Problem: My Adult Labrador Retriever Growls At Me When I Stare At Him

When you adopt or gain custody of an adult Labrador Retriever, there are many important items that you need to be aware of. It’s not like getting a puppy that is brand new to the world and accepts everything with enthusiasm. Adult dogs are a bit more stubborn when it comes to joining your pack and learning his role in the family. And of course this dog’s history may include some negative dog training or abuse.

One complaint that new adult dog owners have had is growling then they make eye contact with the dog. At first you may think that this is normal or will pass, but the fact is that this is a form of aggression, and it could turn out to be worse if the staring continues. So what is this behavior all about? Where does growling with eye contact come from with adult Labrador Retrievers?

Eye contact is a form of communication between dogs. When aggressive puppies are very young they learn that they can easily stare down their more submissive brothers and sisters. As they mature, if two aggressive male dogs meet, they often challenge each other’s dominance by staring at each other. If one dog doesn’t back down, the staring match will end in a fight. A naturally aggressive dog that hasn’t been obedience-trained may try not to make eye contact with a person to avoid a confrontation. But if eye contact does occur it will attempt to dominate its owner by staring him down.

Below are a few ways in which you can help treat the situation:

1. If an adopted older dog shows signs of aggression by staring at you in a challenging way, drop your eyes. This is not a cop-out, but a way to avoid a confrontation until you can deal properly with the dog’s aggression.

2. Immediately take a dog that shows aggression to a well-established trainer who will help you teach the dog obedience and at the same time show you how to establish a leadership role with your pet.

3. Once you have begun to train the dog, don’t allow it to challenge your authority.

4. Don’t deliberately challenge any aggressive dog by looking it directly in the eyes, whether the animal belongs to you or not. The old theory that you should “stare down” an aggressive Labrador Retriever probably led to a lot of dog bites.

Rescue group is imperiled dogs’ best friend here

Houston Chronicle - I just about broke my bank account with a litter of puppies a mom and six puppies who came down with parvo Perini and her husband also rescued a 2-month-old Labrador retriever that had been tied to a stake. The dog had lost 80 percent of

Private Nonprofit Labrador Retriever & Animal Shelters

Most animal shelters are private nonprofit shelters do the best they can with what they have to work with on low funding levels. Their buildings could use some work, their budgets are always tight, and they do the best with what they have to provide for the animals in their community.

New buildings don’t necessarily make a good shelter, but you certainly want to work with a shelter that clearly cares enough for its charges to make sure they are kept in areas that are clean and don’t facilitate the spread of disease.

Shelter work is difficult and stressful, and employees and volunteers can suffer burnout quickly. A well-run shelter is as compassionate to its staff as it is to the animals, because one has a lot to bear on the treatment of the other. Look for a shelter where employees are helpful and knowledgeable and clearly interested in helping the shelter’s animals find responsible new homes.

The best shelters have a good handle on a dog’s history, health, and temperament before putting her up for adoption and have done what they can to enhance her chances of success in a new home, through socialization and screening for the right home. They provide not only pre-adoption counseling but follow-up help, with behavioral advice or reduced-cost training classes.

These are the shelters you should seek out when looking for a Labrador Retriever dog or puppy. If you want to go one step better, look for ways to help the shelters that don’t measure up. Usually it’s a question of money and volunteers, and you can do a lot to contribute in these categories. Contact your local shelter to find out how.

“Humane Society” and “Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals” (”SPCA”) are generic terms freely used in the United States and Canada by animal organizations that have no connection to one another or to national organizations such as the Washington, D.C. based Humane Society of the United States or the ASPCA in New York City. And yet, local shelters are often stymied in their fund-raising efforts by people who have “given to the national organization” and consider their charitable efforts complete - even though money given to the HSUS and ASPCA is used to fund their own programs, not the local shelters’. Which is why it’s important not to forget your local animal shelter when giving.

A bit of a war in the animal-welfare community occurs over those organizations that call themselves “no kill” shelters. There are more pets than there are suitable homes, which sets up a grim game of “musical homes” resulting in the death of millions of animals every year. “No kill” shelters get that way by refusing to accept animals that are not adoptable or by refusing all animals when they are full. The turn-aways often end up at another shelter, one whose staff often very much resents having to be the bad guy.

