DOG TRAINING AND BEHAVIOR

“Make a fist.” How often do we hear people tell their preschooler to close their hand into a fist when the youngster wants to pet a dog they don’t know? The belief is that making a fist is less aggressive than going straight to petting and less threatening than an open hand. Also, the thinking goes, making a fist gives the dog an opportunity to get to know the person by sniffing them before there’s any actual body contact.

Q: Our sweet 13- to 14-year-old mixed breed rescue has some hearing loss, osteoarthritis, and early kidney disease. She is, however, active and happy, and her kidney disease is so far managed with a special kidney diet. But formerly a dog who rarely barked, she has begun to bark at me impatiently when I am preparing her special treats (kidney kibble in a dog toy) and in general has begun to vocalize more often. We are amused by this change rather than annoyed, but wonder about the cause. Is she barking because of hearing loss, needing to be sure she’s heard? Is she less patient because of her age? Or could this be an early sign of dementia?

Dogs may growl to express pleasure while playing, and they sometimes growl when they are stressed. They may think someone’s going to take one of their resources (like food), or perhaps they feel endangered by the approach of someone they don’t know or feel uncomfortable around. Can you tell the difference?

Q: What exactly are Rally-O classes? There’s one near me, and one of my friends wants to sign our dogs up.

Your dog is scared to death of the vacuum cleaner, but you assume she’ll get over it once she has seen you use it a few times. She won’t. If your dog has a specific fear, the only way to help her get past it is to expose her gradually to whatever she’s afraid of. In the case of a vacuum cleaner, that might mean keeping it out in the open for a while and letting her sniff it when she wants to, then perhaps moving to vacuuming in a room that’s far from where she generally hangs out and keeping the door closed while you do so.
If your pet is afraid of other dogs, walk her where you’re not likely to see any—or at least very few, and at a distance. Arrange a short introduction with a sweet, gentle dog who doesn’t engage in any roughhousing. Throw your dog and the other one treats and speak in encouraging tones, removing your pet from the situation if she gets too upset. Then try again another day.

Why would a dog yell at the mail carrier day after day, even though the postal worker always comes at the exact same time and does the exact same thing at your front door? Why do some dogs take their food far from their bowl to eat, while others lick you for far longer than can comfortably be tolerated? Truth be told, they have a canine rationale for all their behaviors, and if you know it, you won’t find their actions so strange, or annoying.

Imagine if each day you went to open up your favorite websites for news or new ideas, and the same articles kept popping up over and over, except for a couple of short bits off to the side. That’s how it is for a dog who is taken on the same route, or the same couple of routes, for all her walks. When a dog goes outside, she’s not just relieving herself. She’s reading her world—by sight and hearing but mostly through scent. If she pretty much has to keep “reading” the same thing over and over, life can feel awfully tedious. Here’s how to make your dog’s walks more enlivening.

Your dog runs over to someone who doesn’t like dogs or worse, jumps on the person. Or he starts bothering another dog. Your instinct might be to yell at your pet to stop and make a lot of fuss with gesticulations. But all of that fanfare is counterproductive; the commotion only begets more commotion.

Q: We’ve always gotten dogs who were at least a year old but recently took in a 10-week-old puppy who won’t stop urinating in the house. I keep opening the back door to let her go do her business, but she just looks around and then comes back in. Even when I walk her, whether she “goes” is hit or miss. I’m getting annoyed. Any suggestions?

There are essentially two types of drugs for dogs who experience high enough levels of anxiety that behavior modification techniques alone don’t keep them feeling calm and secure. One type is often referred to as “in the moment” medication. It means the dog just needs a short-acting drug to help him in particular situations that unnerve him to the point that he becomes aggressive or shows other signs of extreme stress, like cowering or hiding. Such situations might include thunderstorms or having to be near other dogs, say, at the veterinarian’s office. The other type of medication is longer-acting, working around the clock to take the edge off a dog’s chronic anxiety. It operates “in the background,” so to speak.

We think of dogs as social creatures, and rightly so. They are a species genetically primed for social engagement with others of their kind. But if a dog gets into a frightful scrape with another dog early in life, perhaps before she came to live with you, being around other dogs can unnerve her, truly making her miserable.

Dogs most like to watch videos of…other dogs. So say the results of a detailed questionnaire answered by more than 1,200 people with canine pets. Second in interest to dog videos are videos of other animals, including wild animals (as in nature documentaries), cats, livestock, and squirrels. (Videos of people are way down on the list.) Reactions to what’s on the screen include dogs turning their head to the side or pricking their ears, vocalizing, approaching the screen and/or running away from it, looking behind it, and bringing toys over. The responses were collected by researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine and published in Applied Animal Behaviour Science.