One of the things we express to our adopters is to contact us with any questions or concerns - and especially for anything they get a hinky feeling about.
Too often with our behavioural clients we find that the behaviour in question has been in play for quite some time. We are often only contacted when things have reached an explosion point - waaaaay beyond that hinky feeling stage.
We look to dog trainer Sean O’Shea, The Good Dog Training and Rehabilitation (https://www.thegooddog.net/), for a look into this:
“Small moments of pushiness, brattiness, disrespect, challenge, and disregard have been slipping by, often for years. And eventually, these small moments begin to transform into moments which aren’t so small. They become moments where all of the above seemingly benign behaviors have slowly transformed into overwhelming, chaotic, and often even dangerous behavior.
“But they didn’t start out that way. They were allowed, then practiced, then understood, and then expanded. And eventually, they became much like our cartoon snowball. They grew and grew and grew, and at some point they became capable of the most serious impact and destruction.
“But if owners can learn to see all these small moments—the moments where the snowball is tiny and easily stopped—as their gateway opportunities to preventing the worst and instead cultivating the best, we could see so many less serious issues, and possibly avoid many unnecessary heartbreaks.”
The longer owners tolerate inappropriate behaviours, the more entrenched this behaviour comes. It is heartbreaking for everyone when owners are faced with surrendering a dog, re-homing a dog, or even euthanizing a dog. If you contact us when you get a hinky feeling, we can much easier nip that questionable behaviour in the proverbial butt, and often much faster than you have been tolerating that inappropriate behaviour.
The Hinky
06.04.2022
Uncategorised