Don't be this dog owner

 I recently watched an episode of Cesar Milan's new show.  The woman featured clearly cared deeply for her dogs but she stubbornly refused to believe that it was anything she was doing that created the behavioral problems in her dogs.  In fact she was incredibly defensive and combative about it.  

Unfortunately the vast majority of our dogs' issues are directly caused by the mistakes that we humans make.  Not on purpose of course, but nevertheless we are the problem.

One such mistake that I see frequently happened just yesterday.  I was walking my dogs down a path and in the distance I saw a woman walking an Australian Shepherd. As soon as that dog spotted us, he went into hyper-alert mode.  He ran to the end of his leash and started hopping around and barking.

" It's okay, calm down, stop..." the woman told her dog as we got closer.  She then reeled the dog in and pulled him off the path.  She then crouched down to his level - he was completely ignoring her - and tried to hold on to him as he lunged and barked hysterically.

As we were going by she continued to stroke him and tell him that everything was fine as I tried to keep my head from exploding.

Dogs take our petting them and talking sweetly to them to mean that we are happy with their behavior. So essentially in dog speak what she was telling her dog is "I am super happy that you are barking and lunging at these other dogs.  I want you to keep doing it!"  Of course this was not that woman intended - at least I hope not - but she was absolutely reinforcing that behavior guaranteeing it will continue. 

We have to provide clear leadership to our dogs and reinforce appropriate behavior - not undersireable things they do.

So many people act like they can't provide structure or discipline to our dogs because we want them to love us.  But those are not mutually exclusive.  Dogs want and need clear leadership and boundaries.  They crave that.

So it is up to all of us to think about this whenever we are evaluating how a dog is acting.  What message are we giving?  Reinforce behaviors you want in your dog and never reward them for something they are doing that is unacceptable!