Getting a new puppy is an exciting experience.  A puppy is playful, cute, and lovable and can bring the whole family together.  Nevertheless, sometimes our puppies don’t exactly live up to expectation.  While the majority of puppy owners will have a problem free experience, some of us have to learn how to deal with problems like aggression.  Your puppy may growl at family members, bite or snap, or bark excessively, and obviously these signs of aggression are unacceptable.  If you have a puppy that is acting aggressively what should you do?

First, you need to identify the reason for the aggression.  Aggressive behavior in puppies may be defensive, territorial, or the result of anxiety.  In addition, puppies may behave aggressively because they want to dominate.  Identifying which kind of aggression your puppy is demonstrating will help to deal with the problem.  For example, if your puppy becomes aggressive when family members come in contact with his food or toys, this is a sign of territorial aggression.  Alternatively, puppies who growl at older dogs may be trying to assert their dominance.  Ultimately, dealing with aggression involves a training program that is built around the fundamental causes of the aggression.

Generally speaking, there are two types of training that can help reduce your puppy’s aggression.  Socialization training and obedience training have different goals but similar results.  With socialization training, you want to teach your puppy to get along well with other dogs and people.  You want your puppy to remain relaxed when there are new people or animals introduced.  Socialization training is especially effective for reducing anxiety and preventing territorial aggression.  With obedience training, you are achieving multiple goals.  First you are teaching your puppy his position in the household and that it is unacceptable to show aggression toward family members. In addition, obedience training helps to reduce defensive aggression because puppies learn the natural organization of the household.

Puppy owners can find a wealth of information online about puppy training, but should also consider a professional puppy trainer if their own efforts have failed.  Essentially, puppies need to learn appropriate behavior and with consistent training that focuses on reinforcement is the most effective method.

Dogs are remarkably flexible in their eating habits.  As omnivores, they have evolved to eat both meat and vegetables mostly because they are descendant from scavengers.  Still, from dog to dog there is a lot of variability in eating behavior and while one dog may make grass eating a daily routine, others may never touch the stuff.  While grass eating is a relatively normal and apparently harmless activity, many dog owners wonder: Why do dogs eat grass?

Today’s dogs are not exactly like their scavenger ancestors.  After hundreds or even thousands of years of domestication, many species of dog have seen their eating habits change drastically.  In the earlier stages of their evolution, dogs would eat just about anything and would normally consume their prey completely.  This included eating the plant-contents in the stomach of herbivorous animals.  However, dogs today probably eat grass as an alternative food source.  For domesticated dogs, grass is typically the most readily available plant food source, but dogs have also been known to eat wild fruit, berries, and other vegetables.

Indeed, one of the main reasons dogs eat grass is because they have nutritional needs.  Perhaps out of hunger, or some nutritional deficit in their diet, dogs will eat grass.  Your dog may be craving some essential nutrients that are not being delivered in his commercial dog food.  Grass fills that need.  In addition, dogs seem to eat grass when they are gassy or suffering stomach upset.  Grass will in fact stimulate vomiting when dogs swallow it without chewing and this may be a natural remedy to common dog stomach woes.  Presently however, there seems to be a lot of debate about why dogs eat grass.  While nutrition and health seem to be the most likely reasons, dogs may eat grass also because they enjoy its texture or smell.

In the vast majority of situations, panting is a normal respiratory response for dogs.  When their body temperature rises, dogs rely on panting rather than sweating to cool down.  In addition, panting in dogs is normally seen when your dog is under stress or anxiety, or as a response to intense physical activity.  However, if there is no apparent reason for your dog’s panting, there may be a more serious health problem afoot.  As such, it is important to recognize the difference between normal and abnormal panting.

Panting is defined as breathing with rapid, short gasps usually after physical exertion or in extreme temperatures.  When dogs pant, they breathe through an open mouth and usually their tongue is hanging out.  Panting helps a dog to cool down and regulate breathing and is normally associated with

• Heat – to cool down
• Physical exertion – to normalize breathing
• Nervousness, anxiety, or excitement – as a response to stressful stimuli

Nevertheless, while panting is a very normal dog behavior, abnormal panting has been associated with a variety of health problems.  Most notably, abnormal panting may be the sign of a respiratory or cardiovascular problem.  Dogs suffering from respiratory disorders often pant more than usual or for no apparent reason.  In addition, panting in dogs with respiratory or cardiovascular illness is also combined with other symptoms like labored breathing, lethargy, changes in appetite, or lack of motivation.

