Behavior

Contrary to the strongly held opinion of some training and behavior professionals, I'm generally pretty comfortable with allowing canine family members on their humans' beds. In our family, two of our five dogs sleep with my husband and me. Scooter, a Pomeranian, routinely sleeps with us; Dubhy, our Scottish Terrier, graces us with the privilege of his presence on our bed only from time to time. Trainers who adamantly oppose dogs on the bed mostly fall into the old-fashioned training camp, and often, they also buy into all the dominance stuff that's been pretty much discredited by behavioral scientists. Chances are good I would differ with them on many dog training and philosophical issues, not just this one. The dog who wants to sleep on your bed isn't trying to take over the world. He just wants to be close to his humans —and comfortable!

Canine resource guarding may be a natural, normal dog behavior, but it’s alarming when your own dog growls – or worse, snaps – at you over his resource. Resist your first impulse to snap back at your dog. Whatever you did that caused your dog to growl, stop doing it. Immediately. If you were walking toward him, stand still. If you were reaching toward him, stop reaching. If you were trying to take the toy or bone away from him, stop trying. Your next action depends on your lightning-fast analysis of the situation. If your dog is about to bite you, retreat. Quickly. If you’re confident he won’t escalate, stay still. If you aren’t sure, retreat.

you teach your dog to perform a specific behavior – such as go to his bed – using the doorbell as the cue. For this

Aggressive behavior in their beloved companions is an incredibly challenging and upsetting problem for most dog owners to deal with. The problem is painfully public -and the public is equally free with accusations and advice for the hapless owner of a reactive dog. Many training solutions" that people try are inhumane

says Dr. Paul McCutcheon.üAfter taking a blood sample for lab testing, a holistic veterinarian uses acupuncture – the best of East and West.

There’s a common misconception that dogs jump on people to establish dominance. Balderdash! Dogs jump on people because there’s something about jumping that is reinforcing for the dog - usually the human attention that results from the jumping. If you want your dog to stop jumping on people, you have to be sure he doesn’t get reinforced for it. Here are five things to do when your dog jumps on people. Of course you need to practice polite greetings in the absence of the exciting stimulus of guests and strangers by reinforcing your dog’s appropriate greeting with you and other family members. Be sure to take advantage of the presence of guests and strangers to reinforce your dog’s polite greeting behaviors while you’re managing with leashes and tethers.

Growling is a valuable means of communication for a dog – something that dog owners should appreciate and respect rather than punish. Of course, we don't want our dog to growl at us, but neither do we want him to fail to growl if something makes him uncomfortable; that's very important information in a successful canine-human relationship. It's very common for dog owners to punish their dogs for growling. Unfortunately, this often suppresses the growl – eliminating his ability to warn us that he's about to snap, literally and figuratively. On other occasions, punishing a growling, uncomfortable dog can induce him to escalate into full-on aggression.

Marking is not the same behavior as my bladder is full and I have to pee." Housetraining is just a matter of teaching your dog when and where to relieve himself. In contrast

or securely enclose your porch or deck."

jumping up

Dogs are a predatory species. While cats think of themselves as predators, dogs often think of cats as prey. Still, many canines and felines live together in happy harmony. If yours don’t, here are some things to do when Fido chases Felix. Separate dog and cat when you’re not there to supervise. You need to protect your cat from injury or possible death, and you want to prevent your dog from practicing the unwanted chasing behavior. Depending on the intensity of the chasing behavior, you may want your cat behind a solid door when you’re away to ensure protection, or baby gates may be enough to give kitty safe zones to use as she chooses. When you are there to supervise, you still need to manage your dog so he doesn’t get reinforced for chasing the cat. Having something run away when you chase it is highly reinforcing to a dog with strong predatory behaviors.

The sequencing of the canine genome, accomplished as a public research project in 2004, opened the floodgates to endless possibilities for canine genetic testing. The holy grail for many scientists engaged in this work is the understanding of, and ultimately, the elimination of inherited canine diseases. For many dog owners, though, the most exciting outcome of this serious work is the possibility that they can learn exactly what breeds their mutts are made of. Though there are already several commercial companies offering products that purport to be able to do just that, our assessment of the breed identification tests is that the results may be just as mixed as the dogs they seek to explain. The test results may be nearly as varied, interesting, and enjoyable as our mixed-breed friends, but it seems that, at least right now, they may not be able to absolutely satisfy the question of your mutt’s parentage. The tests are getting better every day, though! And as the understanding of DNA, the size of the sample databases, and the power of computers grow, it’s likely that the tests will, at some point, truly live up to the marketing hype currently being used to sell them.