Do you enjoy taking your dog out in public with you? It can be great fun as dog parents to bring our pups along with us to a restaurant, cafe, or park.
However, these environments can be quite exciting and overstimulating for dogs sometimes, especially with so many people around – and this can make it stressful for you, too. Often, we can make mistakes in a bid to keep our dogs calm when out in public, and these can sometimes have the opposite effect – though bringing along some of the best dog treats isn’t one of them!
Fortunately, professional dog trainer and behavioral consultant Amelia Steele, or Amelia the Dog Trainer, has revealed the common mistakes we should avoid, and what we can do instead.
1. Insisting on your dog maintaining place: “Settle mats can be helpful in getting your dog to settle,” Steele says, “But insisting your dog stays on it the whole time you’re out is not realistic and can sometimes create more frustration.”
Rather, it’s a good idea to let your dog adjust to their environment and look around if they need to, before offering them the occasional treat on place to encourage them to settle. “We also don’t want our dog to feel like they’re performing a behavior the whole time,” Steele continues. “It keeps their brain in concentration mode and stops them from actually settling.”
2. Expecting your dog to settle immediately: Often, dogs will need some time to calm down and unwind when they arrive somewhere – go through a calming routine with them to help them settle down, but it might not happen immediately. Here’s how to calm down a hyper dog for more information!
3. Trying to reward when your dog starts to sleep/relax: Settling naturally is a self-reinforcing behavior – as Steele says, adding treats simply wakes your dog up and starts them at the beginning of their rest cycle again.
“It’s totally fine to reward your dog and encourage calm behavior but when you see them start to actually settle, leave them be to rest!” she explains.
Remember, dogs can settle happily when they’re out in public, but as pup parents it’s up to us to be realistic – they might not do so straight away. And, we shouldn’t expect them to stay in the same place for the whole time. After all, as humans, we sometimes like to move around and stretch our legs. We don’t expect ourselves to stay in one place.
For more common mistakes that many of us have made at one time or another, why not take a look at the 32 most common mistakes new dog owners make?
