Its not just you….I have yet to meet anyone who doesn’t have something they would like solved in their life with their much loved dog. They may start out saying to me oh my dog is fine we don’t have any problems when they hear I am a dog listener. Later on in discussions then they slip in a question because of course they do have a problem, usually many many problems!
My dogs throw me questions everyday, as long as I answer them correctly then they relax and are happy and stress free again. Understanding why they do what they do and being able to respond accordingly means my life with my four is mostly joyous and at worst manageable!! Getting clothes out of the washing machine still means I need complete vigilance if all the socks and pants are going to make it to the airer in one piece. We have bought a Clothes Maid that pulls all the washing up to the ceiling way beyond nose height. Outside the washing goes onto a whirligig that is fenced in!! When I advise new families wanting to get a puppy I start with setting up the physical spaces for success.
I was not surprised therefore to read a newspaper article this week stating some evidence from a study done in the States by the Dog Aging Project. They got 43,517 questionnaires completed anonymously and confidentially about the families dogs. This means the people were able to be brutally honest. Only 110 of the completed questionnaires said they didn’t have any behaviour issues. These will be the unicorn dogs – they do exist but are few and far between. An additional 273 dogs scored moderate, a two out of four for just one behaviour problem and the combined 383 animals were the only ‘good’ dogs in the whole study thats 0.88%.
Therefore 99.12% of the dogs in this study have behaviour issues that the families would like solved. Some of these listed were ‘my dog tends to follow me and sit close or in contact with me all the time’ which of course is the beginning of separation anxiety. The whole study has been published in the Journal of Veterinary Behaviour.
I absolutely love teaching dog listening one on one so I can be specific to your families issues and needs. My basic charge is £150 eg. one dog one person and not a complicated issue, the most I charge is £450 eg. multi dogs and many humans household. I always start with a mobile discovery video chat for 30 minutes for no charge. So if you are one of the 99% who would love to have your issue solved just send me an email:
Sarah@happystressfreedogs.co.uk
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