Stop Dog Behavior Problems by "Talkin' Dog"!

How to Stop Dog Behavior Problems

2008-10-04T08:33:00.000-07:00

When you are addressing how to stop dog behavior problems, there is a formula. Whether the dog behavior problem is barking, jumping, chewing, digging, fighting, or a host of others, you need to:

Think about the behavior problem from the dog's point of view; what is he getting out of it?
Consider what you are doing that may be causing this problem.
Reinforce the dog's stopping this behavior problem. This may be very simple as in the example below...

Every time you sit down, your dog comes over and paws your leg. You'd like this to stop, so what do you do?

Common Sense Answer to solving this dog behavior problem: You take your dog's paw and put it back on the ground and say, "No, Rover". He keeps pawing your leg. Rover is thinking, "Well, I don't think Mom likes this, but she pays attention to me when I do it".

"Talkin' Dog" Answer to stopping this dog behavior problem: You don't look at your dog or acknowledge his presence; instead, you calmly get up and walk out of the room. Rover stops pawing your leg. Rover is thinking, "Well, this pawing thing is no fun anymore. Mom doesn't even look at me and tell me 'No'. She just gets up and leaves! I won't do THAT anymore. It not only fails to get her attention; it chases her away!"

This simple example illustrates how getting inside your dog's head -- "Talkin' Dog" -- can produce fast, easy, and somethimes even fun, ways to solve dog behavior problems with no harsh methods like jerking, no yelling and no gimmicks like squirting or clicking.

Another example of a dog behavior problem is fear aggression. If your dog has fear aggression, you may be thinking, "I give my dog so much loving attention -- how can he still have fear aggression?" Well, there's a good chance that all your loving attention may actually be INCREASING his fear aggression and causing this dog behavior problem! It is not true that only dogs that have been harshly treated wind up as aggressive biters or fighters.

Even when a dog is treated gently -- but incorrectly -- we can either induce or reinforce this problem of aggression. How you touch your dog and how you greet your dog can cause him to be fearful and can contribute to the next aggressive event. The difficulty with fear biters -- or nervous aggressive dogs -- is that people with the best intentions in the world often contribute to the behavior problem.

Here's an example of how you may be contributing to this problem: you come in and greet your dog, leaning over to pet him while looking in his eyes. He rolls over and you gently and lovingly rub his stomach. What's wrong is that you have just caused and rewarded the most submissive gesture a dog can make: rolling over on his back. Inducing and rewarding submission cannot induce confidence.

How to Greet Your Dog to Reduce the Behavior Problem of Submissive Aggression

When you greet a dog -- even your own -- your posture has a profound influence on your dog's behavior.

How to greet your dog to cause fear and submissive behavior: look him straight in the eye with your shoulders squared to him, lean over him, and reach down from above. How to greet your dog so he won't be fearful: squat down, don't stare at his eyes right away, and reach from the floor up to him to pet him on his chest and throat, not the back of his neck.

See my ebook on solving dog behavior problems for much more on my 'Talkin Dog methods of stopping dog behavior problems--methods that do NOT include jerking, yelling, squirting or clicking. And I wish the best for you and your dog!

Dr. Dennis Fetko, "Dr. Dog"

What Toys Are Bad For Dogs?

2008-09-27T09:02:00.000-07:00

In looking at what toys are bad for dogs, I find that we too easily overlook safety when we consider toys. We buy toys that appeal to us -- not necessarily to dogs -- and the manufacturers know this so they make them with whistles and bells and in colors and shapes that most dogs don’t even recognize let alone are attracted to. But we buy them, so they keep making them. It seems as though they will make anything we will buy and call it a toy regardless of its danger to the dog.

Just ask your vet or the staff at your local emergency animal hospital what toys are bad for dogs. They know because many times they see dogs and cats with toys or pieces of toys stuck in their throats or in their stomachs or intestines. So ultimately we are responsible for our pets safety, no one else.

Aside from the physical dangers of toys that are bad for dogs, I've noticed in the past few years a new trend in toys that make a squeal-type sound when they’re bitten. One of the reasons your dog would rather chew on your hand or arm than a toy is that you react. It mouths you and then hears your voice, sometimes feels your touch and absolutely gets your attention so you become its best “toy”!

In order to make toys more appealing to dogs, some companies add a sound component so that when the pet plays with the toy, it hears either the jingle of a bell or the squeaky sound of a whistle type thing or a clatter. And that gives the dog feedback, thereby making the toy more appealing than silence.

