How To Solve Behavioral Issues In My Dog?

Whether your dog has behavioral issues such as: eats your house while your away, doesn’t travel well or gets snippy with invited guests, most behavior issues come from two possible sources.  Sometimes dogs are received from places that did not breed very well, and sometimes as their owner it can be hard to know what to do to teach them, and so we do the wrong things. Here are some useful bits of information on behaviors. If you puppy or dog is displaying any of them, you’ll be more informed if you decide to talk to a trainer.

Behavior #1: Separation Anxiety: I have a Eurasier, and he can’t stand to be left inside when my family leaves. He is a family oriented breed, and doesn’t appreciate being left behind. To show his great disapproval, he would chew the corners off our walls, and eat our doors until we had to replace them. Separation Anxiety in dogs is a very common mis-behavior in dogs, and is easily fixed.

Cure: While no behavior issue can be solved overnight, there are some steps you can take to help your pup adjust better when he’s left behind. If your dog has a crate, try putting them inside it, during the day. Even when you’re home, they should spend time throughout the day in their crate. If you don’t have one, you can use a bedroom to enclose them. This will help them learn to “be alone” even while you’re still home and this is one of the many ways you can deal with separation anxiety training in Northern Virginia

Behavior #2: Aggression: While some people think that aggression is bred into dogs, it in fact is generally not genetically aggressive. No dog wants to be aggressive, and will usually only exhibit this behavior when needed. There are some simple steps to help you deal with the aggression in your dog to return it to a easy going, loveable member of your family

Cure: Start by leading. If a dog doesn’t see it’s owner as a “pack leader” it will assume that role and try to dominate the situation by showing aggression. Don’t show fear. Dogs are very sensitive to fear and will react accordingly. Your dog needs to feel secure in your leadership, that you can be in control of yourself, him and the environment you’re both in.  We do a lot of dog aggression training in northern virginia and are able to help fix these issues by teaching the owners steps they need to take and teach the dogs how to interact with other dogs properly.

Behavior #3: Disrespect/Bad Manners: Dogs can sense that their “leader” isn’t really leading. If they sense this from you, they may act out by showing disrespect for your attempts to lead. If you catch your dog growling at you when you get near his food bowl (etc) than that’s a good sign that he doesn’t respect you as the pack leader.

Cure: Learning proper correction techniques, and assertive leadership will help you curb this behavior in your dog before it becomes a bad habit. Talk to an Off-Leash K9 Training trainer in order to learn more about how to correct this bad behavior in your dog, and how to learn how to be an effective leader.  We will teach you pack leadership techniques to start working on at your house as well as incorporating our dog training in Northern Virginia.

Whether your dog is showing aggression, disrespect or simple bad manners, these behaviors can be turned around.  We use simple 5-step method of: obedience, confidence building, pack leadership, correction for the negative behavior, and positive reinforcement for the desired behavior.

Contact your local trainer for more information. For those of you who live in Virginia, you can contact the qualified trainers at www.offleashk9training.com