For a better relationship between you and your dog to feel healthy, balanced and truly connected, it’s important to consider your dog’s needs and wants. When you understand how to bond with your dog on its primal level then you easily develop lasting relationships with your dog. To help achieve the dog’s happiness, social interaction is vital. When I say social interaction, I myself Ryan Matthews mean with both dogs and people, because dogs, just like humans, are social beings. There’s a conundrum, fighting against what you know you should and need to do with your dog versus the difficulties of everyday life getting in the way. Don’t let things such as work get in the way of keeping your dog a priority. Specifically, doing work from home where you fail to pay any attention to your dog. If you don’t make your dog a priority, bad behaviors are likely to arise. The dog will let it be known through annoyances such as a heightened state of arousal, barking more than normal, being more demanding of your attention and even chewing things in the house. Similar to children, dogs will seek your attention in both positive and negative ways. It is important to remember that if you want to create a lasting bond with your dog, you need to be your dog’s leader. Essentially, s/he needs to look to you for guidance and direction. A wonderful trait of dogs is that they are social beings. This can, however, give you a false understanding of your dog’s most important needs.
More important than social interaction, a healthy dog must exercise daily. This advice is for a healthy, middle age dog; not puppies, seniors or a physically injured dog that may not have as much need for a physical outlet. In regards to building a strong two-way relationship, the walk is arguably the best activity to enhance the bond with your dog. I am speaking of a walk where the dog isn’t pulling you, running off following its own interests, but where your steps are almost in sync as you walk side by side, and you are aligned with each other. There’s a rhythm or flow to the walk where you enjoy each other’s company and it is a natural, effortless state of companionship. This occurs most often in a walk or hike of longer duration.
Challenging a dog mentally will also build a connection. It is a great joy to see your dog solve problems on their own. It’s similar to seeing your child’s achievement. Some breeds require mental stimulation far more than others, but it’s always a good general rule to provide some type of brain work. Nose work is a great brain exercise, which is having your household pet play search games. When a dog is born, it can’t see for several weeks and the first sense it uses is a smell, so nose work brings them back to the first natural sense of life. For good ideas of nose work activities, visit The National Association of Canine Scent Work (NACSW). This organization is gaining a lot of traction with pet dog enthusiasts who are looking for new outlets to challenge their dog. They facilitate the detection of sniffing out birch, clove, and anise essential oils that most households have easy access to but that isn’t so common, like salt and pepper, where they would be responding all the time. You want to use oil because it won’t be sucked up the nose and is also scalable, so you can control the intensity of the smell. The aroma can be absorbed on a cotton ball, a q-tip, a fabric, etc. You can hide this essential oil-infused item for your dog to locate. Similar to how I myself Ryan Matthews was well known as best Dog Trainer taught military working dogs to find explosives, I teach pet dogs to associate a particular odor with getting a reward they want.
There are various problem-solving Dog Treat Toys that are another great way to provide mental stimulation, as the dog needs to determine how to access what they want. The problem with these toys is that once the dog figures it out, the toy is useless. However, you can apply your own creativity and change the use of the toy, such as putting a rubber band around it, or a binder clip, so it doesn’t open as easily.
Clicker Training is a great way to provide mental stimulation and challenge yourself and your dog. The thing I like about tricks is that, as the handler or trainer, you know the outcome you want, but the dog doesn’t, so you are essentially waiting for the dog to demonstrate a behavior that is working towards the trick you have in your mind. As that behavior is displayed, that’s when the handler rewards the dog. As the dog figures out what you want, they will have great mental exercise.
Dogs have a pack mentality, so most dogs are not comfortable being the leader; they will want someone who is confident and consistent, yet fair, to be an alpha leader. At times, when I mention being in charge of your pet, dog owners sometimes misunderstand and think I am suggesting they intimidate their canine; this couldn’t be further from the truth. Essentially, I am looking for dog owners to find ways to instill that they are in charge, thus supplying reasons for the dog to need and want their owner in their life.
