Problems with your Dog?


Hello and I am sorry to know you are having problems with your dog I know it can make life unpleasant when you dog goes from being a pleasure to being a pain. I imagine you are feeling pressure because of the problem and your mind is spinning from all of the conflicting information you have read. If you put ten dog trainers in a room and gave them one problem you would get ten answers, the same would happen if you put ten behaviourists in a room. So you are thinking well who is right? The answer is simple assuming they are all professionals, they all are. Why? Because there is always more than one way to solve your dogs’ problem the trick is finding out which one works for you and your dog.

However, one thing that all animal professionals will agree on is that in a majority of cases (the minority being medical conditions) the behavioural or training problems have arisen as a result of miscommunication between owner and dog. It is that simple and usually the miscommunication occurs because we treat our dogs as if they are human, they are not.
So as professionals, our job is to work out where the lines of communication have broken down, open up good lines of communication and then create a plan for the unwanted behaviour to be resolved. Very often the behaviour after being repeated a few times becomes habit so the programme has to be designed to break the habit in the most positive and passive way possible.

Any trainer or behaviourist who you engage must be flexible and must be able to work with the environment and the limitations you present them with. (For example young children, disabilities, work commitments etc). A trainer who is not flexible and supportive whose attitude is ‘it is my way and that is it’ should not be engaged.

Remember, unwanted behaviour will stay the longer you allow it to.

Furthermore, every person who has a had a one to one with me or comes to one of the workshops when the light dawns and they realise most of the unwanted behaviour is as a result of the mixed signals they have been sending their dog, feel guilty. Please don’t, you do what you did with the best intentions. As I tell all of our clients once they have their first session we forget the past and aim for the future because remember, ‘great dogs do not happen by accident’.