Anita Frank

Is your rescue dog really aggressive—or just panicking? Your dog barks.He pulls on the leash.Maybe he even snaps. And then, pretty quickly, someone from the outside chimes in. A neighbor.The vet.Strangers in the park.Or, unfortunately, sometimes even trainers. “Oh wow, that dog’s aggressive.” And I’ll be completely honest with you:That’s probably not true. Or at […]

You’ve adopted a rescue dog. You may have known that insecurity, fear, or “issues” might come along with the package. You were prepared for patience, training, adjustment, and a little chaos at the start. But you probably didn’t expect your dog to suddenly growl, snap, bark, pull on the leash, or completely “freak out.” And

You adopted a “slightly insecure” dog from an animal shelter and prepared yourself for the fact that he would need time and patience. But did you expect that he wouldn’t be able to go for walks at all, or that he would suddenly refuse to continue walking, or even run away in panic if he

Don’t you think it’s wonderful to watch your dog come up with good ideas, develop his personality, and just be a dog?When you can let him do his thing without having to micromanage everything all the time. Wouldn’t it be great if he did the right thing even in difficult situations without having to ask

Understanding aggression in dogs     Aggression always sounds like a vicious dog at first. Our brain immediately builds a picture of Cujo with this word and this image is usually associated with fear.   We want to see our dogs as these wonderful animals that simply have nothing to do with this evil, this

If you ask around, you might think it would be so easy to prevent dog bites. You simply ban certain breeds (e.g. Staff, AmStaff, Rottweiler) and nobody is ever injured or even killed again. This can only occur to someone who doesn’t want to acquire knowledge but would rather set up a scapegoat (by the

Fortunately, severe dog bites are really rare. Nevertheless, we read/hear again and again that the dog bit without warning. Understandably, people are unsettled, trust is destroyed and fear spreads. Living with a potentially dangerous creature that you can’t assess is no fun. On the contrary, it puts everyone involved under enormous stress. It is therefore

If you have invited a fearful dog into your life, you are in for an exciting journey together. There will always be highs and lows, and fear will shine through from time to time even with very good training and that is why it is so important to avoid mistakes that cost you trust and

When our dogs lunge on leash like crazy, bark, growl, or otherwise act out whenever they see other dogs or people, there are reasons for it. Our dogs never misbehave because they want to annoy us. Only when we understand this, can we help them turn this behavior into relaxation and become a reliable companion.

Why behavior on the leash is not the real problem.   When our dogs pull like crazy or loudly scare other dogs away, almost knocking us down, it’s a very obvious sign that something is wrong. But the obvious is not necessarily the real problem.   I often see leash manners being trained with a