Continue reading... "how this freaky site works..."

Question:
My dog is a 16 month old Shih Tzu. Everytime I eat food she barks at me, and the only way she will stop is if I give in to her. So I end up giving her table food. Can anyone give me advice on how to stop her from barking when I eat?

Answer:
Unfortunately, your dog is barking because you have inadvertently rewarded her begging behavior and thus have TRAINED HER TO BARK FOR FOOD! I know you didn't mean to do this, but here's how it typically starts- one day she really wanted some of your chicken cacciatore. While you were watching an episode of the new riveting season of American Idol, you ignored her stares and blew her off as she cutely sat there, waiting. She tried jumping up on your leg to get it, whimpering. Then she barked once, because she didn't know what else to do to get your attention. You hit a commercial break at that moment and noticed her there, so you shared a bit of chicken chunk with her. BAM. It was all over for you at that second. From then on if she ever wanted your food again, she knew what method worked. The bark.

It's the equivalent of the kid at the grocery store with his mom. He wants Cheesy Poofs and he'll do anything to get them. He tries asking politely. No dice. He tries tapping his mom on the shoulder a few times. Nope. He finally grabs her by the bottom of her shirt and yanks her with all the strength he summons from the absolute NEED to have Cheesy Poofs. This works. His mother throws the coveted item into the cart, and unbeknownst to her, has just taught her dear son to yank shirts really hard if he ever wants something that desperately again.

So how do you fix this?...

Continue reading... "questions from readers: the barking, begging shih tzu"

GUINEVERE

Hey there;
My girlfriend and I recently stumbled across your site while looking up information for our young
Italian Greyhound, Guinevere, born 5/31/05. She looks strikingly similar to the IG you posted about
named Swanky! She not only looks similar, but also seems to have many similar behaviors.

She is a terror when she starts play biting. She has learned to start barking at us incessantly when
excited. She gets very upset when place her in her kennel to leave the apartment...in fact, I'm very
concerned about that because she seems to be rubbing a spot on the top of her nose raw while in her
kennel. She will not sleep through a whole night in her kennel...she wakes up sometimes as many as 5 or 6 times (but lately we've been working on helping her be a lot more comfortable in there...she has
been waking up two or three).

She has made great progress in house training--she will relieve herself outside as long as we are near
and the backdoor is open. If the backdoor is closed or we are not near her (i.e., we leave the room), she will almost always relieve herself in the house seemingly out of spite (even if the door is open!).

We have tried many many things to calm her play biting. We have tried to tell her no and lightly
restrain her and hold her muzzle lightly, but she will become EXTREMELY agitated and fights harder and harder until we can't hold her anymore. We've tried (and currently maintain) saying "ow!" loudly and ignoring her, which worked at first, but now seems to entice her to bite more...or, when she wants us to leave her alone, she will start biting I think specifically because she knows we will leave her alone. We will sometimes spray our hands, feet, clothes, faces, ears with bitter apple to deter her when she gets too hyper. Recently we discovered getting down and growling/barking gets her attention quick, but she will jsut start barking when we do that now.

Ok...this message is certainly very long. Rest assured, we keep trying everything we can to condition her behaviors, but we're getting stumped. I'm tired of having scratched wrists and hands, tired of her barking, tired of waking up in the middle of the night to let her outside (she does not have a UTI, the vet double checked), and worried about her little nose when we aren't near her. Could you help? Any suggestions? Also, I would love to send you a picture of her, too...

Thanks so much for your time.

SWANKY

read my professional response here...

Continue reading... "questions from readers; "swanky's clone"..."

If you happen to have a hyper, aggressive or generally intense dog, change their diet to a low-protein dog food without artificial preservatives (look for about 20% protein). Any protein that they're not using for serious growth spurts is essentially extra energy ripping through your dog's system. Like ROCKET FUEL. UNNECESSARY ROCKET FUEL. Think about it...

Whenever you change a dog's food, do it gradually, 25% of the new food at a time. A quick change in protein levels most of the time results in stank, rancid loose stool. I don't think this is what you want. (is it?)
So, do it 25% new/ 75% old for a week or so, and if the dog's system can handle that, then go to 50%- %50, and so on...

About the preservatives: dog food contains lots of fats in it, which tend to spoil easily, thus the need for a preservative of some sort. Some smart idiot took a chemical that was originally used as a rubber stabilizer/ insecticide/ pesticide (ETHOXYQUIN) and decided to use it to preserve the fats in dog food. (hey, guys, i have this great idea!...) So now almost all of the dog foods on the market use this pesticide/ rubber stabilizer, which means our dogs are eating it. Me personally, i don't think it's a good idea to give it to them. So, i feed Wellness brand, which is probably not THE best food, but pretty darn good considering what else is out there. And Wellness (owned by Old Mother Hubbard) uses ethoxyquin-free meat sources, and there are no chemical preservatives in there. Check your dog food bags at home if you want, chances are you'll see that "e"- word in there somewhere.

Oh, and Nutro Natural doesn't use ethoxyquin, either.

The pup is still doing well. The next hurdle is to get him to come down to a sane energy level when visitors come over. His explosion of happiness is too much for anyone- jumping, barking, playbiting , and anything else he can think of.

Continue reading... "ninja goes hog wild for guests.. #5"

This time, Ninja and his family seemed a closer unit- Mom has borrowed her husband's confidence and has realized that Ninja's not plotting to murder her. She's got the restraint technique down and Ninja seems to love it now when she flips him into the alpha roll. The injury to her finger has healed (a surface scratch made by his razor-sharp canine tooth). After some soul-searching and a tetanus shot, the gang is solidly glued together. You can almost visualize them all by the piano, singing "We are Family", by Sister Sledge...

Continue reading... "ninja the beast #2"