Behind the Behavior

Christine Hibbard, CTC, CPDT

In the past two months, I’ve received calls and or emails from two different shelters asking me for advice on training a dog who is both blind and deaf. There are terrific web sites for training blind dogs and for training deaf dogs, but I’m not aware of a web site devoted to training a dog who is both. I thought that publishing some ideas here (ideas I have gathered from many other sources) would not only help other rescue workers, but I’m hoping that it will generate a dialog on how to best train these dogs who not only have the misfortune to find themselves deaf and blind, but homeless as well. Let me be clear, I’m not stating a position on whether these dogs should take up precious rescue resources when plenty of “able bodied” dogs are euthanized every year. That’s a debate for another time. The reality is that some rescues will take these dogs, do their best, and try to place them (or not). So, how do we train these dogs? (more…)

Christine Hibbard, CTC, CPDT

You’re out on a relaxing walk with your dog when you see another owner walking towards you with their dog. The owner says to you, “can our dogs say hello”? How do you decide whether allowing your dog to greet a strange dog on leash is a good idea? After all, some of these greetings go beautifully with both dogs and owners parting company with a smile. Other greetings with dogs on leash go horribly wrong with both dogs and owners leaving the scene upset with pulses racing. What went wrong? (more…)

Christine Hibbard, CTC, CPDT

One of the most commons calls we get at Companion Animal Solutions is from an owner whose dog barks, growls, and lunges at other dogs when on leash. Often, the owner is baffled because their dog loves playing with other dogs at the dog park or dog daycare. There are several reasons why dogs act so differently on leash than they do off leash. I thought it might be helpful to explore some of the more common reasons.

Dogs are highly social animals and when a dog sees another dog, they’re biologically programmed to head on over and investigate with a quick butt sniff. If a dog is on leash, their intense biological drive to investigate the other dog is being thwarted. This reaction is called barrier frustration. Even the most dog friendly dogs in the world are prone to barrier frustration around other dogs. In fact, the most difficult dogs to stay calm around for many dogs are other friendly dogs. (more…)

Christine Hibbard, CTC, CPDT

Not to put too fine a point on it, but dogs bite because they’re dogs. It’s what dogs are biologically programmed to do. Every dog has the potential to bite, no matter how well socialized or friendly. I thought it might be useful to explore the different reasons why a dog might bite.

Fear Aggression: Humans never cease to amaze me in how they approach unfamiliar dogs. In my work with the clients of fear aggressive dogs, one of the topics we have to discuss is how to keep strangers from approaching their socially fearful dog. Most people assume that a dog wants to meet them. Nothing could be further from the truth with some dogs. If a dog wants to meet you, believe me, that dog will approach you. (more…)

Christine Hibbard, CTC, CPDT

The Association of Pet Dog Trainers has declared January to be National Train Your Dog Month.  Too often, owners relinquish their dogs to shelters because an untrained puppy is no big deal, but an untrained dog begins exhibiting behavior problems if the unwanted behavior is allowed to continue. How many phone calls have I received from owners complaining that their dog is attacking people at the front door or won’t come when called resulting in the dog getting into all kinds of trouble? When I ask these owners if they’ve taught their dogs what to do instead, I often hear a description of punishment for bad behavior instead of a description of how their own dog training efforts failed. (more…)

Christine Hibbard, CTC, CPDT

I see many, many new dog behavior cases each year and I love my work, but sometimes, I need to branch out and learn about the behavior of other companion animals. My partner in Animal Behavior at Companion Animal Solutions is Jim Ha, PhD, CAAB. Jim sees all of the cat and parrot cases that we take. I’ve been privileged to learn about animal and bird behavior by riding along with him on his private behavior consultations with our clients. The ride along opportunities that I enjoy the most are the parrot cases. I love cats, don’t get me wrong, but the parrot cases fascinate me. When I first embarked on my parrot behavior and training research, I was disappointed at how difficult it was to find quality information about parrot behavior and training. The internet is rife with dog training information (some of it excellent and some of it awful and downright harmful), but information about parrot behavior is harder to come by. After some time consuming research, I began to compile a list of resources that include the most respected researchers, veterinarians, applied animal behaviorists, and trainers. I wanted to share what I’ve learned with our readers interested in parrot behavior and training. (more…)

Christine Hibbard, CTC, CPDT

The city council of Bothell, Washington is considering enacting breed specific legislation that would ban residents from owning certain breeds of dogs. All of us at Companion Animal Solutions believe that Breed Specific Legislation is the wrong approach to making our neighborhoods and ourselves safe from vicious dogs. We believe that well written, well enforced dangerous dog legislation betters serves us all by protecting us from dangerous dogs and irresponsible owners without making criminals or victims out of safe dogs and responsible owners. Andrea Kilkenny recently wrote an article for us titled Fun Activities For You and Your Dog and Andrea has participated in them all… with her bully breed dogs. I’m please to present here the letter that Andrea sent to all members of Bothell’s City Council.

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Guest Blogger: Andrea Kilkenny and the tireless Mojo

I live with Mojo. Mojo will be 9 soon, and shows no sign of slowing down. I have to say, he’s better than when he was oh say, 2, but at almost 9, if it weren’t for his graying face, you would not know he is a senior dog. I love my Mojo, but I also realize that many people would find him extremely frustrating, and I often wonder had I not adopted him, if he would have stayed in one home or been shuffled around from one exasperated owner to the next, or been returned to the shelter. Coupled with his energy level are some other factors that make him a challenging dog: high intelligence and strong determination. Put that in a sporty, lean, muscular high energy package, and you could have a recipe for disaster.

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Christine Hibbard, CTC, CPDT

The writing has been on the wall for years. First came the September 2007 citizens committee report calling shelter conditions in King County “deplorable”. If you’ve followed the KCACC oversight committee education work being done at kcaccexposed.org, you know that the staff that works at Animal Care and Control and at the shelters are doing everything they can within a broken system. Many critics of the way KCACC has been run claim that the $1 million dollar one time allocation to fix the system wasn’t enough because of tragically bad management and failed oversight at KCACC. Now I’m reading the announcement on the Metropolitan King County Council web site dated September 24, 2009 that is titled Council member commends Executive for implementing their call to get King County out of the shelter business. What does this mean exactly? Well, as with all governmental issues, it means several things. (click on the image above to see video of the KOMO Problem Solvers’ story on this issue).

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Christine Hibbard, CTC, CPDT

If you’ve read some of my other posts here, you know I’ve mentioned my Australian Shepherd named Conner. He is quite the remarkable dog; lots of natural herding instinct, loves kids and men, and a born dog/dog communicator who helps me diagnose and treat dog/dog aggression cases. Conner has one problem though, noise phobia. This time of year sends him into fits of barking, stress panting, and pacing. We’re lucky in one way though, his symptoms are mild to moderate. Our clients report that some of their dogs hide (in bathtubs, closets, under the bed), shake and drool. This phobia is difficult to treat because it’s difficult or impossible to control the stimuli: thunder, fireworks, gunshots, cars backfiring, etc. Thunderstorms are even more difficult to deal with because thunderstorms are more than one stimulus: change in barometric pressure, metallic smell, wind, rain. (more…)