Kids, Dogs, and Holiday Celebrations (Part 1)
by Andy Sands, Certified Dog Trainer and Behavior Consultant
Happy Fall Suncoast, and welcome back to Training Tuesday! It’s good to be back sharing some canine science with you, and helping you better understand our furry friends. It’s October, which means the holiday season is fast approaching. The holidays bring increased social time with family and friends, seasonal parties, weight gain, and in some cases, canine stress; particularly in the presence of children, and large crowds. I want to help you be a smart pro-active dog owner. Let’s discuss some very simple steps to help keep everyone safe and happy for the holiday season and beyond.
Minions and Mischief
The holiday celebration that is right upon us is Halloween. Halloween is great fun for many people; especially for all of our little minions running around. The costumes, the candy, the haunted houses, and all of the spine-chilling excitement send kids into an enthusiastic frenzy. On the other hand, for dogs, the celebration of Halloween may mean distressed, fear-ridden agitation; mostly due to the costumes.
Have you ever had a dog that was super friendly to the neighbor next door every single day, then all of the sudden begins growling and barking at that same neighbor, whenever she puts on her sun hat? Why is this happening? After all, this is the same person Fluffy has been great friends with all along. How come we’ve gone from best friends to arch enemies? The only difference is the hat. What is so scary about a hat?
Silhouettes and Removable Parts
Dogs don’t understand the concept of “removable parts” the same way that humans do. If a friend comes over wearing a new hat, we don’t assume that they have morphed into some sort of space alien; but a lot of dogs do. Dogs are unable to understand that our silhouettes can be ever changing, and not fixed. What’s a dog to think when he sees us coming with huge round threatening eyes that we call sunglasses, or strange growths on our head that we call hats? What about those scary extensions growing out of our hands that we call canes or walkers? To the dog, these are potentially threatening foreign objects, or scary new creatures. When you add in to that equation an entire costume, we’re dealing with “never before seen aliens invading earth, intent on destroying our entire planet;” at least in the dog’s view.
So, the real question is; how can we help our dogs be comfortable with all of the strange costumes or decorations that they might see over the course of the next few weeks as we gear up for Halloween? Come back next week as we discuss steps that you can take to help your dog become more comfortable around ever-changing silhouettes. See you next week on Training Tuesday.
