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Recipe: Birthday cake for your dog!

October 11, 2019

Hello Puppers and Doggo’s!

I’m a tad sad today. I had actually planned to post a full video of how I made Olive’s birthday cake for you, but the unthinkable happened: My SD card with all the video’s snapped in half while trying to transfer them to my laptop. Oops! Lucky for you I still have a short video of Olive enjoying her cake, and the recipe I also still have so instead of a video, you are getting a blog post!

It’s still unbelievable to me how fast the last three years have gone, Olive has turned into this amazing, well balanced, sweet and kind dog that is everything I could have ever hoped for and more. And that deserves a cake. A doggo cake. So that is what I made her for her birthday.

My goal for a cake was to make it epic, and I must say finding a recipe that suited was harder than I thought so I ended up Frankenstein-ing a recipe especially for Olive. I found that most pupcake recipes were based on mainly flower, or were just frozen meat. I feel like although it is her birthday, I still wanted to make a cake that was slightly healthy, and that I afterwards could cut up in cubes and use as treats.

Olives “I’m supposed to ignore this cake” face

For the main ingredient I picked beef – it’s one of those meats that a lot of dogs can have without issues, and I felt like Olive would like it more than a mince chicken cake, so there we go. This recipe calls for no flour at all, just a little bit of oats, carrot and an egg to get everything to stick together, and off you go. If you prefer your dog doesn’t get any type of grain at all you can even choose to leave out the oats completely!

The frosting is the part where it got a little trickier. I’ve read a lot about different types of frosting for dogs, and I chose to go with thick, Turkish style yoghurt, although Greek style yoghurt will do too. I hung the yoghurt up in a cheesecloth for a couple of hours although that is totally optional, draining some of the liquids makes the yoghurt a little bit thicker and easier to work with. I mixed in some tapioca flour to make it even thicker and then, to get a slightly pinkish colour, I blended the yoghurt together with a can of Tuna, GROSS! But it definitely had the result I wanted!

Lastly, it was time to assemble it all. I ended up making two layers, both the same, in a super tiny cake tin. I stacked them together with a bit of the frosting in between and then lathered the cake full of the frosting, top to bottom, all around. To finish it all off I decided to stick dehydrated little sardines all around the side, and there you go! A perfect Birthday cake for your perfect doggo!

For the cake:

250 grams of minced beef
1 cup of carrot, grated
2/3 cup of rolled oats
1 egg
Little bit of mozzarella cheese
Small cake tin

For the frosting:

½ cup of tapioca starch or cornstarch
½ cup of greek yoghurt
1 can of tuna

For the finishing touch:

Dried sardines for on the side
Some crumbly treats or dog bones for on top

Method:

Preheat the oven to 375F
Mix the beef, oats, carrot, egg and tiny bit of mozzarella together and split the portion in two
Spray a small cake tin (I used a 10cm one) with cooking spray and firmly press down half of the mixture in there
Place the other half of the mixture in the fridge, and cook the first tin for 40 minutes in the middle of the oven. Put a tray or so underneath it to prevent leaking
When the first is done, let it cool down and remove from the mold. Wash, respray with cooking spray and cook the second batch.
Let the second batch cool down too and place one of the two cakes on a plate
Spread a blob of frosting on top of the first cake and place the second cake on top, with the bottom side up so that your top is nice and flat
Spread the frosting all around and on top, and make it nice and smooth. If you have a palette knife or an offset spatula this would work perfectly for this!
Stick the dried fish all around the sides and place some bones or crumbly treats on top to finish it off!
Give it to your doggo and watch them enjoy!

DCM – an update on grain free food

August 16, 2019

Last week or so the FDA came out with a new statement with regards to the whole DCM story I’ve written about before on the old blog, for those of you that followed that. I wanted to bring this up again as it is something affecting quite a lot of dogs, although percentage wise it might not seem like much.

For those of you who haven’t read up about this, DCM stands for Dilated Cardiomyopathy. In this case, it is about an enlarged heart caused by lack of an amino acid called Taurine. This lack of Taurine has caused a lot of issues in the past in cats, but since dogs can make their own taurine it was never thought to be an issue.

The amount of cases of DCM in dogs caused by a dietary deficiency went up from 3 in 2017 to 320 in 2018. In the first 4 months of 2019 there are already almost 200 cases reported. Now look, in regards of the total number of dogs, percentagewise 500 dogs is not that many. Around 1% only. But the thing is, these numbers have risen tremendously, and these are only the dogs that have been tested.

