What Stress Can Do To Your Dog

Stress for a pet can either be physical or emotional, just as with their human owners. Stress can be triggered by a change in the pets environment or what a pet perceives as a threat to their well-being.

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Animal Welfare Groups Announce New Collaboration to Save Pit Bulls

Best Friends Animal Society and The Humane Society of the United States announced that a summit meeting held this week in Las Vegas to discuss the disposition of dogs seized from dogfighting operations has led to a coalition of groups working together to help the canine victims of organized violence.

(Vocus/PRWEB ) April 10, 2009 — Best Friends Animal Society and The Humane Society of the United States announced that a summit meeting held this week in Las Vegas to discuss the disposition of dogs seized from dogfighting operations has led to a coalition of groups working together to help the canine victims of organized violence. Read more

Object Guarding – Canine Possession Aggression

Canine Possession Aggression……..object guarding, this is the act of aggressively protecting objects such as toys, pigs ears, rawhide chews, bones, or articles that the dog has found or stolen, such as socks shoes underwear tissues and human food.

The ears going back will be part of typical body language relating to this behaviour. The dog then will go into a crouch over the object, displaying a whale eye, that is the head turned away but the eyes are swivelled back towards you the perceived threat to his possession, the whites showing, you may also find the lips are slightly pulled back almost in a grin. Look at pictures of whales and you will see why whale eye gets its name. Read more

Puppy Obedience Basics

Puppy obedience starts from the moment you come home with your puppy. It is kept simple and you motivate your pup to do everything. There is no forcing here, keep it fun! Use small food treats and toys.

This will show leadership on your part and shape your pups behavior, which is much easier then changing bad behavior later on. Training your pup is a “lifestyle”! Remember you are training your pup all of the time and every time you interact with him. Even if you not thinking about training your puppy. Read more

The Bark Stops Here!

With the quality of lives our dogs are living today as full-fledged members of our families, it’s hard to figure what they have to bark about! But all barks are not equal, and you must diagnose the cause before you can have any hope of eliminating it. Here are some techniques for diagnosing and then modifying this troublesome behavior… Read more

Dominance – A Nine Letter Swear Word?

Dominance: It would be easy to imagine that the word dates back to dawn of civilization, surely there has always been conflict where dominance and subjugation have existed. Strangely enough dominance is a relatively new idea in biology, first mooted early last century by the Norwegian researcher Thorleif Schjelderup-Ebbe, who coined the term “pecking order” following his studies on chickens. The simple premise was that chicken A can peck all the other chickens but chicken Y can only peck X. and poor old X is effectively bottom of the heap. Read more

The Reasons Behind a Panting Dog

By Alex De La Cruz

Have you ever ask your self the question, “why do dogs pant?” Or did you ever wonder the reason behind it? Well, humans don’t pant so why should you bother yourself regarding a panting dog? Actually if you have that curiosity you have already ask that question but you just did not bother to find nature’s explanation. If you are stricken by intense heat what do you do? Maybe you will fan yourself, enjoy a cool smoothie, plunge into the pool or any sort of refreshments. As for the dogs they can’t do those things. They just pant and that is the reason behind a panting dog. Read more

Understanding Your Dog’s Communication

By Jane Dinunzio

Learning to read your dog’s body language is pretty simple. They have limited actions and verbal noises, that once you can interpret, will make both your lives easier. You will then know when your pet is happy and when they are distressed.

Most devoted dog owners can immediately tell what their dogs are feeling by different body language signals. Most dogs have similar and repetitious signals that are generally easy for someone who understands their dog, will then help understand a friendly dog on the street, or in a dog park, from a potential enemy. Read more

Different Types of Aggression

Aggression is one of the main reasons that dogs are euthanised or rehomed; at least 30% of all dogs in rescue centres are there because of the incidence of aggressive behaviour in one form or another. It is actually unusual to have a dog that is aggressing to have just one type of aggression; most dogs have more than one of the following types of behaviour.

It would be prudent, before embarking on any program of aggressive behaviour modification, to rule out any medical reasons for that behaviour, especially if there is a sudden change in the dog’s temperament. Their are some fifty-odd different medical reasons why a dog may be showing aggressive tendencies, these range from Pain to Thyroid Dysfunction, Epilepsy to Hypoglycemia and Diabetes. The following is a list of the more common aggressions and why they may be occurring. This is only a part of the total types. Because of the constraints of space it can only be a fleeting reference. I have covered fully in previous articles in DM “Food Guarding “and “Object and Possession Aggression” Read more

Rage Syndrome

Sadly, out of the blue, certain breeds of dog display unpredictable outbursts of aggression known as ‘rage syndrome’ and ‘low threshold dominance aggression’.

These dogs will be perfectly civil with strangers and in the show ring, but then will suddenly attack family members for no apparent reason, their eyes becoming dilated and sometimes changing colour during and after an attack.

The dog will not respond to any attempts to stop it, often appearing confused afterwards, but will return to its usual self in time. Read more

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