My dog’s afraid of the car!

A bulldog owner recently told me that their dog used to enjoy car journeys, but now won’t get in at all.

This has happened since his special person is no longer around. That may be a connection, or it may not be.

I haven’t seen the dog, but my first thought - especially with a dog with a challenging skeleton like a bulldog - is that there’s a pain element involved.

So, you’d need to have this assessed at the outset. First step, your vet. They should get some idea of what may be wrong, but for a complete assessment you need a Canine Massage Therapist or Canine Physio. They’ll need to have a vet referral.

Once you’ve found out what’s going on inside the body, you can consider what’s inside the head!

There’s a detailed post on this car-reluctance here

Go carefully through the steps and you should dispel your dog’s fears in no time.

But if your vet visits have uncovered pain, you’ll need to look at practical physical options to help your dog.

Make it easy for your dog!

You could use a simple but sturdy box for him to step on to (make sure it doesn’t wobble!) then up into the car.

You could lift him and post him in (useless advice if you have a large dog!).

Or - the best solution - get a folding car ramp specially made for the job.

I used a ramp very similar to this for Rollo when he was getting beyond jumping up into his crate. It was wizard! It really worked, and was easy to store in the porch - or in the car when he was travelling with us.

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Step by careful step …

But like everything else to do with dogs, introduce this weird thing slowly!

  1. Lay it out on the ground flat.

  2. Let your dog explore it - some treats scattered on it may help.

  3. Once he’s stopped being suspicious, lead him gently on to the flat ramp. Maybe just one paw to begin with. Even a couple of paces is fine. Big game and reward at the end!

  4. Repeat over several sessions till your dog is happy to walk or trot along the ramp, still flat.

  5. Prop one end up, perhaps on a brick, and let him walk up it slightly inclined. Big reward at the end.

  6. Raise it a little more. Be sure it’s absolutely stable, or you’ll undo all your work and have to start again at no.1!

  7. If your dog has issues with his shoulders or forelegs, ensure that there’s something else for him to step onto at the raised end. Garden steps would work well.

  8. Attach the ramp securely to your car, and encourage your dog to walk up and into his crate, and down again. Fun! Treats!

  9. Be ready to catch him! Maybe hold onto his harness firmly for the first few attempts. Or have a person either side of the ramp to make him feel safer.

  10. Do the same coming down - ensure he walks all the way to the bottom of the ramp and doesn’t jump off halfway.

  11. Make your dog secure in the car once he gets there. A custom fitted car crate is the very best solution, but a seatbelt harness is better than nothing.

  12. Enjoy your journey!

I do hope you give this a try, and carry on enjoying your outings with your dog.

Let me know!

 
 

Your dog is learning all the time

Your dog is learning every day.

Are you?

We learn every day. Or at least, we should!

Not a day goes by without me learning something …

Sometimes it’s a major step forward in something work-related.

Sometimes it’s saying something and finding that it didn’t land as I wanted.

Sometimes it’s something practical, or general knowledge, why the earth isn’t flat, and suchlike.

But of one thing you may be sure - your dog is also learning .. all the time!

The question is, is he learning what you’d like him to learn?

Paying attention to your dog

One way to ensure that he’s learning the right stuff, is to spend time paying attention to what he’s doing.

Dogs react.

They react to things they see/hear/taste/smell.

And they see patterns.

When this happens, that happens next.

It’s the reason sheepdogs are so clever with sheep - they anticipate the sheep’s every move. Just a twitch of an ear can mean the ewe is about to break. Whoosh! The working collie is round in a flash to cut her off and return her to the flock.

And this anticipation isn’t confined to sheep!

You put on your coat - excitement! Are you taking your dog for a walk?

You pick up the lead - major excitement! This is one of the sure signs.

Anticipating things is what the dog is very, very, good at.

When I put on my tennis shoes, it means I’m going out without dogs. The two dogs who are crated when I’m out will be lying in their crates before I’ve even tied the laces.

This sort of anticipation is very good. They know what’s going on, they don’t get excited, and they aren’t disappointed.

