How to Speak Dog.

Meet Cody!

Cody the cockapoo is handsome as they come. He loves to have company because he loves being the center of attention! In fact he is so accustomed to the limelight that he absolutely demands it.

When we visited Cody's home, he exhibited one attention-seeking behavior after another. When no one responded to his attempts, he quickly escalated to being extremely pushy and somewhat brash. While sitting on the couch he would throw himself into someone's lap and when they tried to remove him he would retaliate with a growl or a nip. This behavior was totally unacceptable especially since Cody's household includes two children.

It can be very nervewracking to have an extremely cute dog that is unpredictable. Everyone wants to interact with him, but you can't be certain of how he's going to behave. If your dog is protesting your directive with aggressive behavior, you may want to just give in to your dog's demands simply because you're unsure of the proper way to handle the situation. This will unfortunately give a dog the false impression that he's the one calling the shots. In short, there is a lack of balance between you and your pet, and it's unclear to your dog what exactly is acceptable and what is not.

Communicating to your dog can be difficult since they don't speak English! They do, however, understand some of our words. Using simple words like "YES!" or making noises like "EHH!" or "AHH!" can help establish clear positive and negative indicators for your dog. Words are fine and dandy, but they need to be accompanied by reinforcement in order for dogs to understand the words' meanings. Praise should be immediately followed with rewards like treats or attention, and reprimands should have consequences like being ignored or excluded from what's happening at that moment.

For more information about establishing clear means of communication with your dog, visit Zen Dog Training Online.

Maggie the Bernese Mountain Dog.

Meet Maggie!

Maggie is one of the nicest, most loving dogs we have ever met. So what's the problem, you ask? Sweet, friendly Maggie always needed to be the center of attention.

She didn’t just ask for her owner to pay attention -- she demanded it loudly. At home, her owner had a hard time making dinner without Maggie interrupting. Just sitting down to eat peacefully was almost impossible!

Maggie’s humans were just like most other dog owners: when the dog came over to say “Hi!” they would instantly give Maggie some attention. On top of that, Maggie learned to do something naughty so all eyes would be on her.

To help teach Maggie to be more polite we played one of our simple (but very powerful!) relationship changing games: Rewarding with Love. Our goal was to help Maggie learn that she couldn’t always get attention when she wanted, and that before she got her way, she had to do something for her owner first. Most importantly, we needed Maggie to understand that when she tried to be demanding, she would get ignored, shunned and sent "out of the pack," so to speak!

At first Maggie was confused. She tried and tried to get our attention, and was surprised that her old tricks weren't working like they used to! She got louder, and more frustrated but she was learning. When she finally settled down, Maggie got the attention she craved so much and quickly learned the rules of the game.

Playing a game like Rewarding with Love is transformational. Rather than a dog being able to get what she wants whenever she wants, we use attention and love as an important reward, not just something a dog gets all the time for free.

To learn more about Rewarding with Love and other strategies to manage demanding behaviors, check out Zen Dog Training Online.