Stop and ask yourself why your dog behaves as it does…
Very often what we see when we go to visit a dog is a symptom (such as barking on the lead) of a bigger underlying problem.
Most behavioural problems stem from a physical health problem, this problem may not be apparent outwardly so you should always have your dog checked over by a vet as a first port of call.
The media and internet give us a whole range of ’quick fix’ solutiuons to all problems, including animal ones. If this were the case, and they worked, then there would be a world free from human and animal behaviour problems. Everyone would be balanced and happy.
In reality treating the symptoms with quick fix solutions is not enough, it may remove the behaviour for a while but it is likely to resurface or another problem to form.
One of the most dis-heartening parts of what we do is receiving the phone calls or visiting the people who want the dog ‘fixed’ by someone else and then tomorrow they carry on as normal with a whole new dog, having not changed anything about themselves or put any effort in. Rehabilitation is a long term process, and has to be managed for the lifetime of the animal.
What we as humans need to understand is the pressures we place upon our pets. We expect them to understand everything we do, get along with everyone and everything, play when we want, be quiet when we want and be happy all the time.
Most if not all of many dogs lives is completely out of their control. This brings on physical and emotional stress and often behavioural problems. Some dogs are good at ‘hiding’ their stresses but often as owners we simply just dont notice, as we are so focused on being human and everything going as we want.
To help a dog we need to be balanced ourselves, we cannot expect to create a new way in our dog if we ourselves are unbalanced. Dogs need quality time to rest and relax. The dog who lives in a busy household and seems hyper and stressed all the time is often like this because he simply cannot switch off, as he never gets the chance to be calm.
We often create obsessions and over excited behaviours in our dogs on purpose, for example when we come home and get the dog all excited because we missed him, or repeatedly throw the ball for a dog in the park till it cannot focus on anything other than the ball. We then wonder why they find it hard to calm down or why they go on to exhibit problems.
We are here to help and will do our best for you and your pet but we would ask that you understand changes are likey to have to be made to readdress the balance. You also need to enter into behaviour modification with an open mind and be willing to put effort in long term.