My dog gets to enjoy the coffee shop too!

My dog gets to enjoy the coffee shop too!

I am sitting in the window of our local busy coffee shop, in a comfortable armchair, my coffee on the table beside me. Just inside the full-length window, by my feet, lies Lacy on her mat.

We can both relax after our morning outing - me in my armchair, she on her mat watching the world go by without barking at it.

She’s polished off the liver sausage foodtoy I prepared for her. She’s done a couple of tricks for a fingertip of cream from my coffee. She’s watched comings and goings and is now dozing on the mat, her chin resting on my foot.

She’s popular with the staff who are always pleased to see her. It’s a pleasant way for both of us to unwind after our morning’s work.

You may think this is all fairly unremarkable, but you should know that Lacy started out as a very reactive dog - she would get stressed and barky and appear ferocious at any approach, of dogs or people.

Already got a Growly Dog? A reactive, shy, aggressive dog? Watch our free Masterclass and learn new strategies to change your lives for the better!

So getting her to genuinely relax in a public place is an achievement of which I am proud and which we can both enjoy. A lot of what I teach here at Brilliant Family Dog is geared to growing your puppy’s or dog’s confidence and ability to relax. You can train all the sits in the world, but it’s no good if your dog is panting and gasping and pinging off the walls!

Horses for courses

Many dogs are sufficiently “wired” that they need help to learn this skill - especially with the growing popularity of placing working dogs in pet homes. This is a kind of square-peg/round-hole combo which needs careful management to succeed and not drive everyone - owner and dog - barmy.

Lacy has also gone through all the training I do in my premium programs - naturally, it’s one of the perks of being the boss’s dog! And the results have been as spectacular for her as for so many of my students. “I can’t believe how much our life has changed,” is a common cry after even the first Growly Dog lesson.

An awful lot of this has to do with how we act ourselves, and with our expectations: What you expect, you get! Gaining insight into why your dog does what she does is the way to make changes to accommodate her needs with minimum disruption to your daily life. And that’s the focus of the choice-based training I teach.

It’s a question of growing your confidence so you know what to do in any situation. Being able to settle your dog in a public place and flip her off-switch is a valuable skill.

Here’s a great way to get started with this skill

Calm Down! Step-by-Step to a Calm, Relaxed, and Brilliant Family Dog - in ebook, paperback, or audiobook - will help you to locate this hidden switch!

Don’t go without our free e-course to change life with your Growly Dog!

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We don’t need to CONTROL our dogs

This article first appeared on 2houndsdesign.com and is reprinted here with permission.

Really? No control?? I thought we had to control our dogs?

You’re right, of course! We want plenty of control, but we want our dog to be doing the controlling.

Think how we bring up our children. We teach and show them first, rather than yell at them for breaking rules they didn’t know existed!

Take toothbrushing, for example. First, we clean our toddler’s teeth for them. As soon as they’re capable they start doing it themselves - after a fashion - so by the time their permanent teeth arrive they’ve got into the habit. Then we switch to reminding them: “Did you do your teeth?” Eventually they understand why they need to do it, and we no longer need to even ask them (though they may need to be 24 before they reach this happy state!).

Same with our dogs.

There’s no need to nagnagnag them all the time, yanking on their lead, snapping at them, barking commands, pushing them into a sit or a down. This kind of carry-on simply destroys the relationship you could have with your dog, who just knows that whatever he does is wrong and waits for the inevitable correction and telling-off. And he probably has no idea why.

Switch this round though. TEACH your dog what it is you want, in a kind and loving way - just like your toddler and his toothbrush.

Yes, it will take a little time and patience - there’ll be misunderstandings and mistakes, like the toothpaste all over the floor and the pyjamas - but you’ll get there, together. Accompany your teaching with plentiful little tasty treats and you’ll quickly have your dog’s attention and willingness.

Once you’ve taught your dog what it is you like, there is never again any need to tell him off!

No “Noooooooos,” No “Ah-ahs”. Just “Would you like to walk here beside me?” and from him, “Sure, specially if there’s a piece of hot dog going begging . . .”

I don’t say NO to my own dogs

Don’t believe me? Well, you’re just going to have to suspend your disbelief, and hear me when I say that I don’t say NO to my dogs. I don’t say Ah-ah. I don’t try to guilt them into working for me.

I may say, “Really?” or “Where do you think you should be?”

I’m sad when a puppy-owner proudly says to me, “She knows the meaning of NO.”

“That’s a shame,” I may answer, “My dogs don’t know the meaning of NO because I don’t say it.”

And for a moment - let’s just look at what your dog does understand as “the meaning of NO”.

• It will mean that her owner has suddenly (and unaccountably) got cross with her.

• They’re shouting, possibly even manhandling her.

• And your puppy has NO IDEA what has happened to cause this.

As a result, the puppy may stop whatever he was doing, slink away, flatten himself to the floor, perhaps come to lick you to appease you . . .

But he does not understand what you think he understands when you say NO.

So you may now banish “No” from your interactions with your dog. Treat your companion as you would your family or friends. Life becomes instantly less stressful, and you’ll actually get the control you want!

We don’t need to control our dogs

We need to teach our dogs to control themselves! 

Dog or Puppy problems? Get your free 8-lesson email course and solve them all painlessly!

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I’m right, so my dog is wrong

“I want x. My dog wants y. Therefore my dog is wrong.”

Stubborn, headstrong, wilful, disobedient, difficult, challenging, pain in the ****, you name it - the dog gets called it.

And it all adds up to WRONG.

But hang on a minute! Who made these rules? That if you want x, x is therefore right, and your dog should comply.