Building patterns for your dog

So it’s worth looking at your sequences of behaviour and noticing when your dog reacts. You could change things so that he doesnt get over-excited.

Or you could change things so you get a calmer response.

Perhaps when walking your reactive dog you see another dog coming. Your hands tense on the lead. The lead tightens. Over time this established pattern means one thing: ALERT! To your dog this means for sure that something alarming is about to happen, so he stiffens, barks and reacts.

Do you see how changing something as apparently simple as how you handle the lead could change everything for you?

Want some help with this?

Start with one of my free courses at https://my.brilliantfamilydog.com

There are several which go into why your dog does what he does, and how to get both of you onto the same page!




How can I give my dog agency over her life?

Our dogs are in thrall to us.

We decide where they live, where they sleep, when they can go out, when they eat, who they play with, what they do - almost every minute of the day.

Their comfort, security, diet, exercise, health, intellectual stimulation … it’s all down to us.

They’re slaves!

Willing slaves, it’s true. We only have to look at how dogs became domesticated in the first place to know that they chose the benefits of living with us, and were prepared to take the curb to their freedom in exchange. (Read the Coppingers’ excellent book Dogs listed below in Resources.)

But within this framework - which is necessary in this day and age, to care responsibly for our animals - there is a lot of room to give them more freedom.

Take a walk, for instance. You may choose roughly where you’re going to walk, but why not let your dog decide on the direction? He’ll be following his nose, and we can follow him!

In this image, I don’t mind where in these beautiful woods we go - I let Yannick decide.


Food for your dog

And while you may have ideas about what your dog should eat, based on budget, convenience, health concerns, and so on, you can still give her a choice within those constraints.

Try offering a tray with different morsels of the food you want to feed, spaced out. Then watch carefully! Your dog will go for the best things first, and gradually keep going till the tray is clean (hopefully she likes everything you’ve offered!).

Now you know what she likes best . . . a bit . . . and not at all. Give her what she wants!

Bedtime

Most people seem to think that all dogs like the same type of bed. Think again!

My “hot” dogs (Border Collies, English Shepherds, for instance, with a good coat and a history of living in rugged conditions) like a flat comfy bed AND the hard floor. They switch between the two as the temperature decrees.

“Cold” dogs (and that would definitely include ALL the sighthounds, small terriers, dachshunds - anything with a thin skin and sparse coat) love to tunnel. You can give them heaps of blankets on a soft bed and let them dig in for themselves, or make it easy with a special tunnel bed.

Cricket the Whippet had a tunnel bed downstairs and duvet bed upstairs. It was a flat bed laid on the bottom half of a single duvet. The top half of the duvet lay on top of the bed, and she became expert at diving in and snuggling under the warmth of the duvet. (Tip - this is the very best bed for a tunnelling dog - and incredibly cheap and easy to launder!)

Coco Poodle seems to favour beds with sides - donuts, beds on legs, and the traditional ‘dog-bed’ bucket shape.

Freedom to roam (at home)

Puppies and new-to-you dogs need to always be in the same space as you unless they are in their crate or playpen. First you need to teach them how to behave in your home, and you don’t give them free rein till you know for sure that they know what they may chew and where they may do their business.

Once my dogs are ‘trusties’, in the summer the doors to the garden stay open all day. They can come and go as they please.

BUT if they contravene my laws about fence-barking (which is never allowed), they come straight in again!

They know the score, and on the whole only extreme provocation will get them barking. And yes, I even include the poodle in this! But for Lacy, the freedom to bark is an essential part of her being.

When we go to an empty beach I encourage her to get all the woofs out!

Intellectual stimulation

The last thing on my list - intellectual stimulation - is possibly the most important.

We owe it to our captive pets to give them scope to develop their minds.

This can be through training - daily manners, competition obedience, tricks, dancing with dogs, scentwork, mantrailing, tracking, agility - and so on.

You can use options, by offering a choice of two items and letting them choose by giving the relevant hand a bop. This can then be extended to hands not holding anything but representing Yes and No.

