A Tired Dog is a Tired Dog

If you need to change a behavior a dog is doing because of genetic heritage, your best chance is to channel that behavior into a similarly satisfying outlet for the dog’s instinctive urge.

Abused Dog?

People commonly assume their new dogs who come with unknown histories have been victims of abuse. Though a dog’s behavior may seem to point to it, most of these dogs have not been abused. Whether or not abuse has occurred, the assumption can prevent people from giving their dogs the right support for success in a new chance at life.

Adding a Second Dog to Your Family

With one dog in the family, why not add another one? What are the pros and cons? When is the right time? Will it change the things you love about the dog you have now?

Adolescence: The Teenage Dog

The adolescent dog, like the adolescent—or teenage—human, has an immature brain in a body that’s nearly the size of an adult. The maturing process happening in the dog resembles the human teenager in several ways, and your dog needs similar guidance during this difficult life stage.

Adopting A Shelter Dog

Choosing a dog from the shelter for a successful adoption depends on knowing what you need in a dog, and how to determine which dog at the shelter can fit your life.

Adult Dogs: Adjusting to a New Home

Adopting an adult dog into your family has the potential for being much smoother than raising a puppy. There can be bumps in the road, or the dog may blend in smoothly right from the first. Having a good plan will help you integrate the new family member in the happiest possible way.

Afraid of Other Dogs

Fear of other dogs is epidemic these days. People also expect their dogs to meet and greet other dogs they encounter on walks. What is this experience from a dog’s point of view? It’s often said that dogs are social animals, the idea being that they are like the type of humans who enjoy social gatherings. This is not true for all dogs.

Aggression to Passersby

Does your dog growl, snap, snarl, lunge or otherwise threaten passing dogs or people on walks? Perhaps the dog has had bad experiences that make this behavior understandable. Yet it’s embarrassing, and raises concerns the dog will injure a person or dog. How do you manage the dog safely while working on the aggression?

Aggression toward Visitors to Your Home

Does the thought of having someone come into your home make you uneasy about your dog’s reaction? Has your dog put on an aggressive display at a worker or guest? Has someone actually been bitten?

Aggression: When One Dog is Sick

One of the more shocking situations of nature taking its course with our companion dogs is when one of them is sick and another apparently takes advantage of the situation to attack or kill the sick one.

Aggression: When Should I Worry?

We often value protection (aggression) against intruders, and expect our dogs to make judgments beyond their experience, training or innate ability. Since a dog who bites humans may go months between bites, people tend to downplay the significance of aggression. The fear of losing your dog can also contribute to denial and failure to deal with the problem.

Agility

Patterned after horse show jumping, agility courses are made up of obstacles the dog and handler negotiate together. Winning and placing in competition, as well as earning agility titles, depends both on correct execution of the obstacles and on the time it takes to complete the course.

Alpha or Leader?

There are similarities in good and bad leaders of dog packs and humans. The same qualities that make a good human leader make a good dog leader. But since dogs have different needs, those qualities will be expressed differently when a human leads dogs than when a human leads other humans.

Alternatives in Housetraining: Papers, Pads, Litterboxes, Diapers

There are many alternatives to training your puppy or dog to going outdoors to urinate or defecate. Some people start out training their puppies on papers or pads, while toy dogs often continue to use these methods, or litterboxes, all their lives.

Arson Dogs

Another name for arson dogs is accelerant detection dogs, because the dogs work by detecting and alerting to even the smallest trace of petroleum-based fuel. As with other dogs whose work may be used in a court case, the handler’s role is critical to the effectiveness of the dog in finding evidence that can detect a fire’s cause and bring the criminal to justice.

Assistance Dogs to People with Disabilities

The experience, research, and hard work of assistance-dog training programs, first and foremost the guide dog schools, has brought today’s assistance dogs to a high level of reliability and safety. A disabled person needs a dog who can perform tasks to mitigate the person’s disability while not interfering with the rights of other people. Meeting the challenges involved is not easy, but the miracles that make it possible are an everyday occurrence in many lives.

Attention, Please!

How can you train a dog if you can’t get him to pay attention to you? Are other dogs, unfamiliar surroundings, noise, or even fear distracting your dog? Try these tips!