The following are common respiratory and cardiovascular conditions where abnormal panting is a symptom.

• Collapsing trachea
• Obstruction of the respiratory tract
• Lung disease
• Bronchitis
• Pneumonia
• Heartworm
• Congestive heart failure
• Dilated cardiomyopathy

Unfortunately, these conditions are all very serious if left untreated.  While there is very rarely any reason to have concern about your dog’s panting, if you suspect abnormal panting in addition to other symptoms, visit your veterinarian immediately so your dog can start the correct course of treatment.

We’ve all seen some dogs eat feces and wondered what that’s all about.  This condition, also known as coprophagia, occurs when a dog eats its own feces or the feces of another dog or animal.  While the reasons for coprophagia in dogs are generally unclear, the condition has been associated with various medical problems.  For example, exocrine pancreatic insufficiency, overfeeding, and malabsorption are all possible causes of fecal consumption in dogs.  Moreover, many researchers have also suggested that coprophagia in dogs is associated with a variety of behavioral problems and may be the result of attention seeking.

There has actually been little research into why dogs eat feces.  Coprophagia has been associated with higher levels of anxiety and stress or it may be the result of evolved scavenger behaviors.  Some researchers even suggest that dogs that have been punished for defecating in the past are more likely to engage in eating feces.  Even hunger may explain why your dog is eating feces.

Whatever the reason for coprophagia may be, it’s not surprising that dog owners wish the behavior would stop.  In fact, it can be very difficult to train your dog not to eat feces because he will likely do it when you are not present.  Still, a well organized training plan that reinforces positive behaviors and encourages dogs not to eat feces can be effective.  Some veterinarians also recommend adding a meat tenderizer to dog food because their feces will taste extremely bad.  Similarly, there are a number of food additives that cause the feces to smell excessively putrid to dogs making it very unlikely that they’ll eat the feces.  You can even add hot sauce or other additives to the feces that dogs don’t enjoy.  Finally, to prevent your dog from eating feces, be sure to clean up dropping around the yard to deny them access to eat it.

Sometimes it seems like dogs will eat just about anything.  They’ll certainly chew on your favorite shoes and you’ve probably even caught them eating feces or other equally unappetizing items.  And now, you’ve caught your dog eating rocks and you’re wondering what that’s all about.  In fact, dogs often eat inorganic substances with absolutely no nutritional value.  Pica is a condition where animals, even humans, eat or desire to eat strange substances.  Sometimes, pica will not pose a threat to your dog’s health but depending on the substance there could be serious health risks.

Eating rocks is one of the most common forms of pica observed in dogs.  Unfortunately, eating rocks can be dangerous for your dog.  Chewing on rocks most obviously can damage the teeth and the tissues in the mouth of your dog.  More seriously, eating rocks can result in blockages of the intestines and subsequently vomiting, diarrhea, and if the rock is large enough it can even cause choking and suffocation.

There are various medical and behavioral reasons why your dog may be eating rocks.  First and foremost, you may not be giving your dog enough attention.  When you react to your dog when he eats rocks you actually reinforce the behavior.  That’s not to say that you shouldn’t try to prevent rock eating.  In addition to the behavioral causes, medical disorders of the digestive system, nutritional deficiencies, and even diabetes may lead to rock eating.  Because of these possible medical causes, it is important to visit your veterinarian to figure out why your dog is eating rocks and treat the underlying condition if necessary.

Efforts to cure pica are associated with the underlying cause.  Behavioral pica should be treated with behavior modification techniques that focus on positive reinforcement.  Meanwhile, treating the medical causes of pica should also end the rock eating.  For example, if your dog suffers from poor nutrition, once you have compensated for nutritional deficiencies the rock eating should cease.  Be sure to visit your veterinarian to ensure that your dog is healthy and to learn the methods that you can use to prevent your dog from eating rocks.