At the Victorian Dog Training Academy we are experienced with resolving behaviour problems ranging from annoying to seriously life threatening. If you are thinking it is too late, the problem is too far gone or too severe to be fixed then I would urge you to call us. You will be very surprised with the results we can achieve.
How does a dog go from being an adorable puppy to an uncontrollable basket case?
Every time your dog interacts with you it is learning, it is learning whether you are actively teaching it anything or not. It is your job to make sure it is learning things that will benefit your relationship in the future rather than behaviours you deem to be undesirable that put strain on the relationship. Training begins from day one and maintenance of this continues for the dog’s entire life.
The biggest contributer to behaviour issues is a lack of communication, we see it all the time. The owner doesn’t understand the dog and the dog doesn’t understand the owner.
The little issues that you are having now can manifest into serious behaviour problems, these problems never go away on their own, more often than not they increase in intensity. The VDTA can coach you on the fastest, most effective ways to improve communication and get the message across to your companion. Then you can truly begin to realise the joys of having a fantastic dog that can be an active part of your life.
We can help with:
- Dog to Handler Aggression
- Dog to Dog Aggression
- Separation Anxiety
- Soiling in the House
- Excessive Barking
- Snapping and Nipping
- Chewing
- Destructive Behaviours
- Jumping Up
- Running Away
and many more.
How do you actually fix the issue?
Each individual dog requires a slightly different approach, to explain in a broader sense we teach the dog that the way he or she is viewing the problem no longer works the way they thought it did. There is one very simple rule in dog behaviour that everyone can understand, and that is behaviour cannot develop without reinforcement. Everything a dog does has a reason/purpose. Once you work out how the behaviour is being reinforced you can remove the source of the reinforcement and teach the dog to understand the opposite. Time frames for improvement are directly related to severity of the behaviour and the length of time the problem has been present, but if you remain consistent continued improvement will occur.
There are many other aspects to helping your dog overcome its problems and we often employ more than one method in an effort to achieve rehabilitation with a holistic multi pronged approach, this ensures the fastest possible improvement.