Have you ever seen a dog with “raised-hackles”? I bet you have. The technical term is piloerection and it means just that – the hair standing up. What you probably don’t know is that piloerection is NOT aggression, as many folks believe. It is actually arousal. The best way for me to describe arousal is…
Our dogs do not shake our hand or hug us when they want to say hi. Instead, they jump on us because they want to access our faces and mouths. This goes way back to their wolf past. Wolves regurgitate food to give to their pups so pups learn to lick their parent’s mouth to…
I was called to a case where a large dog weighing 50lbs had killed a smaller dog weighing only 10 lbs. The details of what happened were somewhat sketchy since my client was not there to witness the event. As best I could, I gathered information from third parties to try and understand what happened….
At some point or another, we all want to know why our dog is doing this or that behavior. Perhaps we are just curious and want to know. However, most of the time we want to know because we would rather our dog stop doing the behavior in question. Under these circumstances, the “why” question…
For some unknown reason Deuce’s guarding of certain objects, such as his precious ball, has gone up in frequency. I noticed just the other night that he began to vocalize in his typical high-pitched tone when he was lying on the couch next to me as Rio was cruising by. For the most part, when…
One of the most difficult cases to resolve in my experience are cases that involved at home dog / dog conflicts. The motivation(s) behind the conflicts or fights can at times be difficult to parcel out. In addition, these kinds of situations require constant and competent supervision by those living with the dogs. One (still)…
The dogs and I are playing our usual soccer game in the morning. I see Rio turn towards Deuce, as they both are trying to get to the orange ball, and she playfully grabs his tail in her mouth and gives it a tug. Deuce’s focus is on the ball and potentially landing so he’s…
Dogs are incredibly social beings that thrive as companion animals. Isolation, for this reason, is very hard on most dogs and as such a welfare issue for the dog. Isolation is hard on dogs at all stages but is extremely difficult on young puppies. We can for sure make the lives of “outside dogs” more…
Rio and Deuce have finished eating dinner and as we do every night, I proceed to the laundry room just after having said out loud: “Does anyone here want a bone?” Immediately I hear hurried paw steps towards the laundry room in anticipation of “dessert”. I have been trained well by these two and I…
I am reading a trade journal where I am learning about Brambell’s Five Freedoms, a program that originated in Great Britain to assess the welfare of livestock raised in factory farms. Later, the British government established the Farm Animal Welfare Council to define the “freedoms”. The freedoms addressed are: Wow! Imagine if we actually treated…