#93 PET TALK TODAY Dog Training with Will Bangura. Dog Training, Dog Trainer, Dog Behaviorist. Cat Trainer, Cat Training, Pet Trainer, Pet Training, Will Bangura

PET TALK TODAY #93  Dog Training with Will Bangura. Questions and Answers, Dog Training, Dog Trainer, Dog Behaviorist. Cat Trainer, Cat Training, Pet Trainer, Pet Training, Will Bangura

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Raised by Wolfs with canine DNA in his blood, having trained more than 24,000 pets helping you and your fur babies thrive. Live in studio. It's Pet Talk today with Will Bangura answering your pet behavior and training questions. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome your host and favorite pet behavior expert, will Manura .

Speaker 2 0:35

Good Saturday morning, pet lovers. I'm Will Bandura . Hey, thanks for joining me for another episode of Pet Talk today here on Facebook Live. Also, you might be joining us on the Pet Talk Today audio podcast. Hey, if you love our audio podcast and you're listening to our podcast, please give us a five star review. Um, if you're watching on Facebook Live, do me a favor, hit that like button. Go ahead and hit that share button, show us some love, and then also in the comment section, let us know where you're watching from and what kind of pets that you have. If you're brand new to PET Talk today, let me talk a little bit about what we do here. I'm a certified behavior consultant and certified professional dog trainer. I work with some of the most difficult, some of the most severe dog behavior issues like extreme separation anxiety, extreme fears, phobias, anxiety, extreme aggression , uh, extremely difficult, potty training issues, everything, you name it. Um, nuisance behaviors, jumping, barking, chewing, pulling on the leash. Um, this is my opportunity to be able to give back to the community. It's my labor of love. Not everybody can afford professional in-home dog training. Not everybody can afford , um, a Certified Behavior Consultant. Um, if you do, if you are looking for some help, you can always go to my website@dogbehaviorist.com. That's dog behaviorist.com. Also, we are going to be looking at some of the questions that were posed from last week. I'm looking at them right now, and we did not get to those questions. And so I'm gonna want to take a look at last week's questions and , um, talk about those. Um, however we need to talk about our sponsor. That's right. Pet Talk today is sponsored by Calm Dogs. Calm Dogs is the number one best anti-anxiety calming aid for dogs. And it just, it doesn't help dogs just that are anxious or dogs that are just fearful. This also helps dogs that have separation anxiety. This helps dogs that are reactive, that are aggressive, and you can learn more about it. You can either scan the code that you see on your screen or you can go to calm dogs.com . The beautiful thing, it comes with a 100% money back guarantee. So you've got everything to gain. If you've got a dog that might need this and absolutely nothing to lose, there's no risk. Um, I guarantee you guys, this is the best thing out on the market. Definitely the best thing out on the market. Looks like we lost our feed there. Let me get back to you guys. Um, so check it out. Check calm dogs.com and , um, if you do get it, if you do use calm dogs.com , you get to have a free behavior consultation with myself. So when you do that, send an email and let us know about that as well. Okay, so I wanna get into some of the questions from last week that I wasn't able to , um, address. Um, so let's see here. So we've got , um, Renee from Los Angeles. She's got a two year old York Yorky terrier with anxiety. Uh, when I've taken him to day camp , uh, for daycare while I go to work, I'm told he doesn't play with the other dogs and keeps to himself or near , uh, the human. What , uh, what can I do , uh, to help? Well, one of the things you can do is you can check out the calm dogs. Um, when you've got a dog that has that kind of anxiety, they're typically gonna need something to boost their serotonin. Um, I developed calm dogs myself. It took me five years to develop this because there was nothing out there that was really working. Every, every supplement made great claims, but when we used it, it did little to nothing. So I spent five years researching with my background in neurochemistry and psycho-pharmacology to find out exactly, Hey, what does the science say? What does the research say? What natural ingredients actually have been proven by science and research to help dogs with their anxiety, to help dogs with their reactivity, to help dogs with their aggression. Now, this is a very special type of supplement. Um, it doesn't sedate, so it shouldn't sedate your dog. I don't want you to think your dog's gonna be a zombie. It won't. But the Calm Dogs supplement is something like a prescription medication. Matter of fact, it's the strongest, strongest supplement that you can get without a prescription. Some dogs are gonna be helped immediately within an hour. We've seen about 70% of dogs get immediate benefit from calm dogs. However, 98% of dogs got benefit from calm dogs after taking it for six weeks. So you've gotta take it for a while. Some of you aren't gonna see full therapeutic effect until you've taken it for six weeks. So, hey, we say take it for six weeks. If it doesn't help your dog, then we'll refund your money. Now, the other thing that you know, it always works best when you're doing behavior modification along with having some kind of supplement that can help you. You know, no pill, I don't care if it's a prescription medication. I don't care if it's a supplement. No pill is going to fix any dog or any behavior. 