Now, what causes this rise in issues? For now, it’s still unknown. The FDA started their investigation in June 2018. Unfortunately, we all know that animal products are not a major concern for the FDA so the research is going slow. There’s a lot of theories out there, but the main one now is that the high amount of peas and potatoes in dog food has been the culprit.

In the human medical field, it is well documented that peas, potatoes and other legumes suppress the ability for the body to take in the needed building blocks to make taurine. In small amounts this causes no issues, but with the rise of fancy boutique foods who use whole meat instead of meat meals this may cause issues, since the product will have way less meat in it than initially put in the pot, so to say.

How that works is as follows, let’s have a look at protein content in food. Whenever you use a meal, you use the dry matter of the meat. A high-quality meat meal is basically just meat with the water already evaporated. Let’s say I put 60% meat meal in my food, and 40% pea protein. Since both are dry matter, at the end of the processing stage I will still roughly have the same percentages.

Now, let’s look at it the other way around. A lot of foods are currently advocating the use of fresh meats, but that’s where the problem starts. A free-range chicken breast is about 32% dry matter. That means that in the processing stage all the other 68% evaporates. So, when I put in the same 60% in meats but now fresh meats, and 40% of pea protein I will end up with a totally different product at the end.

Let’s say we put in 6 kilos of chicken breast and 4 kilos of pea protein, we would end up in the end with only 1.29 kg dry chicken meal and still around 4 kilos of pea protein. That means that you go from a 60% vs 40% food to approx. 25 % meat vs. 75% protein from peas.

Just to mention, this is just an example. There is way more that goes into the calculation of begin product vs. end product, but it gives you a little bit on an idea what is going on currently in the food industry. Also, please don’t read into this wrongly, I’m an avid believer in feeding fresh and wholesome meals and later in this piece I will tell you what it is I currently feed Olive.

Now one thing that I’d like to add to the above, ingredients are not everything. Apart from the raw ingredients one of the most important things about a food is the actual vitamin and mineral content of the food and how it is chemically put together into a well-balanced meal. Just like for us humans it is important to get a bit of the entire spectrum of foods, the same counts in a different way for dogs, they obviously have very different needs than us but they still need certain amounts of certain nutrients.

So, back to DCM and the taurine deficiency it seems caused by. How can we check our animals and make sure they are okay, and how do we prevent DCM from happening? Some brands have started adding taurine to their meals. The problem with this is that peas still suppress the ability to take in these amino acids, so just simply supplementing seems of no use. Of course, it is also important to point out that the current research available is not nearly enough to make a conclusion and we still don’t know 100% sure that these foods are the cause, it’s just the best guess since all the suffering animals have these types of food in common.

So instead of telling you what to do, I’m going to tell you what I chose to do with Olive. Before the research started, Olive was on Acana. Now in all honesty I was considering different foods already because I was not totally happy with how she was doing. On the DCM Facebook group they advised me to get an echo or taurine blood test done on Olive to make sure she is clear but at that stage I didn’t find the research comprehensive enough to spend over 500 euro on tests. Secondly Olive was only on Acana for such a short period that I didn’t feel like it was the right step.

That said, I felt like leaving her on Acana wasn’t the right step either. If there is no conclusive answer yet I felt like it wouldn’t be good to put her at risk so we decided to change foods. Initially I changed over to Farmina Ancestral Grains which I really like and even Olive liked it a lot, but I noticed she was shedding a lot on this food so we decided to change over again last month to a food I thought I would never feed, Purina Pro Plan.

Why? You might ask. Well. The ingredients are not ideal, no, but interesting is that literally every owner I know that feeds this food, both in the Netherlands and outside of it, has an amazingly healthy looking dog that is happy and energetic. There has never been a recall on this food, there has been loads of research done and again, the people feeding the food are the proof. So, we took the jump and are currently in the process of changing her over.

That said, I’m an avid believer in feeding fresh and wholesome foods, so we supplement whenever we can with raw meals and she gets a couple of natural supplements like green lip mussel powder and an omega supplement.

Anyway, the point of this blog is not to scare you or to make you change foods, but more so to make you aware of what is going on in the food industry now. I’d also like to point out that this piece is just my view and opinion on this matter. In the end, we all need to feed the dog that is in front of us, and make decisions based on what we believe is best for our dogs. I just hope that this info will help you in your decision!

