If you need professional help please visit my Dog Behaviorist website.
Go here for Free Dog Training Articles
If you need professional help please visit my Dog Behaviorist website.
Go here for Free Dog Training Articles
Raised by Wolfs with canine DNA in his blood, having trained more than 24,000 pets helping you and your fur babies thrive. Live in studio. It's Pet Talk today with Will Bangura answering your pet behavior and training questions. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome your host and favorite pet behavior expert, will Manura.
Speaker 2:Good Saturday morning, pet lovers. Hey, I'm Will Bandura. Thanks for joining me. Thanks for being here for another Saturday and another PET talk today. Hey, if you're a regular viewer, thanks for being here. Really appreciate your support. Um, hit that like button. Okay, show us some love. Go on, smash that like button, and go ahead. And also please if you would share, hit that share button so that more people can benefit from what we do here at PED Talk today. If you're brand new to PED Talk today, let me talk a little bit about how this works. I'm Will Bangura. I'm certified behavior consultant and certified professional dog trainer. Um, I'm here each and every Saturday morning taking your calls and answering your questions. Um, if you've got a question about a nuisance behavior, maybe your dog is jumping, maybe your dog, um, is barking. Maybe you've got a dog that's got some potty training issues or stealing things off of the countertops. Maybe your dog pulls on the leash. Maybe your dog just doesn't listen. When there are distractions, doesn't matter what kind of nuisance behavior you have, doesn't matter what kind of dog you have, doesn't matter what kind of problem. I'm here to help you deal with those issues. Now, some of you've got some very serious problems. Maybe you've got dogs that have serious separation, anxiety, fears, phobias, aggression issues. I take those questions too, sometimes those are a little more complicated. Um, but that's what I specialize in. I specialize in dealing with very severe behavior problems, um, dogs with fears, phobias, aggression, anxiety. Um, so whatever your questions are, go ahead and type them into the comments section. And do me a favor when you type your question into the comments section, please let me know where you're watching from and also what kind of pets that you have. Grab a cup of coffee, come on, bring the fur babies up to the screen. Let's have some fun today. Let's talk a little bit about your dog and let's talk about what kind of challenges, um, that you're having in a little bit. I'm gonna be giving out the phone number. Um, I really like it when you guys call in and it's really good when I remember to give out the phone number too. But I'm gonna gonna be giving out the phone number in a little bit, and that allows me to be able to ask you more questions so I can get more details about what is actually going on with you and your pet. Well, it's a new month. It's February. Let's see, uh, Pani Phil, is that their groundhogs name, I guess? Um, what, two days ago? Saw it shadow. So that means what we've got six weeks of, uh, of better we better weather coming our way. I don't know if there's anything scientific behind that. Um, I doubt that. Anyway, um, it is National Educ Dog Training Education Month. Last month was National Train Your Dog Month. This month it's National Dog Training Education Month. So I'm gonna have to try to come up with something that I can help Ed educate you folks with when it comes to, um, dog training. Um, like I said, do me a favor. Hit that like button, hit that chair button. Also, if you like what we're doing, the best thing you can do, the best thank you that you can give me is to go to Apple Podcasts where my pet Talk Today podcast is, and to give me a five star review, please do me a favor. Take two seconds, go to Apple Podcast, give a review, um, if you like what we're doing, because that really helps the podcast rank higher and that way more people can can benefit from that. Well, let me go into the, let me go into the questions and see what, uh, what we've got going on here. All right. Let's see. Brenda, Brenda, thank you for being here. Brenda, you didn't let me know where you're from. Anyway, Brenda's got a small six pound dog that drags her butt only at times. She's nine years old, drags her behind section, uh, while walking. And, oh, you are from Ohio. I lied. You did tell me where you're from. Um, you know, nine years old, you're telling me, drags her behind, uh, while walking. And I'm not sure if you're, you're talking about, um, she's resisting walking or if she's scooting her butt on the ground, um, because I'm wondering if this is an anal gland issue or, or some other kind of, uh, a medical issue. So maybe you can gimme more information on that. Um, Aries says, I've got a cat hula leopard dog. He tears up everything when he's home alone. What can I do to correct this? And I'm watching from Michigan. Well, Aries, let's talk a little bit about separation anxiety. And some of you have separation anxiety, um, leaving your own pets, but your pets can get really anxious when you leave. And a lot of times, um, anxieties at the root of a lot of destructive behaviors. So if you've got a dog that is destructive when you leave, most likely there is separation anxiety. So we got a couple things going on. We've got the separation anxiety we need to deal with. Then we also need to be dealing with the fact that we've got a dog that's destroying things. Now, the general overall rule, when you have a dog that is destructive in the house, that rule number one, supervise your dog at all times, have your dog in your eyesight, and if you can't have your dog in your eyesight, if you can't have the dog with you at all times, then you need to be creating your dog so that your dog doesn't have the opportunity to engage in a behavior that we don't want without us having the ability to interrupt that unwanted behavior and redirect the dog so that we can start teaching the dog what we would like it to do. So it's not the end of the world if your dog is destructive. It's not the end of the world if your dog has an accident in the house. It's not the end of the world when your dog misbehaves, but it will never get better if your dog is allowed to continue to rehearse these unwanted behaviors over and over and over, and you're not there to see it, to do something about it. So number one, rule, supervise or confine your dog. Now, that's not the fix, but it's partially the first step to the fix. Now really what we're probably dealing with is a separation anxiety issue and separation anxiety, depending