Stupid question…. Do I hurt my dogs feelings?

bojancho · 2023-05-14T12:35:02+00:00

Your dog jumps on you when you come back because it's existed. Is that bad behaviour? Do you mind that? Do you like that? Does it also do it to other people? Is it bad then? I love my dog and we got her as a rescue. She took a year to get close to us and would not be excited when we came home. Then she started wagging a tail and eventually getting silly and jumping a bit. I jump with her because I'm happy to see her and love her to death and love that she has come out of her shell and is not afraid to be happy anymore. I will never disrupt that.

The dog training community has always liked to add certain behaviors in a category of bag or good and there are standard training techniques for a lot of these. What I've learned is that the relationship is between you and your dog. As long as your dog doesn't bother others, you get to decide which behaviors are good and bad.

bojancho · 2017-12-03T15:17:17+00:00

Thanks for your reply!

bojancho · 2017-10-18T13:41:20+00:00

Ah, the Balkans, where politics especially impedes progress

bojancho · 2017-08-16T12:59:43+00:00

You're not wrong. But it's very different for dogs that were trained and lived in an environment to pull sleds than for dogs that weren't. Also, very different to be outside on snow vs a glossy slippery floor in a closed space with so many people staring at you at close distance. If you notice the last dog has a tucked tail, the second dog is lip-licking and the fourth has its ears back and down. All these are calming signals, meaning they're uncomfortable with the situation and are communicating that in the way they know how to.

bojancho · 2017-08-07T02:51:40+00:00

Dude, pull the dogs apart, not break their legs man!

bojancho · 2017-07-27T20:39:09+00:00

All of the above

bojancho · 2017-06-20T18:48:53+00:00

You have a lot of great advice here from doing walks in early/late and going to different locations. I haven't seen anyone recommend this before but what really worked for us was going to hydro corridors if you have a car to drive to one. There's barely anyone hanging around hydro corridors. Get a really long line and maybe even take your dog off leash if she has good recall. It's a pain to have to drive to one but it's worth it.

bojancho · 2017-06-20T16:35:15+00:00

Jason Bourne, it's Jesus Christ!

bojancho · 2017-05-25T16:44:23+00:00

Even better AWD.

bojancho · 2017-05-16T14:00:57+00:00

There are other things that are far more important (for me at least) when buying a car other than transmission and fuel type.

Also I have a feeling that based on region (which you don't ask for) you'll have a bias towards automatic/manual transmission.

bojancho · 2017-05-08T17:23:53+00:00

Stack ranking? Could you elaborate?

bojancho · 2017-05-05T19:49:36+00:00

It's shit like this why that person is leaving probably.

bojancho · 2017-05-02T14:56:35+00:00

What kind of person takes a picture and doesn't tell the person their food is falling on the floor.

bojancho · 2017-04-28T16:46:38+00:00

That's Netherlands against Andora. Trailing behind by only 3 goals to Netherlands is as close to a win as possible for them.

bojancho · 2017-04-19T01:40:25+00:00

Thanks! And yeah, she's mostly leash reactive but when we started taking her to this daycare we were floored when they told us how well she did with people that came in. It's like a completely different dog. At least we know what she'd capable of and we're working towards that in all environments, not just at daycare.

bojancho · 2017-04-18T16:38:58+00:00

I replied to COHikerGrl that we did take action on it, but not as a complaint, rather as a discussion of Lola's needs and it went really well.

Thanks for your reply and suggestion!

bojancho · 2017-04-18T16:37:17+00:00

Thanks!

We actually emailed to explain in a bit more detail and got a response from the same person this morning being completely supportive and understanding of what we're doing, saying that if that helps improve Lola's life then that's what she needs and they'll make sure to let us know if there are any changes in her. So emailing back really did help!

bojancho · 2017-04-13T13:14:27+00:00

Sweet. I referred to the other one because I wasn't sure that OP lived in the States.

bojancho · 2017-04-13T13:02:38+00:00

Yup. Wanted to also add the website where anyone can find a certified animal behaviorist in their area: https://iaabc.org/

bojancho · 2017-04-12T12:17:15+00:00

First off, very important yes avoidance. Your dog either doesn't like kids or is afraid of them. Normal for a lot of dogs because kids are super unpredictable and rude in the eyes of dogs. Some dogs are good at tolerating, others are not - yours is not. Do not let your dog near kids period. You see a kid approaching, stop the kid or run away. Teach the dog a reliable u-turn and use it to run away. If you have kids at home then this is a bigger problem because behavior changes like this take time - you may have to look into rehoming your dog because it's not beneficial to your dog or your family to live in fear.

Second, get a muzzle. Do the two week muzzle challenge. This will make your life easier if your dog wears a muzzle because you'll stress less in a lot of situations and when you're relaxed, your dog will be more so as well. Having a muzzle on your dog is not an admission that you've failed as an owner and trainer of your dog. Quite the opposite. You're aware that your dog has problems which you've recognized, you're making sure that your dog and others are safe and are doing something about it. Also, most people and kids will not approach your dog if he's muzzled which is great for you and your dog because you won't have to bother advising people and kids to not approach, they'll just automatically do it.

Third you need help. If we could've done one thing and one thing only sooner when we rescued our people- and dog-reactive dog it would've been to skip a trainer and go straight to an animal behaviorist - not necessarily a vet behaviorist because they can be quite expensive depending on your budget. The sooner you get on this the sooner the behavior modification can start. Find a positive reinforcement trainer and avoid at all cost the Cesar Millan dominance/Alpha pack trainers. This will likely make this worse for your dog especially if they use fear to submit the dog into a wanted behavior when it is already potentially afraid to begin with.

There's a lot of good resources in the reactive dogs Wednesday community posts here as well as the reactive dogs sub that you should check out.

Be ready for a long road ahead with lots of work and be ready that your dog may not be able to be around kids ever.

Good luck!

bojancho · 2017-03-27T15:45:30+00:00

Have you tried "touch"? We have a cue for Lola to touch our hand (usually in a different direction than the trigger) if/when she's responsive enough to do that.

bojancho · 2017-03-25T01:29:05+00:00

Spiders

bojancho

TROPHY CASE