If the toy is made of cloth, either bits of the cloth itself or the thread that sews it together can come out in strings and either wad up in the pet’s throat or be swallowed and wind up in the stomach or intestine. These toys are bad for dogs and can be very dangerous because threads or bits of ribbon or yarn wrapped through the intestine can represent a real danger to the pet. And even if you notice signs of distress such as coughing, hacking, vomiting, dry heaves, or difficulty passing stools and you take your dog quickly for medical treatment, many of the substances do NOT show up on x-rays because they are no more dense than the surrounding tissue.

I’ve had clients whose pets had to undergo extensive surgery throughout several feet of intestine to find the constricting string or blockage from one of toys that are bad for dogs. Your pet doesn’t need extensive surgery nor you the worry and the expense because of a poorly chosen toy.

The sound issue becomes important when dealing with other animals and should be considered in learning what toys are bad for dogs. Nearly every mammal on earth squeaks or makes a screechy sound as an infant in distress. When your pet mouths its new toy and the toy squeaks to encourage further mouthing, you may literally be training your dog to mouth your cat or kitten to a point of danger or death. In nature that screech sound is supposed to inhibit hard contact – not instigate more. And puppies raised with such toys may literally increase their oral actions on a kitten vocally expressing distress.

Suddenly we have a severely injured or dead kitten because the well-intentioned dog simply “broke its toy”. If we then see what happened and impulsively reprimand the dog, it gets confused becauxe from its point of view we are punishing it for playing with its companion animal. It had no intention of hurting the cat but did because all of its early toys made the same screech sound to instigate further oral action. So some toys that are bad for dogs desensitize the dog to instinctive reactions since they were encouraged to play with them.

A word about rawhide. It’s a very popular and well-known material for chew toys, but if the hides are tanned in Asian countries -- and many are — arsenic is often used as one of the chemicals in the tanning process so this seemingly attractive toy may actually be a bad toy for your dog. Granted the arsenic is in very minute amounts by the time the finished product is given to your pet, BUT even minute amounts over a few years time, can represent a serious threat.

Also, rawhide is literally the skin or hide of an animal. Another form is called leather. So if you give your puppy wonderful rawhide toys and chewies for several months and come home one day to find your new designer shoes all chewed up or your leather cushion gouged away, you taught your dog to chew leather! So this is definitely something to be aware of in considering what toys are bad for dogs.

Many of the clients with whom I work—because of their dogs chewing on things like shoes, briefcases, eyeglass cases, and leather book covers, have the Euraka light bulb go on when I ask if they used rawhide chewies to get through the teething stage as a puppy!

Regarding balls, such as tennis and racquet and soft rubber pink balls, many dogs have the bites strength to compress these. I have been with client dogs who were very nicely playing with their ball while I was dealing with the owners and suddenly the dog showed severe distress and I reached in and had to forceably pull the ball from the dog’s throat. What happened was that the dog compressed the ball with its biting molars, but while flipping its head around the ball worked its way in between the rows of teeth at the back of the mouth and reformed and popped back in shape. While it's at the front of the throat or the back of the mouth, the dog has no bite pressure to recompress and it was suddenly choking dangerously on its own toy. That’s why size and composition are so critical when considering what toys are bad for dogs – especially for unsupervised use.

Tennis balls are a popular toy for dogs BUT the surface is more abrasive than rock! The tennis ball coating is intended to “grab” both the racquet strings and the ground so they wear the teeth down if gnawed on. One of my clients spent several hundred dollars having root canals done on his Lab's teeth because the tennis balls wore the teeth down to the point it became painful for the dog to chew anything hard including dry kibble. So these are definitely bad toys for dogs.

Again, YOU must be your pet’s advocate for safety and well-being. Tennis balls are fine for a brief round of fetch or retrieval games, but then stick them in the drawer or a box; do not leave them available for long-term chewing or gnawing.

Some of you may be aware that the "pimple ball" has gone through a recall after killing pets whose tongues got caught in the hole in the ball as the ball reinflated.

SO, I'm hoping that this description of what toys are bad for dogs has been helpful as your choose toys for your pets!

You can also learn more about my "Talkin Dog" methods of stopping dog behavior problems without jerking, yelling, squirting, or clicking.

What Are Good Toys for Dogs?

2008-09-22T09:25:00.000-07:00

When choosing good toys for your dog, consider safety and appeal to the pet – dog or cat. Hard rubber and nylon properly sized for the dog are generally safe but have little appeal. Recent changes include being able to flavor or “season” the object with appealing things like peanut butter, prepared spreads and a little gravy to make them much more attractive as best dog toys, especially to dogs.