upon the level of severity, sometimes need medication along with behavior modification. If it's so severe. I mean, we've got dogs that, you know, they are literally hurting themselves, trying to escape and get out of the house. They can't stand at their, uh, pads are bloody, they're breaking teeth off trying to get out of the crate. Um, profusely drooling, having massive panic attacks. Those dogs need medication and they need behavior modification. Now, from the behavior modification perspective, we're talking about desensitizing your dog, getting your dog to not care that you're gone. And one of the things that you have to do is you've gotta come and go, come and go. Come and go. Come and go. Come and go. Come and go. Come and go. And be extremely boring. Don't say anything to your dog. Don't reward your dog when you come back. Don't get excited when you come home. Don't get excited when you leave. But the way you're gonna practice this, you're gonna go ahead, crate your dog, walk away from your dog for three seconds. Come back, let the dog out of the crate, then go crate the dog. Walk away from three, walk away for three seconds. Come back, uncrate the dog. You get the idea. Real short duration, three seconds. Now, if your dog's upset and can't stay calm for three seconds of your absence, yeah, you probably got a severe separation anxiety issue, and you might need to see your veterinarian about medication. You might need to contact a certified behavior consultant, somebody to help you with that. Okay? But when we're adding more and more time to our time away from the dog, so we go three seconds, five seconds, 10 seconds, 15 seconds. Again, we keep leaving and coming back, but very slowly, very gradually adding more and more duration of time of our absence. Little by little, helping the dog to get used to it. If you have gone and left the dog and your dog starts to get crazy crying and, and starts having anxiety, you've left too long, too soon. You can only do this work. This desensitization work at your dog's pace, okay? It's never gonna get better if your dog keeps getting upset about this. So if you have to leave, you better take your dog to doggie daycare. You better get a pet sitter. You better get somebody to stay with the dog until you've done the work. And it can take a couple months sometimes to, to get this done. Now, as you're adding more and more time away from the dog, right? You walk away for three seconds, you walk away for five, you walk away for 10 seconds, you walk away for 30 seconds, you walk away for a minute and you keep coming back. You don't say anything when you come back. You don't reward the dog when you come back. You just keep doing that. But let me tell you what else you need to do. Really smart dogs are gonna figure out the pattern. They're gonna figure out, Hey, listen, the longer this goes on, you keep adding more and more time away from me. It keeps getting longer and longer, longer, and they can start to predict that and get anxious. So one of the things that we need to do to avoid that from happening, as we're increasing the duration of time that we're aware that we're away, I'm sorry, you need to throw in short duration. So let me just kind of spell this out as I'm increasing duration, five seconds, 10 seconds, 15 seconds, 30 seconds a minute. Now I leave for five seconds. Come back, leave for a minute, come back, leave for two seconds, come back, leave for five seconds, come back, leave for 10 seconds, come back, leave for 30 seconds, come back, leave for 45 seconds. Come back, leave for five seconds, come back, leave for 10 seconds. Come back, leave for one second, come back, leave for 30 seconds, come back, leave for two seconds. Come back, leave for a minute. Come back, leave for five seconds, come back. Throw in the short duration as you're increasing the length of time that you are leaving your dog. So your dog doesn't begin to predict. Oh gosh, the longer we do this, the longer my pet parent, my pet guardian, my owner is going to be away. So that's kind of of what you need to do. I mean, the old way was, you know, leave, come back, give a treat. But what we found was the dogs were getting amped up, getting excited. Their respiration was going up, their heart rate was going up, their blood pressure was going up, and that was causing more anxiety. So we learned that, uh, for that kind of desensitization, giving food rewards sometimes can be detrimental. So we don't do that. Um, that was a great question. Let me look and see. Uh, okay, that was Aria's, Karen. Let's see, Karen is asking her friends to come join her. Well, thank you, Karen. Um, all right, so Brenda says, just walks at times on her own and yard or in house, lowers her behind area while walking. Um, you know that, that's an interesting one, Brenda, and it's hard for me without seeing what's going on with your dog, Brenda, to know what that's all about. Um, you might want to talk to a veterinarian about that. Take your dog into a vet. Take some video of that. Um, you know, those of you, if you don't have qualified professionals where you live, um, I do consulting all throughout the world. I do virtual behavior consultations. If you need help and you can't find somebody in your area, uh, an expert or your issues that you're dealing with, with your pet are beyond that of a novice person, um, and you'd like my help, you can go to my website, dog behaviorist.com, go to dog behaviorist.com, and if you, uh, need to get ahold of me, you can. Um, so getting back to the questions, if, let's see, I've got, uh, Anika, I've got a new one year old rescue German Shepherd mix that uhoh, I just lost your, your question here. German Shepherd mix. I discovered that she's got great pys in her, and she's huge. She goes crazy when she sees other dogs. She's, she loses it and sometimes has pulled me over. I have her on a prong collar. Uh, she lives with two other, uh, German Shepherd rescues who are okay. She came from the shelter and was on the euthanasia list, and her number was up. I'm sure she experienced a lot of trauma in the shelter. Um, okay, so you've got a dog that on walks is in your words, going crazy, going ballistic when it sees other dogs. So there's one or two things going on. Either your dog's really excited to get to those dogs because it loves dogs, or your dog doesn't like dogs, and is being reactive, being aggressive, trying to get to them aggressively to try to push them away to create distance and space. Um, first and foremost, we need to know the difference. You know, are we dealing with a dog that is excited to go towards dogs? Or are we dealing with a dog that's aggressive? My guess is maybe your dog's aggressive. And