Category Archives: About Dogs and Training
Flash Sale
FLASH SALE
ONE WEEK ONLY!
Pre-pay for your 4-session dog training pack and get a further discount off our usual reduced rate.
Get in touch and pay in full before 7 June 2017 and receive a huge €50 off our already discounted multi-session price. Pay just €125 for four private in-home training sessions for you and your dog (normally €175). This is a massive 37.5% off our pay-as-you-go prices. This is a limited time offer.
Mention this offer or discount code BARK17 when getting in touch.
Once you have paid in full and received your forms, simply complete the forms and return along with your preferred days and times for lessons, and we will be in touch to arrange your first session.
www.barking.ie or email barkingtree.dublin@gmail.com
Terms & Conditions apply.
T&Cs: Only one offer per household. Only valid within 20 km of Rush, County Dublin. Offer valid for new and existing clients. All sessions must be booked within 6 months. 24 hour cancellation fee applies to all sessions. No refunds or exchanges. These packages are non-transferrable, but may be purchased as a gift. Does not apply to any other training offers, packages, or group sessions.
Why is My Dog Growling?
I get phone calls from people very concerned that their pup or dog is growling at them, or more worryingly, at their children. People believe that a growling dog is a threat and that the dog is dangerous because of one or two instances of growling. I like to reassure people that a growl is NOT a direct threat, and in fact, is the dog trying to communicate rather than intimidate.
Reasons for dog and puppy growls:
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Play. This is a very specific growl and usually accompanies having dropped a toy or grabbed a trouser leg and starting to tug, or indeed, in the middle of a game of tug. Puppies growl to initiate play with other puppies – play fight if you will. Like little kids name calling or poking to get the other one to chase or engage in rough and tumble. There is nothing wrong with play growling, so long as it is in context (the dog is indeed playing) and low-key. The excitement of play, either between two or more dogs or between a dog and a human can indeed escalate to something a little more serious. If growling in this situation becomes intense, its time to halt the games. Its a good idea to build pauses in play, or call your dog out of play (releasing it to go play again if appropriate) every few seconds to ensure that it doesn’t get out of hand.
- Pain. Post-surgery, during an illness or an older dog may grizzle and grumble and even growl when touched if it is in pain. Here, the communication is “that hurts, please don’t”, even if it is not accompanied by whining that we would usually associate with an animal in pain. If your dog starts growling suddenly when touched, check in with your vet.
- Resource Guarding. Your dog has something he wants to keep and he thinks you or the kids are going to take it away from him. Many people (and indeed ‘old school’ trainers) will tell you the solution is to take away the toy/food/place by force. However, if you look at this from the dog’s point of view, he was growling to tell you he really wasn’t done with that bone, and you took it from him anyway. Like the rude waiter clearing plates before everyone is done eating, you chip away at your dog’s trust every time you ‘steal’ (in his eyes) that sock he was chewing on. In this situation, trade your dog for something better. You want that sock back? Give him a biscuit. You need to put his bone away because the cousins are coming over? Sprinkle a few pieces of cooked liver or a small handful of roast chicken a few feet away from your dog and wait for him to go to the food before collecting the bone. Teach your dog to voluntarily drop items like toys in exchange for food and another play session so that he knows giving things up doesn’t mean they go away forever. If your dog IS resource guarding, please get in touch with a qualified, modern trainer to help you and your dog work through it.
- Emotional discomfort. Your dog isn’t happy with strangers petting him. He doesn’t like the neighbours’ dog to come closer than 5 feet. Again, you wouldn’t make your child play with the neighbour kids if he wasn’t comfortable with them. You wouldn’t let a stranger touch your child without both your and her permission. In these cases, simply allow for your dog’s emotions and create space between your dog and the things he growls at. In the home, this can be accomplished with baby gates or keeping your dog next to you on lead when there are people in the house. This is another situation where a behaviourist or trainer with behavioural knowledge can help you work through with counter conditioning and other force free methods.
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Aggression. Some dogs do have aggression. We can’t always know why, but studies show that it is based in fear in 90% of cases. If you cannot pinpoint what circumstances cause your dog to show aggressive behaviour, speak to your vet about possible underlying medical conditions before consulting a qualified behaviourist in your area.
Whatever the cause of your dog’s growling, it is vitally important that you do not punish the growl. Punishing communication will not make your dog’s emotions change, but it may remove the early warning signs that your dog is unhappy and he may take more direct action to change his circumstances if he is no longer allowed to growl.
What do do – listen to your dog. If he growls at the kids, teach them to stop what they are doing and give him more space (and to not repeat whatever they were doing prior to the growl). Same goes for adults and other dogs. For out in public, teach your dog an emergency U-turn or to tuck himself in behind you so that he has a barrier between himself and the person or dog he doesn’t want to be near.
What not to do – take offense at your dog’s communication, any more than you would if the person standing next to you on the train asked to you to give them a little more room. Don’t try to ‘dominate’ your dog by shouting, pushing, staring, hard-touching, muzzle holds or other aggressive means of ‘showing you are boss’. These techniques are either going to supress the growl (again, not changing how the dog feels) or be seen as an aggressive display which may cause him to react with a snap or a bite.
Marta Young is a qualified dog trainer with Barking Up the Right Tree (www.barking.ie) in North County Dublin and a member of the Pet Professional Guild.
