Control isn't a good or a bad thing, per se. We need to analyze the context in order to get its meaning in that very situation. And once we get it, we have to respond properly. To prevent the dog to control things, or even people, in such a stressful situation wouldn't help the dog, nor its trust and bonding.
Some elements are easily recognizible even for us: a puppy and an adult dog smell different, females change smell depending on their reproductive cycle, emotions interfere with the individual smell. It’s also obvious that olfactory explorations are longer and more intense towards neutered male dogs. My opinion is that there is a doubt. A male is a male, a female is a female and a neutered dog is…
Christmas is coming. I still need to figure out what gifts to purchase for some friends, and it's not that easy. I wonder how tough that was for my parents, as I've spent over than 15 years bugging them to get me a dog. I asked for it at every birthday, Christmas, good mark and even on totally random days, of course.
Yago has changed a lot since we started the clicker training: he asks, polemizes, refuses, appreciates, begs, steals…
Read more: Becoming a successful team throught the learning experience (operant setting)
When a dog apparently misbehaves, people blame it on the dog itself. They never question themselves, they never wonder about how compelling some drives can be.
“But he does want this”. This is what a friend of mine told me when I pointed out that the dog she was cuddling was stressed out.
They invented a sensor-packed harness which can sense a dog's movement, and the sounds it makes. The purpose is letting the owners know how their dogs feel. This is quite a bewildering news, and not in a good way.
It may not be nice to film someone else’s dog. However I couldn’t help but switch my mobile on and record this little guy, cause I felt sorry for him.
At a first glance he was quite calm.
Years ago I read an article on the existence of meta-communication in dogs. The example was the bow. In the bow posture, the dog bends his front paws resting them on the ground, staying with his rear raised. According to several authors this posture is a meta-communication signal as it changes the meaning of the behaviors that precede and follow the bow. The bow means "what I've done before or what I will do after is not serious, it's a game."
Flipper is a puppy very scared and worried about the people and the environment and on the first day that I put the bottle on the ground he was three meters that barked and hid behind the walls of my flower beds. Learning is an a relationship experience .