first thing that we need to know, folks, it's okay for your dog not to have to meet other dogs. And I wanna say this to everybody that has a reactive, everybody that has an aggressive dog, it is perfectly fine for your dog to never interact with another dog again. You Americans are obsessed with having your dogs be unbelievably social, and you think that every dog should be able to play with every dog. And that is not the way it is. And we've perpetuated this crazy myth in the United States that all dogs are gonna get along and need to go to the dog park. That's not normal. There's a lot of dogs that are very selective as to who they get along with. Okay? But let's talk about aggression and let's talk about reactivity towards other dogs. All aggression, all reactivity is based in fear and anxiety. No animal goes into fight or flight unless they perceive something as threatening. Now, there might not be a real threat as far as you and I can see, and, and there might not be a real threat, but all it takes is an animal to perceive a threat. And the nervous system doesn't, doesn't care. It's gonna respond the same way. So know that what we're really dealing with is anxiety and fear. The aggression isn't the real problem. The anxiety and the fear that underlie that behavior that are the root causes of the aggressive and reactive behavior, that's the real problem. In your dog's mind, your dog's aggressive and reactive behavior is the solution to the problem. Why? Because the problem is that your dog is afraid. Your dog is anxious about these strange dogs, and your dog wants distance and space. And so by acting out aggressively, one of two things, or both things happen, your dog acts out aggressively and that other owner with their other dogs pulls their dogs away, creating distance and space. Or you pull your dog away, creating distance and space between your dog and those strange dogs. Either way, distance and space occurs, which the more distance, the more space there is, the more comfortable your dog that's anxious and fearful of strange dogs is gonna feel. So that behavior, those aggressive behaviors are very functional. They serve a purpose for your dog. They work. If you keep putting your dog in a situation, knowing what your dog does, when it has a trigger like a strange dog, your dog's just gonna keep rehearsing that behavior over and over. It's not gonna get better. If you think punishing your dog's behavior is gonna help you, I've got news for you. It will not. We know today that punishment does not work. You will only punish and suppress the aggressive behavior. You're not changing the underlying root cause. What have you done for the anxiety? What have you done for the fear? If the anxiety and the fear don't go away, the aggression doesn't go away. However, when you punish a dog, when you use fear, pain, or intimidation, when you punish a dog because they're afraid, because they're intimidated, because they're worried maybe about pain, they'll suppress the aggressive behavior, which means that they'll just not act out on it for a little while. That doesn't last. That's why punishment doesn't work. It's temporary if at best, because the dog continues to experience the anxiety and the fear when it sees strange dogs. But now it doesn't even have that release valve to be able to act out and try to create that distance and space with that behavior. So the pressure builds inside the dog, it gets more anxious, more nervous, more anxious, more nervous, and eventually it snaps. So you've got to do the painstaking work of counter conditioning and desensitization. Those of you that are regulars to the show, you hear those words a lot. Counter conditioning and desensitization. That is the gold standard for how you're gonna help a dog with any kind of fear, any kind of anxiety, any kind of phobia, any kind of reactivity or aggression, counter conditioning and desensitization. That is the exposure of triggers to your dog, but in a very specific way where we are associating things that are very positive to the trigger. Trying to change that underlying emotional response to that particular trigger. Right now, the dog views it as something scary. Right? Now the dog views it as something that causes anxiety or fear. So what we wanna do is at a distance. Now we wanna create this. We wanna control the environment. So we get helpers, we get people with dogs that, that can help us. And what we do is we find that distance. How far away can our dog be from another dog where it knows that, hey, there's a strange dog there, but you know, I know it's there, but I really, I don't have a care in the world. Your dog doesn't care because there's enough distance. And then what we need to do basically is bring that trigger, bring that strange dog into view. As soon as your dog sees it at the distance where it can handle it, you're gonna start feeding your dog high value. Food rewards. You're gonna feed, feed, feed, feed constantly and continuously, constantly and continuously feeding the entire time that that strange dog is in view. Then your helper is gonna take that strange dog and get that dog out of you so your dog cannot see it. As soon as your dog can no longer see the strange dog, the trigger, you're gonna stop feeding. Now that strange dog's gonna be in view for one to three seconds. You're gonna be feeding one to three seconds, feed, feed, feed, feed, feed constantly and continuously. The dog goes out of you stop feeding. Then you're gonna repeat that. Your helper's gonna bring that strange dog back into your dog's view. As soon as your dog sees it, you're gonna feed, feed, feed, feed, feed constantly and continuously for about one to three seconds. Then your helper is gonna take that strange dog that trigger out of you. As soon as your dog no longer sees it, you stop feeding. You're gonna do that for about five minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes would be a really long session for counter conditioning and desensitization. When you're presenting the trigger, I want you sometimes, you know, when you take the dog away and then you bring the dog back out, sometimes don't bring the dog back out and don't feed the dog because there's no strange dog. There's no trigger. So that the dog absolutely understands, Hey, the reason this good high value food reward keeps coming to me is because of the strange dog. And your dog's going to at some point love this game to be like, Hey, look, it's a dog. Give me that yummy chicken. When that happens, then you can start to move a little bit closer. Now, I mean a little bit baby steps, because if you go closer and start this process again at a closer distance, and your dog is anxious