Management Handout Form - Gold Coast Center for Veterinary Care

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Dog Management Handout Form

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Dog Behavior Management Recommendations

The following are management recommendations for:*

ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT

Interacting with people / visitors:

Your dog doesn’t know how to interact with visitors and doesn’t feel safe with them. Put your dog in another room 10 minutes before visitors come over and let them out 5 minutes after they leave. Letting interactions occur at this time isn’t safe for the visitor or your dog. When your dog is in the sanctuary space while you have visitors, give a food or puzzle toy that lasts the entire time that they are there, if safe to do so.

Ten minutes before the arrival of a visitor that your dog can meet, put your dog into their sanctuary room. When your visitors are in and settled, bring your dog out on a leash. Use food and puzzle toys to keep your dog occupied while the visitors are present. Keep your dog on a leash at all times at a distance from the visitor so that they are comfortable. Use very small treats scattered on the floor to keep your dog occupied when visitors get up to move around.

Visitors to your home should ignore your dog by looking at, reaching for, petting, or speaking to your dog.

Maintain enough distance from unfamiliar people so that your dog does not show signs of fear or stress.

We know that your dog doesn’t want to be pet, so instruct anyone you visit or see when they are with you not to touch or pet them.

Avoid situations where your dog will meet people.

Your dog should never meet workers at the home or children.

Review the body language resources in these discharges (videos, articles, app) so that you can keep your dog out of any stressful situations by monitoring their body language.

Physical interactions:

Do not approach your dog to pet them. Giving your dog control over when and how they are petted or touched reduces your dog’s stress.

Review the body language resources (videos, app) closely so that you recognize the early signs of your dog’s fear, anxiety, or stress around petting. This way, you can avoid aggression.

When your dog is resting or sleeping, do not approach them, reach for them, or touch them.

Interacting with a pet is a dynamic process and may change from minute to minute based on the emotion of the pet, the environment, and the person interacting with them. You can use these guidelines to see if your pet is interested in interacting, but remember to watch your pet’s body language and keep rechecking. This is called a consent test. Pet your dog for a couple seconds on a neutral location, such as under the chin or on their side. Avoid petting them on top of their head. Monitor their body language and look for signs of stress during the interaction. If you see signs of discomfort do not pet them more. They are uncomfortable if they look away, back away, walk away, duck their head away from the hand, lick their lips, lift a paw, stiffen their body or growl.

Do not physically correct or move your dog. If you need your dog to move, toss treats in the direction you need them to go.

If your dog shows aggression when approached if resting with a particular person, do not let someone approach them in that situation. Instead, call to them so they can get up and go to them, exiting the room.

When you need to wake your dog up, call your dog’s name and/or shake a treat jar.

If your dog and your child will be in the same room without a barrier separating them, there should be 2 adults present. If they physically interact, one adult should hold the child, the other should hold your dog.

Do not leave your dog unsupervised with your child.

Interactions with other people’s kids / babies:

Do not let your dog interact with children. It isn’t safe.

Even though you monitor them, most bites to children occur when a trusted family member is watching. Children are particularly vulnerable to dog bites; They are often at the dog’s level (small stature), and they do not necessarily recognize warnings given by the dog. Contexts in which aggression toward children occurs commonly involve resources such as food, toys, resting places, or other family members, and handling, such as kissing, rough-housing, and petting. Many dog bites occur with the parents or caretakers nearby, but otherwise occupied. In addition, the dogs most likely to bite children statistically are dogs that the child knows. Your dog has already shown aggression to kids. The risk is too great for a lapse in monitoring to occur causing a child to be bitten.

Place your dog behind a baby gate or in a bedroom with the door closed or a gate at the door with a food puzzle toy when kids/babies are in the home. Use gates that they can’t stick fingers through or two gates next to each other.

Separate your dog with a gate or door 5 min before any other children or babies will enter the home and leave him separated for the duration of their visit.

Do not leave your dog unsupervised with other people’s kids.

Interactions with your kids:

Do not let your dog interact with children, including your own.

Your child should always be separated from your dog by a secure baby gate (through which your child can’t reach, and your dog can’t get through) or a closed door which your child can’t open.

Your dog can be in the same room as your child if your child is being held by an adult and your dog is on a leash at least a leash length away.

Do not let your child lie with your dog on the dog bed or in his or her bed.

Do not let your child kiss your dog on the face or hug them. These are unsafe situations.

