Live Chat With Spike!

UPDATE: Thanks to all who joined me in the chat tonight.  I look forward to doing it again.

This Thursday at 9 PM EST, I will be hosting a live chat for you to ask me your dog behavior questions.  I am using a neat service called TinyChat.  For those of you that have dog behavior questions, but you have not yet submitted them to me, now is your chance to do it without the delay necessary for me to write an entire article addressing your question.  Please note: I may use the situations from the chat to help other families struggling with similar issues.

To participate in the chat, check back HERE at 8:50 PM on Thursday, March 12 to get the link for the chat.  Click it and join in.  It really is that easy.  My friends that use Twitter will see a tweet in my stream at 8:50 PM as well, with a link to the chat.

If you have an in-depth or uncommon question for me, please send me a short e-mail ahead of time describing the issue, so I can fully develop my suggestions to you.  My paw pals, their families, and other interested parties are all welcome to join.  I intend for the chat to last until 10 PM, but I am happy to extend it if necessary.

A Brief Overview Of Aggression

Lately, we have been getting TONS of questions about aggression issues.  These questions have led to some great articles on other topics, but it looks like aggression in general is a very broad and vague topic.  If you have questions about aggression, we have an excellent series about the different types, how they manifest, and how to treat or manage them.  You can find the articles that address aggression (both as part of the series and recent questions about it) here.

As a guide to help you decide whether your dog has some aggression issues, check out the questions below and keep track of how many apply to your canine family:

Teaching Take It, Leave It & Drop It

TAKE IT:

This is probably the easiest command to teach a dog, and it is certainly the easiest of these three commands.  On a very basic level, whatever you have to give him is given to him with the words “TAKE IT.”  Pretty easy, huh?

1. Take your dog’s favorite treat and close your hand around it.
2. Let the dog smell the treat as he or she sniffs around your hand for a few seconds.

My Dog Will Not Go Outside My Home. HELP!?!?

Last week, I received an e-mail from a reader that had just adopted a pit bull puppy, but she and her son were having the problems described here:

We have a pit bull puppy who refuses to go outside. We have to drag him on a walk. Then, if we stop, he turns and runs back to our apartment. He knows the way from wherever we go. He was potty trained when we got him, but that is fading fast, because he won’t go outside.

The first thing I have to say is “Congratulations” on the expansion of your family, and I wish to extend a special thank you for choosing to have a dog of that breed.  I have always said that pit bulls are not born bad, they are just raised that way.

Unfortunately, there was no age specification about this puppy, so I will have to do some guessing.  Keep in mind that young puppies do not know what a leash is. 

How Do I Stop My Dogs From Fighting?

A reader from Canada sent me an e-mail asking for help with his two Yorkshire Terriers, who have begun fighting recently.  Both dogs are intact males, and the reader figured out the first step to addressing the problem on his own.  Even with one intact male dog, there is a lot of testosterone in the room, but TWO?!

If you are not planning to have either dog “stud” to make more little Yorkies, then it is imperative that you have both of them neutered as soon as possible.