or fearful or nervous or aggressive or reactive, you've gone too close too soon, your dog wasn't ready for that, you need to back up and you need to continue to do more counter conditioning and desensitization at that further distance. Very gradually, very systematically, you are gonna close that gap, close that distance. You can only work as fast as the dog's pace. Don't be greedy. Take your time. These problems don't happen overnight. And, uh, getting things better doesn't happen overnight. Now, um, I can't go through all of the painstaking details of counter conditioning and desensitization. If you'd like to learn more about counter conditioning and desensitization, go to the Pet Talk Today, audio podcast. Go to any of the podcast platforms, apple Podcasts, Google Podcast, uh, Spotify, Stitcher, whatever they are. Um, episode 81, believe it's season three, episode 81. That is all on counter conditioning and desensitization. And while you're there checking out the podcast, give us a five star review. We'd really appreciate that. Um, the other thing you could do, I just recently wrote a brand new article on counter conditioning and desensitization. If you'll go to my website@dogbehaviorist.com, you can find there's all kinds of free articles on my website, dog behaviorist.com. You can go to those articles, click on where it says articles. Scroll through those. One that I recently did was on counter conditioning and desensitization, but you're gonna find there's a lot of great articles there. Um, that was a great question. I know it took a little while to, uh, to give all that information. Hey, this is maybe a good time for me to give out the phone number. Listen, don't be shy. Call the show, get your questions answered about your dog's behavior. If you'd like to have me answer your question on the show, the number to call is(414) 400-3647. Again, that number is(414) 400-3647. Phone drops. I'm gonna go pick it up. Um, so yeah, if you would like to happy answer your question, give us a call, 4 1 4 4 0 0 3 6 4 7. We'll get you on the air and we will talk about whatever's going on with your dog. Debbie says, I've got a three year old golden retriever that is afraid of everything. She no longer wants to go for walks, and when I try, she pulls on the leash. My vet put her on Fluoxetine 40 milligrams four weeks ago, and it hasn't worked yet. Uh, she went to a board and train and that worked for about a month. And then she went back to the same actions when we had our house painted. What can I do to help her? Um, well one of the things, you know, I just got done talking about counter conditioning and desensitization, and that is the gold standard for any kind of fears. So you take those principles of counter conditioning and desensitization that I just discussed, and you apply it to the fears and the anxieties that your dog has. Also, you know, maybe check with the veterinarian. You know, there's a dosage range on all these medications. There's the low end dose, there's the high end dose based on a dog's weight. Um, I don't know if that's an appropriate dose for your dog. Maybe it's too low. Uh, maybe it's just right. Maybe there's a different medication that might help your dog. Maybe your dog doesn't need medication. I don't know that the medication stuff is more a question for your veterinarian. Um, like I said, if, if you don't have a professional and, and when you're dealing with these type of issues, you really need to be dealing with a professional. They're not easy, they are not easy issues to try to overcome by yourself. There's a lot of little details that go into really good behavior modification. And when you're dealing with dogs with fears, anxieties, and phobias, it can be tricky. Um, if there's not, if you can't find a certified behavior consultant where you live near you live, if you can't find a good professional to help you, um, go to my website, dog behaviorist.com. I do virtual consultations all throughout the world. I can definitely help you. Let's get back to the questions here. Um, let me scroll down a little bit cuz I've been taking the ones from the top. So let me get back down here. Um, hey, thanks Karen for putting the number down. It's 4 1 4 4 0 0 3 6 4 7 if you'd like to call into the show. Um, does this work with dogs not getting on in the same household? Well, Angie, you're talking about inter dog aggression. Man, that is the most difficult. That is absolutely the most difficult behavior problem to deal with when you've got two or multiple dogs fighting in the same home. The first thing you need to do when that happens is you've gotta separate them. You've gotta separate them so that they are not having fear, anxiety, stress, reactivity and aggression. Again, that's not the fix, but it's the first step to the fix because we can't have them continue to rehearse that behavior. That's what continues to get conditioned. And that emotional state of fear and anxiety is what continues to get conditioned. Um, you've gotta work each dog separately on foundational behaviors, on obedience training because you've got to be able to ask your dog to come when called and know that that will be something your dog can do reliably. You need to be able to ask your dog to lay down and stay or go to its place and stay. And you've gotta be able to do counter conditioning and desensitization, um, with your dogs. So, you know, when you've got two dogs, um, same thing. You're gonna start very far away where they really know each other, they can see each other, but they don't care. If your dog has concern. When it sees the trigger, you're too close too soon. And it's especially difficult when you've got multiple dogs in the house because you've gotta manage it in the beginning, which means you gotta separate them. And the only time that they're together is when you're doing the work of counter conditioning and desensitization. And that starts at a far distance and you need a helper and you've gotta do it just right. Again, these are not easy things folks, when you're dealing with aggression, fears, phobias, you need to be thinking about, uh, finding a professional to help you with that. And whether it's myself or whether it's somebody locally, um, where you live, um, let's see here. Shirley, my daughter has a dog that bites occasionally, even family members. Well, that's no good. You know, think about it. You guys love your dog. You probably provide everything for your dog. Love, shelter, comfort, food, water, affection, play. Why in the world, why in the world would your dog bite you? Why in the world? The real question is why in the world is your dog afraid of you? Right? We talked about all aggression is based in fear. No