Sunny is one of the lucky fearful dogs that landed in his forever home straight out of the rescue after the hoarder that had him and 476 other dogs got busted for operating what was most definitely not an 'animal sanctuary'. It was not the plan and like many other foster caregivers for a fearful dog I could not part with him. Not ...
Early during my search for information about how to help my fearful dog Sunny, one rescuer of border collies told me that she 'didn't have the time that I had to work with her dogs'. Her point was that all the DS/CC I was doing might be nice but just making dogs deal with things worked for her, and was faster. I never ...
I'm going to keep this one short and sweet. If you are working with a fearful dog you must at the very least understand the concepts of counter conditioning and desensitization. Desensitization is the gradual introduction and increase in exposure to the things your dog is afraid of. The exposure is only increased when the dog exhibits comfort with the situation or object. Go too ...
In a blog about fearful dogs you wouldn't think that I'd pay so much attention to this whole dominance virus that has infected the health of our relationships with our dogs, but it's major. I run an in-home boarding business for dogs. It's a nice set-up for the dogs and the owners that use my services are conscientious pet owners. It's not a scene that ...
I make no pretenses about it, I am obsessed with my fearful dog Sunny. Not only do I think about him, I am always looking for ways to help him, and other scared dogs. Leafing through an old issue of Newsweek I read a quote attributed to Tibet's Karmapa Lama and of course, thought of scared dogs. "For any living being, when you feel the ...
Dogs that are afraid of people find very little about being with us pleasant, even if nothing 'bad' is happening to them. Just being near people is enough to get their hearts racing and adrenalin flowing. In order to change how a dog feels about people (or anything it's afraid of for that matter) you have to provide the dog with some very ...
While I agree that our own energy has an affect on our dogs, I do find the focus on an owner's energy to be at times confusing or just plain useless when it comes to training dogs. In Cesar's Way owners are encouraged to imitate people like Cleopatra, John Wayne and Oprah. Huh? Now while some people out there might think they know what Millan ...
I got my first and only puppy when I was sixteen years old. She was a reddish brown fluff ball of eight weeks and I promptly was smitten. My mother did not allow dogs upstairs in our bedrooms so I moved into the basement to sleep with her. When I was not in school (and I admit to skipping classes so I could sneak home ...
I've been reading a lot of dog training books lately and many trainers provide readers with the reasons their method of training dogs works or makes sense. More often than not it has something to do with wolves, pack behavior, prey drive, alpha animals, etc. Statements are made about what dogs want or need. Most of them leave an owner struggling to sort out whether ...
I say this is my last post about Cesar Millan because this blog is not about him, regardless of the benefit of the additional hits it may get me from the Dog Whisperer Ambassadors out there. It is not about trying to convince his loyal converts that he is wrong or bad. I agree with him that many dogs in America have less than stellar ...
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