Never leave your dog alone with your kids. Take either the child or the dog out of the room with you when you leave.

Walks:

Keep two points of contact on the leash as we discussed today in the room.

Anytime you leave the house with your dog, carry high-value food, preferably in a treat pouch for ease of use (try chicken, cheese, and real beef for starters).

Avoid your dog’s triggers as much as possible right now until they are stabilized on their medication and have the skills to manage walks.

Keep walks short and just for elimination, then back in the house. You can walk longer in quiet places if you can find them (like a park).

When you are walking your dog and you see any of their triggers in the distance, give high-value foods until the dog or object has passed. If you can turn 180 degrees in the opposite direction, do so.

Utilized your fenced-in yard right now for exercise as much as possible, instead of walks.

Vet visits:

Ask to wait in the car before the appointment instead of in the lobby. Also, ask if you can give the history inside the car so that the time in the room is minimized. Take food with you to the veterinarian’s office. Feed your dog throughout the exam. Ask if you can participate in the restraint of your pet. If the restraint takes more than one person to hold your dog, they need more medication. Ask your veterinarian to stop the procedure and see if they can wait and come back another day. Go to https://fearfreehappyhomes.com/ for more information on making veterinary visits fun.

Muzzle train your dog. This is just for use at the veterinarian’s office.

Go to https://muzzleupproject.com/ for more information on muzzle training.

Places to purchase muzzles: Amazon.com, Morrco.com, Krusse.com, Bumas-Muzzle.com, jafcomuzzles.com

Food / Meals / Items:

Avoid all situations that trigger your dog’s aggression. Your dog should not be given any toys or bones that result in an aggressive response.

Leave your dog alone to eat in a room with the door closed or a baby gate up.

If you need to pick up a food bowl, toy, or valued item, do so only when your dog is not in the room, and the door is closed.

If you need to take something out of your dog’s mouth, for safety, use a handful of high-value treats that you toss away from you so that your dog is over 6 feet away. Ideally, they will drop what they have and grab the treats. You may need to Hansel and Gretel lure your dog away with a long treat trail to a room where you can shut a door, so you can retrieve the item when your dog is separated.

Discontinue feeding your dog in a public room. Utilize a room that is far away from foot traffic in the home so that nobody will be passing by the doorway while your dog is eating. Place the food bowl in the room away from the doorway and then let your dog into the room after you exit. Close the door to the room or place a gate. Let your dog out when the food is gone and shut the door while you pick up the food bowl.

Do not take your dog’s food bowl away.

Stealing:

Dog-proof the home as well as you can. Do not leave anything on any counters. Do not let your dog in any rooms that aren’t dog-proofed 100%.

Keep everything off your counters. If your dog can grab things that they want from there, their behavior will be inadvertently reinforced.

Let your dog have things that are safe to chew on, and retrieve items that are not safe to have, by tossing treats behind your dog so that they turn back and create enough distance for you to safely retrieve the item left.

Housetraining:

First thing in the morning, take your dog out on a leash that is 4-6 feet in length.

Purchase a treat pouch you can use every time you take your pet outside. Carry treats with you anytime you take your pet outside. Within 1 -3 seconds of eliminating outside give the treat. Do not punish your dog if they have an accident as this can make them afraid to eliminate in front of you.

Take your dog out on a leash hourly for right now.

Keep your dog in sight at all times inside the house, your dog may need to stay on a leash inside for right now.

When you can’t pay attention to your dog put them in a crate or X-pen, and as soon as they come out of the crate, take them outside.

Excitement urination:
Before you have somebody come over to the home, take your dog outside so they can empty their bladder. Instruct visitors to greet your dog calmly or ignore them when they enter. They should not be overly excitable. Greet visitors outside with your dog on a leash when possible.

Interdog Aggression:

Always separate your dogs right now with a physical barrier that they cannot see through. This could be a closed door or a gate that is not see-through.

Walk your dogs separately.

Let your dogs out in the yard separately.

Feed your dogs completely separately, with a physical barrier in between them.

Pick up all toys when the dogs are together.

Separate the dogs when they have toys or other items that would trigger aggression.

Separate the dogs when there is any food out.

Do not leave the dogs unsupervised. Separate the dogs when you are not home.

Departures:

Take a video of your dog when you leave the house. This will help us determine what your dog does when you leave the house, and how effective our treatments in the future will be. There are several options, many of them easy and inexpensive to utilize to capture a video of your pet when you aren’t home. We recommend Wyze cameras, which you can find at https://wyze.com

Avoid departures when possible until your dog is ready for them.

