What is your family dynamic? Have you a dog or dogs? Have you thought about when your family dynamics change and this affects your dog and how you will help your dog and your family remain calm if issues arise?
You could be a person living on your own, then a friend or relative comes to stay with you for some time. You and your dog have your own routine, but now there is another person in the mix!
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Your dog, will either, remain close to you and carry on as before, or try and usurp this other person’s attention. Your dog may even change normal quiet habits to one of being excited, being demanding, or simply acting as though he or she never got any attention from you at all! My goodness, what is my dog doing? My dog does not usually behave like this! How will you react?
If you have crate-trained your dog, simply put your dog in its crate with a favourite toy or a chew and let them settle for a while. When you feel that it is time to try again, let your dog out and if it is your normal procedure, once you let your dog out of its crate is to take your dog outside to ‘toilet”, do so.
Upon returning inside, if your dog settles into their normal quiet self, this time-out has given your dog time to regroup. If your dog returns to acting like a clown, you may need to repeat this procedure.
You may have added a new puppy to your home situation. My goodness, this has changed life as known previously in my household. I did not have to think about the thought, when your family dynamics change and this affects your dog, because I knew straight away my residing dog was miffed and was hoping this was a sleepover and not a permanent event!
I can laugh now, but at the time, I am always thinking, on no, how long is this sulking going to last? I usually find with careful management to not let my first dog think that he or she is being left out of the attention and after about a week or so life has settled somewhat!
Once with one of my previous dogs, even though he showed some sort of willingness to accept the new puppy, deep down in his psyche, he had not fully accepted.
How did I know? I was trialling him at an obedience trial and of course upon arrival had taken them both for a walk on their leashes and all appeared to be okay.
However, once it was my turn to compete with him in the ring atmosphere, he behaved as though he did not understand any “commands” I gave him. He just stood there blankly. Mind you, this was a dog who did very well at obedience trials. He was normally a dream dog to trial. My immediate thought was, have I done any hand signals differently, had I spoken differently, is he not well?
Then my light bulb moment! He was telling me in no uncertain terms, that even though he appeared to accept this new puppy into our household, he did not like sharing me at all. Training times previously with him, were just him and I, now there was this new imp at the sidelines, and sometimes this new imp was loudly complaining that she wanted our of her crate.
My decision from then on was to continue having our own one-on-one training times together and then slowly let my new puppy join in at the sidelines every so often. Of course, over time, my new puppy could join in and watch every time.
I would say, from memory, it took my boy about four months to show his affection for my new puppy and really accept her as part of our pack.
Of course, there are other scenarios where family dynamics change, however for now, when your family dynamics change and this affects your dog, you need to be super sensitive and patiently work towards changing this unsettled atmosphere to one of calmness again.
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Enjoy your dog or dogs!
Until next time…
With Love, Success and Inspiration,
Robin Oliver