Try it!

But how about getting your dog to TALK to you?

 

Yannick asks me to sing

 

Yannick and I have developed such a strong relationship with him able to express his emotions (happy, sad, worried, safe, love you ..) through his buttons.

You’d be surprised how easy it is to get started (and hooked!) with this. Start here

All-Day Training

And if you want to find out how I teach my dogs painlessly, easily, all day long (but only a minute or two at a time) check out all the resources at my.brilliantfamilydog.com

 
 

The Old Dog


My Lacy is 16½ now. ’Tis a good age!

And, she’s very well.

  • She still loves her walks

  • She still loves her bed

  • And she definitely still loves her grub!

I want to share with you some of the things I have learned about keeping my old dogs fit and happy for as long as possible.

Walks for the older dog

You play this completely by ear - there’s no hard and fast rule. But I know that if we walk for more than about 45 minutes, Lacy is lagging behind on the way home.

Accordingly, most of our walks are shorter than that. Half an hour’s happy snuffling off-lead on a path she’s familiar with works wonders. And when she’s paused to inspect a particularly interesting scent, she’ll happily trot - or even run - to catch up with me.

And as you can see here, her BARKING is untroubled by 16½ years of heavy use, and she still enjoys racing about!

 
 


Sleep for the older dog

Older dogs sleep a lot. So all I need to do here is ensure she has a choice of comfy beds, and hard floors when that’s what she wants. She usually starts the night crashing onto the hard floor. But she’s almost always on her comfy bed when I wake in the morning.

Stimulation for the older dog

This is super-important! They can’t do crossword puzzles or all the things they tell old people to do to keep sane. But as long as you’re feeding a natural diet - processed foods and ready meals are as bad for dogs as they are for us! And in the case of humans have positively been connected to brain ageing - then that will give them a puzzle to solve daily.

Mine get a lot of raw chicken carcases, and chomping through those takes application.

Yannick frequently presses his PUZZLE button, so I make puzzles for them all.

🐶 Sometimes these are lickimats with paté spread on them.

🐶 Sometimes they’re feeders like kongs.

🐶 And more often I wrap treats in screws of paper, and stuff them into cardboard boxes or packets for them to rip and shred and munch. They love these “puzzles”!

Yes, there are a lot of cardboard and paper shreds to clear up before bed, but - so what? It keeps them very happy for quarter of an hour.

Old dog health

Like my previous old dogs, Lacy’s hearing has almost gone. I stamp on the floor to rouse her in the evening before bedtime, rather than spook her by touching her. Sometimes she can hear a high-pitched whistle, but banging on a door or cupboard will often penetrate her silent world.

I’m so sorry that she can no longer hear me chattering to her. I wonder if she thinks I’ve given up on that? So I make a point to talk animatedly to her when she’s right in front of me. The connection is strong, and must be maintained!

She doesn’t wear the “Deaf Dog” vest I had for Rollo. She tends to walk just behind me, while Rollo was always out front. So Lacy doesn’t need it.

Old dog grooming

Just because she’s old with failing hearing and eyesight, doesn’t mean that her coat stops growing! It has changed a bit, becoming longer and wispier, so it needs careful brushing. Lacy’s always had a dense coat, looking like a black bear, and it’s still just as dense. Trousers need attention for mats or very occasional stains.

She has various small lumps and bumps here and there on her head and body, but nothing that needs veterinary intervention. It would have to be deadly serious for me to risk an anaesthetic for her! But to me she is still just as beautiful as ever.

I’ve always kept claws well-trimmed, and I clip the hair between the pads. I also have mats at strategic corners in the house, to prevent slipping.

But I’ve found one great addition - sticky socks for dogs! I put these on Lacy’s back feet and since I’ve been using them (about four months now) she hasn’t once slid her back feet apart and flumped to the floor (distressing for both of us). So I reckon they’re a great success.