Olive tries Dog treats

May 21, 2019

We were on the way back from the floral display in Lisse, but we had one more little stop to make in Haarlem. Where, you might ask? Well, at a store called Hondjekoek (which means dog cookie – how cool is that name!). It was a little hard to find and from the outside it almost looked like a garage, but as soon as you go through the door it’s just heaven. The walls are filled from head to toe with the coolest toys and nicest treats, there are big chest freezers full of premade raw and all kinds of prey model raw, and the people in that run the store are super nice too.

So anyway – we came to the store for a surprise package that Ramona had put together for us, a package full of treats to try, and it was such an awesome package too! And now it’s time to review some treats, what my picky little Olive thought of them, and of course how I liked them myself!

Head plate – beef

Head plates are already a staple in our household – it’s one of the few chews Olive actually stays interested in. Normally madam Olive is the type of dog that eats a treat once, and then is done with them for about half a year. With most brands of head plate we need to make sure not to give them too often, so that she stays interested.

Whenever I opened the package of headplate I was met with the awful smell of dehydrated meat. And Olive sat next to me straight away drooling and wagging her tail. She was definitely interested! The pieces were nice and big, of a nice and natural looking color, and smelled really gross.

And the best part: Olive agreed! I don’t often see her this excited about treats! I was actually able to give her one chew a day, and she was totally okay with this and didn’t lose interest at all! Another important part was that she didn’t get an upset stomach or anything from this either, great treat !

The good:

Olie loved them and thought they were delish!
Handy size, not too small, not too big
100% meat and fully natural

The bad:

They smelled so bad!

O’Canis deer cookies, 6 pieces

I have to say that I was a little bit nervous about these cookies, for training treats they are a bit too big and there were very few in a package. Usually I don’t really give cookies to her at random times or just because I can, so I really had to find a way to fit these cookies in our daily routine. Oh well, let’s just start giving her extra treats then! She’s a good pup after all!

And that’s what I did. Honestly, these cookies actually smelled kind of good, a little bit like jerky (which I LOVE) and they are made of 100% deer meat which makes them super nice for elimination diets or for pups who have allergies. Olive usually doesn’t really like treat with just one flavor (she’s a sucker for the bad stuff, grains, etc.) but she was very enthusiastic about these!

It was also nice that even though these cookies are pretty big in size, they are quite easy to break. Which means they are easy to take with you on the road! No crumbs in your pocket and easy to break off for a little bit of a praise during our walks.

The good:

100% meat and fully natural
Suitable for allergic dogs and elimination diet
Easy to take on the road and no crumbs
Smells okay

The bad:

Quite big to give in one go

Soopa chew sticks in Peanut butter and Banana

Of all the treats we received these were the ones that made me doubt most. Olive is not a fan of vegetarian stuff at all, and she’s not big on the peanut butter either. We tried vegan treats before and they weren’t really a success, she’s a true carnivore! They did make me curious though, mainly because the limited amount of ingredients that are also all natural… And easy to understand, no weird ingredients to be found on this list!

Surprisingly enough, Olive was a fan of the chews. Not as much as the headplate or the deer, but she ate them all! I did have to space them out by not giving them every day, because she did get bored of these easily. But honestly, I don’t mind that too much. I don’t want to eat pasta every day either!

The good:

Hypoallergenic
They smell so so so good
Fully organic
Free of palm oil

The bad:

Not as much banana and peanut butter as I would have hoped
Olive was less enthusiastic compared to other treats

The Original Lakse Kronch fish treats

These treats are another staple in our treat cabinet. They are so awesome! 100% salmon and a bag of these is so freaking big, it lasts you forever! Olive also really loves these, they are smelly, easy to break, and most dogs I meet are an absolute sucker for them. Olive does regularly need a “Lakse Break”, which I think comes from the fact that they are so heavy in smell and flavor for her, but honestly, she’s a weirdo.

Besides the fact that the bag is enormous and most dogs go nuts for these treats, I also really like the size of these. They are very easy to use for training and easy to break into smaller pieces. The big downsides are that these treats are super greasy, they are very crumbly and they smell terrible. Now with that I do have to say Lakse makes a pocket version of these treats which has a little potatoes in it which makes it to not crumble anymore and not be as greasy. These are great to bring in your treat pouch!

