A clear example of how our emotions can directly effect our dogs’ behavior

Goodbye, LP. Though I had listened to that playlist for an entire year, never had I heard this song until the moment it came on as Blitz was crossing over. Boy am I hearing it these days.

In the woods, our happy place, I take a seat to meditate in the sun, then that song comes on. As a human with strong emotions, I spend the entire song weeping for Blitz. Who cares, no one can hear me. My heart aches, I honor the pain, and I let it out. Then, the next song, Don’t Worry, Be Happy, comes on and I smile. Diesel, who had been laying a couple feet away watching, gets up, gets playful and grabs a stick. He thrashes it around and then thrusts it into my hands, and I am happy again. We play out the length of the song before I pick myself up off the forest floor and move on. Diesel walks up to Buddy, who had been laying about 20 feet away, and proceeds to urinate directly next to him, rather than on the entire rest of the woods that he had access to. This was no accident.

Buddy was just laying there minding his own business, but ever since he had been a puppy, his mere presence would challenge other males.

I’ve experienced something like this before, but on a much larger scale. Many years ago, I was laying on the couch having a particularly sad moment, for one reason or another. My foster dog Tank had been sitting up there with me and I took the opportunity to cry into him. After all, isn’t that what dogs are for, a companion to help us through the tough times?

That very next day, I watched as Tank blind sided Buddy, ran at him from 15 feet away while Buddy was looking in the opposite direction. Tank took him down, into the ditch under water, and proceeded to attack him.

Once again, Buddy had not done, nor had he been doing anything to provoke the other dog, but because Tank had trust issues with Buddy and I poured my emotions, my ‘weakness’ into him, he took advantage of the opportunity he had been waiting for. When I leaned on Tank for emotional support, he knew that I was not a strong leader. Strong leaders are always cool calm and collected. They do not get emotional or frustrated, they do not repeat their commands, and the tone of their voices do not raise erratically.

A strong minded, balanced, confident, well socialized dog would not act this way. These are the dogs that are hand picked by professionals for therapy/service work. A weak minded, or a strong minded, unbalanced, poorly socialized dog will take advantage of the confidence they feel when they take control of the leadership role (I refer to this as cockiness, not confidence), and they will ultimate always, eventually, make a bad decision.

This is why you cannot turn just any dog into a service dog. This is why many dogs need strong leadership, structure, routine, boundaries, and proper outlets. This is why, as a leader, as a dog owner, we need to consider the needs of the individual dog before we even consider fulfilling our own. I should have never cried into Tank. It was a moment of weakness I deeply regretted. A couple weeks later I found out that I was very sick. Tank likely knew, and he took advantage.

If you do not know how to be a strong leader for you unbalanced dog, I can show you how. Having run a pitbull rescue and being a lover of insecure dogs, I can tell you that I have learned many, many lessons. My lessons seem to be learned best through experience. Sometimes life throws you a curve ball, life is not always pretty, but it is how you react to the situation that matters. If you take the opportunity to learn a lesson from every bad thing that happens to you, and to your dog, you will be better off for it in the future.

Instead of learning my lessons the hard way, let me teach them to you the right way so you never have to go through some of the things that I have been through. Fill out an evaluation form today.