100%. Um, but when, right now, okay, Renee , your dog is telling you, your dog is telling you that it's scared to death to , um, be at daycare, that it, it doesn't want to play. And you've got a very shy, very timid dog. And one of the things that you're gonna need to do is make sure that you're avoiding situations right now that are scaring your dog, because that's not making anything better and he's not gonna grow out of it. Work has to be done. The calm dog supplement can certainly help. But in addition to that, you need to begin to, in a very controlled way, not by sending your dog into doggie daycare, but presenting people and presenting strange dogs, strange people to your dog, but at a far distance, at a far enough distance where your dog can see the strange dogs, can see the strange people, but doesn't have a care in the world. And at that distance, you need to now use positive reinforcement so that you're pairing the trigger, which is the strange dog or the strange person with very high value food rewards. So here comes the person, feed, feed, feed, feed, feed constantly and continuously the whole time that that person or that strange dog or strange person is there. When that strange dog or person leaves stop feeding, when that strange dog and person comes back, start feeding constantly and continuously high value food rewards for about one to three seconds. And then that strange dog or that strange person is going to leave and you stop feeding, you're gonna do that for about five to 10 minutes. And you need to do this about three to five times a week. And it's gotta be very controlled. You know, maybe , um, down the street, your dog can see another dog far down the street than a person. And , and it's okay , well, it the starting point. Your dog can't have a care in the world. If your dog's already nervous, you're too close too soon. This is about gradual and systematic desensitization. Little by little, by little, by little by little over time, usually months, we're gonna get your dog closer to strange people and strange dogs, because your dog wants distance. It's, it's afraid. You've gotta teach your dog at a distance that your dog is loose and calm. Hey, strange dogs, strange people. They bring good stuff. In this case, yummy, high value food rewards. And you're making a very clear black and white cause and effect association. Sometimes maybe your dog goes to that location, and this is important. You do this as part of the training, and there's no strange dog. There's no strange person and there's no feeding. And then you get that presentation again, no strange dog, no strange person, no feeding. But then we present again, well, here's the strange dog, or here's the strange person. Now we're gonna feed, feed, feed, feed constantly and continuously for about one to three seconds, extremely high value food rewards. Then the trigger goes outta sight . So the sequence is trigger comes into sight. That's the strange person. Or dog feeding happens because that trigger comes into sight. The trigger goes outta sight and feeding stops in the dog's mind. If we're doing this over and over and we're doing it right and our timing is good, the dog's gonna begin to associate really positive things with strange people or strange dogs. The mistake that many of you are making, you might be bringing food with you on a walk. You encounter a strange person or a dog, your dog's upset to whatever degree, and you start feeding your dog and thinking that that's gonna help. And it's not gonna help. If it does help, it's gonna take forever. Not that this is quick work , even when it's done the right way, but there are some little nuances to counter conditioning and desensitization, which is the gold standard in behavior modification for helping any dog that is reactive, aggressive, fearful, phobic, has anxiety. If you're not intimately familiar with how to apply behavior modification of this type, counter conditioning and desensitization, do me a favor, go to the Pet Talk Today podcast, the audio podcast. Do a Google search. Look for episode 81. Episode 81 is an hour and 35 minutes of very, very detailed instructions on how exactly you help dogs with fears, phobias, anxiety, separation anxiety, reactivity, aggression through the use of counter conditioning and desensitization. And in episode 81 of the audio podcast for Pet Talk today, we go through that in detail. So go ahead find that, listen to that, and that should help guide you to do what you need to do. Um, everything will go faster. Um, if your dog has a lot of fears, if your dog has a lot of anxiety, if your dog's very reactive or your dog's very aggressive, sometimes behavior modification alone is not gonna be enough. And that's when we look to medications, that's when we look to supplements. Um, not that they're a substitute for training and behavior modification, but we know that dogs that have anxiety, we know that dogs that are aggressive or reactive, we know that fearful dogs have abnormally low levels of serotonin, but not everybody wants to put their dog on Prozac. Not everybody needs to put their dog on Prozac, and not everybody wants a dog. That might be a zombie. The beautiful thing about calm dogs is that it's made with natural ingredients. And by the way, there's 21 natural herbs, amino acids , um, vitamins in there, and it's 80 times, it has 80 times more ingredients than the next best thing that's out there. And it's five times stronger. So check out Calm dogs@calmdogs.com. It comes with a money back guarantee. But go ahead and give that a shot, Renee . Let me look at some other questions here. Um, Debbie from last week , um, Debbie asked, do you do home training or phone calls? Debbie, if you're listening, you can go to my website@dogbehaviorist.com. Um, I do virtual behavior consultations all throughout the world. Um, contrary to public opinion and belief. Um, a behaviorist doesn't need to be there with you to see your dog most of the time. We're working with extremely fearful dogs and we wouldn't be able to get close in the beginning. Most of the time we're working with extremely aggressive dogs. We wouldn't be able to get close in the beginning. And really it's about teaching and training you. And it would be only after we could coach you to get the dog more comfortable with people that a trainer could be face-to-face with your dog. But we have great success and I've got tons of testimonials of people with all kinds of severe behavior problems, and I've never met them other than through virtual video consultations, which works fantastic, also saves you a lot of money. Um, so Debbie, you can check me out@dogbehaviors.com and, and the rest of you, if you're looking for some really good articles on , um, aggression, fears, phobias, separation, anxiety, barking, jumping , uh, stealing food off the table, eating the dogs that eat their own poop, lots of articles. There's over 55 maybe 60 articles there. You can check it out@dogbehaviors.com. Uh, let's see, next question. And this one is from Thomasine . It says, I have a small poodle, she'll uur urinate outside, but I can't take her out. Oh, but won't poop outside. I've tried putting her poop outside. She'll smell around it, do nothing. Um, okay, one of the things you need to do, you know, I was just working with somebody that their dog wouldn't go to the bathroom in their yard. It would only go to the bathroom on a walk. Um, yet the dog was reactive to other dogs and people on walks and everybody that knows about how this works, you gotta avoid the triggers first and then set up meeting strange dogs and strange people at a distance so that you can have success. So you can see if you've got a dog that's reactive, how difficult that is , um, when it only goes to the bathroom outside. But what you're saying here is that reading it again, your dog will urinate outside, but your dog won't poop outside. So I'm, I'm wondering, is your dog pooping in the house all the time? So then we got two issues. One, we've gotta teach your dog to poop outside. Two, we gotta teach your dog pooping. Inside's not. Okay. So what I would do is I would take one or two fresh stool samples wherever the accident was, and I think you're already doing this. And I would put it outside in the area where you want your dog to go to the bathroom. And I would make sure I'm putting it in the areas where your dog urinates. We know that your dog's comfortable in that location. There might be other locations in your yard your dog's not comfortable with. So put the sample poo, the ones that you're collecting, probably accidents in the house. Put 'em outside, put 'em where your dog urinates. Okay ? Keep bringing your dog out there. Every hour, five minutes. If your dog goes to the bathroom, rewards your dog with high value food rewards. If not, bring the dog back in. Most dogs listen, if you're feeding on a schedule, if you're free feeding , stop freed on a schedule, feed on a schedule twice a day at the same time every day. We all have bile rhythms, okay? And if you feed at the same time every day , there's gonna be a pattern that's gonna happen. Your dog's gonna have to poop at a particular time. There's gonna be a window. Oh, maybe there's 15 minutes of that window. But there's a window that you are going to be able to predict, predict when your dog needs to go to the bathroom. So start a journal, write down what time your dog eats. If your dog wants to graze, put the food down for five minutes and pick it up. Don't let your dog graze. Put it back down. 12 hours later, five minutes, pick it up, start teaching your dog. Hey, you got five minutes to eat. Write down what time your dog eats. Get your dog outside very often to try to have a success. Make sure you've got food rewards, treats with you that you can reward your dog if it goes poop outside. But what should happen is you should start seeing a pattern. How long does it take after your dog eats, before your dog poops, whether it be an accident or whether it be in the right place. After a few days, you should see a pattern. You really should. Maybe it's 10 minutes after it eats, maybe it's an hour after it, it eats. And usually the first bowel movement of the day is the most urgent one that has to come out. So if we know what time your dog needs to have a bowel movement, or we know that window, we know kind of what part of that window is. Okay? We can predict when we need to get your dog outside. And that's really what we want to do. We wanna predict when your dog needs to go to the bathroom, get your dog out where you want it to go, give it five minutes to go. Let it sniff around the poop that you picked up that was probably in the house and you put it out there. But only give your dog five minutes. If your dog does not go poop, bring your dog back in the house. Put your dog in a crate, a crate. No larger than your dog can lay down comfortably. Don't put anything in the crate. The whole idea of crate training is to make it uncomfortable for a dog to go to the bathroom in the crate. So you bring the dog back in from outside when your dog would not eliminate. You've had the dog out there, five for five minutes, you know, based on predictability and keeping a log book , keeping a journal, feeding on a schedule. How long for the most part it takes before your dog has to poop and you take the dog outside. It doesn't happen. Bring the dog back in. Create the dog for 15 minutes, then take the dog right back outside for five. If your dog has success and poops out there, rain down a parade of treats, make a huge deal. If your dog doesn't bring the dog back in, put your dog back in the crate for 15 minutes, then take your dog back out for five. Let's see if your dog will go. Now, follow that procedure, follow that pattern. I guarantee you, your dog's gonna poop outside. The other thing is listen, when your dog is out and about in the house, you need to be supervising at all times because your dog's gonna poop in the house. If you can't watch your dog, you need to get your dog outside for five minutes so that you give it an opportunity to go. And then you need to crate your dog until you can keep your eye on your dog the number one rule. Yes, you are repotted trading from the start, the number one rule, supervise, have the dog in your eyesight on a leash with you. And when you can't do that, create your dog. Now to find out more detail about how to potty train the most difficult dog or puppy, and I mean the most difficult dog or puppy, I've got a full 45 minute audio podcast on how to potty train the most difficult dog. All you've gotta do is again, do a Google search or go to whatever podcasting platform you listen to your podcast on. Search for pet talk today. Look for episode 16 of season one, season one, episode 16. That's all about potty training, all about marking, all about helping the most difficult dogs be able to learn where it is that they need to be , um, where they need to be going to the bathroom in, in the correct place. Um, so let me go , uh, what I wanna do now, hey, listen, if you've got a question, cuz I, I went through some of the ones from last week that I didn't get to. If you've got a