Tag
7 posts about behaviour.
A dog that barks at the door, a dog that barks at you, and a dog that barks when you leave are doing three different things. Treat them the same way and at least one gets worse. How to tell which you have, what works for each, and why shouting is just joining in.
A cat that shreds the furniture is not being naughty and is not sharpening its claws. It is doing something it needs to do, in the best place it has found. Give it a better place and the sofa survives. What the post has to be like, where it has to go, and the mistakes that make it worse.
A dog that explodes at other dogs on the lead is not aggressive, dominant or badly trained. Nine times in ten it is scared and has learned that noise makes the scary thing go away. What reactivity is, the three mistakes that make it worse, and the method that actually changes it.
Pulling is not stubbornness and it is not dominance. It is a habit the walk itself has been training, one step at a time. The two rules that undo it, the equipment that helps, and the part most people get wrong.
The first meeting gets all the attention, but it is the easy part. What actually keeps a baby and a dog safe is what you change in the months before the birth, and how you read the dog in the two years after. A plan, and the signs to watch.
Roughly half of dogs are frightened by fireworks, and the ones that are get worse every year unless someone changes something. What to do on the night is the small part. The eight weeks before it are where the fear is actually reduced.
A dog that chews the door and howls for an hour is not being naughty — it is having a panic attack. Most "separation anxiety" is not that, though, and the difference decides what you do. How to tell, and the slow method that actually works.