The good:

High value for a lot of dogs
100% salmon and 100% natural
Great size for training treats
Super large bag of treats

The bad:

So smelly
Very crumbly

Canis Purus canned dog food

Besides the large amount of treats we also got a can of Canis Purus to try. Olive usually gets a mix of premade raw and kibble, but her kong we usually fill up with canned food because it’s simply easier, so this can was perfect for that purpose! The first thing I noticed when opening this can was that it totally did not smell like canned food, it actually smelled like meat which was a pleasant surprise.

What I really like about this food as well is that you could see the pieces of vegetables in it, it did not look like your general canned food at all. Even the meat looked like actual minced turkey! Olive was a fan too, and emptied her Kong in record time.

The good:

Didn’t smell like canned food
Looked like real food
Not just muscle meat, also bones and organs were included
Olive really liked it

Minpunten:

There was a lot of potato in it which I’m not a fan of
Quite watery which makes it difficult to put in the kong

P.L.A.Y. Camera

Last but not least, The camera toy from the brand P.L.A.Y.! This toy has been on my “to get” list for ages so I was super happy when I saw it in our surprise package! I love the toys of this brand so much, they are so cute and I was dying to try them out!

Now before I review this toy I have to admit Olive is not a destroyer of nice things, she is super careful with her toys so we can’t really say anything about how strong or not this toy is.

At first I thought this toy had a very weird structure. It felt like, to give the toy it’s camera shape, they used a little plastic bottle and cardboard sides which made the toy quite stiff and hard. Since Olive is not a fan of hard or rubbery toys this made me wonder if Olive is actually going to like this…

Well, my doubts were for nothing. She actually really liked the toy! The handle makes it a great tool to teach your dog a “hold” command and work well for little tug games, and the toy has a super loud and sturdy feeling squeaker which makes the toy super interesting. It seemed to not matter for Olive at all that the toy had a weird shape and structure, it was a great success!

The good:

Great loud high quality squeaker
Sturdy structure that doesn’t feel fragile
Great looking toy
Easy handle for teaching tricks

Minpunten:

It feels like there’s cardboard and plastic on the inside, maybe not ideal for the destroying dogs.

So guys, these were our tests for this “Olive Tries” post, what would you like Olive to try next time?

How Instagram helped with my anxiety

April 10, 2019

I hear a lot of people talk about how Instagram makes them more anxious, trying to live up to the people they follow. A lot of people tell me they feel envy of other peoples lifestyles online and how they portray themselves, how they have more followers or better photography skills, or how these people do things they feel like they can never achieve. Yes I agree, sometimes I look at profiles and think wow, I wish I could be like that, or live like that, or photograph like that, but instead of focusing on these points I’d like to share with you how Instagram actually helped me be a more social person and helped me deal with my social anxiety.

When we just started instagram vs. a photo of this year.

The tropical illusion

Whenever I started Olive’s account I was living with Will in Cambodia. We had left our normal lives behind to chase a life of secret waterfalls and tropical beaches. Believe me, although it was stunning, it often wasn’t as it seems. While there I realized how many of the humans I followed on Instagram were showing off a dream that was not real in any way. How they are able to show the pretty white sand beaches but not all the trash that was right behind that. This is something that put Instagram into perspective for me.

From phone to real camera

But hey, I started an insta for Olive anyway. It started small with a simple phone camera (Huawei, and not the good kind) and away we went. Our account didn’t blow up like I hoped and I wasn’t as good in photography as I thought. I didn’t know anything really, but I had so much fun sharing my daily endeavors with Olive. But in all honesty, our account didn’t really start growing until way later when we moved back to the Netherlands and my boyfriend Will gave me my first ever camera for Christmas. This was just 2 christmasses ago actually!

First ever image with my first ever camera – a Canon 1300D (or Rebel T6 if you’re in the states)

Our first Insta friends

Both starting the Instagram and getting the camera helped me firstly to get out of my house more. I was terrified of meeting new people and being outside and looking like a weirdo, but this gave me the perfect excuse and the perfect way to hide myself – behind my camera. It helped me be more comfortable laying on the floor for that perfect picture (do it for the gram) and not give a damn about what anyone around me thinks. A couple of weeks back I even dressed Olive up in my scarf and hat and did a full on photoshoot while people were walking around me – a new achievement!

Act the fool – it’s okay!