Backing Up and How the Skill Benefits Dogs

Some dogs figure out how to take backward steps on their own, without thinking. Other dogs, for whatever reasons, don’t seem to make these movements.

Backyard Hazards

If you want to consider leaving your dog outside without your supervision—even inside a fence—please research the physical hazards beforehand, along with considering the behavior risks. Many things you can do will reduce the risks, once you know them.

Barking

Dogs bark. Too often the barking becomes excessive, costing dogs their homes and even their lives. Solutions to barking problems come from how you manage and train your dog.

Barking and Your New Puppy

The first thing you need to know about helping your new puppy learn to remain quiet in confinement is NOT to go to the puppy in response to noise. If noise does not work, the puppy will eventually give up that method of communication.

Beagle, Basset Hound, and Dachshund Field Trials

Rabbit hunting with Beagles has a long history. American Kennel Club-affiliated Beagle Field Trials have been held for over a hundred years. Basset Hounds and Dachshunds also have field trials where dogs earn titles hunting rabbits.

Bed or Crate?

You are bringing home a dog soon, and this new family member will need a place to sleep. Looking through the huge variety of beds and crates available for dogs, how do you pick the best one?

Before the New Baby Comes Home

Decide how your house will be arranged to manage the care of a baby and a dog. Keep in mind the rule on which experts agree: no child under school age should ever be left alone with any dog, for even one second. Set up barriers that will keep your dog in or out of specific rooms.

Before the New Puppy Comes Home

Whether you are waiting for a planned canine family member from a breeder or scheduling a trip to a shelter to look for one, you’ll want to be ready. It can make the difference between a smooth or rocky start with your new pup, or success or failure.

Begging

Dogs beg because people make beggars of them! When a behavior works, a smart individual keeps using that behavior, and dogs are smart. To get your dog to stop begging, simply stop all the humans from responding to the begging by giving the dog food. That may be harder than you think!

Behavior Specialists and Dog Trainers

There are good and bad training classes. Ask your veterinarian, groomer and people in your community with well-trained dogs about classes to consider. Go and observe any class without your dog before signing up for it. Before, during or after you take your dog to training classes, you may need or want to use the services of a dog trainer or behavior specialist.

Bird Attacking Dog

Suddenly the birds in the back yard are dive-bombing the dog, and possibly the humans, too. Is this some bizarre real-life reenactment of the classic movie “The Birds?” Some birds are large enough to carry off and eat small dogs, so what can you do?

Body Language between Humans and Dogs

Reading your dog’s body language is never possible to do with 100% accuracy. Compare this to humans, though. We don’t even come close to being able to read all the body language of another human. Nor do we fully understand another human’s words, even when we speak their language!

Bonding with Your Dog

People often insist that the new dog they adopt must come to them in puppyhood in order to bond with the family. What people don’t understand, though, is that the human in the puppy’s early life does not have to be you. It’s the ABILITY to bond that is formed through this early experience. Dogs routinely form new bonds with humans at all stages of life.

Breed Research: How Your Dog’s Breed Affects Behavior

Does it matter what breed of dog you pick, in terms of the dog’s behavior? Yes, absolutely! Many dog temperaments are neither good nor bad, but are either right for your family or are not going to make you happy. In researching a breed, what factors will help you determine that you’re choosing a dog with the behavior potential for a good match with you?

Breeder Selection and How It Affects Your Dog’s Behavior

Do you know the ways a breeder’s decisions and actions will affect your dog’s future behavior? How do you pick the person you’re going to trust to determine your dog’s genetic temperament heritage, and to structure how your puppy will be treated in the critical early weeks?

Breeding Your Dog

Most people who breed their female dog one time wind up spaying her and never breeding again. They had no idea until they did it just how much it would cost, what a huge amount of work it would be, how hard it would be on the female dog, and the other problems. It’s normal for a third of the puppies to die, sometimes more and sometimes fewer. The whole litter can easily get sick. When a breeder provides proper care to the mother and pups, a profit is unlikely.

Cancer Detection by Dogs

The ability of dogs to detect cancer in humans by scent made news again in 2005. A leading medical journal in Britain published the results of a formal study demonstrating that dogs can be trained to identify bladder cancer. The overall average success of the dogs was 41 percent, higher than state-of-the-art x-ray and CAT scan machines.

