The 7 Causes of Canine Behavior Problems
There are only 7 root causes of all canine behavior problems. That’s it.
We love dogs. In fact, we’ve been evolving side-by-side with dogs for as long as humans have been around. There’s arguments that while we were domesticating early canids, those canids were also domesticating early humans. Despite this long history, we still haven’t quite figured out our dogs entirely. That’s why there’s a huge industry for people like me: Dog trainers and behavior consultants.
Before I reveal the secrets of the dog universe, it’s important to note that these 7 root causes are specifically root causes. A large part of a dog trainer’s job is to listen to all of the data presented from clients, gather information about the dog by interacting with the dog, translate that data into something we can work with, and then translate that data again back to the client (and their dog.) You may identify 50 “problems” with your dog, but you need to dig deeper to determine which of these causes is at the root of a whole range of behavior problems.
Full disclosure: The intent of this article is not to put dog trainers out of business. In fact, once we determine the root cause of a behavior challenge it’s very much the beginning of training!