animal goes into fight or flight without perceiving something is threatening. Okay? So if you've had this dog for a while and you've got a dog that is just never warmed up to you, never warmed up to you, or if you've got had this dog for a long time and it just keeps staying afraid of things, just never seems to get over it. Those very severe behaviors. Typically, there's a medical component along with behavioral component. Yes, we need training and behavioral modification, but in some of these severe cases, especially when it becomes owner directed aggression, some of these dogs need medicine along with that, because there's a neurochemical imbalance, they're not responding so much to external stimuli, right? Have you abused your dog? Is there a reason for your dog to be threatened of you where it would want to go into fight or flight? No. No, there isn't. Your dog is completely mis perceiving the entire situation. If we saw a human being on the street reacting in a way that was so bizarre to what's really happening in reality, what would we think? Yeah, they're off their psych meds. Now, I'm not all about drugging dogs, but I'm all about treating medical issues that need to be treated. And what you don't understand is that dogs can have medical conditions, psychiatric, psychological conditions, trauma, ptsd, fierce phobias, anxieties, just like people do. And their nervous system is just like us. And, and they need medical help sometimes as well. So if you got a serious problem like that, you need to talk to your veterinarian as well as get professional help. Um, let's see, what do we got here? Let me give that number again. Nobody's calling. You guys are all afraid to call in, huh?(414) 400-3647. Again, 4 1 4 4 0 0 3 6 4 7. Let me take a second to talk about, um, Stephanie Cohen. Um, Stephanie Cohen is a licensed clinical social worker. She's out of New York. And, um, she wrote a book, overcoming Your Child's Fear of Dogs, A Step-by-Step Guide for Parents. And we're gonna have Stephanie on the show February 18th. I'm gonna be interviewing her February 18th. So if you know anybody that has a fear of dogs, please share the information with them and have them tune in on February 18th, where I'm gonna be interviewing Stephanie Cohen. And we're gonna be talking about how to help your children overcome their fear of dogs. And, and maybe it's not just children. Maybe there's an adult, uh, that has a fear of dogs too. Send them to the show. I'm Will Bandura and you've been watching Pet Talk today here on Facebook Live where I take your calls, I answer your dog training and behavior questions. If you've got a question about your dog's behavior or training issues, go ahead, please type that in the comments section. Let us know where you're watching from, also, what kind of dogs you have. And I will do my best to be able to answer your questions. Um, if you need to hire a professional, if there's not somebody in your area that can help you, you can always go to my website@dogbehaviors.com. Um, I do behavior consultations, uh, virtually, and I do that throughout the world. Um, getting back to the questions, let's see if we've got a new question here. Um, Shirley says, our dog, a Polish hound wants to ride in the car, but has very high anxiety when he rides, uh, excitement, arousal, anxiety, they can look a lot alike. The question is, is your dog really liking this? Or is your dog having somewhat of a panic attack? Dogs that have fears anyway of riding in cars, that fear starts well before they get in the car. You know, normally we grab the leash, dogs get excited because they're gonna go for a walk or something, right? They get excited, we put the leash on'em, they get more excited, we walk out the front door, they're even more excited in a happy way. But then there's that day that we put the leash on, they're excited, we put it on the dog, they're excited, and we walk towards the door that leads to the garage. Now, all of a sudden, if you've got a dog that's afraid of car rides, you've got a dog that's afraid already before you've gotten into the garage. Why? Because they know, Hey, the only time we exit through this door, we get in the car. So the first thing you need to understand about a lot of these fears, a lot of this anxiety, where does it start? Well, you know, you could say, yeah, you gotta help me with my dog. It's anxious in the car for the car ride. Well, if the dog gets anxious before you walk out, you have to start your counter conditioning and desensitization where the dog gets anxious. So if that means, as the dog's wearing the leash and you're with the dog, as you turn towards the door, that leads out of the house into the garage, if that's where the anxiety starts, then you bring your dog to that point. You feed, feed, feed, feed, feed, and you take your dog away. You bring your dog to that point, you feed, feed, feed, feed, feed. You take your dog away, bring your dog to that point, feed, feed, feed, feed, feed. Take your dog away. And little by little you can get closer and maybe the next step is your two steps closer to the door. And maybe in a few weeks now you're touching the door handle of the door that leads to the garage. And then maybe two weeks later, you're actually in the garage with the dog. And then maybe two weeks later, you're two steps towards the car. And two weeks later, maybe you're four steps towards the car. And then two weeks later, maybe you're touching the door handle of the car. And then two weeks later, you're opening the door a couple inches, little by little by little. These are called successive approximations. And you've gotta feed these things to your dogs in very bite sized pieces and get them comfortable. Now, when we're doing counter conditioning and desensitization, we need to do this at least three to five times a week, or it's just not gonna happen three to five times a week. The sessions are short, five, 10 minutes, 15 minutes would be long. But yeah, we've gotta commit to doing this three to five times a week, and it's gonna take months. There are no quick fixes. I wish there, I wish there was. Um, how long have we been live? Well, we've been live since, oh, about 35 minutes maybe. Um, let's see. Yeah, we talked about separation anxiety.