question about your dog's training, if you've got a question about your dog's behavior right now is the time. If you haven't already to type your question in the comment section. And I'm gonna try to get to as many of those as I can. Also, I'm gonna be taking phone calls and phone calls are gonna take priority and you're gonna get a lot more of my time. I'll be able to ask you questions and really help you with the problem. The number to call if you'd like to call in and have your questions answered by me is 4 1 4 4 0 0 3 6 4 7 . Again, 4 1 4 4 0 0 3 6 4 7 . Or if it's easier to remember, 4 1 4, 400 dogs . Again, the last four , uh, 3, 6, 4 7 . Let me go into the questions that you folks have for me today and see what we've got here. Karen, welcome. Glad you're here, Janice. Hi. Thank you for being here. I appreciate that as much as possible. All righty, let's take a peek here. Oh, one of the things that I wanted to do is talk an email that I got the other day. So I've got an email, let me find it here. And this is from Rob, and Rob is from Connecticut. And Rob has a dog that is being aggressive towards strangers when they come in the house. And it doesn't matter if it's a man, doesn't matter if it's a woman, doesn't matter if it's a child, anybody that comes in the house, the dog wants to attack. Rob's confusion is that anytime they go for a walk, he can take his dog up to any person and that could be a man, woman, child. And the dog is just fine. The dog's not lunging, the dog's not growling. Uh, the dog is , um, not trying to attack. Well Rob, this is not necessarily an uncommon thing. Territorial issues, we're talking about a couple things. Now, I've said it many times on the show. It's my contention that all aggression is based in fear, even dominance, aggression. It's always the fear of losing something. Some kind of resource, whether it's my person, my territory, my toy, my food, my other sibling, meaning a pet sibling. You know, dogs can guard people, places, things in other animals, and all aggression is based in fear. No animal goes into fight or flight unless they perceive something as threatening. And in order to perceive something as threatening, there's gotta be some fear, there's gotta be some anxiety. And everything's the fear of loss. So we could almost make an outrageous claim that might not be so outrageous that all aggression is a form of resource guarding, right? A mom, mama , dog with her pups, maternal aggression. Those pups are resource territorial, the house, a room, a couch, a little , a location. That's a resource we all know. Food and toys are resources. Being in the car, that's a resource. Now, when you take your dog for a walk, there's a lot more open space. And I'll tell you, there are some dogs when there's a lot of open space, they feel a lot less anxious and they're not so afraid and they don't feel, feel the impetus and the need to act out aggressively. Now also in some situations there's been suppression of aggressive behavior. You see, you gotta understand something. The behavior, the aggressive behavior is really just the symptom of the problem. The problem is anxiety and fear. The problem is the anxiety and fear that's attached and associated with strange people and strange dogs. And in this case, Rob's talking about when they come in the house and saying, Hey, I don't have that problem when we're out on a walk. Well, in the house it's much more enclosed. You know, a dog goes into fight or flight, they might not have a lot of room to retreat. They may feel like I have to go into fight. They can't get enough distance and space, which is what a dog wants. That's aggressing. Outwardly, they want distance and space so they can feel less anxious and less fearful. Now let's take this back to going outside and being outside on a walk. There is more distance, there is more space we're outside. That could be it in a nutshell. The dog's less afraid. And as long as there's a certain distance in space, your dog might be just fine. But I talked about suppressing behaviors. See we've got the underlying emotional state of fear and anxiety. That's the root cause of the problem of aggression. The aggression is the symptom of the root cause, which is fear and anxiety. The aggression are symptoms of the underlying root cause. Anxiety and fear. You get rid of the anxiety, you get rid of the fear, you get rid of the aggression. So it's all about changing that underlying state. And that's what counter conditioning and desensitization are all about. Now, on the leash, on a walk, I don't, I don't know, Rob, was there a time, maybe you don't remember, was there a time on the walk where maybe your dog did even a little bit become aggressive? Because most of us, most of us, when that happens on a walk, we're gonna give a little leash pop or we're gonna say, no quiet, stop it. We're gonna use some kind of punishment. You might not view that as punishment, but anything the dog finds unpleasant that might weaken a behavior or stop a behavior, it's punishment. Don't let that word. Don't get hung up on the word. Okay, the problem with punishment, the problem with aversive training, whether it it be a firm no or a leash and collar correction, when it comes to behaviors that have the root cause in fear and anxiety, using punishment to address the outward symptom, which is the aggressive behavior, does nothing but suppress that behavior. It goes away temporarily. The dog might feel like, Hey, I don't want to get corrected again. So therefore I'm not gonna display that outward aggressive behavior. All the while internally, inside that fear that anxiety never left. That fear, that anxiety increased and actually got worse. And it's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when your dog's gonna pop, especially if the distance you have right now outside starts to get smaller and smaller. Let's say a dog, a strange dog, strange person, comes up closer and closer and closer. The only way, Rob, that we're gonna know really what's going on with your dog outside. Cuz my feeling is this, your dog's probably still experiencing stress on those walks, just not as much. You know, dogs don't, ne dogs don't go from zero to a hundred, meaning they don't go from completely calm to attacking. Now it may seem like it happens just