Dog Training : 4 Behaviors to Watch Out For
It is very important to know what type of problems you’re looking to avoid so that you can teach your puppy good habits right from the start.
Usually, some pet parents are worried about their dog chewing on non-food items (like their shoes or dangerous house plants..), while others hope to ward off excessive barking.
Biting, tail wagging, digging, begging, stealing food and urinating in the home are other issues pet parents look to avoid.
So, what are what are exactly the behaviors to Watch Out For ?
1- Your Puppy’s Body Language : Tail wagging
Dog body language involves a series of unique methods for communicating emotions and intentions. If you have a dog, you must know that it can be quite different from how humans communicate.
For example, Tail wagging seems like an obvious body language signal. Most people think that If a dog’s tail is wagging, the dog is happy, right? Wrong! People misinterpret this signal all the time.
All a wagging tail means is that the dog is emotionally aroused. It could be excitement, but it could be frustration or even worse. To interpret the dog’s emotions and intentions, look at the speed and direction of the wag as well as the position of the tail.
Basically, the faster the wag, the more aroused and reactive the dog is. Think about those long, slow, side-to-side tail sweeps your dog makes when greeting you, the type that wag the dog’s whole body. That’s a relaxed dog.
A faster twitch-like wag indicates a higher level of arousal and possibly in a negative way. Think of a guard dog on alert.
The direction of the wag may hold clues as well. A scientific study on tail-wagging showed that dogs tend to wag more to the right when they feel positive about something, like interacting with their owner. Tails wagged more to the left when dogs faced something negative.