I went to a job recently where a family were distraught at their dog's over excited unruly behaviour.
Whilst I was listening to what dad had to say mum came home from work screaming "Has my big boy missed his mummy?" and started to ruffle the dog's ears. Unsurprisingly Fido jumped all over her. It took 10 minutes for me to calm him at which time their daughter ran in from the kitchen rattling a bag of crisps screeching: 'Get down, get down,' at a pitch capable of breaking glass as the dog launched itself into the stratosphere.
Then dad got annoyed and began shouting at the dog and the whole scene turned into a circus. (I was half expecting a clown to turn up in a backfiring car with doors flying off in all directions.)
Clearly this was NOT a dog problem but a family problem. There is no way they will ever have a calm balanced dog with all the fussing, yelling and screaming. All the training classes in the world won't change this UNLESS the dog stays at home and sends the family away.
If you want a calm dog YOU must be calm, losing your temper with an excited boisterous dog is an exercise in futility. When a dog becomes unbalanced it can only regain composure by following the lead of a balanced source. Once you lose self-control you simply add to the chaos. You cannot calm an agitated dog by becoming agitated yourself.
Instead of one angry individual you end up with two. You would achieve a far better result simply by keeping quiet (If in doubt... shut up.)
Our new Puppy Foundation Class starts this week why not come along and learn how to calm both yourself and your dog?
Just click on this link for details.
(Photo courtesy of Guy Radford).
