Helping Owner understand Dog Behaviour

HI Nancy - Kaela is lucky to have you give her a new home and for her to be in a home who follow Cesar's Way is great news! Along with Cesar, Kaela will help you learn so much about achieving balance and what a wonderful relationship human/canine is. One good thing about not having had experience of owning dogs before is that you won't have picked up any bad habits!!

When dogs pass by other dogs, or indeed are confronted with any context out on a walk, it is up to the Pack Leader to choose the dog's option of reaction. Remember dogs only have 4 choices - their mind works by choosing fight/flight/avoid/submit, as Pack Leader you never choose fight that leaves 3! Lets use passing by another dog as the context - So be very decisive and either "avoid" - teach your dog to ignore the other dog and allow physical space for this keeping your dog's attention focused on you, "flight" - move away from the other dog e.g. turn and go in a different direction, "submit" - have your dog relaxed and calm preferably either in a low phsyical position e.g. sit or down when the other dog passes by or keep walking, moving forwards confidently leading Kaela this moves the mind on from acting-out/protesting. As the pack bond builds, she will learn to trust and follow your choice of response, ignoring distractions.

Sometimes other dogs who have unstable energy prompt a reaction from my dog, for example in your situation faced with an approaching aggressive dog may mean your dog responds with a growl, to a playful dog they may want to join in etc. This is a dog making its own choices of response - you need to correct this and choose another response - the one you want, I teach all my dogs to "avoid" - ignore everything! In order for a sound "pshht" correction, touch correction or leash pop correction to work it must be done as soon as a dog changes from alert energy to fixed energy (begins a stare/focus on the other dog), or indeed from the migration energy to alert - a follower follows - a leader is alert! The correction needs to be done early before the acting-out gets too intense otherwise it may not work as the dog is totally focused on what she is doing. These corrections need to match the dog's intensity - not to low or too high and never with frustrated human energy - always calm assertive: I find I say to myself "I am your Pack Leader, I protect you so I am dealing with this"! With an over-excited energy dog I tend to stop and "wait out" the acting-out (This is No Touch No Talk just pure calm assertive energy), once the dog is again calm submissive then I "reward" with carrying on with the walk.

Nancy - I hope this helps you to understand - feel free if you need more to ask more after I have posted the next part for you on how to help your dog to balance with you, either here via comments again or personally via my email suzie.crystal@yahoo.com