Colt’s owners initially reached out to a trainer who used an e-collar. For several months they pursued this approach without success. …Colt remained very fearful of many everyday things like getting into the car, passing people on sidewalks and loud vehicles outside the house. In fact, Colt’s anxiety appeared only to be getting worse and one day this resulted in a bite to a visitor….

… jumping, soiling in the house, barking at the kids, running out the front door? We get questions like these from clients every day… You might be surprised to know that when we start building a training plan for our clients, we focus first on what the dog can do instead.

She said they had their dog, Dawn for close to three years and that the Dawn has hated her husband for almost that entire time. She described Dawn as growling as soon as her husband pulled into the garage, and then Dawn would bark at the husband when he entered the house. After a few minutes, Dawn would finally slink off into a bedroom and avoid her husband. The clients were at their wits end and not sure they could continue living with a dog who seemed to hate the husband.

I was talking to a new client whose dog is afraid of thunderstorms and fireworks. She said when the thunder started her dog would crawl into her lap trembling. A previous dog trainer told her that she should not comfort her dog because it could reinforce the dog’s fear.

She said her puppy was often trembling and looked very scared so she was calling to ask if there was anything she could do to “snap him out of it.”

One of my own dogs had to be hospitalized during the critical socialization period… She had debilitating fear of common neighborhood sights and sounds, such as leaves blowing across the sidewalk or cars passing on the road. She would flatten herself on the ground and not move.