like that. It may seem like it happens just like that, and there's no warning, but there is a warning. There's multiple warnings, there's always multiple warnings. We just don't know what to look for because we're not experts in canine body language. Dogs communicate through their body language, and if you've got a dog that has fears, phobias, anxieties is reactive, is aggressive. You have to be an expert in canine body language your dog tells you. And anybody that's around it when it's getting nervous, before it growls, before its teeth show , before pilo erection before the hair goes up on its back before the dog growls, barks, lunges and bites. There are warnings, little tiny cues, very subtle signals in their body language. You need to know that you can go to Amazon. There's lots of different books on canine body language that you can pick up. You can go to my website@dogbehaviorist.com. I've got a couple articles there. The best that I've ever seen so far is the book Canine Body Language by Brenda Aloft , A L O F f , plug for her , um, for her canine body language book, the Illustrated Guide. Now, when you're studying canine body language, it's like learning a foreign language, not quite as intense, but more like learning American sign language. You are not gonna pick up a book on American Sign language and learn how to interpret and sign after reading that book. One time you would have to study it over and over and over and then you would be able to interpret and you would be able to sign back. It's no different with canine body language. You have to study it over and over and over. But that is what's gonna let you know what's going on with your dog. That's gonna let you know when you need to create more distance and space for your dog. And when you're doing the behavior modification work to help your dog learn how to relax and be calm amongst triggers, amongst things that cause fear, anxiety, reactivity or , or aggression. Your understanding of canine body language is absolutely critical. I've got an article on my website, dog behaviors.com, something like understanding canine body language and thresholds. In order to be successful with counter conditioning and desensitization, you've gotta understand canine body language very well. You've gotta understand what thresholds mean. You need to understand counter conditioning and desensitization. You can find lots of articles on my website@dogbehaviors.com and also going to the Pet Talk Today audio podcast again, episode 81 for counter conditioning and desensitization. I go in depth into that. Um, some dogs when they're walking and um, they're out and about, they may sometimes be more anxious about other things in the environment and they may actually shut down and when they shut down, the anxiety and fear is there, but the outward aggressive behavior isn't there. So, Rob, I don't know all the details. Um, if you happen to be listening today, you can give me a call and anybody else that's watching or listening, if you would like to talk to me about your dog's behavior, you can give me a call. The call in line number is (414) 400-3647 . Again, 4 1 4 4 0 0 3 6 4 7. If you are a shy person, go ahead, type your questions, type your comments in the comments section, and then I will go in there and I will do my best to answer all of your questions if possible. Um, Janice is saying, so he is protecting his family and his house. Yeah, he's protecting , um, definitely protecting the house because that's his safe zone. Um , might be protecting family if he thinks that the family , um, are a resource that , um, you know, protect him, keep him safe. Um, Karen, Karen has a question that says, my shihtzu always barks at , uh, his dog food. Then he'll knock it over on the floor, then lay down and eat it. Why is that? Um, Karen, you have a dog that has a little bit of obsessive compulsive behavior or ritualistic behavior , um, that there are dogs that do some crazy things. Remember I was working with a dog one time and you'd set out the food bowl . He would pick out one piece of kibble in his mouth, he'd throw it up out of his mouth, he'd throw it up in the air, and it would land on the floor about two, three feet away. And he'd go grab it and he'd eat it. Then he would go right back to that dog bowl , pick up one piece of kibble, toss it up in the air, it lands two to three feet away from the bowl , goes over two or three feet away from the bowl where that piece of kibble is and eats it and starts it all over again. Um, well there's a couple things. You know, Karen, does your dog have other anxiety? Does your dog have other anxiety? Okay, any dog that's got anxiety. And and this isn't anxiety related behavior, it's probably also been reinforced and we'll talk about the reinforcement in a section in a second. But you could also benefit Karen from the calm dogs. Um, because again, this is an anxiety related behavior. It's not just one cause, it's not just anxiety. There's usual, usually multiple causative effects on behaviors, but check out the calm dogs because that helps with this , um, as well. But we need to change the routine, okay? You are talking about my dog always barks at his dog food, then he'll knock it over on the floor, then lay down and eat it. Now you said, why is that? I don't know a hundred percent why? But that makes your dog comfortable. Now, if you just wanna know, why does my dog do that? I don't care. He can do it all day long. Hey, that's fine. But if you wanna change that behavior when the dog starts to bark, put the dog in a crate outta sight for two minutes, then let the dog back out. If the dog starts barking again immediately very calmly, don't punish the dog very calmly, very quietly. Put the dog in a crate out of view of the food. Two minutes, bring the dog back out. If the dog starts barking again, put the dog back in the crate for two minutes. The consequence the dog learns is that, hey, when food's present, if I'm barking, they're gonna take away my freedom for two minutes and I'm not getting my food and I don't wanna be by myself. I I , I'm a social animal. I wanna be with the people. That's called a timeout and it works really good, but your timing's gotta be good. As soon as your dog engages in the behavior you don't want, boom, timeout. Okay? That's one