Apart from anxiety getting out of the house and being super scared to look like a fool, I was also absolutely terrified of failing. So scared, that I didn’t want to do anything unless I was really good at it already. This meant whenever I started something, and it got a bit hard, I would just stop because I was so scared of looking incompetent. What Instagram has given me is a community of dog-loving people who quite frankly don’t give a damn about that one picture that looks slightly less good than the rest. Who are supportive because they love to follow you and while this may sound like I hang too much on others opinions, it’s mainly that I really needed that little push in the back that I CAN do something, and it is okay to try new things, and you only fail if you don’t try something at all.

As long as you keep going, and keep trying, and keep getting up when you fall, eventually you will get it right and you will learn. Experts are born through practice, practice and more practice and that’s something I knew but did not follow in the past.

For this picture, I laid flat on my belly in the middle of a roundabout!

Gaining a new family

The third and most important thing I’ve gained from the Instagram community and helped my anxiety the most is, well, the community itself. Where I secretly expected to find a bunch of “stranger danger” weirdo people taking pictures of their dogs, I found a community of dog lovers, hiking enthousiast, outdoorsy people, kind hearted and amazing achievers, and I am still amazed by how amazing you all are. The people I’ve met through Instagram have been so supportive and kind, great friends, that are always up to meet up and go hike when we are near. This social community honestly has been such an awesome community to fall in to, and I’m truly grateful for that!

Help! My dog growls!

April 1, 2019

We’ve all heard it before, that deep scary noise a dog makes when scared, uncomfortable or unhappy. The sound scares a lot of people and in all fairness, I don’t blame them! I still find it very impressive and feel quite uncomfortable when I hear a dog make this noise. You might have guessed already, but in case you haven’t caught on yet, I am talking about growling.

Hey dude, this is my last warning!

Many people seem to think growling is a bad thing or a sign of aggression, but this is actually not true. I consider it a good thing! Hey, your dog is communicating with you, they are letting you know they are uncomfortable or unhappy with the situation! Instead of a sign of aggression, growling is a sign that the dog wants to avert aggression. Now don’t get me wrong, growling obviously is not a desirable situation but at least your dog is letting you know something is wrong before it escalates. So yes – it is good your dog growls, but it is not something you should ignore. Growling should be taken very seriously.

But why is my dog growling?

So – your dog growled at you, another person or another dog. There are many reasons why a dog would growl, but we will just go through the main and most common reasons. One of these reasons is play, some dogs get growly during playtime. This is not something to worry about and is fully normal. I will not go in to that type of growling too much! Remember that the tips I give are only the tip of the iceberg – solving issues like these take a lot of time and effort. The information in this article is not nearly enough, it just gives you an idea of causes and a couple of things you can implement immediately to start working towards a solution. Below you will find the other reasons:

Resource guarding: Does your dog growl when you try to take their toy, something they have taken from you or touch their food? This is called resource guarding. Your dog is telling you hey! That’s my item! Don’t take that!

Territoriality: A great example for this is your dog is sleeping on the couch and doesn’t want to move or when your dog growls whenever another dog comes close to your garden. He or she is telling you hey! That’s my spot, leave me alone!

Provocation: This is one you see often when we as people or other dogs go too far. This happens often with children as they are not being able to spot the signs of an uncomfortable dog makes for this to be the riskiest situation of all. Your dog is telling you they are uncomfortable with the situation.

Pain: I think this kind of falls under the provocation tab, but I will give it a separate header. It speaks kind of for itself, a dog in pain will sometimes growl to show their discomfort.

Fear: A scared dog is likely to growl at you as a last resort to get you or whatever situation it is in to stop. The dog is telling you to please back off, and it is very important to do so.

The thing that links all of the above causes is the fact that we as owners have overstimulated our dogs and missed previous signs of distress. It is so important to learn about the body language of dogs and their way of communication, and apart from finding the cause of the growling and working on that, it is super important to learn to catch on to discomfort sooner and therefore deal with it quicker.

What did I miss?

I want to talk to you about signs of stress and discomfort. There are a lot of signs which are easily missed by adults and children alike. Remember that it is always better to prevent than it is to cure, so learning these signs will make life a lot easier for you and your dog. It’s also important to remember that you are your dogs advocate and you are the one that should protect your dog from stressful environments. So lets talk about the ladder of aggression – this is a list of signs where if one sign gets ignored the dog will move on to the next step. As you can see, the top step is an actual bite or escalation, this is what we want to prevent. Below, an image of the canine ladder of aggression:

But he never does that!