Just because you want something, does this make it the right thing to do? Does it make you right?

Look at it from your dog’s point of view

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You may be asking him to do something that seems straightforward to you. But your dog is not doing it. Why?

• Maybe he didn’t hear you

• Maybe he heard you but didn’t understand

• Maybe you haven’t yet taught him

• Maybe he’d love to do it but is unable to do so at the moment

• Maybe he doesn’t think it’s worth doing

What we need to do is look at your dog and run through these questions to find out why he’s not obliging. Only then can we see a way forward to change.

Let’s take a look

The first three reasons are fairly self-explanatory. And in no case is your dog wrong.

The last two bear closer scrutiny.

“He’d love to do it but is unable to do so at the moment.”

He’d love to sit when you ask, but there’s someone at the door who has to be seen off, or greeted ecstatically (depending on your dog). What you have here is a lack of training round what you want your dog to do at the door. It’s not about not-sitting! This links back to the third reason - you haven’t taught him yet.

He’d love to do what you ask, but there’s a dog over there staring at him. This is either terrifying him or exciting him (depending on your dog) and he cannot possibly focus on what you’re saying. Teaching him how to manage other dogs in the vicinity will give him a “recipe” to follow. Back to the third reason again!

He’d love to sit when you ask, but he’s a sighthound with an almost bare bottom, and the ground is cold and muddy. The best you’ll get is a bit of shuffling and a grudging stoop. Why spoil your nice snappy sit for the sake of being right?

“Maybe he doesn’t think it’s worth doing”

And here we get to the nitty-gritty.

If someone asks you to do something, you need to have a reason to want to do it.

• Maybe it’s your work and you get paid to do it

• Maybe it’s someone you love who you want to help

• Maybe it’s going to benefit you too

You need a reason!

And so does your dog.

If you expect blind obedience with nothing in it for your dog, the response you want is going to be given more and more grudgingly, less and less accurately, with less enthusiasm, less willingness, less FUN!

There will be endless conflict, endless battles of will, endless frustration.

Why not discard notions of right and wrong, and look instead at building a strong and loving relationship with your dog?

A relationship which has you understanding his needs and desires better, and has him happy to fit in with your reasonable requests, which he understands, has learnt, and is able to do - with pleasure?

As Viktor Frankl, a man who refused to be broken, said,

Between stimulus and response there’s a space. In that space lies our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.

Dogs don’t arrive with us with all the operating software installed. We get Dog 1.0. It’s up to us to do all the teaching and shaping to get the companion we want, and perhaps the companion we visualised when we first decided to invite a dog into our home.

It’s all about learning! We learn, and our dog learns. We’re not keeping score! It’s not Owner 10, Dog nil.

When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change. Wayne Dyer

A happy partnership will change your expectations (which will be totally unreasonable if you’ve been watching those ghastly tv programs about dogs being wrong). It will give you a far better way to interact with your chosen pet. It will end those senseless battles of will and frustration.

And it will make life so much easier!

Start out with our free e-course here:

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And let me know how you get on!

If only I could find people who understood

The loneliness of the Growly Dog owner

It can be a lonely road, owning a Growly Dog.

That is, a dog who is anxious, reactive, or aggressive. A dog you’re never quite sure of. One minute he seems fine, and the next minute he’s on his hind legs shrieking blue murder at another dog … or a child on a scooter … or a plastic sack that shouldn’t be there.

For help with your reactive, anxious, aggressive, “growly” dog, get our free email course here.

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It can be exhausting, coping with these outbursts, and perhaps wondering why, when you know what a lovely dog he is at home.

If only the people who are staring at you now, causing you to feel embarrassed and useless while your dog makes a holy show of you, could see what a charmer your dog really is, what a lovely companion at home, how well he plays with the children.

But you can find people who understand!

You’ve found one right here, in me! For I have travelled this road too, and I’ve run through all the same emotions as you do - on a daily basis.

Life with my Growly Dog Lacy has been an adventure, a huge learning curve, and a joy. I’ve seen my reactive dog who would leap out threatening to grab passers-by, who would terrorise other dogs in the park, who would bark as if the world were ending at a knock at the door, turn into a reliable companion, a co-conspirator who travels through life with me, with such a deep understanding of how best to respond to the things that used to send her into a tailspin.

And now I’ve arrived at this happy state with my tricky dog, I want to help you with your tricky dog!

You may have seen already the large number of articles for Growly Dogs here on this site. There are also the Growly Dog Books, a free email course, aaaaaaand …. a major help for you, the Growly Dog owner, in From Growly Dog to Confident Dog, an extensive, far-reaching, program to take you from your present state of hiding behind bushes and dreading walks, to the confidence you will have when you understand just how your Growly Dog ticks, why he does what he does, and - most importantly! - how you can help him adjust to our strange world and enjoy life with you.

What you may not realise is that once you join From Growly Dog to Confident Dog you are automatically part of an active forum of your fellow-students, who report their successes, their not-so-successes, and their queries. And you also get continual coaching from me there.

This alone is a terrific help to people in their daily challenges “at the walkface”. To know that you have backup, cheerleaders, and the understanding that only another owner of a Growly Dog can really have.

For it is so, that no-one who has not had a reactive, anxious, worrypot of a dog, can truly understand and relate to those of us who are blessed with such a creature.

It’s what makes possible the changes that you’ll learn in the program. To learn how others are managing, and to know that you are amongst friends - that’s what sets this apart.

Maybe you’ve just found your home?

For help with your reactive, anxious, aggressive, “growly” dog, get our free email course here.

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