thing. The other thing, when that stops and you start putting the food bowl down, put one piece of kibble in the bowl to begin with. See if your dog keeps knocking that over. See if the dog keeps knocking that over. Okay? The other thing is, you could get a feeding station where the bull won't knock over, okay? And if you did one piece of kibble and your dog doesn't knock it over, then put in a second piece of kibble. See if your dog will do that. And then a third and a fourth, if your dog knocks it over, you don't want your dog to knock it over. How about we pick up the food and put it up for a couple hours, then bring the food back down. Let your dog learn the consequence. When I bark, I get a timeout. Let your dog learn that when I knock the bowl over the feeding stops for a while. And if you do that, the behavior should change. It also depends how much anxiety is behind that. Now, I talked about reinforcement. I could see very easily. Now this might not have happened, but I could see very easily this being positively reinforced by thinking this is acute behavior. Or maybe you don't think it's cute , but how you're trying to stop the behavior. Are you using a pleasant tone? Oh, Toby, don't do that. Oh , oh , what a silly dog. Don't do that. Oh, come on . Whatever you're trying to do to interrupt or stop that behavior. Look at your dog. Is your dog all happy wiggly tail wagging ? Well, that's positive reinforcement. Ignore that stuff and do what I'm asking you to do. And I believe things are going to get better. All right , let me take a look , uh, more at these questions. Uh, yeah. So that was for Karen and your shihtzu . Give that a shot. Um, there was a question that was here and it jumped. Where is the question that was just here that appears to have jumped away? Um , well, I'm gonna go to a question and email question. Another email question that I got. Um, and this one is from Laura. And Laura typically watches from Massachusetts. And Laura says that , um, she's got a seven year old cocker spaniel and they had their 12 year old cocker spaniel who recently died. And their younger cocker spaniel Sammy, appeared to be depressed. So we went out and we got a puppy. Everything was going great for the first two to three weeks. However, now our seven year old is attacking the puppy. What can we do? We got the puppy to hopefully help the older dog not be so depressed. Well, losing a companion is a typical thing where, you know, a pet could experience depression. Depression doesn't always manifest in melancholy sadness. Yeah, oftentimes it does. But it can also manifest in anger, irritability, hostility, having a lower tolerance for frustration, having more, having poor impulse control. Sammy may have been tolerating this new puppy for two to three weeks, but your dog might have been showing all kinds of stress signals in its canine body language that might have been trying to communicate, Hey, back off. I need more distance, I need more space. And if the puppy keeps on pestering and doesn't heed the communication and the dog needs space and has been tolerating it, and maybe your dog's , older dogs even got up and, and, and moved away, but yet the puppy followed. So maybe your seven year old , I think he said Sammy, maybe Sammy's doing everything right, trying to communicate with the puppy, giving the appropriate canine body language saying, Hey, back off, I need space. Maybe Sammy's doing the right thing by getting up and moving away, going into flight or retreating cuz it doesn't wanna go into fight, but the puppy keeps on invading its space. And what you're telling me is there's a fight. I see this all the time. People think I'm gonna get another puppy, another dog for my dog. It's gonna make it better. They do this a lot with , they have fearful and anxious dogs. Oh my God, it usually makes it much worse. Don't ever get another dog when you have a dog in the home that has problems. Work on those problems, get those problems resolved. Another dog is not gonna be a therapist, a trainer, a behaviorist, a veterinary behaviorist. Now , yeah, I know there's plenty of you out there that are telling me, Hey, listen, I know so-and-so, or I know this person or that person or I myself got a second dog and it helped. Great. I'm not saying that never works, it never helps, but most of the time it doesn't. You've got your one or two experiences, I've got thousands. I'm telling you most of the time it doesn't work. But you've got what you've got. But your older dog, Sammy is saying, Hey, I need distance and space from this puppy. It's your job to advocate on behalf of Sammy. Get a leash on that puppy. Don't let the puppy get into Sammy's face. Start having them hang out together in close proximity. But they don't need to connect face-to-face, nose to nose right now as you start bringing them closer, read the body language. And if your dog's body language is not loose, not relaxed. If your dog's not giving canine body language cues that we call distance decreasing signals, meaning it wants it to come closer. Again, distance decreasing signals, it wants it to come closer. But you're probably seeing stress signals in canine body language if you knew what they were, you'd probably be seeing , um, appeasement signals. When you see those things, those are signs. Hey, we shouldn't be bringing the dogs any closer. At least not right now. And this is the same thing when you want your dog to meet maybe a neighbor's dog or a family member's dog, and you start bringing them together, you can't just throw them together. Oh, I know there's lots of dogs. You can, it'll work, but there's lots of dogs. You do that and it won't work. And if you've got even the, the mildest of concern about one or the other dog, there's a right way and a wrong way to do introductions. One of the thing is scent exchange. Okay ? So yeah, we wanna keep the puppy further away from Sammy right now. We wanna be able to read Sammy's body language to keep the puppy far enough away where Sammy's not displaying canine body language stress signals. If you don't know about canine body language, go to Amazon, get the book Canine Body Language, an Illustrated Guide by Brenda Aloft , A L O F F . You can go to my website, dog behaviorist.com, go to the menu, click on articles, find my article