Another part that I think is really important to discuss is what is called trigger stacking. Have you ever had someone tell you “Oh but normally he never does this!”? It might be that normally there was just one less trigger around, and this last trigger was the one the tipped the bucket. For example, while the dog might be only a little bit stressed with a child trying to pet them, and only a little stressed with a lot of noise around, and only a little bit stressed when you grab their toy, if they all happen at once it might just be too much, which causes a sudden “snap” at a moment you didn’t expect. Simply because all these triggers on their own were not too bad.

This is why it’s so important to know the tiny signs – 3 tiny signs might be, stacked together, the cause of a big snap.

So how do I respond when my dog growls?

Whatever you are doing – stop doing it. Your first priority now is to get your dog out of the situation that is causing him or her discomfort. If your dog is growling at you this means you move away. If the growling is at someone else this means you take your dog away from that situation ASAP. Shouting or scolding your dog in this situation will only add more stress to the situation. Scolding will also teach your dog that it is not okay to warn you and it teaches them that warning will not stop the discomfort, therefore it is more likely to go to the next step of the ladder without a warning. Another thing that will not help the dog in this stage is trying to comfort it. The dog is over threshold already so there is absolutely no point in comforting the dog, he or she is not in a trainable mindset now and might even unexpectedly turn on you because it’s just too much. Therefore it is best not to show emotion and first get your dog back to a comfortable state of mind. Once that is done, it is time to figure out why your dog was growling. What did you or someone else do that was too much for your dog to handle?

*(images from http://woofliketomeet.com/2016/03/trigger-stacking-how-we-set-our-dogs-up-to-fail/* )

And how do we go from there?

Now that you know why your dog is growling, you can look for a suitable way of dealing with it. Firstly it is important to start learning and respecting those stressors we talked about earlier. Whenever you see them you know your dog is hitting their threshold, and by backing off or giving them a sense of security they will grow in confidence, which will make the threshold larger and the likeliness to growl smaller.

Food & Toys: If your dog is growling to guard his food or toys, you could start doing trading games. It is important to make your dog feel like you would never steal their food, this sense of security will make your dog feel like there is no need to guard. Another thing you can do is drop food in the bowl every time you walk past it while the dog is eating, this way your dog starts to learn you are there to give, not to take. More on this topic will come in a later article!

Dogs & People: For issues with dogs and/or people I would advise to read my article on fearful dogs, as this sort of reactivity often stems in fear. You can play games like the engage disengage game, working from a large distance and slowly closing that gap. Have people that you know that have well balanced and nice dogs or people that are themselves well balanced and listen to your instructions help you and stay clear of any high traffic areas like dog parks.

Territory: For territorial issues and issues with for example moving your dog from a certain place to another or picking them up it is important to stop moving them. Give them their own safe place like a bed or crate and throw some treats every time the dog goes near that place or lays down in their spot. You can also work on the relaxation protocol there. Make sure never to disturb them when they are on this spot and leave them be. Whenever they are on a spot they are not allowed (for example the couch) don’t try to move them. Instead grab a toy or treat and lure them off the couch. This way they get rewarded for moving from the spot and having their attention on you and you prevented an escalation.

Remember that the tips above are only the tip of the iceberg – solving issues like these take a lot of time and effort. The information in this article is not nearly enough, it just gives you an idea of causes and a couple of things you can implement immediately to start working towards a solution.

In conclussion: Growling is not bad, but shouldn’t be ignored

In conclusion, growling can be caused by many things but it is not a bad thing itself. It is important to take growling seriously and work on the cause of the growling instead of punishing the growling itself. This is because when punishing growling the only thing you do is pushing them up the ladder of aggression to the next step. It is important to learn the signs of stress in dogs as displayed on this ladder and start noticing these before the growling occurs. By working on the actual issue that causes the growling and preventing the dog from having to escalate to growling you can make your dog more balanced, confident and therefore less likely to escalate.

And lastly, remember training can only happen when you stay under the threshold!

Some great articles and resources:

Trigger stacking – Woof like to meet

The engage disengage game – choose positive dog training M

Mine! A practical guide to resource guarding – Jean Donaldson

A guide to approaching dogs

March 29, 2019

Whenever I see a dog in any place I always get the tendency to walk up to them and cuddle and squeeze them – they are just so cute and I have so much love for dogs that it takes a lot to control myself. But I do control myself. I think most of us reading this article are major dog lovers and would love to cuddle them all, but sometimes we need to be reminded of why cuddling is not really the appropriate way to show love to our pooches. So here you go, an article about approaching dogs,both the ones you know and you don’t know.