Test departures to find out if medications are helping, should be short, 1 to 3 minutes.

Whenever necessary utilize doggy daycare, family, and dog sitters to leave your dog with company instead of alone for the day.

Try using an X-pen for confinement rather than a crate. We are looking to determine if the larger space could decrease their anxiety.

When you are leaving home, do not make a big deal about it. We want your departures to be low-key so that your dog does not feel as if it is a major event.

Avoid packing bags in front of your dog.

Escaping:

Use a baby gate at the front door to keep your dog from escaping.

Window barking:

Use white noise in your home to increase the amount of ambient sound. This will help to reduce the likelihood of your dog hearing outside sounds. Position the speaker or machine near where your dog would hear the sounds (front window, door).

Block the windows with window film (you can find this online), blinds, or curtains.

Block off the part of the house in which your dog can see the things outside that stimulate barking.

Purchase a sign that says “Do not knock or ring doorbell” to hang on or near your front door. Add special instructions to deliveries so that they utilize an alternate location for them to deliver the package, such as the garage. Inform visitors to alert you when they have arrived via text or phone call instead of knocking or ringing.

BEHAVIOR MODIFICATIONS

What to do if your dog barks:

Call your dog’s name, shake a treat jar, or otherwise get your dog’s attention in a non-threatening or scary way. No scary sounds! When your dog looks at you, orients toward you, or comes to you, reinforce with food, or play. These measures are called distraction measures. They immediately reduce the intensity and frequency of the barking. In addition, these types of treatments reinforce your dog for coming to you and orienting to you.

Lawn service:

Place your dog in a room that has less visual access to the lawn service people when they are going to be visiting. Block the windows in that room so they can’t see them. Play a white noise machine to drown out auditory stimuli. Give your dog food and puzzle toys to keep them busy.

Noises:

Create a sanctuary space to act as a safe place for your dog that they can seek out for comfort. This could be their crate. It should be in a quiet place where there is minimal foot traffic. The sanctuary space can also be in a separate bedroom. Teach your dog to like their sanctuary space by putting them there once a day, every day with a food toy filled with fabulous food. Once they finish eating out of the food toy, let them come out. Block the windows with window film (you can find this online), blinds, or curtains. Do not put your dog in their crate or sanctuary space for punishment. Use ambient sounds like classical music, white noise, or brown noise to drown out storm sounds.

Download the MyRadar app to monitor storms in your area.

If there is a storm coming in the next 2 hours based on the radar, medicate your pet as directed by the doctor above.

Food puzzles:

Increase your dog’s enrichment in the home by starting to feed them out of food puzzle toys. You should have enough toys that you can give them different toys to eat out of for breakfast and dinner and rotate them so that they don’t get bored. The following are the food puzzle toys that we discussed in the room:

Enrichment:

Increase the time that your dog spends outside. They don’t have to walk far if they don’t want to. Many dogs like sniffing, which is a great source of enrichment. When you have time on weekends, take your dog to new places to walk outside so that they can sniff new smells. Examples are parks and new neighborhoods.

Your dog is a high-energy and very smart dog. There are lots of options for enrichment to help them keep busy and burn off that energy. Feed your dog 50-75% of his meals out of food dispensing toys if safe to do so. There are a lot of commercial food toys available, as well as do-it-yourself options online. Use long-lasting food toys. You can fill a Kong with wet food, real meat such as chicken, kibble soaked in low sodium chicken broth, or anything else they enjoy. If you freeze the Kong, it should take them about 30 minutes to eat it. The higher the water content of the stuffing, the harder it will freeze.

Senior dogs – studies have shown that increasing enrichment alone improves the quality of life and improves clinical signs of cognitive function in senior dogs. Enrichment can be increasing walks, novel sights, and smells (walking in new areas), training and learning new skills, playing games, and interactive toys (such as food puzzle toys).

Dog sports:

Dog sports that you could consider for your dog are nose work, tracking, and many more. Enroll your dog in a class for one of these sports and additionally practice what you learn at home to have more ways to get your dog’s energy out.

Your dog may enjoy Barn Hunt.

Your dog may enjoy agility work.

Unruly behaviors:

When you have visitors come to the home, keep your dog on a leash and far enough away that they cannot jump on them and practice unwanted behavior.

