Behavior

Does a worried dog sing a worried song? A dog's worried song" is often expressed in quirky

Owning an aggressive, fearful, or other type of special needs" dog is stressful. When your dog overreacts to other dogs or just the stimulus of being out in the world by barking

Anorexia, bulimia, and weird pregnancy cravings are common in humans, but did you know dogs have eating disorders, too?

When my dog Popcorn woke up one morning many years ago in a puddle of urine, I panicked, certain that only a deadly illness could cause this perfectly housetrained dog to wet her bed. I rushed her to the vet, where he did a thorough physical exam and urinalysis. I can still remember the relief I felt when my vet told me it appeared to be a simple case of incontinence. As it turns out, incontinence, which is defined as involuntary urination, is quite common in dogs, especially spayed females, where about one in five dogs (20 percent) is affected.

Learn to recognize signs of (and then reduce) your dog's stress. If possible, remove the stressor from your dog's environment entirely. For example, if he's stressed by harsh verbal corrections, shock collars, and NASCAR races on TV, you can probably simply stop exposing him to them. For stressors that can't be eliminated, a long-term program of counter-conditioning and desensitization can change the dog's association with a stressor from negative to positive, removing one more trigger for stress signals and possible aggression.

Recently, at a dog-related event, I had the opportunity to witness dozens of acts of self-control. There was the cute Lab who sat patiently in front of a five-year-old, ice-cream-eating child. There was the mixed-breed dog who politely turned her head and moved away when an adolescent Pug lunged in her direction.

You can find them everywhere – at dog parks and doggie daycare centers, in dog training classes, in your neighbor's yards ... perhaps even in your own home. They" are canine bullies – dogs who overwhelm their potential playmates with overly assertive and inappropriate behaviors

sir ... Please go away so I can breathe again!" Even though the Shepherd-mix looks friendly enough

he needs more distance between himself and strangers.üCarefully engineer any opportunities for your dog to gain positive experiences with strangers; exploit his love of treats!"

The chasm between those who abhor the electronic/shock collars as an abusive dog training tool and those who support and promote it as an exceptionally effective and humane training tool is so huge it will probably never be bridged. In more moderate positions in the middle of that chasm are those who believe that the collar can be an effective training tool for very limited circumstances in the hands of skilled professionals, and those who prefer not to use them but feel compelled to educate clients who insist on using them on how to use them properly.

Human-dog interactions can be more difficult than dog-dog ones, since our native languages are so different. Our series of three photos this month depicts a classic conflict between a canine and a human; the two are strangers and neither really understands what the other is communicating. Similar interactions are played out every day in communities across the country, in which well-intentioned humans do all the wrong things in their efforts to be friendly with dogs.

It's not uncommon for humans to misread perfectly normal play behavior and interrupt/separate dogs who are having a rousing good time together. At the end of Week 2 of my group good manners classes – and every week thereafter – we have play sessions where the dogs get to play with their canine classmates. In each new class there is at least one owner, often more, who is very tense about her dog's play behavior.