time necessary to address an issue like this. It really doesn’t matter what the circumstances were behind the bite incidents. It might not have been the dog’s fault; it could have been the child doing something to the dog. The reality is to address this issue the first thing that must happen is the dog needs to be kept separate from the child. How do you keep a toddler away from the dog? That is easier said than done....

As dog owners we can be our own worst enemy.  We do some dumb things with our dogs that give all dog owners a black eye out in the community.  Here is a list of things that we do, that we shouldn’t Walk around in public where there are other people, without our dog on leash.  When you walk around the neighborhood without your dog on leash, this stresses people out, justifiably so.  They don’t know if your dog is aggressive.  A high percentage of dogs have no recall, meaning if your dog is excited about something, they aren’t going to come back to you, they are going to do what they want to.  Telling someone your dog is not aggressive doesn’t make people feel any more comfortable with the situation. Allow our dog to get in the personal space of strangers.  Some people just don’t like dogs.  They don’t want dog hair on their clothes, a dog with muddy paws jumping on them, or getting bit.  Even if a person does love dogs, they don’t know if ...

What does it mean to properly socialize your dog? I did a simple Google search and this was the first thing that came up: Dogs that are comfortable meeting and being around a variety of people of all ages, other dogs, and even other types of pets – especially cats – are considered well socialized. Another answer was simply this: Socializing your dog is the process of exposure and habituation to the environment around it. I agree with both of those answers and probably most of you do as well, I think maybe it is the way to accomplish it that might be the issue. A lot of folks think the way to socialize a dog is to take them to a dog park and let them run loose, meet doggie friends, play chase, etc. In a perfect world, that is great, however, if you have ever been to a dog park, you know that is not always the reality. I use dog parks in my training, but not in the way you may think. I go to dog parks and stay outside the fence to desensitize client dogs to dogs running towards them,...

I was recently visiting with a lady that told me she had combined households with her husband and together they had 10 dogs! I said wow, they all got along? She then proceeded to share a terrible and completely avoidable situation with me. A large adult male dog killed a medium sized female dog while she was at the grocery store. Of course I asked 5,000 questions. The things that stood out to me were as follows: 1 – She said those 2 dogs specifically had been in a few “scuffles”, and had gotten progressively worse over time. 2 – There were 5 – 7 dogs left unsupervised in a large, fenced in, back yard. 3 – She had been told by someone that a male dog would never kill a female dog. In my experience, when 2 dogs fight, unless the human delivers an immediate, firm consequence, the fights will continue and will get worse each time. There were lots of signs missed, leading up to that final fight. I do not believe in letting the dogs “work it out”. I do not believe in letting the dogs de...

Who avoids trimming their dog’s nails because it is so frustrating? I used to as well, so I can totally relate. My 15 pound Lhasa Apso, is TERRIBLE! He does not like his feet touched, he gets very aggressive and tries to bite me, I get frustrated, then I take him to the groomer, lol. When I adopted my German Shepherd, I decided to approach the situation differently. This is the same dog that used to need sedation to visit the vet, so you can only imagine how much he loved getting his nails trimmed. I went slow and steady with him. I really worked on his DOWN command, then I worked on desensitizing him to having his paws touched, then I would turn on the Dremel and just hold it next to him, not touching his nails, just letting him get used to the noise and when he would try to get up and move away, I enforced that DOWN. It is not mean to push your dogs limits at times, that is how they move past things. If I had never pushed him past some of his fears, he would still be stuck in a board...

How many times have you gone into the vet’s office and seen dogs that are pulling, lunging, even barking or growling at other dogs? Owner’s struggle to pay the bill, they are trying to get the debit card out while the dog is trying to get at another dog. The owner is apologizing and getting frustrated, but the behavior continues until they are out of the office. Why not “practice” vet visits? I adopted a dog that had to be sedated to have any type of an exam done. I had him for a few days, originally as his foster, noticed some alarming behavior so scheduled a vet visit thru the rescue. I was told he didn’t like the vet, that was an understatement, since he had tried to eat the vet at his last appointment! When we arrived for the appointment and walked in the door, they put 2 muzzles on this dog and still couldn’t get close enough to him to feel comfortable to examine him, so then it was sedation time. I was asked to walk him outside while a technician did a sneak attack behind him wit...