Your Dog Bit Me!
Your dog has bitten a friend, stranger or even your own child and everyone is telling you to “euthanize your dog”. First, take a breath and let’s assess the situation and understand why
dog training
Is It Just the Dogs Breed?
Does your hound constantly have her nose to the ground? Is your retriever pup a bit too mouthy? Is your Pyrenees, Chow or Catahoula mix acting a bit growly with strangers? Does your terrier like to grab and shake toys? How about your adorable herder? Ever nipped at anyones heels?
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Bite Prevention with Guests
This is the fifth of a five part segment, to help dog owners with insecure dogs that act aggressively to strangers. A practical guide to helping owners with dogs who rush and bark at people through windows, fences, at the front door and on leash.
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Dog Bite Prevention
In this Blog I will teach you how to prevent your dog from biting a person by helping you understand when your dog is feeling stressed and needs more space from an unfamiliar person. Dogs will offer requests for distance, called distance cues until they learn that their requests go ignored by the human. If they are still afraid, they will simply bite as their fear overrides their ability to think.
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Dog Aggression Towards Humans
In my last blog, I mentioned that changing your dogs behavior begins with good management which prevents him from practicing the unwanted behavior.
I will now explain how to change your dog’s response when meeting a stranger, using the processes of counter-conditioning and desensitization. Counter-conditioning means changing the negative association the dog has formed about people, and replacing it with a positive, happy association using something the dog loves. Desensitization means exposing the dog to the “stimulus” (in this case, a person) at a distance, far enough away that it does not provoke a fear response from your dog, and gradually reducing the distance to the person until the dog is relaxed with the person nearby. Subsequent training can continue as your dog remains calm, and is able to accept treats or play with toys.
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3 Tips for Changing Your Dogs Behavior
There are many ways to get behavior from an animal, for example you can hold your dog down when he jumps up on you, this may work for you, but the negative is that your dog may start barking more when guest arrive. Some dogs will become really wiggly and jumpy with strangers as a way of showing appeasement to the guest to ward off that scary punishment of being held down. This can also make your recall much more
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My Dog Barks and Jumps on Me!
Dog training is a process of shaping behaviors that are wanted by the human. With that in mind, why do so many of us reward unwanted behaviors? I have met many dogs who are still offering bad behaviors even at 2 or 3 years of age.
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Are you sending the wrong message?
We have 3 different conversations going on in this photo. Note the open or closed mouths. Where are their eyes looking? How are the tails held? Are there any paw lifts? Do you note soft or
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Does Your Dog Come When You Call?
Many people contact me to help them with recall or getting their dog to come when they call them.
A good recall begins with a strong relationship between the human and the dog. The dog who happily comes when called shares a bond with them and trust them completely. They go to them repeatedly because they associate their owner with good things.
If you call your dog and they look at you as if to say why? “Why should I?” It would be nice if relationships were that easy, but we know any relationship has a balance of trust and respect. Anyone parenting children can see similarities as we are able to say “because I said so!” Many of us have learned to give a specific reason, expressing our intentions clearly we will have better success and maintain a healthy relationship with our children in the process.
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Stop Puppy Biting, the Best Way!
As a Professional Dog Trainer, it is my job to teach you how to teach your puppy or rescue dog to have a soft mouth. This goes for your puppy mouthing a human, child or another dog.
If you have adopted a rescue dog, can you be assured this dog knows not to bite?
I discuss a soft mouth in all my classes because it is so important and many of you have rescued a dog. If I approach your tethered dog holding a scarf, glove or toy, will your dog lunge and grab the item along with my hand? Have you tried yelling, “no!” Did yelling teach your dog an appropriate behavior? Instead of yelling, you can simply walk away the second the feet come off the floor. Approach the dog again, if his behavior is not appropriate, walk away, repeat until he sits or does not jump, then reward with play! Rewarding your dog for the appropriate behavior is much faster than telling the dog “no”.
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