Aversive tools:

Numerous scientific studies have shown the harmful effects of aversive training methods and equipment. Punishment-based training methods (such as shock collars) have been proven to worsen anxiety and aggression in dogs. Additionally, these methods do not teach the dog the appropriate behavior that you desire. Positive reinforcement-based methods are more effective in teaching dogs desirable behaviors. Discontinue use of any choke collars, prong collars, electric fences, or shock collars.

Do not use an electric fence or tie-out in the backyard. It is not safe as a child, dog, or person could enter your yard.

Do not use punishment-based techniques (yelling, hitting).

Encouraging calm behavior:

Reward your dog for calm behavior (not barking, sitting, laying down, resting) with high-value treats.

Have your dog sit before they get anything that they want (going outside, getting food, petting them) so that they learn that calm behavior gets them what they want. Continue this for 1 week and at the end of that time when they want something, don’t ask for a sit this time and see if they offer it. If they do so, reward the behavior within 1-2 seconds.

Recommended Dog Training Professional:

We are referring you to a certified separation anxiety trainer (CSAT). Please contact Terrie Hayward at positiveanimalwellness@gmail.com

We are referring you to a dog training professional. Please contact Gia Savocchi at gia.savocchi@gmail.com

We are referring you to a dog training professional. Please contact Michelle Belio at michelle@pawsitivelywagginacademy.com

We are referring you to a dog training professional. Please contact Terrie Hayward at positiveanimalwellness@gmail.com

RESOURCES

Books:

The following books will help you understand your dog better:

From Fearful to Fear Free, by Marty Becker and Lisa Radosta

Click to Calm, by Emma Parsons

The Cautious Canine, by Patricia McConnell

Fired Up, Freaked Out, and Frantic, by Laura VanArendonk Baugh

DINOS, by Jessica Dolce

Be Right Back, by Julie Naismith

Puppy Start Right, by Ken and Debbie Martin

Puppy Socialization What It Is and How to Do It, by Marge Rogers and Eileen Anderson

Baby / Child resources:

The following resources may help you manage your dog and child as safely as possible:

Book: Doggie Do’s and Don’ts by Emily Levine DVM, DACVB

Book: A Kids Comprehensive Guide to Speaking Dog, by Niki Tudge

Website: www.thebluedog.org/en/

Website: www.thefamilydog.com

Website: www.familypaws.com

Body language:

ASPCA Body Language – ASPCA

Dog Body Language 101 (video) – https://youtube.com/watch?v=siy0eog48ys

Dog Body Language – https://sfspca.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/dog_body-language.pdf

Dog Body Language Photos – https://flvetbehavior.com/canine-body-language-play/

Dog Decoder App – https://dogdecoder.com

Products:

ThunderSnap Leash: This is the leash that we discussed in the appointment today – https://thundershirt.com/products/thundersnap-quick-connect-leash-for-dogs

Wyze Cameras – https://wyze.com

Online courses:

Walks: This is the online course that we discussed during your appointment – https://onlineschool.instinctdogtraining.com/course/training-leash-reactive-dog

Medication administration:

We never want you to have to force medications into your dog’s mouth. This is stressful for your dog and may cause them to eventually avoid you or bite you. Find food that we can reliably use to hide their pills. Try all flavors of Pill Pockets, moldable meat like meatballs, or pate canned dog food (different flavors). Certain foods like marshmallows, banana slices, or strawberries can have a pill stuck in the middle of it to hide. If you can’t hide the pill or capsule, you could open the capsule or grind the tablet and mix it with liquid such as cottage cheese, yogurt, baby food, Inaba Churu, and melted ice cream. Plan to give their medications before they eat so that your dog is hungry. Create several “meatballs” using the favored food. Some meatballs will contain the medication, and some should be blank. Give blank-medication-blank so that they eat it quickly without realizing the second one had medication in it.

Cannabidiol (CBD):

Legally, I am unable to make recommendations about the use of CBD oil in my patients because it is an illegal substance at the federal level. Additionally, I do not have any research available about dosing, or whether it is safe to combine it with other medications or supplements. There is some research being done now, so hopefully we will have more information about this in the future, which may lead to changes in legislation.

MISCELLANEOUS

Additional recommendations:

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Dog Management Handout Form

Dog Behavior Management Recommendations

ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT

BEHAVIOR MODIFICATIONS

RESOURCES

MISCELLANEOUS

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