on kine body language. Or you can do what I recommend a lot of people do because I just think it's fantastic. I stumbled across it maybe a month or two. And that's Crisman Hound. Go to cri , do a Google search, Crisman Hound Pet Prof professional canine Body language course. That's right, pet professional. They've got got one for pet parents, but they've got one for pet professionals. And I'm telling you, if you've got a dog that has any kind of fear, anxiety, phobias, reactivity, aggression, it's worth its weight in gold to take the canine body language course for pet professionals. It's only $45. Now, I know for some people $45 is a lot of money, but so are vet bills of dogs that attack other dogs or people. It's a lot of money. It's an investment. It's an investment, okay? And also the other thing, we talked about it earlier today, dogs like that typically have low levels of serotonin. We could be talking about problems with norepinephrine and other stress hormone , uh, and neurotransmitter that is produced by the adrenals. We could be talking about dopamine, which is our pleasure and our motivation neurotransmitter. Um, we've got glutamine, we've got gaba. All those neurotransmitters need to be in balance, and that's what calm dogs does. But it does it naturally. It allows your dogs to have their neurochemistry brought back into balance. And many times, not for every dog, but many times this is a component to these behavior problems. The more severe ones, the ones that are rooted in fear, anxiety, the aggressive, the reactive behaviors, the obsessive compulsive behaviors. This is not a sedative. Calm dogs isn't gonna take a hyperactive dog and just boop , bring them down. It works differently in the brain. It takes up to six weeks to work. Some people might see benefit right away, but go to calm dogs.com . It comes with a money back guarantee. Try that for six weeks. I believe it's gonna help you. I really, really do. It helps, hun . It's already helped hundreds and hundreds of people. I get testimonials every day . I've been waiting a while. I've not talked a lot about calm dogs on the show because all I had was the small and medium breed size. I didn't have the large breed size formula. But now I've got the large breed size formula as well as the small and medium , uh, breed size formula. You can find out more about that@calmdogs.com. Also, you can go to dog anxiety.com . It the two websites that will take you to the same place. Um, let's take a look. If you, if you're just joining us, maybe you weren't here when we started. I'm Will Bandura . I'm a certified behavior consultant, certified professional dog trainer. I specialize in dogs with severe anxiety , fears, phobias and aggression. Um, do me a favor, hit that like button, hit that share button. But if you've got a question and you have not already wrote , written down your question in the comment section, please do that. Write your questions in the comments section. Also let us know where you're watching from and what kind of , uh, what kind of dog that you have there. So let me go back and look at , uh, look at these comments that we have here and see , uh, if we've got any new questions here. All right , so Chris , Chris says, my dog rips the molding off my doors after I leave my house for work. He pulls my curtains down, scratches up my doors, and puts holes in my walls. Will this calm dog help with this behavior? Well, Chris , I've got a lady in Alabama who's got a dog that has , uh, pretty bad separation anxiety. Um, I think yours is more severe, a little more severe than hers was. Um, the calm dog product did help her dog. It took , um, several weeks before she started to see some benefit. Um, yours is pretty severe, Chris , you may need medication, okay, because of how severe this is. And when we look at severity , um, you know, when your dog's having a panic attack, and that's what this is , um, it's hard for them to learn , um, that part of the brain when they're in fight or flight and they're panicking. They, they can't access the thinking part of the brain. We also have to do, whether it be calm dogs and medication that won't help or that won't completely cure it. I'm sure the calm dogs will help. You're still gonna have to do behavior modification for separation anxiety. And , um, can't remember if it was last week's episode or maybe the week before I talked a little bit on separation anxiety. And you have to leave for like two seconds. Come back in, leave for two seconds, come back in, leave for two seconds, come back in, leave for two seconds. Come back in. You need to do that over and over until your dog thinks that is the most boring thing in the world. Oh , I'd starts yawning. Then you need to do that three seconds at a time. And I mean over and over and over and over and four seconds and five seconds and six seconds. You need to be the most boring human being in the world. Coming and going, coming and going, coming and going, coming and going little by little, adding more time. But I'm talking about over and over and over in short duration where you're spending 15 minutes a day with these little tiny departures. Okay ? If your dog starts to get upset, you have gone too long too soon. Now, when you come back in the house, do not reward the dog. Do not even look at the dog when you come back in. Do not pet the dog. Do not talk to the dog. That's just gonna get the dog excited. Again, we want a calm dog. This is the one behavior modification area where we don't use food. We used to, but we found out that using food got the dogs more excited, which kind of exacerbated the anxiety in the long run. Now, as you start adding more and more time, and you're gonna do this very slowly, very slowly, very gradually, very systematically, you, as you're adding time, as you're adding distance, you need to then leave and come back in two seconds, leave, come back in one second, leave. Maybe you built it up to a minute, but you leave and you come back in 20 seconds. So as you're adding more and more duration, as you're adding more and more time away, when you walk out that door, you also have to throw in what I call shorts. If the time duration keeps getting longer and longer and longer and longer, and you create that pattern, some dogs are gonna figure out the