It seems like every few months a study comes out touting the benefits of pet ownership. According to the claims, stroking pets lowers our blood pressure, dog companions increase our exercise, and going to the dog park improves our sociability. But what most studies fail to reveal is the dark, dirty secret that up to 16% of dog owners don’t want you to know: THEIR dogs eat poop…a lot! Yes, according to a study presented at the annual ACVB/AVSAB Behavior Symposium in San Diego last month, 16% of dogs are serious stool eaters. That means they have been seen doing it 5

Question: Thank you for the post [on over rambunctious dog play]. I am relating to this exact situation currently. We have a 5 month old (neutered) pit/lab/shepherd puppy who really loves to play with dogs. His issue is that he doesn’t pick up on the social cues of when the other dog doesn’t want to play, or is done playing. We recently fostered a little terrier/chuhuaua overnight from the rescue that I volunteer with (trying to socialize our pup and help out at the same time). If the dog growled at him (as the terrier didn’t want to play at all),

Note: You can get this down even faster if you’ve used the MannersMinder® to train a down or down-stay because your dog will already love to lie down and will be looking for opportunities to do so since he associates that position with so many rewards in the past. Treat&Train Step 2: Work on down-stay (Full version in chapter 22 of How to Behave So Your Dog Behaves).  Tether your dog by leash to furniture so he can’t get to you if he gets up. Next, have him lie down on a rug or some other comfortable place and give treats

It’s fun to take your pooch to the park for off-leash play and dogs can look like they are having fun, but are they always learning the right things? One owner of a Bulldog knows all to well that the answer is no. “Max took a while to warm up to new people and dogs,” she says. “Then we left him with the breeder where he got to run around with other Bulldogs in what the breeder said was normal rough bulldog play. When we got him back he was suddenly barking and lunging people he would have just stayed

My dog, Milo, loves to explore at the off-leash park but, when it’s time to go home, it takes me 10 to 20 minutes to catch him to put him back on leash. What should I do? Rover loves to rough-house with other dogs but sometimes their owners get mad at me. I think he’s playing so they shouldn’t worry, but they say their dogs don’t like it. If I don’t leave the park, then they do. How can I train Rover to play more calmly? He is also reactive to dogs when on leash and will bark and lunge