Busy Boomer: Rescue and community service all in a day’s work for this golden Labrador retriever 

Boomer has received praise and even medals for heroic work, but what he wants most is a chance to play catch with a Frisbee. “The whole search thing is a game to a dog,” said his owner, Michael Rehfeld.
Source: www.carrollcountytimes.com

Pets of the Week: Dec. 3 

Source: www.naplesnews.com

PetsOfTheWeek 
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Source: www.suburbanchicagonews.com

Pheasant season appeals to man, beast

ChicagoSports.com - There’s nowhere to hunt wild birds anymore,” said Billy Hayes of Elmwood, who was breaking in a 5-month-old black Labrador retriever named Macy. Pheasant hunters tramp through fields solo or with partners. But it is generally acknowledged that those
Source: chicagosports.chicagotribune.com

Keeping field Fidos fit & happy
Denver Post - I once walked, or staggered, a quarter-mile across a Kansas field thick with sand burrs, my neck draped with a large Labrador retriever that once lived at my expense. Memory escapes me whether this episode was prelude to my first, or second
Source: www.denverpost.com

Pavlov’s Research On A Dog’s Nervous System As It Influences Behavior

Pavlov, the great Russian researcher, struggled with a theory that inhibited dogs had a “weaker” nervous system than normal animals, a concept largely discarded due to later findings that a combined structural chemical interaction determines the balance of the nervous system. Both excitability and inhibition can be heightened or abated by many herbs and synthetic drugs, as well as those extracted from living tissues. The fact that such drugs do not affect all individuals (dogs or people) in the same way supports the belief that the balance among internal neuro-chemicals may be the primary factor influencing the behavioral expression of excitability or inhibition.

The individual body chemistry of animals develops and fluctuates throughout life. Hormonal imbalances produce not only structural and physiologic, but behavioral changes as well. Among the body’s hormone-producing glands and controlling organs, the emotional centers of the brain’s limbic system appear to exert considerable influence. It may be that excitability and inhibition depend to a large degree on what has been called the “brain, pituitary, adrenal, gonadal axis.” Further, not only can drugs influence the balance among these factors, but mild or extreme psychological stress can produce subtle and gross neuro-chemical imbalances.

The fact that seemingly mildly stressful experiences induce these reactions may help explain a good deal of what is generally described as “spontaneous aggression” if we consider yet another nervous system process called facilitation. In this, the nervous processes responsible for defensive behavior, such as a dog’s biting, can be sensitized but not fully activated by mildly threatening stimuli. However, depending on the particular dog’s nervous system makeup, repeated stimulation can push the dog over the brink and into a full-blown “rage avalanche,” wherein up to several minutes of furious behavior are necessary to exhaust the imbalance and restore equilibrium. The dog then often resumes its usual gregarious personality or appear contrite and confused.

In investigating the histories of many aggressive cases, you will find most of the dogs to be excitable or highly excitable types exhibiting a behavior problem for which the owners have applied various degrees and types of punishment. These included finger-in-the-face scolding (a stimulus that can facilitate a snapping response), muzzle-clamping with the hands, shaking by the scruff or jowls, physical take-downs, and mild to severe hitting with the hands or objects such as rolled up newspapers.

Pavlov’s Experiments With Dogs & Their Reflex Behavior

Reflexes occur where nervous pathways transmit impulses from one pathway to another. The well known unconditioned knee-jerk reflex occurs when the incoming sensory nerves from just below the knee cap sense a jolt, which is transmitted to the spinal column, where there is a junction (synapse) with a motor nerve, which is activated, transmitting a message to the extensor thigh muscles, which suddenly constrict, causing the lower leg to jerk forward.

Knee-jerk reflexes are easy to understand, since they do not involve the brain. However, thousands of other reflexes involving the brain are constantly at work. Some of these are activated consciously, others operate unconsciously. Hence, the nervous system is defined in two branches of control; voluntary (under conscious control) and involuntary (controlled unconsciously).

In Ivan Pavlov’s experimental work with dogs, he sounded a bell and then gave the dogs a bit of solid food (meat or bread) which produced salivation. This was repeated until the dogs salivated for the bell just as if it were food. He called the food an unconditioned stimulus and the bell a conditioned stimulus, even though solid food for dogs is actually a conditioned stimulus.

Surprisingly, salivating for solid food is not an inborn, unconditioned reflex. In another Russian experiment, puppies were weaned and fed only milk for several months. They did not salivate when they smelled, saw or ate solid food until they had eaten it several times!

So, Pavlov’s famous bell-food experiments actually conditioned salivation from one conditioned reflex to another. On the other hand, injecting lemon juice into a dog’s mouth and producing salivation, or pricking a leg with a pin and causing a withdrawal movement, were genuinely innate reflexes. Pavlov’s work, and the resulting publicity, have helped explain a great deal about both animal and human behavior, some of it to the benefit of dogs in general.

However, there is a down side to Pavlov’s publicity: It created the general impression that discoveries about laboratory dogs, in a totally unnatural environment, explain the behavior of wild animals and/or domestic pets living in active, often hectic social environments. The result is that some behaviorists still struggle to diagnose and solve behavior problems using purely conditioned behavioral theory, disregarding principles derived from empirical (practical) experience. Perhaps more unfortunately, Pavlov’s work tended to validate some popular concepts that animals can’t think, they merely respond to stimuli and behave like robots.