<laugh>, what do I do with my cockatoo? If you don't, what do you, what what do I do with my cockatoo? If you don't like my husband? If it doesn't like your husband, I don't know. That sounds like a question for a therapist. Um, no, I'm just kidding. So your cockatoo doesn't like your husband. Well, guess what? All animals learn the same. So counter conditioning and desensitization, we do that with birds. We do that with cockatoos, with parakeets parrots, okay? And it's the same thing. So let's say that, you know, you've got some really yummy stuff that you can give to the bird. And I recommend a food paste in a, uh, squeeze bottle. Okay? Your husband comes into you at a distance as soon as the your cockatoo sees your husband, feed, feed, feed, feed your husband walks away is outta sight. You stop feeding. And you do that over and over and over. And little by little, your husband gets closer and closer and closer. Again, I can't go through all the details of counter conditioning and desensitization because it's very lengthy. Um, but I do have that podcast. If you go to Apple Podcast, the Pet Talk Today podcast, look for episode 81, which is on counter conditioning and desensitization. That's an hour and 35 minutes of details. Check that out. And folks, do me a favor. If you like what we're doing, please go to Apple Podcast, give me a five star review for the podcast, because that helps you rank higher, and that means that more people can benefit from what I'm doing. Uh, do me a favor also, please smash, hit that like button so more people can see this. Hit that share button so more people can benefit from this as well. Um, if you'd like to call, if you have a question you wanna call in, that number is(414) 400-3647. Again, 4 1 4 4 0 0 3 6 4 7. Um, I'm interested in speaking about giving the dog excuses for not abiding or training for basic obedience when the dog has a past of abuse. Any advice on this? I'm interested in speaking about giving the dog excuses for not abiding, for training, for basic obedience. When the dog, I'm not sure that I understand your question, kiss or SISs, I'm not sure if I pronounce your name right. Um, maybe you can clarify that for me. Okay. Um, Dawn says, I cook homemade food for her and I add vitamins and minerals, but after a day or two, she'll stop eating the food. She wants a new flavor, I cook enough for her for a week, but after two days, she won't eat again. You are creating a finicky eater. Dawn, let's talk a little bit about that. Okay? When you start mixing up, well, somebody has a dog and all of a sudden they're not eating the way you want them to eat. So you're like, whoa, well, let me throw a little cheese on top of that, then your dog doesn't eat the way you like it to eat. And so, uh, let me put a little gravy on that. Then your dog doesn't eat the way you like it to eat. And so, um, let me put a little bit of, uh, cooked chicken on it. And you keep making these accommodations to try to get your dog to eat. And what you're teaching your dog is that it should wait for something new and novel and something that is different that it will like. And you're teaching your dog to be finicky. Look, feed your dogs on a schedule. Put the food down for five minutes and pick it up. And don't put it back down until the next scheduled feeding your dogs will stop being finicky. They'll start eating just fine. You gotta, you gotta stop playing that game with them. Um, let's see. Going back to questions, back to questions, back to questions here. Um, yeah, that was, how do I get my dog to eat her dog food? Um, I'm calling from Bullhead City, Arizona. Did you call, I didn't see the phone. I didn't see a number come through. I don't think anybody called. It's 4 1 4 403 6 4 7. Um, let's take a look here. My daughter has a dog that bites a kid. Yeah, we talked about that. Shirley, good morning, Claire from Louisiana. Thank you for being here. I appreciate that. And let's see. All right, so Karen says, I've got a husky healer, six month old. Um, is it okay to give him melatonin every night? If I don't, he won't sleep. Um, all night, he, hows he barks constantly in his kennel. Uh, what else can I do? So he'll sleep all night. By the way, I'm living in an apartment, oh my gosh, the energy. And she's from Wyoming. Um, well, Karen, can you give your dog melatonin? Well, first of all, I'm not a veterinarian. I can't give out medical advice. Um, that is something you ultimately want to discuss with your veterinarian. Uh, the literature shows that melatonin for the most part is safe for dogs. The literature shows that, um, it can help a little bit with, um, anxiety. It can't help a little bit with sleep. Um, what else can you do? Um, well, enrichment, you know, a lot of our dogs are just bored to death. We need to start doing things to stimulate their brains, mental stimulation, puzzles, games, having them find things that have been hidden. Um, if you go to my website, dog behaviorist.com, again, go to the articles there. Um, I just did a great article on canine enrichment and embedded in the article is a really good video, um, that I found on YouTube where somebody is showing you how to make do it yourself, enrichment toys and activities for your dog. So it's really cool. Um, but that's gonna help a lot. Keeping your dog's mind busy, you know, not just their bodies, but the mental stimulation, they get bored. You know, that's a big thing that you can do. Um, let's see here. If you're just joining us, if you've got a question about your dog's behavior, if you've got a question about, uh, a training issue with your dog, do me a favor, go ahead, type your question into the comment section. I will do my best to answer your question. Uh, Mindy says that she's got a great dane that is possessive in guarding of the owner. Well, again, if we've got a dog that's being aggressive, you know what? This might be somebody that, uh, is trying to call into the show. Let's find out. Hey, pet talk today. How can I help you? Hang on, let's get you, let's get you on the, uh, air. We got you on the wrong speaker here. I'm sorry. Hey, hey, what can I do for you? Who are you, where are you calling from?
Speaker 3:Hey, uh, I'm calling from North Carolina. My name is have a and half year old Terrier. Okay. Um, uh, issues. Yeah, there's a variety, but, um, one of the kinda weird ones is walking, walking too from,
Speaker 2:Okay, so you go for a walk, you don't get too far from the house, he lays down, he stops walking, then what happens?
Speaker 3:True? Well, he just stops. He's like, no, I wanna look around and see what's going on, what's happening. Okay?
Speaker 2:So that's what your dog wants to do, wants to stop. He wants to see what's happening. I mean, there's no, uh, mystery behind it. You know, sometimes dogs will do that. They just wanna check things out. Now, are you having difficulty getting the dog to start moving again
Speaker 3:Afterwards? Yeah, I, I feel like I have, well, I do. I have to ug him. Yeah. And after, you know, few seconds, he'll come, he'll continue to walk, but, you know, sometimes he'll do it again. He'll stop after, you know, 10 feet, right?
