One Thing I Wish All Dog Owners Knew

As a professional dog trainer, there’s a lot of information I’m eager to share with dog owners. From the benefits of feeding out of toys to the risks of the dog park, there’s much they could know, implement and benefit from.

It’d be tough for me to pick a single most important thing, but if I had to, it’d be body language. I wish all dog owners knew how to accurately read dog body language.

Safety

Rarely, rarely, rarely do dogs growl or bite “out of the blue.” They usually say a lot before that moment, but we miss it because it’s not our native language.

If Mom is body language savvy, she’s equipped to notice Fido’s discomfort when Baby Jane toddles over and do something about it then—before it escalates.

Quality of Life

Can you imagine spending your whole life with roommates who are oblivious to most of what you’re saying??? Your polite requests are not only denied, they aren’t even acknowledged in the first place. And ramping it up to something they actually notice just makes them upset at you. Can you imagine the roommates persistently calling you “high-energy” when you actually feel anxious? They take you out to walk the neighborhood multiples times a day, but that just makes you feel worse.

Owners who can accurately look through their dog’s body language to the underlying emotions are in a better position to take the action their dog actually needs. And to take it sooner rather than later.

Training Choices

Training should be fun for the dog and the human! Once I know what distress looks like, I can’t not see it in any context. And once I’ve seen it in response to a training choices, training is no longer fun. The tongue flick, pinned ears and side-eye I see after a collar correction restrain me from implementing that training technique.

My hope is that body-language savvy owner see the distress that punishment-based techniques cause their dog, and make a different training choice that reduces their dog’s distress.