You do need to keep the middle two claws well-trimmed and filed though, or you’ll spend a lot of time darning your dog’s socks! I use a grinder for best, quickest - and most pain-free - results.

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A peaceful old age for my dog

Lacy was a bit quiet the other day. I began to be concerned. But three things worked splendidly well to reassure me:

1. I opened the fridge door. (She may be deaf, but some things she just knows ..)

2. I tossed her a mini pork pie (caught, chomped, and swallowed in one).

3. I took the frisbees to the garden to play with the younger two. (Much woofing and dancing about.)

She was fine!

The old dog can still learn

Lacy still enjoys going through her repertoire of tricks, though I’m careful which ones I ask of her. When she’d had a stroke (she’s had three now, over the last five years) I wouldn’t ask her to spin, as she’d simply have fallen over!

When the others are racing for frisbees, I toss her one right in front of her nose. Sometimes she can catch it, and is very happy.

Perhaps what I’m saying is that you can keep including your old dog in everything you’ve always done together, though some things will have to be adapted. An agility dog, for instance, may be happy just to be asked to go round a pole. And sniffer dogs can always sniff. That sense seems to stay strong for ever …

RESOURCES:

The Old Dog: 5 secrets for keeping him young

Old dogs are the best!

Celebrate your Dog while you still have her

My blog is reader-supported. When you buy through links on this site, I may earn an affiliate commission - but you’ll get the best deal!

To learn more about how I manage my multi-dog household, old and young alike, go to https://my.brilliantfamilydog.com

 
 
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Take it easy with your dog

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Fools rush in where angels fear to tread - Alexander Pope

That is so true when it comes to dog training! 

We get an idea of what we want our dog to do - respond as we’d like to a knock on the door, manage fireworks calmly, walk beside us on a loose lead … whatever it is, we say, “That’s what I’ll teach today!”

Come the end of the day - a frustrating day, to be sure - and you say, “I tried that and it didn’t work.”

Imagine your three-year-old attempting a PhD dissertation! 

We can’t develop new behaviours in a day … why should our dog? 

Slow and steady for your dog

Slow and steady wins the race - Aesop’s Fables

Leads on, now we wait patiently at the door

That’s another saying we can call to mind. 

The tortoise used craft and guile to beat the fast, agile, hare.

Let’s look at the sort of craft and guile we can employ when training our dogs! And I’ll use one example, and break it down.




Calm when the doorbell rings

The mad, barking, leaping, response to a knock on the door may be an entrenched behaviour by now. In that case, all the more reason to teach slowly, step-by-step, what it is you’d like your dog to do instead.

You see, dogs can’t not-do. They have to do. 

He can’t freeze mid-air and wait silently for you to go to the door.

You have to teach him what you’d like instead.

Let’s say you want him to lie down, quietly, on his bed.

So you’ll start, when no-one is around, just sending him to his bed and rewarding him.

Next you’ll add a little duration, so he relaxes into the bed, rather than staying on his toes, ready to leap.

Once this is established, you can start randomly sending him to his bed at any time, from any place in the house. Take this s-l-o-w-l-y. First succeed in sending him from one place, then another in the same room, and so on. 

You’ve taught the ‘down on your bed’ and now you’re consolidating. You can take a long time on this stage. 

Once your dog is happy to play this game with you at any time, you can stand by the front door and send him. Once ready, the next step is to knock on the door and send him, go outside and knock from the other side of the door, and so on. Always reward heavily for each correct response. 

If you have a doorbell, you can play around with a remote doorbell and move quite quickly forward. 

Finally, you can take it a step further. Ideally with a friend who will come and knock on the door, knowing he’ll never be let in. It may take quite a while to get your dog calmly onto his bed, and it’s crucial to solidify this. 

For my dogs, it’s the clank of the gate latch that sets them off. So your stooge person will need to start out at the gate!

What you want your dog to do is the variable here. 

Maybe you’d like him to accompany you to the door. In that case, have him come to you to clip on his lead, and first work through the door manners system in this post and video: Does your dog crash the door??