Speaker 2:So getting a dog to walk with you is about teaching the dog to pay attention to you, teaching the dog to follow you, to stay in position, and to filter out distractions. When we begin to teach our dog to walk on a loose leash like that, we only need about 15 feet of sidewalk. And, and, and I prefer to start this process on the sidewalk. And one of the things when we teach this that we have to realize is that this is a movement exercise, which means that our feet, our feet need to always be moving. Now, I don't know if you thought about this, this is, this might seem really silly, but when you stand still, when you've got a dog that's stationary, that doesn't wanna move, and your feet are standing still, and you're trying to use the leash to move the dog, it is so much more difficult than when you do that same process and your feet are actually moving. Now think about it. How many times have you tried to move your dog and you, your feet were stationary because your dog was stationary and you just tried to move it the dog with the leash? So the first thing I want to tell people is, listen, when you need to move your dog, you need to be moving your feet. You need to be moving your feet. Do not stop moving your feet. Um, now the other question is motivation. There's either something that your dog is trying to avoid, and that's why your dog is not walking, or your dog is stopping to get something that it really, really likes. What do you think it is? You know, your dog?
Speaker 3:Um, um, I don't, I'm not sure. I mean, I'm still walking when he stops. And then, you know, I turn around, look at him, and then I'm pulling the lead again, moving. But I just think maybe he is dreading going back home into the house and not being out in the sun or the, you know, just in the environment.
Speaker 2:Ok. And so again, we're talking about motivation, right? And two things that, you know, couple things. What are dogs motivated by? Food, love, food praise. Attention, toys. It just depends on the dogs. Some dogs love toys. Some dogs get care less. Some dogs love food. Some dogs could care less. Some dogs get really exciting when you talk baby, talk to them. You need to keep your dog engaged. I want you to begin to have a conversation with your dog. Talk baby. What's your dog's name?
Speaker 3:Oliver.
Speaker 2:Oliver. You can go
Speaker 4:Oliver, who's a good boy? Oh, who's a good boy? Why don't you follow me? Come with me. You're such a good boy.
Speaker 2:Talk to him. Constantly. Play that fun little game that you play with your dog, where you're talking baby talk. Get the dog looking up at you. Take your hand and wave it in front of your dog's eyes. And then bring your hand up to your face and keep your dog engaged with you. Have food rewards to reward your dog with food. Make the thing that you want your dog to do with you. So amazingly fun and wonderful that it's the best thing that your dog does all day long.
Speaker 3:<laugh> Okay? But, okay, so if you Go
Speaker 2:Ahead. No, I was gonna say, if your dog loves to be outside and you're saying, Hey, my dog doesn't want to go back home, you've gotta make it a fun thing to go back home. The whole process of moving around, you need to make fun for your dog, and you've gotta use something that's really gonna motivate your dog. Now, there are different levels of food motivators out there, you know, some kibble that's not as, that's not as motivating as a piece of cooked chicken, right? And so sometimes we gotta find something that has more value for the dog.
Speaker 3:Okay?
Speaker 2:And then the other thing, I'm sorry, go ahead. What's your question?
Speaker 3:No, no, no, no. That's alright. Go ahead.
Speaker 2:No, I was gonna say that when you're using your leash too, you have to understand that if there's tension on the leash, let's say you're pulling on that leash, there's a thing called oppositional reflex where if there's tension that is continuous on the leash, they tend to put the brakes on. And so if you, if you're gonna guide with that leash, your dog needs to understand what that little bit of leash pressure means so that your dog's not fighting that leash pressure when you have to use it. So one of the things you can begin to do is even in the home, put the leash on your dog and have the leash parallel to the ground so it's not angled up or down, but it's at your dog's neck level, parallel to the ground. Give a a little bit of pressure on the leash, moving the dog about two inches. Move the dog forward two inches with a little bit of leash pressure. As soon as the dog moves just a little bit forward, take all the pressure off of that leash and reward your dog. And then do that again at your dog's neck level. At neck level, parallel to the ground with straight line pressure. Very light pressure. You're gonna give a little bit of pressure, move the dog about two inches, and then release the pressure and reward the dog so that the dog understands. Why do I feel the leash pressure? Because initially they feel that pressure, like, whoa, I'm gonna, I'm gonna pull back. They, they don't know what the leash pressure means. We have to teach them. It means, hey, move a little bit. And good things happen. Not only when you move a little bit, when you feel leash pressure, not only does the leash pressure go away, but you get a reward. So we have to teach them what we're trying to do when we're guiding them with the leash. And you can start that in the house. And then when we're doing this, you know, it's about, again, keeping the dog focused on you. Bring out a toy, bring out treats, talk baby, talk to your dog, have that fun loving conversation and make your walks more enjoyable. And I think that they're gonna be more enjoyable, and your dog's not gonna be putting the breaks on.
Speaker 3:So confirm. So I'm taking him out on a walk. Should, I mean, should the, should the leash be loose enough to where he can go and sniff and smell to do his business? Or should it always be, uh, you know, you stay with me, you know, beside me at all times, not smelling those?