We are still primates

Although we have evolved majorly and are at the top of the food chain,we are still very much primates and show a lot of primate behavior. Whenever we greet each other we walk up looking straight in each other’s eyes, we might even smile widely with our teeth bare and if we know the person we might even give them a big warm hug or a kiss. We like chest to chest contact. We do it from young, and have a very hard time controlling ourselves not to. It’s simply our (but also Chimps and Bonobo’s) way to connect with each other, show love and release stress.

Dogs don’t really like cuddles.

For dogs, this is not really the type of contact they would prefer. Whenever two dogs meet they would often actually approach from the side instead of straight forward, they wouldn’t really look into each other’s eyes but rather avoid straight eye contact and baring teeth would be considered extremely rude. Dogs also do not hug – a paw on the back of the other dog is often a display of dominance unless the dogs know each other very well already and social standards have become less important.

Look for stress signals

Of course we still really want to hug our dogs, even if they might not like it. Some dogs might actually tolerate it, or ask for it, and that is awesome! But just keep in the back of your head that most dogs actually do not like hugs and they make them feel more uncomfortable than that it is soothing. Make sure to keep a look out for any stress signals from the dog (we’ll talk about those in a later article – but think of lip licking, yawning, showing the whites of their eyes), do not hug dogs you do not know and if your dog tolerates hugs but doesn’t really like them make sure to keep hugs to a minimum.

*These two are the best of friends. Do you see how all social rules go out the window?*

Olive in rush hour – an example

So – now we have gotten the hugging thing out of the way, lets talk about appropriate approaches. Olive and I travel by train in rush hour nearly every day, and almost daily she gets someone’s hand shoved in her face, or someone bowing over her to pet her on top of her head. Olive is very sensitive and very clear in her body language, as in, she is probably the easiest dog to read and learn body language from, and although I try to block this type of engagement sometimes someone gets past my body blocks and tries it anyway. Often I get the reaction “Oh – why is she so scared? Is she abused?” but as many of you might know, I actually have Olive since she is tiny and she’s just a very sensitive dog.

Funny thing is that actually a lot of dogs respond evasive whenever a stranger reaches straight for their heads or gets right up in their faces. It’s not weird for them to do that either, think about it, would you like someone to get right up to your face if you don’t know them at all? I sure wouldn’t. This, in combination with missing major stress signals, can cause for some really tricky situations.

But how do you approach a dog?

Let’s start at the start. First, Ask the owner! Some owners might not actually want their dogs to be petted. They might be in training, scared, aggressive, overexcited, recovering from surgery, there’s many reasons someone might not want their dog petted and that is totally okay. If the owner says it’s okay, make sure to approach the dog from the side instead of head on. Do not look the dog in the eyes or stick out your hand to let them snif, instead don’t go all the way up and see if the dog comes up to you. If the dog doesn’t come up to you, don’t force it and just simply walk away. The dog does not want to be petted. If the dog does come up to you do not bend down or bend over the dog, just stay standing or squat all the way through your legs. Don’t reach overhead but opt to pet the chest area instead, many dogs prefer this over a head rub.

*Do you see how Olive is trying to get away from Will’s hug?*

Remember: Your dog, your rules

Do you have a dog that doesn’t like to be petted or you don’t want him or her to be petted? I know the struggle. People often start making kissing noises or reach for their heads straight away. Remember it is your dog, you have all the right to say what you do or do not want to happen. It is also your job to protect your dog if he’s feeling insecure or scared. On the other hand, it’s quite a big step to start blocking people and I still find it hard to tell people no. So here some tips!

Usually if someone walks up to Olive I either step in between her and the person, or I block their hand if they come as far as reaching already. Another thing that helps pretty well is to hold some treats or a nice toy in your hand and the moment someone tries to walk up, just toss it to them and shout “here catch!”, they will most likely be too busy trying to catch the treat or toy, and that gives you the time to give them instructions on how to interact with your dog. I got this trick from “On the other end of the leash”, which is an amazing book by the way.

The more often you block people the more confident you will get, but also the more skills you will develop in “how to politely block a person from touching your dog”.

For some more info have a look at these great articles:

Dr Sofia Yin – Preventing dogbites by learning how to greet dogs

How to greet dogs by Fearful Dogs