pattern and where they might have been. Okay, one second. Maybe you built yourself up to a minute, but then all of a sudden they start realizing, oh my God, it's a minute and one second, a minute and five seconds, a minute and 10. They keep leaving longer and longer. Oh my God. So you gotta throw in some short durations and mix it up and create a , uh, variable situation where the dog doesn't pick up the pattern. And again, anytime your dog's getting too , uh, anytime your dog's even getting a little bit upset, you've gone too long, too soon. Now, one of the biggest challenges to this, if we've got a dog with this kind of separation anxiety , while we're doing the behavior modification work, and maybe we're doing this with medication, maybe we're doing this with a supplement, maybe we're not. But when we're doing this work, it is critical that the dog does not experience departures with a duration that is going to trigger this separation anxiety. Now, that can be really tricky. If you're a single person and you've gotta go to work, what do you do? It's not easy. You gotta either find somebody to come in so your dog's not alone, a pet sitter, family friend. Take your dog somewhere where it won't be alone. Ask your boss if you can work from home for a while . Or if you've got a partner or a family member or a friend that can help you with this or a spouse. You do this together. It's gonna be very difficult. If your dog keeps being able to rehearse these behaviors of panic that's just going to condition the dog more and more that when you walk out the door, bad things are gonna happen. Your dog's gonna get scared. You also have to counter condition and desensitize. This is where you use the food. Pre-departure cues. Grabbing the keys are a pre-departure queue , right? You're leaving, maybe you grab an umbrella, maybe you grab a coat, ladies, maybe you grab a purse. Maybe you put a different pair of shoes on. Maybe you put a hat on. If you're in Arizona, we usually put a hat on. We don't get sunburn. Those might be pre-departure cues that you need to engage in and not leave, engage in, and not leave, engage in and not leave. Because right now the association is, Hey mom, dad gets the keys. They're leaving. Oh my God, I need to get scared. Those keys have that association. But if the keys keep coming out and you don't leave, if your coat keeps coming out and you don't leave, if you put the shoes on that you usually put on when you leave, but you don't leave and you do that over and over and over, your dog has a different understanding, a different perception, a different view of what we call those pre-departure cues. Okay ? Um, you can go to the Pet Talk today audio podcast, do a search for separation anxiety. I did a show where I , um, this was a while back, but I interviewed , uh, Meena Demartini , who is the guru of separation anxiety. Um, she wrote a book on separation anxiety, and I've got an interview , uh, hour long interview with her. So you might might want to check that out , um, as well. Let's see here. I've got , uh, let me see what else we've got here, Chris. Okay, let me go to one more, very, very quick email. And this is from Sarah . Sarah says, my dog pulls every time I go on a walk. What can we do to keep my dog from pulling? Well, first of all, when you teach your dog to not pull , when you teach your dog to walk on a loose leash, that is not done on a walk, that's the biggest problem. Everybody wants to go for a walk and then try to fix the problem. You need to teach your dog to follow. Teach your dog to pay attention. Teach your dog to walk in position at your pace, and you begin by doing that in the house. Get into a hallway, have your dog next to you on leash in a hallway. Have your dog sitting next to you on leash in a hallway, rather than walk forward, turn away 180 degrees away from your dog. As your dog then turns to follow you ask your dog to sit. So your dog should be sitting next to you, but not in front of you. Reward your dog. Then you're gonna do the same thing over again. Don't walk forward. Turn around 180 degrees away from your dog. Say, let's go. As your dog turns to follow, you have the dog sit, reward the dog. You're teaching the dog to follow you. You're teaching the dog to pay attention. You're teaching the dog that it does not get in front of you. The minute you turn away from the dog, 180 degrees, it puts the dog behind you. Now the dog's gotta catch up as the dog gets to the right position. You say sit and you reward the dog little by little. You're gonna add more steps, more distance to this, very gradually, very systematically. But you are going to do this first in the house. Then when that's going well, you go outside where there's no distractions. Get on a sidewalk. Same thing. Have the dog sit next to you rather than start walking forward. Turn away from the dog 180 degrees as the look behind. As you do that, watch the dog now have to turn to follow you. And as that happens, the dog's gonna begin to catch up. Ask the dog to sit before it gets in front of you and reward the dog. Your dog should do it willingly because you created that pattern first in the house without distractions. It's a fun game. Your dog should like getting the high value food reward, but now you're doing it outside. There's a little more distractions. If your dog can't focus, the distractions are too high, you need to turn them down, okay? But little by little, you're gonna add more and more distance. And then little by little, you are going to add more and more distractions. But you've gotta do this gradually. This takes time. Don't work. Don't continue to work your dog. If your dog can't focus, you gotta back down on those distractions. But if you give that a shot, you should not have any problems at all. Well, folks, we are just about out of time. Actually, we are out of time. I went over a couple minutes. Appreciate everybody for being here. I'll be here next Saturday. Tell your friends, tell your families. We're here to help you deal with all of your dog training and behavior issues. Have a great weekend. Practice training with your dogs. Check out the Calm dog site . Those of you that have anxious dogs, tell your friends about it. I guarantee this stuff works or your money back. Have a great weekend, everybody.