Speaker 2:Well, it's a per, it's a personal choice. I believe that dogs need to have what I call sniff walks. Okay? They, that's how they make sense of the world, okay? They braille the world through their nose, okay? Um, they need those things, but we also need to be able to say, Hey, hey buddy, let's go. And they follow us, okay? And so you've gotta teach your dog to follow you on a loose leash and pay attention. And for me, with my dogs, if I say, let's go, it's pretty casual, you know, they can be ahead of me. They can sniff, they can be behind me. But when I say, let's go, we gotta move. Now, if I say heal, well, yeah, they're not paying attention to anything but me. Okay? But it's about how you teach it. What kind of associations are you making, okay? And, and part of teaching your dog to follow you is taking turns. You know, rather than walking in a, a straight line, you know, walk two steps, make a u-turn, reward the dog when it follows you on that turn, walk three or four steps, make a u-turn. Reward the dog when it follows you on that turn, walk five, six steps, make a u-turn. Reward the dog when it follows you on the turn. Every time you make a turn, you're taking your dog's focus off of something else and bringing it back into you. And that's one of the ways you're gonna teach your dog to pay greater attention, is by taking a turn at least every eight steps. Okay? And it's not until your dog can really pay attention and follow you. Do you want to, uh, begin extending distance on a focused heel or a focused walk? Okay. Um, all right. But you need to start practicing that. And again, the biggest thing, dogs aren't stubborn. We need to know how to moti. We need to know how to motivate them, what motivates them. And, and we sometimes confuse Yeah, I know j r t, right? Jack Russell, terrorist. I had one too.<laugh>, I I you, they're a special, they're a special breed, but, uh, but they're, but they're a, they're a fun, fun, fun breed. So give that a shot, hopefully, uh, hopefully that helps you. Um, do us a favor, yes, call back to the show and, and let us know if that was something that didn help. Okay? Thank
Speaker 3:You so much. All right. Thank you for, I, I love your thank
Speaker 2:You. Oh, thank you so much. I appreciate you. Thank you. All right, well, that was a great question that we had and, and we're almost out of time, so I'm not gonna take any additional, uh, phone calls today. But yeah, I'm glad that, uh, I'm glad that she called in. It's always nice to be able to hear your voices as well. I'm Will Bangura, do me a favor. Hit that like button, smash that like button smash that share button so that more people can benefit from this. We are just about out of time. Um, I wanna thank everybody for being here. Everybody that submitted a question, let me see. We've got a few minutes. Maybe there's one more question that I can, uh, fit in here. Um, oh, hey. Um, gra I think it's gra my one-year-old Doy has started shaking in the car, but now she's shaking at home, barely eats not excited for treats or toys. They say her neck, but I think it's more, um, yeah, that's definitely something you need to get your dog to a veterinarian. And if it's a behavior issue, you need to look for a veterinary, a veterinary behaviorist. Okay? Um, I don't know if it's your dog's neck, I don't know if it's severe fear and phobias, but gra that's something you want to, uh, you want to, uh, yeah, you definitely need to check with your vet about that. Um, let's see. You know, Sandy, you're talking about your eight month old healer cross that's got separation anxiety and he tears into your couch and broke out of the kennel. How can I help stop this? Um, earlier in the show, early in this show, I talked about separation anxiety. Um, I talked about behavior modification and how we use, uh, desensitization to help a dog with separation anxiety. I talked about maybe medication is warranted along with that and needing to maybe, uh, consult with a veterinarian. And also, when you've got these severe behaviors, sometimes you do need to hire a professional. There's only so much information I can give you, um, in this short period of time. Um, if you do need to hire me or consult with me, you can do that@dogbehaviorist.com. Um, also, if you have not subscribed to the Pet Talk Today audio podcast, please subscribe to the audio podcast. Go to Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, Spotify, any of them. And you can be sure not to miss an episode. Also, all of the episodes, today's episode, all past episodes on the Facebook page, they remain here for you to go back to. So maybe you're brand new to Pet Talk today, and there's a lot of questions you have. Go back and watch some of the old videos. You'll find that there's a lot of really good information there for you. But you guys make the show. You make the show with your questions. I love and appreciate all of you so much. Um, and the comments that you make really, um, are heartfelt. Um, and I love you guys. Um, Bullhead City, Arizona, Dawn's, Bullhead City. All right. Uh, let's see. How do I get my dog to eat her dog food? You know, I talked a little bit about finicky eating. You know, people putting different things in the food. Listen, put the food down for five minutes. Pick it up. Don't put it back down for 12 hours. Put it back down for five minutes, then pick it up. Don't put it back down for 12 hours. Trust me, your dog's going to eat. I've never seen any dog commit suicide by going on a hunger strike. It just does not happen. Um, clicker, clicker training, sis looking into clicker training. Well, sis, go to the website, go to dog behaviors.com. I've got an article on clicker training. Clicker training is about marker training. And also you can go to the Pet Talk Today podcast episode 80. Episode 80 is all about marker training. And clicker training is about using markers in training. The clicker being the sound that click being the mark for that particular thing. I'm big on marker training. If, if you guys don't know what marker training is, you've gotta be using markers in training. Go check out episode, uh, episode 80. Yeah, episode 80 on marker training. Um, let's see. Do we have any more questions here? Oh, Mindy, you know, I started talking about being possessive of the owner and, and about human directed aggression. Um, that is something you definitely wanna consult with a professional that sounds like it's very, very dangerous and I don't have enough time to be able to address that right here. Um, cuz we've just got about a minute. Listen, please tell your friends, please tell your family members about Pet Talk today. We're trying to grow our audience here. Um, I get a lot of emails from you and a lot of you really appreciate the work that we're doing. Do me a favor, if you appreciate the work we're doing, hit that like button, hit that share button, and do me a favor, go to Apple Podcast. I know it's a shameless plug. Go to Apple podcast and please, uh, give me a five star review so that this podcast can start ranking higher and more people can benefit from that. Well, uh, you know what? That music means that means we are out of time. I wanna thank everybody for submitting the questions that you did. If I did not get a chance to get your question, please come back to the show next Saturday, submit your question and uh, I will definitely do my best to make sure that I am trying to answer your question as well as everybody else. Have a fantastic weekend, everybody. I'm outta here.