My old favorite dog toy of a “PB Kong” is now being produced as a rubber Kong toy with an accompanying aerosol can of some sort of cheese spread, but I still prefer smearing the inside of the Kong with peanut butter.

In considering what toys are good for dogs, you might consider a new line of chewies. They are hard but edible, made of things like rice, corn, potatoes – to make them appealing to dogs but safe enough to chew and consume.

A great new type of dog toy to keep dogs busy AND interested are the rolling balls you can put treats or kibble into. The goodies come out bit by bit as the dog rolls the dog around. This gives activity and exercise and rewards both with the food treat. Just be careful, of course, that the Godzilla dogs out there don’t crack the whole thing open to get the contents.

Although you should avoid tug of war type games with your dogs, a double pull toy can be a good dog toy as it provides great exercise if you have multiple dogs. It’s okay if they tug playfully against each other; it is NOT okay if they do so with a human.

When you tug with your dog, you first of all teach it to tug and secondly reinforce it for using its mouth hard against a human. That’s not something you ever want your dog to learn or feel okay doing, so why teach it? Now, dog to dog, it’s not as bad because when they play they are either mouthing a toy OR each other’s body directly and they will get instant feedback that they’re mouthing too hard. But by the time a human, especially a child says that to a dog, the damage is done. Don’t teach what you don’t want.

Chosen carefully, good dog toys can provide exercise, fun, and activity to prevent mischief and damage so common with boredom. Just choose carefully. You can find more information on my 'Talkin Dog methods of solving dog behavior problems without jerking, squirting, yelling or clicking.

by Dennis Fetko, Ph.D., "Dr. Dog"
Information on stopping dog behavior problems like digging.

How Old Should a Puppy Be When You Bring Him Home?

2007-08-04T07:41:00.000-07:00

A caller to my radio show last Sunday asked about the best age to bring a new puppy home.

The answer is that you should never get a puppy younger than 7 weeks of age. The ideal age to get a new puppy is 8 weeks.

When people say, “Well, I got my puppy at 6 weeks--that’s only one week different. What’s the big deal?” Developmentally--and here comes the shocker--in the life of a puppy, one week is equal to four months to a human baby. So there’s no such thing as saying, “It’s only a week different.” How would you like to get a baby at 5 months of age?

What happens during puppyhood has a profound influence on the adult dog’s behavior. That's why it's very important to know how old the puppy should be when you bring him home. From about three to twelve weeks of age, pups go through a primary socialization period when they learn like sponges. Experiences during this time can have permanent effects--good or bad.

So, again, the best time to take a pup from the litter into your home is at eight weeks of age and NEVER from a store. A pet shop pup has learned to soil in its crate and live in a store. Do you live in a store?

Since pups begin learning at about twenty-one days of age, if you bring your puppy home at the age of eight weeks, this allows socialization to both humans and other dogs. A sociable dog is much easier to live with than a fighter or a fear biter -- and much easier to train in behaviors like stopping problem dog or puppy digging.

Why Do Dogs Pant?

2007-07-25T11:18:00.001-07:00

Dogs pant for two reasons: to expel heat--it’s how they perspire-- and to relax. One reason why dogs pant is that they get rid of a lot of stress when they pant. In fact, if you are with a dog who is tense, an old-time trick we’ve been using for a hundred years is to just start running that critter down the street and within a half a block, almost every dog in the world will start panting because they build up internal heat real quick.

They’ll start panting to get rid of that heat and the baby goes out with the bath water—along with all the heat goes a lot of the stress and uptightedness. So you manage to get rid of a lot of stress in the dog by taking advantage of a mandatory physiological response in the dog. So dogs need to pant to get rid of heat and at the same time they are releasing stress.

Keep this in mind if you ever consider putting a muzzle on your dog--your dog can't pant and cool himself if he has a muzzle on.

by Dr. Dennis Fetko, "Dr. Dog"
http://www.DrDogsBehaviorSolutions.com

What About That Wagging Tail?

2007-07-25T11:17:00.000-07:00

So a dog’s wagging tail means he’s feeling friendly--wrong! One of my favorite statements I hear is: “Don’t ever worry about a dog whose tail is wagging because they’re all friendly, right?” Well, a dog can be wagging like crazy in the back and ripping your spleen out up front.

A wagging dog tail means excitement, not friendship. Now granted, 95% of the time you see a dog wagging his tail, the dog will mean, “Oooh, a friend!” But the dog's wagging tail could also mean, “Lance, look at this banquet”. Wagging dog tails mean excitement. Now they can go up or straight out or down or whatever depending on the degree of aggression and dominance, etc. The important thing is that just because you see movement in the back doesn’t mean everything is ok up front.

