Annie Valuska, PhD, provides insights into how miscommunication from pet owners can result in problematic pet responses.
Annie Valuska, PhD, principal scientist for the pet behavior team at Purina, discussed companion animal behaviors that owners may typically see and what they can mean, in a dvm360 interview. The interview also discussed how miscommunication between pets and their owners affect animal behaviors. Some of these behaviors can lead owners to surrender their pets to shelters.
In this video, Valuska discusses how pet owners unintentionally miscommunicate their behavior expectations to their companion animals. She also provides an example of ‘problem’ canine behavior and suggests a more effective pet owner reaction.
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The following is a transcript of the video.
Annie Valuska, PhD: Many ‘problem’ behaviors are really a result of poor communication, and by that I mean pet parents misunderstanding what the pets are trying to say with those behaviors and what needs those behaviors represent, and the pet parent not communicating to the pets very well what the boundaries are and what the rules of the house are and what behaviors are expected of them.
So, for example, if you have a dog that jumps up all over you every time you come home—I'll be talking to people that have this problem, and I'll ask, ‘Well, what do you do when the dog jumps all over you?’ They say, ‘Well, you know, I talked to him. I pet him, I tell him to get down. I put my hands around his shoulders and I push him down.’ But it doesn't work. You might think that you're punishing the dog. You might think that you're telling them ‘no’ and communicating this isn't acceptable, but that's in the eye of the beholder. And if the dog enjoys the attention that you're giving them, if by speaking to the dog and touching the dog and engaging with the dog, they're enjoying that, then actually, you, the pet parent, are training the jumping. You're reinforcing that jumping behavior and making it more likely to happen.
So, for a lot of these cases, just having the pet parent be more aware of what they're communicating and what they're doing and what their own behavior means to the pet can be a really powerful tool as well.