Vet Clinic Support

FALSE: Your dog is experiencing fear and fear can not be reinforced.  By comforting your dog you are giving them emotional support which will in turn reduce their fear and allow them to choose a different behaviour in a given situation.  Think of it this way - when you were scared as a child and your parent gave you a cuddle, did this make you feel better in the situation?  Did it make you more scared next time?  Did it make you escalate your response next time?  Absolutely not.  Most likely, you were less scared the next time and needed less reassurance and comfort.

FALSE: Puppies, just like small children, are not good at picking up social cues and their self control is usually quite poor.  As a result of this, they don’t know when to stop interacting or playing, and will not be aware of the subtle communications your older dog is giving them to tell them they have had enough now.  Leaving it to your older dog to ‘tell them off’ results in a negative experience for both dogs.  The older dog has to experience such a level of emotional discomfort that they feel they need to ‘shout’ to get them to stop.  This is very unfair on the older dog.  The younger dog also has to experience the negative emotions of being yelled at - which is also not fair on them because they simply don’t have the skills required to remove themselves from the situation.  Leaving your older dog to tell them off can also result in a damaged relationship between the two dogs which quite often will escalate, especially when the puppy reaches adolescence, where they will often no longer run away but react in response.

FALSE: Dogs in the wild create communities with no hierarchy, compared to wolves who have a strict hierarchy.  As a result of this community/family group dynamic, individuals can come and go as they please, they will all eat at the same time, breed at the same time.  Compared to wolves, where as a result if a hierarchy, will have a set order to who hunts, who eats first, who breeds and when (only the matriarch breeds) and all other pack members work to keep the litter alive.
Through the domestication process, dogs can now form family groups with humans.  But, they know we are not dogs.  Many behaviours are attributed to ‘dominance’ when in fact these are simply behaviours our dogs choose when in a situation they don’t have appropriate skills for.  For example - humping.  Humping is a behaviour that both male and female dogs, neutered or not neutered, will pull out when their mental arousal is high.  They can just as easily do zoomies in the same situation, but some dogs choose zoomies whiles others chose to hump.  Dogs who rush through door ways pushing their owner out of the way aren’t asserting their dominance.  They simply have high mental arousal and no impulse control and therefore can’t wait.  Whether you go through the door way first or second makes no difference to your dog.

FALSE: Scientific studies and years of experience have shown us that neutering your dog does not calm them down.  In fact, neutering males dogs more often then not results in the undesirable behaviours intensifying.  Testosterone specifically is really important for optimism and confidence.  Many behaviours are a result of dogs have a lack of optimism and confidence.  Removing the testosterone reduces these even more, resulting in behaviours deteriorating further.

FALSE: Just because your dog is young, doesn’t mean they are completely healthy.  There are a number of health conditions that are congenital, meaning they were born with them.  Quite often the symptoms can be quite mild, or as an owner you’ve never known them to be any different because they’ve always done ‘x, y or z’, and therefore they can easily be missed.  But, as we see with behaviour cases every day, even mild symptoms can have dramatic effects on behaviour.  Resolving those symptoms can result in dramatic changes in their behaviour.

FALSE: There is hope for every dog with behaviour struggles.  Every behaviour struggle comes down to a lack of skills.  Once those lacking skills are identified they can then be built up and their behaviour transformed.  Whether they are 6 months, 6 years or 16 years old, transformation is always possible.

FALSE: While physical exercise will exhaust your dog, it doesn’t teach the skills of making calm choices when they are awake.  A dog with the appropriate skills will be able to relax and make calm choices, whether they’ve been exercised or not.  Over exercising your dog to the point of physical exhaustion masks their inability to settle as they are simply too tired, but once they have rested, they are up and ready for immediate action again because they lack the skills of settling and making calm choices.

FALSE: So often we are told that socialising our dogs mean exposing them to as many people, dogs, places as possible within a very short amount of time.  This can result in our dogs becoming extremely overwhelmed resulting in fear and reactivity.  The goal of socialisation is to expose our dogs to novelty and have it end with a positive outcome, resulting in our dogs being optimistic when presented with novelty.  BUT, novelty doesn’t have to be radical to grow these skills, AND, our dogs can build these skills at home, in a controlled environment rather than out and about where nothing is in your control.  Building these skills at home first, better prepares them for the higher levels of novelty the world can deliver.  The good news is, that these skills can be built at ANY TIME during your dogs life.

FALSE: This can actually teach your dog the exact opposite.  If every time they have something of value you approach them to take it away, this teaches them that humans approaching = value being taken away, which will often result in dogs exhibiting guarding behaviour, especially when they have something of higher value, when people simply walk past them.  Instead, we want them to associate our approach with value being added.  This can be a simple as each time they have a meal or a chew, approach them calmly and drop a couple of extra bits of food on the floor.  We can also teach the skill of swapping between item of equal value.

FALSE: The ability of making calm choices is a skill that needs to be developed and rehearsed.  Simply getting older doesn’t build this skill, and calmer choices in older dogs can actually be an indication they are experiencing pain.