New look, same expert puppy training—by Kira & the Canine Code team!

Kira the Dog Whisperer featured on television

Kira the Dog Whisperer featured on television

Want to be a fly on the wall and watch a canine behaviour session? Here’s a chance to get a peek of a dog whisperer in action. Denmark’s national TV station aired a program featuring Kira as a Danish dog whisperer living downunder. Popular Comedian, Jan Gintberg, tagged along with Kira as they visited Murphy, a Wheaten Terrier that really doesn’t like visitors coming into the house. By design, dogs instinctively do not let strangers enter their den. Just like Murphy, their natural reaction is to bark and try to intimidate the intruder to go away. If you want your dog to greet visitors politely, then you will need to show your dog that you are in charge of deciding who’s welcomed into the house. Hence your dog’s participation is never necessary. Click on the image below to see how things went when Jan and Kira visited Murphy.
The art of communicating with your dog

The art of communicating with your dog

It is easy to fall into the trap of focusing on how smart your dog is or isn’t at learning. Your dog is probably astoundingly smarter than you think. You just need to start communicating with it in a language that it understands.

Imagine if I expected all my clients to learn from me while I only spoke in Danish! Would you want to come to my classes to learn if I scolded you for not understanding me? And wouldn’t it be crazy, since we both speak English?

Of course, neither English nor Danish will ever serve as effective ways to communicate with your dog. Dogs are not even born with the concept of a verbal language. Instead, they have a very well-evolved body language. This makes them incredibly perceptive to changes of mood and energy. Humans have both, but because it is so easy to communicate with words, we often neglect to use our body language and intuitive perception.

Dogs can learn a few words, but it is as hard for them to learn words as it is for us to distinguish exactly what each type of bark means. Please note, a bark is not a word; it is an expression of the state of mind: impatient, hostile, over-excited etc.

Since both humans and dogs understand body language, it makes perfect sense to use it when we communicate with them. In fact, our body languages are very similar. The only difference is that the dogs’ body language is simpler than ours yet also more extreme.

As an example, when you scold a person, they may lower their head and look away. However, a dog’s reaction will be more extreme. As well as lowering its head and looking away, it may also crouch right down towards the ground and put its ears back while squinting.

There are fewer nuances in the canine language. The dog’s reaction above could mean several things such as submission, begging, trying to get away with disobeying an order (fake submission), cowering and even just a submissive dog’s standard greeting. In a dog’s mind, they are all the same one thing: appeasement.

Using the right language is a great first step to getting the desired responses from your dog. I suggest you start by focusing on how you can communicate in a way clear and easy to recognise manner. Start with commands like stop, stay outside the kitchen, and come. A quick way to get yourself thinking correctly is to imagine that your dog is a deaf person. You will amaze yourself with your own creativity and range of signs/ body language expressions that emerge.

Check out my quick video of instructing Meg, a 12 weeks old Cavoodle, without using any words at all. She performed the sit-stay-come-stop half way-sit-and-come perfectly in our very first go, simply because the instructions were clear to her:
https://www.facebook.com/242826639078102/videos/1264863220207767/

If your dog isn’t paying you enough attention to read the signing, then you need to consider if it is motivated enough. Most parents would know that their problem is seldom about the child’s understanding, but instead about respect and willingness to cooperate. For gaining the right attitude from your dog, please check out our page about the Canine Code.

In Most Cases, Dog Aggression is Quick to Solve

In Most Cases, Dog Aggression is Quick to Solve

Have you ever considered that it’s not natural for dogs to socialize with strangers? Dogs are territorial animals and by nature attack or chase strangers away. Therefore, aggression doesn’t always stem from past bad experiences or personality traits. In fact, it mostly stems from lack of interacting with a stranger dog. Socialization with other dogs is something that we train against their instinct. Therefore it must be maintained.

Once two aggressive dogs meet and slowly get to know each other, they will be ready to interact and become friends. A familiar dog is a completely different concept to them than a stranger dog!

I work a lot with dog-to-dog aggression and no doubt, these are the most common scenarios:

The dog never socialized and never learnt that meeting stranger dogs can be fun. In fact the situation is overwhelming to them and they freak out in an aggressive fear reaction. This is typical for rescue dogs that have lived isolated in a back yard or on a rural property.

The dog has socialized, but it plays rough so the owners do not let it in the dog park. The dog is still young and the aggression is coming from a place of over-excitement rather than fear or anger. The dog’s adrenalin gets so high, that no other behaviour but barking and lunging is expressive enough! Once that initial excitement wears off, the dog’s desire to play shines through.

The dog goes to the dog park regularly, but it has become ball obssessed. While playing ball, it stopped interacting with other dogs. It is now aggressively protective of its ball. The aggressive attitude has developed into a generally hostile attitude towards other dogs.

The dog regularly goes to the dog park and happily plays with other dogs when off leash. However ON leash, it becomes aggressive and barks and lunges even at the sight of other dogs. This behaviour is very common for dogs that are protective of their owner, their home/ front garden or their own personal space. Being protective is natural to many breeds. It can also relate to the type of owner, the owner’s circumstances (pregnancies for example) and the dog’s own circumstances. The reaction is often connected to the dog thinking itself as being in charge of the walk.

It usually takes me anything from just a 1 hour private session to 3-4 days of aggression rehab camp to resolve any of the aggression issues above. The amount of time needed depends on the dog’s age, if it has been desexed, how long the issue has been going on for, and for how long the dog has been kept away from other dogs. If you have dog-to-dog aggression issues with your dog, please call us for a free and no obligation estimate on what it would take to resolve it for your dog .

It is such a joy for me to see dogs frolic around in the dog park, playing with other dogs for the first time after recovering from their aggressive phase. If you would like to see an example of my work with aggressive dogs, please check out the story about Abby the Boxer unfolding in several posts starting from the 11th of February 2016 on my Facebook page
https://www.facebook.com/Canine-Code-242826639078102/