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As you may or may not have known, In addition to being a groomer, Mari
is a dog trainer. She has been training dog for many years and has helped
many, although, she no longer has the time to train, she still remains available
to help you. In this section, she addresses some of the most common
training needs. If you have any questions regarding any of these topic
after reading the section, feel free to call Mari and ask her about it.
 Most of our dogs' behavior problems are simply a result of
miscommunication. Once you work out what dogs are saying and find better
ways to communicate with them, most behavior problems are easy to fix.
Dogs and people have been living together for thousands of years,
and for the most part we understand each other pretty well. But
every now and then we encounter situations in which communication
breaks down. Our dogs don't understand what we want them to do, or,
just as often, we give them messages we didn't intend.
When you consider that people and dogs speak entirely different
languages, it's surprising that failures to communicate don't occur
more often. "It's hard enough to communicate clearly and effectively
with people," . "But when we try to communicate with our dogs, we have the
added difficulty of working with a different species that doesn't
talk and doesn't think the same way people do."
Communication problems sometimes take surprising forms, and it's not
always easy to recognize them for what they are.
Suppose your dog has been chewing on your shoes. She isn't merely
misbehaving. She's trying to tell you something. What that something
is depends on the dog and the situation. Dogs who spend a lot of
time alone will sometimes chew as a way of dispelling feelings of
loneliness or frustration. Other dogs chew because they don't
understand the difference between their possessions and yours.
Others may chew for the simple reason that it feels good to do it.
In other words, people and dogs speak different languages -- and
until we each learn the other's language at least a little bit,
we're bound to have communication problems. Often, these problems
take surprising forms. You might not think that destructive chewing,
leash-pulling, or house soiling result from our failures to
communicate with our dogs, or vice versa. In fact, communication may
be at the heart of some of these difficulties.
In many cases, solving these problems gets a lot easier with a
little bit of empathy on our part. Here are some ideas on how to
better understand why your dog is doing something, and how to
overcome some of the most frequently occurring -- not to mention
vexing -- obstacles to human-canine harmony.
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