Car Rides

Carsickness is only one of the problems for dogs riding in a car. Some dogs leap all over the car, some create noise that impairs safe driving. Aggression toward people through car windows is dangerous. In most cases, transporting your dog in a car can be done safely and sanely if you take some basic precautions.

Carsick Puppies

Lots of puppies get carsick in moving cars, but fewer adult dogs. We need our dogs to be able to ride comfortably in cars, and no one enjoys cleaning vomit. If you have a carsick puppy, let’s look at ways to minimize stress and mess, both now and when the pup is older.

Cats and Dogs

When a cat and a dog share your home, do you live in a peaceable kingdom? Or do they “fight like cats and dogs?” The reality could turn out either way, depending on several factors.

Changes in Behavior with Physical Causes

Your dog’s behavior has changed—but why? Perhaps the new behavior is inconvenient or even dangerous. Could there be a physical reason? Much of the time, yes.

Chasing

Chasing comes naturally to dogs, and is easily encouraged in a puppy when humans laugh or excitedly point out the “squirrel.” Many people find it entertaining to watch a dog chase things and don’t realize how serious it can become.

Chest Harness (Nonrestrictive)

A nonrestrictive chest harness is the right choice for attaching your dog to a leash in several situations. It’s a good idea to keep one of these harnesses on hand that fits your dog, because some of the uses for it arise as emergencies. Since the straps are usually adjustable at front and rear and the harnesses durable, a good one can last for years and fit a number of dogs.

Chihuahua Facts and Fictions

One dog expert jokingly said the Chihuahua would be a dangerous breed if large. There is some truth to this. These extremely popular toy dogs can have marvelous temperaments or they can be not nice.

Child Safety with Dogs

To read the newspaper headlines or watch television news these days will scare you about what happens to children around dogs. But how often does it happen? How likely is it to happen to your child? How likely is your dog to do it? Most of all, what can you as a parent, child caregiver, or dog owner do to prevent an injury to a child?

Children Need to Learn about Dogs

When a parent says, “My child is good with dogs,” what does that mean? Should people be pleased to observe that the family dog “will let the child do anything to her”? The huge gap between how dogs and humans perceive child behavior causes ruined dogs and injured children.

Choosing a Dog for Children

Parents want an idyllic relationship between child and puppy growing up together. Good preparation can help make it come true. Sometimes it’s better to wait until the children reach school age before acquiring a dog.

Choosing the Right Dog to Join Your Pack

Adding a new dog to your family means, in dog terms, adding a new dog to the pack. Dog packs are social units. Dogs are much more the victims of their own instincts than humans when it comes to relationships with their own species.

Christmas or Hanukkah Adoptions

Parents often think a puppy for Christmas or Hanukkah is the ultimate gift for a child. Perhaps it is—for the moment. Because so many people make impulse decisions to adopt dogs at Christmas or Hanukkah, there are many homeless dogs of all ages a bit later. It’s one of the peak times of year to have a wide range of choices among adoptable dogs.

Clicker Training

In its purest form, clicker training uses only positive reinforcement, based on research about operant learning theory. Practitioners argue about the terminology, but it is not necessary to understand all the terms in order to successfully use these techniques in training a dog.

Collecting Dogs

A disturbing problem that animal control workers, animal welfare volunteers, veterinarians and mental health professionals encounter is the person who has become a dog collector.

Come When Called

Learning to come when called has saved the life of many a dog. Many innovative trainers have wonderful twists on this training, and it’s wise to get involved in formal training with your dog to learn the skills. Another name for this training is the recall.

Conformation Showing

“Show dog”! As people see more dog shows on television, the idea of showing the best dog in the world—your own!—can become intriguing. What is it like to be involved with dog shows? How is a show dog different from any other dog?

Controlling Problem Barking

There’s pretty much nothing more frustrating than a dog who is a problem barker. What are some steps you an take to control your dog’s barking?

Cookie Hunt

Exercise, training, fun, reward and a wonderful chance to observe and learn about your dog all come together in the cookie hunt game. Watching your dog play the game gives you a peek at how your dog perceives the world, and also an opportunity to observe dog body language. It’s quick, easy, and in many cases will work with multiple dogs at the same time.

