Lakeshore Dog Diaries

Building Confidence in Your Dog

Firstly understand that this won’t happen overnight. Be patient. Little and often is the key to slowly building up your dogs confidence.

To begin with start obedience training. It’s the first step in helping to socialise your dog as it will help them to feel comfortable in their body. The better they become at understanding and obeying commands the stronger their confidence will grow. You will praise them when they get something right and that too will develop their feeling of self worth. Physically doing jumps, tricks and runs, will give them a positive sense of their own body as well as strengthen them and keeping them fit. All of this is helpful in building up their self esteem. Teaching them to weave, play fetch and other tricks are fun for both of you as well as exercise and technique learning for your pet. Do not baby them when they are learning. If they need to be corrected because they got something wrong, do it. They will feel confident if they know their boundaries.

Dog socialisation means that your dog is taught (hopefully from a young age) how to feel comfortable with themselves around humans, other dogs and different environments regardless of their breeds and characters. Mixing them in as many different circles of people and pets is the best start. After the age of 4 months, if you have socialised your puppy correctly he should be very confident in new surroundings and company. If you haven’t done this from a young age or you’ve taken on an older dog, then the above obedience training will be a step in the right direction.

Take your dog to the park where you can both sit and watch other owners and dogs. Believe me it will help your dog to get used to being around others without having to interact at this stage. You need to do this as regularly as possible.

You could be unwittingly encouraging your dogs fear by your own behaviour.

Next time you’re walking your dog pay attention to how you react when another dog approaches. Do you immediately tighten the lead or guide your dog away from interacting? Do you talk to him and pat him as they draw closer? You may think this is a good way of reassuring him but your dog will pick up very quickly on your reactions and take being cautious as the normal thing to do when they see a new dog. Keeping quiet and calmly walking ahead without quickening your pace will not alert your dog to any problems. When your dog is scared the first thing you want to do is pet him to reassure him. Don’t, he will think you are encouraging his nervous behaviour as the correct way to feel.

Fear aggression is a state you do not want your dog getting to. This is very hard to correct. It is exactly as it sounds, aggressive behaviour produced as a result of fear. Basically a dog will attack or become aggressive first so that the other dog doesn’t. If you find yours has gone too far down this road then you really should invest in a dog behavioural expert. No amount of obedience training will change the underlying problems. I say “problems” because it is quite a complex issue. Fear, a lack of early socialisation, abuse and possible genetic conditions could all be contributing to this problem.

It may be that you never fully train your dog to change this problem as it is so deeply embedded, but with a behavioural expert and plenty of patience you can definitely help to alleviate it.

Be Worthy

“He is your friend, your partner, your defender, your dog. You are his life, his love, his leader. He will be yours, faithful and true, to the last beat of his heart. You owe it to him to be worthy of such devotion.”

~ Author Unknown

A Journey of Love and More

When you bring a pet into your life, you begin a journey - a journey that will bring you more love and devotion than you have ever known, yet also test your strength and courage. If you allow, the journey will teach you many things, about life, about yourself, and most of all, about love. You will come away changed forever, for one soul cannot touch another without leaving its mark. Along the way, you will learn much about savoring life’s simple pleasures - jumping leaves, snoozing in the sun, the joys of puddles, and even a satisfying scratch behind the ears. Your house will become muddier and hairier. You will wear less dark clothing and buy more lint rollers. You may find dog biscuits in your pocket or purse, and feel the need to explain that an old plastic shopping bag adorns your living room rug because your cat loves the crinkly sound. You will learn the true measure of love - the steadfast, undying kind that says, ”It doesn’t matter where we are or what we do, or how life treats us as long as we are together.” Respect this always. It is the most precious gift any living soul can give another. You will not find it often among the human race. And you will learn humility. The look in my dog’s eyes often made me feel ashamed. Such joy and love at my presence. She saw not some flawed human who could be cross and stubborn, moody or rude, but only her wonderful companion. Or, maybe she saw those things and dismissed them as mere human foibles, not worth considering, and so chose to love me anyway. If you pay attention and learn well, after the journey, you will be not just a better person, but the person your pet always knew you were - the one they were proud to call beloved friend. I must caution you that this journey is not without pain. Like all paths of true love, the pain is part of loving. For as surely as the sun sets, one day your dear animal companion will follow a trail you cannot yet go down. And you will have to find the strength and love to let them go. A pet’s time on earth is far too short - especially for those that love them. We borrow them, really, just for a while, and during these brief years they are generous enough to give us all their love, every inch of their spirit and heart, until one day there is nothing left. The cat that only yesterday was a kitten is all too soon old and frail and sleeping in the sun. The young pup of boundless energy wakes up stiff and lame, the muzzle now gray. Deep down we somehow always knew that this journey would end. We knew that if we gave our hearts they would be broken. But give them we must for it is all they ask in return. When the time comes, and the road curves ahead to a place we cannot see, we give one last gift and let them run on ahead - young and whole once more. ”Godspeed, good friend,” we say, until our journey comes full circle and our paths cross again.

predictablecitylife:

MIKE POSNER | 7 month old pit mix | URGENT | ADOPTABLE

Awesome name for an awesome pup! He’s on the TBD list at the Brooklyn AC&C though, so act fast and at least share him if you can’t adopt.

dogjournal:

There is currently a bill, HB 14, pending before the State of Ohio legislature. The bill seeks to repeal Ohio’s practice of breed-specific discrimination (basically any pit bull type dog is considered to be vicious). This video is a PSA in support of HB 14 by actress Maggie Q. Please reblog and share if you support abolishing breed-specific legislation.

tiny-vessels:

nighttimeskin:

came across this on facebook. these dickheads are called ‘black rose ink tattoos’ and are apparently ‘tattooists and artists’. the house they tattoo in is filthy and as you can see in this photo, the rubbish bin right next to this guys leg is overflowing. click through to the facebook page to see some more horrendous ‘artworks’.

People like this need to get fucked up.

lakeshoredogdiaries: Went to the page. That is some of the worst work I have seen in a long time! Looks like they copied stuff from a coloring book.

idratherbewiththedogs:

I had Mel out over the weekend and an awesome girl stopped to take some pictures of him. My handsome boy, always so photogenic :)

(Mel is adoptable!)

idratherbewiththedogs:

This is Adele. She was found this morning (11/22/11) wandering the streets of Warren. She is on her way to the vet now, I’ll post more info when I have it.

Please help this girl out if you can!

(via the-pit-bull-support)