Trigger Happy Fly-Boy

It is not ‘normal’ for a 4 month old shih-tzu puppy to be growling at me from 5 feet away.

It is not ‘normal’ for a 7 month old aussie to lunge for my face when I offered him some food.

It is not ‘normal’ for the 9 month old lab mix to be completely uncontrollable by the owners, up to and including grabbing their arms with his mouth when they tried to put him on the scale and literally knocking them over and dragging them away.

It is not ‘normal’ for the 6 month old golden to be cowering and urinating in fear.

No one took me up on it. I had a client base of 75+ dogs at the start of the pandemic and work was completely silent until at least september of that year.

You know when everyone started calling and asking for help with their dog, who is suddenly going off the rails, barking, biting, peeing, destroying things? In June when everyone really stared going back to work and their dog’s behavior started bothering  them. When the dog’s anxiety could no longer be masked or written off as ‘oh i’m just home more often so that’s why Buddy is always with me.’

And to be clear - all of this was preventable. Even in the middle of a pandemic there are ways to socialize animals that are no-contact. Literally just taking your dog to a park and having them sit and watch people walking around is an excellent way to socialize a dog without having to be near people. Leaving your house for an hour and not taking your dog is another. These are simple things and yet as tehy *always do* people thought they knew better then every single animal professional who literally begged them not to just sit at home with their dog for a year and a half and now the animals are paying the price.

And to be clear, I don’t actually care if you think your dog doesn’t have anxiety over this. They do. I can guarantee you they do. Oh they’re just a little more hyper? They’re just chewing some things? They just seem *Really really happy* when you come home now? Follows you around from room to room? Congratulations your dog is showing symptoms of anxiety and you need to address them now before your dog bites someone.

I really really wish that people stopped having such an aversion to calling aggression an anxiety response. Aggression is an anxiety response. No stops. 100% of aggression is anxiety and no I don’t care if you think some dogs are predisposed to aggression they are not. They are predisposed to *anxiety* but people will ignore the hyperactive german shepherd who never settles down or the pitbull who does zoomies 24/7 and jumps on people and needs to be on your ass or she’ll die because that’s cute, right up until that behavior turns to uncontrolled biting and then suddenly it came out of nowhere and it must just be ‘the breed’.

I literally had to stop being a dog trainer for a few months because the expectations people have for both their dogs and us post pandemic are fucking unreasonable. No, I cannot fix your dog in two sessions when it took you 18 months(or probably longer tbh) to fuck him up. No, I will not help you if your only goal is to ‘stop the biting’ and not address your dog’s very real emotional distress that is causing that. No, I can not help you if you want me to do all the work or do not expect this process to take all the time and energy you could have and should have spent during the pandemic just because now you ‘don’t have the time’.

Fucking listen to the professionals - and not the fucking crackpots you cannot turn on two episodes of Caesar Milan(may your dog piss on your remote if you do) and call yourself a dog whisperer. You can watch however many youtube dog trainers you want but unless you have a real, live, professional meet you and see you dog(at *least* through fucking zoom jesus christ) you are going to be addressing the wrong things and *addressing them wrong* because you don’t have anyone to teach you, and watch *you* and tell you what *you* are doing wrong. 

I'm a service dog trainer. At the beginning of the pandemic I needed surgery, so the dog I was training went to a foster. This dog had a little bit of anxiety as a puppy, but her socialization was going very well.. up until she went to the foster. They didn't do SHIT with her. When I got her back 6 months later (surgery complications kept me out for so long) she was a DISASTER. Growling, barking, fear peeing, cowering, etc. I was pissed. All this dog needed was basic socialization during those months I didn't have her.

It took me, a dog trainer, another 6 months of constant 24 hour focus to fix this dog. One dog, with one trainers full focus, took that long to fix. And that was just re-socializing her. I couldn't safely begin her actual training until she was confident in her own skin again.

If you're a dog owner remember that. Doesn't matter if you didn't know, or actively ignored the pleas from animal professionals. It is your responsibility to put in the time and effort you didn't over the pandemic. And it's not going to be fixed overnight. Depending on the severity, the dog, etc, it can and will take months or even a year to fix.

natasha: what

steve: B. 😂😂😂BEcause She

tony with the straightest face: because she what steve

steve: