Dear Albert: A Holiday Message
Dear Albert,
The next few months bring Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas and other gatherings in my home. My daily routine changes and I get so nervous with all the activity! What do I do?
Dear fellow canine,
Humans love to get together with family and friends over the holidays. I would suggest that your owners make sure you have a safe place to get away from all the commotion. Do you have a crate that you like or a room where there is a baby gate? Is there any place where you can get away where company will know that you want to be alone? I hope your humans get the message when you look away from company or try to hide under furniture letting them know you really don’t want to visit.
I wonder if your humans know that dogs really don’t like to be pet on the top of the head and that we don’t like to be hugged? I wonder if they know that children can make us very nervous. I wonder if they know our signs of stress – we pant when we are not hot, yawn when we are not tired, lick our lips, lift our paw and/or look away when we are not interested? We tuck our tails to let them know we are frightened and want to be left alone. If we have been pushed too far and our warning signs are not heeded, we need to tell them in our language and we growl to let them know. We have no other way to warn people that we are getting ready to defend ourselves and yet we get yelled at for growling, it is so unfair! If we growl and/or freeze in position and stare we are saying “back off now”. This could be avoided if our owners knew some of us don’t like crowds of people in our homes and they need to let us retreat to a safe place to avoid the confusion.
There are some of us who have been trained to greet company politely and enjoy visiting. When we are meeting new people we like it when company pats their leg calling us over to them and if we want to visit, we will approach for a pet. One or two pets are all we need to decide whether we want more. If we walk away then that is all we want, if we stay and look into their eyes for more attention that is our way to ask for more attention.
For more information on learning to read dog body language and dog bite prevention, beg your family to go to www.stopthe77.com and watch all the videos together.
Your friend,
Albert
Albert, Retired Pet Connections Therapy Dog
Albert, a retired therapy dog, has been an instrumental part of the Pet Connections program at Ontario ARC since its inception in 2011. Together with his owner, Animal Assisted Activity and Therapy Trainer, Gail Furst, he helped pave the way for the success and expansion of Pet Connections. His intuitive nature has even won him the nickname, “St. Albert.” Now at age 9, Albert is in retirement, but he still offers helpful advice from time to time to those who ask.