The Dog Blog

Last week it was adolescent behavior, this week I've heard several stories about scary encounters with off-leash dogs. One involved a family with small children and a leashed dog being rushed by FIVE off-leash dogs on a hiking trail. The five dogs consisted of four muscular bully breeds and a yappy chihuahua bringing up the rear. This family had no idea where these dogs came from, if they were friendly to dogs, adult humans and most importantly small children.

They scooped up their kids and hoped that their well-socialized white shepherd could handle the situation on her own. Jasmine, the dog, immediately dropped and rolled over. The big dogs stood over her, growled, sniffed and moved on. The little dog attacked immediately and moved on when Jasmine didn't fight back.

All of that took place before the owners sauntered around the corner with a very relaxed, "Oh, sorry."

I spend a lot o'time in private trainings helping people understand how I grok how dogs think based both on my ongoing quest to always increase my learning both from the literature out there I get my hands on as well as hands on extensive and often intensive experience with dogs of all sizes, ages, breeds or breed mixes as well as environments. For example, why is Trip the only dog in my pack interested in TV and only in animal related programs and what could he be thinking when he watches underwater creatures like fish?????

In the past week, I have talked to three very distressed dog people. Two of them are fostering dogs, and the other just adopted a dog. The issues they're experiencing range from inappropriate chewing, to serious separation anxiety, to attention seeking behavior, to general "what the heck do I do with this dog?"

I patiently gave my best advice to all of them, and everyone has calmed down. However, I still wonder if they really heard the most important thing I said to all three of them.

"He/She is an adolescent."

I say this a lot, to a lot of people, because most people get frustrated over doggy behavior during doggy adolscence. It's no different than parents with children. Sure kids are a lot of work when they're babies and toddlers. They need a lot of attention during grade school, too. But it is in the scary, confusing forest of adolescence that both kids and parents can feel lost and in need of serious guidance.

A few weeks ago a call came through from a gentleman who had just bought a Rhodesian Ridgeback pup for his autistic son.  He told me that he had researched the breed and decided it would be the best to train as a therapy dog for his situation. Already my brain was whirling, trying to figure out in which universe he had figured that a RR would be the best dog for his severely autistic child (I love the breed, they're just not usually the first choice for a therapy dog).  He then went on to tell me that he had never owned a dog before and wanted to try and do everything right.  This, of course, was a good sentiment and I hoped it would bode well for the whole situation.