Resource Guarding
Resource Guarding, or…why won’t my dog let me near him when he eats?
So, your dog freezes and growls when you walk past his food bowl. He cowers and hides with his bones, standing over them threateningly when you go to pick it up to put it away. You heard somewhere that you need to ‘claim’ these items for yourself, and place your hand in his bowl when he’s eating to learn that its YOUR food and he only gets to eat it on your say-so. You’ve been doing this for a few weeks but it only seems to be making the problem worse. You stop giving bones altogether and you make Fido eat in the garden. You’re concerned that when your niece comes to the house, the dog won’t understand that she’s the boss too, and that he might try to take something from her hand and nip her.
Well, there is good news and bad news. The good news is, you don’t have to follow crazy rules to be the boss of your dog. More good news is, this is treatable in the majority of cases. The bad news is, ‘claiming’ your dog’s toys and bones and placing your hand in his bowl may have made the problem worse. (That’s okay, you can just stop doing it now and move forward). So, what to do?
First off, realize that what your dog is doing is a natural behaviour. He has something and he doesn’t want to lose it! He is afraid that if you take it, he won’t get it back. Imagine your neighbour asks to borrow your blender for a party, but fails to return it. When he comes to ask you to borrow your lawnmower, you’re probably not going to want to give it to him. If he tried to forcibly take it from you, you would probably get into a physical confrontation with him, or call the gardai. Your dog doesn’t have the option of saying ‘no’, except by growling. Physical confrontations initiated by the dog are seen as ‘aggressive’ rather than possessive. So the very first thing you need to do is try to understand this from the dog’s point of view.
Within the house, the first step is to leave your dog entirely alone when he has food or whatever item he is guards. Do NOT treat the item as if its yours and you are only letting the dog ‘borrow’ it. Dogs have different property laws to people: 
Next, learn your dog’s body language and what it means. Your dog gives off all kinds of signals long before the growl to let you know he is uncomfortable. Have a look at the infographics page for handouts on canine body language https://barking.ie/infographics/
The next step is to teach the dog its a good thing to have you near when he is eating or has a prized bone by throwing tasty tidbits towards him as you walk past (again, we are leaving the food he already has in his bowl and not even looking at his bone). We keep doing this until they are happy and comfortable to have us standing near them.
After that, we teach the dog that its a good thing to give us items they love, and they get them right back! Teaching a solid ‘Drop’ cue will help, but don’t attempt this with items the dog guards to start with. Start with toys that the dog will happily exchange for a bit of chicken and work your way up to the things he loves.
To avail yourself of a step-by-step, easy to follow workbook, get in touch. You can get the plan via email for €25.00, including support by telephone and email, or you can book a one-on-one consultation to have me come to assess your dog and demonstrate the method in person!
What happens when Nothing Happens?
We all talk about training behaviours into or out of our dogs. We talk about teaching the dog to come when called, or not to jump up to greet. Once these behaviours have been taught to the point where the dog performs them (or doesn’t as the case may be), owners tend to stop reinforcing the correct response.
We spend time, money, and calories to teach our dog what to do. We purchase training aids, treats, toys, special leads and harnesses, sometimes treat pouches, ball chuckers and more. We teach the dog to sit when asked, come back when called, walk nicely on the lead. Then months later, the dog seems to ‘forget’ everything we taught him in those weeks of intensive training. Some might say the dog is ‘stubborn’ or that he is trying to ‘be dominant’ or stage some sort of household coup. Some might say the dog is ‘acting out’ from spite or boredom. However, it usually is just down to nothing happening.
We might offer the occasional ‘good dog’ or a scratch behind the ears when we have asked for a sit, and clearly if we use punishment to eliminate unwanted behaviour, there is no need to punish what doesn’t happen. But long-term, how do we ensure that those taught behaviours keep happening and prevent the unwanted ones from coming back?
Because, you see, when nothing happens, the dog decides whether the action (or lack of action) is reinforcing enough to do it again and again and again without any external reward. Sitting calmly at the front door instead of mauling you when you bring in the groceries might not press his buttons when you blow past him for the 50th time without so much as a glance or a word of praise. Coming back when called might not be very enticing when every single time you call you put him back on the lead to end the walk.
Over time, when ‘nothing happens’, something happens. The dog starts choosing behaviours and scenarios that are more reinforcing for him. Blowing off recall to say ‘hi’ to an interesting person or chase leaves, jumping on you when you come in from work to get your attention instead of sitting quietly waiting for a greeting that doesn’t happen (or doesn’t happen fast enough); pulling on the lead to get to another dog instead of walking nicely with you until you reach it and give him the go-ahead.
So, what’s the solution? Feed your dog every single time he does something we have taught? Yell or knee the dog in the chest when he starts jumping up again? NO. All you need to do is occasionally and randomly reinforce the behaviours you like with real rewards. Food, play, attention. When you come home from work and your hands aren’t full of groceries, stop and scratch behind his ears when he is sitting to greet! Call him back on your walk just for a biscuit and then release him to go back to doing doggie things (yes, the release is part of the reward!). Hand him a couple of bits of food out of his bowl when you have asked him to sit and wait for his meal. If you reward your dog at least 1 out of every 10 times he performs the things you like (whether you have asked for them or not), he will continue to repeat them and stop looking for other things that will work better.
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Barking Up the Right Tree 