Coonhound Trials

Hounds have been developed and refined to hunt the local animals under the local conditions, whatever they might be. Climates, terrain, and the animals to be hunted all vary. Thus the hounds vary, too. Several breeds are eligible for the AKC’s Coonhound Bench Shows, Field Trials, Nite Hunts and Water Races.

Crate Confinement: Is It a Good Choice for Your Dog?

The use of a crate with a dog is so common that we may automatically assume it’s a good tool for all dogs. Sometimes it is, and sometimes it isn’t.

Crate Soiling

Trying to act on good advice about training your dog, you confine your new puppy or dog to a crate. But instead of a clean and rested dog when you return to the crate, you find a soiled one. What is happening, and what can you do about it?

Crate Training Puppies

Every puppy needs to learn the skill of resting calmly in a crate. This skill will be needed at the veterinary hospital, for traveling, and for restricted activity due to illness. It’s also a lifesaver for many young dogs during the destructive chewing stage that starts at several months of age and can last until age 2 to 3 years in some breeds.

Crate-Training for Adult Dogs

Crate-training is easiest in puppyhood, but at times it’s both necessary and feasible to train an adult dog to rest calmly in a crate. It’s important to note, though, that not all dogs can be crate trained. Some will panic and can hurt themselves.

Critters Your Dog Wants to Chase

Flying insects, squirrels, cats, snakes, gophers and all sorts of other domesticated and wild creatures can become targets for “crittering” dogs. Some dogs remain calm with the cat in the house and go nuts chasing cats outside—including the cat from inside. Dogs have savaged livestock belonging to neighbors, and are often worse predators on livestock than wild animals are. It’s important to understand that a dog has no way of equating killing with the moral judgments put on it by humans.

Customs and Border Protection Detector Dogs

Of 70 dogs tested for detection work, typically one dog is found to be suited. Dogs come from vendors, animal shelters, rescue groups, and donations by private owners. They can be of either sex, and must be between 1 and 3 years of age.

Daily Dog Duties

What do dogs need from their people on a daily basis? This will vary by breed, age, health, training, and the facilities you have for your dog. Thinking ahead about these “dog days” will surely help when choosing the dog best for you.

Dangerous Dog Owner Behavior and What to Do About It

Laws against dangerous dogs are creating big problems for responsible dog owners. At the same time, such laws do little if anything to help solve the real problems related to dogs living in human communities.

Defensive Dog Behavior

In many cases, a dog’s ability to tolerate things without becoming defensive can be improved. It is often possible to change a dog’s threshold of reaction by rebuilding the dog’s trust. Whatever the thing is that the dog fears, lower the level of stimulation and give the dog positive experiences of that thing.

Destructive Chewing

The REAL chewing comes after the dog has cut the permanent teeth. These teeth seem to require “setting” in the jaw by hard chewing. Dogs who don’t do this chewing may have poorer lifelong dental health. But, the dogs who proceed to firmly set their shiny new teeth with robust chewing may have horrified families!

Digging

When considering this problem, realize that digging is a powerful instinct in dogs. What options do you have?

Disobedient Dog?

“My dog doesn’t listen!” “When I say ‘come,’ she runs the other way!” “He comes in from a walk and sneaks out of the room to poop where we can’t see!” Are these dogs disobedient? Defiant? Stubborn?

Dogproofing Your House

Just as parents with young children must childproof their homes, people with dogs, especially young ones, need to dog-proof the premises. A child will eventually learn reasons to leave certain things alone, but the dog will never understand the value of property or the risk of getting hurt.

Dominance

What people think is dominance in a dog is usually something else. True dominance in a dog is more often a praiseworthy trait than a problem. Which dog is dominant tends to change according to the composition of the pack or family; evidently, dominance is not the trait it has sometimes been thought to be.

Doorbell Excitement

What happens at your house when the doorbell rings? If you have a dog, chances are the sound of the bell is joined by the sound of barking. The dog may make a mad scramble to the door.

Draft and Carting Tests

Draft and carting tests are non-competitive, and every precaution is taken to make them safe for the dogs. Most actual cart-pulling by dogs these days happens in public settings such as parades, so test rules specifically state that carts can be decorated.

Drug Dogs in Schools

Trained dogs and handlers work in school systems to detect and even more importantly deter the presence of drugs, alcohol, weapons, and explosives. Both law enforcement and private company dog-and-handler teams perform this job.