Stubborn Dog or Poisoned Cue?
Does your dog have a delayed or unreliable response to Come, Down, or other cues or commands? Do you see any stress signals, like lip licking, looking away, sniffing the ground, moving slowly, or yawning? These responses indicate the cue has probably been poisoned.
How to Overcome Counter-Surfing
We all have situations where our dog has learned the rules (we think), then one day violates them. Counter-surfing leaps to mind first, but there are many others.
Say Please: Voluntary Sits
Say Please: offered Sits and Eye Contact
Did you know that you can easily teach your dog to Sit automatically in certain situations?
Automatic, volunteered behaviors (nice defaults) are a feature of a well-behaved dog, and ideally they start in puppyhood. . . .
Change your mind, change your dog
Change your mindset, change your dog
How we view our dog’s unwanted behaviors can either lead down the wrong path—or lead to the path that actually improves things.
Labeling is one wrong path: this is when we use labels like dominant or stubborn or super-friendly to try to explain why the pet’s misbehavior happens . . .
Anxious Dog?
Anxious Dog?
If you think your dog behaves a certain way because he’s anxious, a different view of anxiety can lead us to solutions. This view is through the lens of behavior science.
It’s not a pre-existing state or personality trait that’s causing what we’re seeing our distressed dog do, but rather his body’s response to certain signals . . .
Comes when called?
Maybe? Sometimes? Do you wish she would always come promptly, no matter what? If your current cue isn’t working very well, it will actually be easier to start over with a new cue than to try to fix the one that’s not working.