Once you’ve taught this, you are guaranteed sanity every time you touch any door handle, anywhere. 

Don’t forget, if your dog’s favourite reward is a quick game with a toy, be sure to check out the super, long-lasting toys here and don’t miss out on your special discount! 

It takes time to shape your dog’s behaviour

So you can see, it takes time. It’s not something you can change in an afternoon.

And also, you have to break it down into steps. Most things we want our dog to do are a series of steps.

A recall needs response to the call (maybe away from something as intoxicating as a bunny chase), a smart return, at least a pause when he arrives with you - possibly a sit. This requires teaching the several steps separately.

Walking nicely on lead needs the dog to know exactly where you want him to be when on lead, then to keep that position regardless of your speed or direction. This takes time! Especially with a dog who naturally wants to charge ahead, nose down. 

Getting your dog relaxed during firework season. This needs Desensitisation and Counterconditioning, as you’re working against fear. He isn’t deciding to get in a state, it’s not a voluntary action. So take your time, take it as slowly as you can - then a bit more slowly. 

Read: Counterconditioning doggy fears!

Want more dog training tips? 

Head over to my.brilliantfamilydog.com and look for the Search box at the top of the page. Here’s an example of what you’ll find:

 
 

This is an amazing resource. See all the results it brought up, over on the left?

Whenever you find yourself thinking, “What would Beverley do now?” this is where you’ll find out. 

It will search all my books, courses, blog articles, and community answers. 

Bob’s your uncle! 

The tech is ultra-fast. But for us hoomans and our dogs, sometimes it’s better to be the tortoise than the hare.

RESOURCES: 

Find quick answers by searching everything I’ve written here: 

https://my.brilliantfamilydog.com/search






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Your dog is an individual!

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There is more variation between individuals than between breeds.

Yes, it’s one of my favourite sayings.

And I can’t say it often enough. 

Yes, it’s true that spaniels are in general more like each other than like say, huskies, or whippets. But you can find plenty of spaniels who don’t like hunting, huskies who are couch-potatoes, and whippets who can’t run for toffee. 

The thing is, that humans and dogs are very similar in this respect. 

Take your own family! I’m sure you’ll find there are siblings who had the same parents, the same upbringing, the same food, the same school … and yet who are totally different in many ways. 

It’s one of the joys - and challenges - of parenthood, to find what works for each individual child. Lumping them all together will come to grief, sooner or later. 

Same with dogs!

And it’s just the same with dogs. Just because they happen to be the same breed as your previous dog doesn’t mean they’ll be a carbon copy (copy/paste, or duplicate, for younger readers!). 

Even pups from the same litter show huge divergence in character from very early on. 

Sarah Whitehead says: Behavioural scientists have been measuring these early differences for decades. Even at just eight weeks of age, puppies in a single litter vary in confidence, sociability, curiosity, activity levels and their responses to unfamiliar situations. (Wilsson & Sundgren, 1998; Fratkin et al., 2013).

Further, in a more recent study (Barnard et al, 2017) it was found that 

“the effect of litter emerges as playing a stronger role than breed in modulating puppies’ behaviours … The large variability both within and across breeds found here, mirrors results with adult dogs.”

“The large within-breed variability found among a generic sample of breeders, highlights the importance of shifting the attention of future dog owners from just ‘breed selection’ to a more careful assessment of the pups’ characteristics. Relinquishment of dogs to shelters may be linked to failed expectations, which could be fuelled by an inadequate/misleading view of a specific breed. Hence, increasing public awareness of the importance of visiting the breeder, asking about breeding strategies, seeing the parents of the litter and assessing individual behavioural differences among littermates are key steps to engender informed buyers.”

Now, where have you heard all that before?? ;-)

See the resources below for clues. 

Brilliant Family Dog – force-free dog training with Beverley Courtney

Practical, positive dog training based on 20 years' experience helping thousands of owners and their dogs. Explore 400+ free articles, 9 books and 6 online courses covering puppies, everyday training, recall, lead walking, and reactive and anxious dogs.

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