Most dog owners try to avoid causing their pets any kind of unnecessary stress. If your pets seem stressed, the a little time at a Brooklyn doggy day care will straighten them right out. But did you ever stop to think that you are doing something to make your dog uneasy? While human owners don’t mean to, there are things that we do that sometimes make our furry pals anxious.
Getting Mad at Dogs for Apparently no Reason
When a dog does something it is not supposed to do and the dog should know better, there are ways human owners can convey to their dog that they were bad. But when Fido starts chewing on your shoe and you fly off the handle, your little pup has no idea what is going on. When you flip out because your dog is just being a dog, then that causes plenty of stress for your animal and can lead to behavioral problems.
Expecting Obedience
Too many dog owners think that their dogs are only there to make their owners happy and that is all a dog thinks about. The truth is that dogs respond to rewards and they will engage in any activity they want unless there is a reward involved. A reward can be something as simple as a pet on the head, but there needs to be some reason other than your happiness for your dog to do what they are told.
Confusing Verbal Cues
When you tell a human “shhh!” and then enforce it with “be quiet!,” the human knows what you mean. A dog, however, does not speak your language and is not going to understand multiple verbal cues. Instead of throwing a long list of verbal phrases at your dog hoping that one will stick, you should stick with one verbal cue and use it until your dog understands. When you start changing up the words you use, your dog gets very confused.
Using Verbal Cues Improperly
Most dog owners have gone through the process of trying to get their pup into the car to go to the vet and ultimately they will use the verbal cue “it is going to be okay” to get the dog to react. There are only so many times your dog will fall for the “it is going to be okay” verbal cue before they stop listening to it. The problem is that if there ever is a situation where something is okay, the dog will not believe you. This kind of confusion really makes your dog upset.
Humans can be complex creatures who use a variety of physical and verbal cues to try to convey a wide variety of meanings. Dogs, on the other hand, are not complex and they can get plenty stressed out when humans do make things unnecessarily complicated. To keep your dog happy, be sure to take them to a Brooklyn doggy day care at least once a week and also be sure to say and do exactly what you mean when you communicate with your dog.
