August 2017 - You know how some people are able to get their dogs to lie down and roll over after they say, “Bang, bang?” Or how some dogs are able to retrieve an item from another room, or even from another floor of the house, and bring it over to the person asking for it? How do people get their dogs to do things like that, which require more steps than just “Sit,” or “Down?”
Dogs communicate 5 different things with their barks. They shouldn't be punished for trying to tell you or another dog something.
In her excellent book, Barking: The Sound of a Language (Dogwise Publishing), Norwegian trainer Turid Rugaas points out that people often think dogs bark as an act of aggression or to prove their dominance, or simply to annoy people. But while barking most certainly can get on people’s nerves,
Some people abhor pills, for themselves and for their dogs; others go straight to them, even before trying other options. Is there a cool-headed answer down the middle?
“We deal with aggression in the clinic every single day and have for the last 30 years,” says Nicholas Dodman, BVMS, DACVA, DACVB, a world-renowned animal behaviorist. “It is the number one behavior problem across the board. Fully 70 percent of the cases that come into the Tufts Animal Behavior Clinic are about aggression.” …
Behavior reinforcement is more of a two-way street than you may realize.
Do you ever feel like your dog is training you rather than the other way around? Maybe teaching you to let her have some ice cream by looking at you with adoring eyes? Or letting you know that pawing at you means she wants to be petted and not giving up until you follow through? Or somehow ending up sleeping on the bed every night even though you swore that you’d never let a dog do that?
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