Other things you can read from dogs’ tails:
· Wagging tail slowly in horizontal direction shows caution
· A stationary tail indicates relaxation
· A low, tucked tail shows fear or submission.

So, "reading" your dog's wagging tail is a great window into what he is feeling!

by Dr. Dennis Fetko, "Dr. Dog"
http://www.drdogsbehaviorsolutions.com/

Do Dogs Have Emotions?

2007-07-25T11:15:00.001-07:00

Dogs have a highly evolved social system that includes sharing, bonding, pecking order, affection, protection and more. Dogs have a wide emotional range. Dogs feel emotions such as fear, anger, stress, security and attachment much as we do. Far from being just animated toys, dogs are complex social animals with behaviors uniquely their own.

Human beings are prone to two kinds of emotion. One could be called “pure” emotion and the other “impure”. A pure emotion is something you feel with no thought process--you don’t have to think about it. If somebody angers or insults you, you don’t have to decide to get angry. And you certainly don’t decide to fall in love or decide to feel sorrow at the death of a loved one.

Impure emotions such as self-pity, guilt or remorse do require a thought process. If you don’t stop and think about those things, they won’t occur. Dogs have our identical emotional makeup in the realm of pure emotion. However, they don’t think about them so they don’t feel guilt about the past or worry about the future, for example. Dog's emotions are purely in the here and now.

In interacting with dogs, remember that dogs feed on emotion. Dogs' emotions are very sensitive to your emotional projections.

by Dr. Dennis Fetko, Ph.D., "Dr. Dog"
http://www.DrDogsBehaviorSolutions.com

Dogs' Sense of Hearing

2007-07-25T11:01:00.000-07:00

More here on dog's senses, since we are better at "talkin' dog" when we understand what the dog is perceiving...

It has actually been measured that a dog’s normal sense of hearing is 28 times more sensitive than normal human hearing. So when dogs can hear a mouse at 50 yards, that’s quite a feat!

Dogs can hear a much wider range of sounds than humans. Dogs can sense sounds in the ultrasonic range as high as 50,000 Hz. In comparison, humans can pick up an average of 20,000 Hz. Some dog trainers teach dogs by training dogs to respond to different commands given on whistles that produce ultra high frequencies to reach the dog's unique sense of hearing.

Also, since dogs’ ears can move in different directions, they can pinpoint the exact location of the origin of a sound. You will see dogs’ ears prick up and move around. The cupped shape of their ears helps maximize sounds for them and enhance the dog's sense of hearing.

by Dennis Fetko, Ph.D. "Dr. Dog"
http://www.DrDogsBehaviorSolutions.com

Dogs' Sense of Smell

2007-07-25T08:51:00.000-07:00

In the behavioral realm it is critically important that we have at least an insight into how dogs perceive things because most of mammal behavior is a response to what we perceive. I usually say that dogs can hear your hair grow and smell you change your mind!

Dogs’ sense of smell is their most highly developed sense. You’ll hear stories about how dogs can smell a thousand times better than we can or ten thousand times—that’s all just guess. Dogs’ sense of smell is so good that we can’t even measure it!

Dog’s sense of smell can only be approximated. Of the machines that measure how things smell, the most sensitive is the gas chromatograph. It is so sensitive that it can detect one part per trillion in a test atmosphere.

A dog can smell from 40 feet away what a chromatograph cannot detect at the source! That is inconceivable to us!

The medical community has been researching the utility of the dog’s incredible sense of smell in diagnosing certain medical conditions. Dogs are already being used to sense low blood sugar and to warn of epileptic seizures. Evidence also shows that dogs can differentiate between healthy skin cells and cancerous ones. It is theorized that certain disease conditions cause subtle chemical changes in the body or changes in metabolism, which dogs can detect through smell.

We all hear of dogs being used to track criminals or victims and search for drugs or explosives. How about dogs tracking dogs? Dr. Keith Richter, a veterinarian in San Diego, tells this story:

“One of the doctors at our animal hospital had a dog
that ran away. There’s a search and rescue dog in
the state of Washington that specializes in finding lost
pets. We flew that dog, who has over 4,000 “finds”,
down to San Diego. He’s a little 20-pound mutt—
a gifted dog. He went out and three miles later, he
found the dog. It was just incredible!”

by Dennis Fetko, Ph.D.
http://www.drdogsbehaviorsolutions.com/