Imagine a 2-year old child who has only ever slept in your room, or perhaps in your bed,   When you go on vacation you drop them off to not only sleep by themselves but in an unfamiliar place. The emotional capabilities of a dog are similar to a 2-year old child, so if you think that would be very hard on the animal, you are right.
 
At the Resort we try to ease a well-adjusted, emotionally-ready Dog into a calm and drowsy mindset before bed.  Conversely, for a dog not emotionally adjusted to being alone at night, there will be no solace or easement. Once they realize they must sleep alone, in a strange place, without you, it will be traumatizing, confusing, and an exhausting night. Over several days stay with us, your dog may become depressed regardless of the many stimulating activities, human companionship, and top quality care we provide. A dog not emotionally prepared to be away from you, may also result in an onset of separation anxiety that takes many months to overcome with professional support.  If the dog already has separation anxiety when you check-in to the Resort,  the dog is likely to dissolve into an emotional mess and possibly even hurt itself during the hours between bedtime and dawn.
 
What can you do in advance of your vacation to help manage a dog’s emotions while you are away? Here is a month-by-month transition plan for your Dog to ensure emotional stability and happiness in its home-away-from-home:
 
12-Months:

• If your dog barks or destroys things while you’re away, contact a Force-Free Dog Behaviorist and commit to a treatment plan. Depending on the severity it may take 12 months (sometimes more) to slowly grow tolerance for being on their own and finding it pleasurable. It is achievable, it just takes time and commitment.

3-Months:

• Begin open crate training your dog. The best way to do this is to place a properly sized crate (the size should allow the dog to turn around easily), in a place in a well-populated area in the house. Secure the door so that it stays open – we will not be closing the door.  Ensure it cannot swing closed for any reason – if it does it can undermine any work you accomplish by making the dog feel trapped and therefore, negative about being enclosed. Drop his/her favorite treat into the crate without him seeing you do it. As he passes the crate, he will see the treat and retrieve it. Do this regularly, several times a day, whenever he is not looking. Do not point out the treat. Let him find it on his own which is a self-reinforcing positive experience. Once you see him lying in it, smile at him and say, “good settle”.  He/she at this point is finding the open crate a positive experience.

2-Months

• Move the crate using the same treat routine to a place where it can stay away from general household traffic and not your bedroom. The reason we don’t want your dog in your bedroom is that it establishes separation in the most positive, gentle way possible. Encourage the dog to settle in his own room using a lot of praise and a lot of patience.  Plan for this stage to take several weeks. It may require you to continuously and gently lead your dog back to his open crate whenever he comes into your bedroom.  Several long nights, but the investment is huge when you consider resting on a tropical isle knowing your Best Friend has the emotional fortitude to sleep without you and find happiness in new experiences.

1-Month:

• Complete our online Guest Information Form, have your vet email us with his current vaccinations and flea and tick program and book your assessment. The assessment in addition to socialization, cognition and emotional testing, includes one 90-minute session in one of our VIP Rooms to ensure that his stress and emotions are manageable during his stay with us.

2-Days:

• Pack up an old unlaundered t-shirt with your smell on it, his favorite toy, and his bed or blanket.
• Email the Resort with your preferred Check-In Time between 7 and 9 a.m.
• If you travel a lot try to save your packing until your Best Friend is checked-in at the Resort to avoid any triggers. Dogs will quickly learn that packing means you are leaving.

1-Day:

• Drop your Dog off at the Resort knowing you have taken into account his emotional well-being and providing him with exceptional care.
• Go home and pack – it’s vacation time!

Please contact me with any questions you may have at Sparky@executivepetservices.ca

Dog’s are not trying to be dominant. Any trainer who talks about wolves as the basis for their instruction, turn and walk away quickly. You will be damaging your dog, emotionally, mentally and in the worse cases, physically. Likely the trainer is not up to date on new studies on dog behavior, emotion, and cognition. There have been many breakthroughs of late, where science has disproven many of these old beliefs. What is very clear is that the dominant dog theory is outdated, disproven and dead. Dog's are very similar in an emotional sense to a 2-year old child. Pause for a moment and think about a 2-year old child. What are you doing to your dog when you act aggressively to dominate them? Would it be appropriate to dominate a 2-year old child, or does it make more sense and feel better to provide calm guidance and guardianship?
 
Often we continue to hold onto beliefs because they had satisfied questions about our dog when no other answers were available.  It is especially true if your dog went through bad behavior during adolescence (6-18 months) – the roughest time in a caregiver's life. It is a sensitive time and a trying time where every dog will push boundaries and formulate their place in this world. Similar to 'the terrible twos' in our world, it is a time where character and personality are shaped. Conversely, the dominance theory regulates a dog as the lowest valued member of the pack. To a dog, you are telling them they are of low value while the shaping is going on.  Thank goodness we now know that being a valued and confident member of the family makes for a well-balanced and delightful dog.

You may ask if it is not dominance that is motivating my dog, then why does my dog jump on me, bite me, chew my special things...., etc.? Here are some proven and current facts on how dogs understand and interact with their world:

• Dogs follow whoever is most popular and delivers consistently on comfort and care of the dog.
• Dogs know you are not a dog. However, the same rule applies whether interacting with their species or ours, to hang out and follow the one who is the most interesting, fun, and who will cater to their comfort.
• Dog to dog relationships are flexible, sometimes they ask other dogs to defer to them, and are also asked to defer to others. They are a cooperative species but during adolescence, they may push boundaries - it is a stage which will pass.
• In most cases, Dogs work on a peace-loving principle and will just choose to walk away from a confrontation.
• Dogs aggression needs to be handled force-free, or the aggression will get worse in the long-term. Short-term results using force means the Dog has shut-down, just like the 2-year old child would do. It does not manage the aggression past the recovery point and will likely heighten the aggression when it returns.

 
Recently, a Behavior Client I was consulting with told me that she didn’t feel right about the training advice she had received from a local Trainer. She said to me an example the Trainer's ground-rules was not to feed her puppy until after she ate. Apparently, this was to reinforce that she was the boss and the alpha, therefore the first to eat. The dog went unfed for 12-14 hours since she would prepare her dinner first and eat it after arriving home from a full-day. Finally, she just couldn’t do it anymore. I cannot imagine not eating for this long, then to watch my Caregiver eating before I am fed. I certainly would not feel like a well-balanced and valued member of the family afterward. When you put it into the context of a 2-year old child emotional needs you can see the damage this created. The dog is now an adolescent, who is pushing boundaries and formulating his place in this world.  Continuing on this track with the trainer would have jeopardized establishing a strong trust relationship between him and his caregiver during this tricky time. 
 
The point of this blog - please tell everyone you know who says, “I have a dominance issue,” or provides advice to dominate your dog, that it is an outdated premise. If they resist the facts, direct them to reputable force-free training books, like The Heartbeat at Your Feet. Also, suggest updating their working knowledge with force-free modern courses as found in the International School of Canine Psychology.