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Is Your Pet Behaving Badly?
Living with behavioral problems can be stressful for everybody involved. Dealing with behavior issues takes patience, sometimes requires visits to professionals, and always involves time and effort working with the animals at home. There’s no easy solution, no simple pill that will take care of the problem completely. If you find yourself feeling overwhelmed as you go through the healing process with your pet, don’t be too hard on yourself. Rest assured that others have had to deal with the same experience, and they understand what your household is going through.
Getting to the underlying cause of your animal companion’s behavior issue requires looking at the whole picture — life before he came to you, health problems such as chronic pain, the environment you live in, and the connection he has with you. The state of your body, mind and spirit can and does affect your animal’s well being. Using therapies that treat more than just the behavioral signs (in the animal) or symptoms (in people) is very important. Approaching disorders as part of a larger picture is the definition of holistic, and combining the holistic approach with conventional medicine is called integrative medicine.
I believe an integrative approach is essential for behavior disorders. Many types of complementary therapies are available for humans as well as animals, such as calming music, aromatherapy, herbs, massage and energy therapies. One of the most important things you can do to help your animal’s behavior challenge is to be aware of the dynamic between the two of you. As I have come to understand the energetic aspects of the human-animal bond, I see that animals instinctively mirror who we are. If you have a dog with separation anxiety, what anxiety issue have you not healed? For those of you with aggressive animals, please have the courage to look at where the human anger is lurking. Is it between people in the household, or perhaps anger from childhood?
One of the best spiritual gifts our animal companions give us is knowledge about ourselves. If our unresolved issue is being reflected back to us by our pet, then it is something that is affecting our lives. We may not be able to see it right now, but with time, this unresolved problem can manifest into illness or other dis-ease. Along with helping them through the behavior problem, we can honor our animal companions by taking care of ourselves. In doing so, we make their healing so much easier.
Adapted from Through A Dog’s Ear: Using Sound to Improve the Health & Behavior of Your Canine Companion, Sounds True Publishing 2008
Robyn
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Dr. Brent
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18 comments
add your comment »having a bad time with your pet? I recommend you check out this link that I found while searching for a video about pets..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uF6mmaawyws
it's really cute..:)
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Very nice and helpful story ! Thanks for putting it up here :)
I needed it , specially when one of my friend's is going through a bad time with her pet :)
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Alexandra, why so touchy? My comment was NOT a personal attack against you or anybody. I simply clarified what I know to be the qualifications of the author which YOU called into question with your remark. It was information, plain and simple. Now you've gotten into calling me names based on four sentences that I wrote? As I said before, take a hard look at yourself. Yeesh!
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How come out of all the negative comments about this article, I'm the only one that Crazy Richard singled out? Man, I'm never gonna stop crying now! As any educated person knows, anytime you put yourself into a reputable forum like Care2 and tout yourself as an "expert" you're gonna have disagreements. I'm a huge animal lover and an experienced caretaker expect my opinion to be as accepted as anyone on this site.
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Has anybody thought that maybe animals behave badly because they are exposed to so many toxic chemicals deriving from household cleaners we use daily??? Well for example when we mop the floors with any of the several well known cleaning detergents it can cause free radicals which in turn can cause cancer and many other diseases.
Thousands of dogs and cats needlessly suffer and many die each year by accidental ingestion of household poisons, including pesticides, popular houseplants, medications and common foods. The ASPCA Animal Poison Control Center, the only animal poison control center in North America offers advice to pet owners about the many household products that can be dangerous and even deadly to their four-legged family member.
The best thing to use around our animals as well as around our family is all natural, green products. I only use natural cleaning products in my home and my entire family can tell a huge difference. These products are better, safer and may save a loved one's life.
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Alexandra O. states, "I don't think this author has spent much time with animals." For the record Dr. Wagner has been a practicing veternarian for 21 years and has worked with everything from gorillas (at the Columbus Zoo) to pocket pets. She was in private practice for several years before returning to university for a three year residency in Neurology and is currently board certified in that area. Read her book and then take an honest look at yourself before casting dispersion on the qualifications of this good doctor and author.
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household animals have not been wild for several thousand years now -- ever since the first wolf and the first wild cat decided to come and live with humans.
throwing them away into the wilderness, like many people are doing these days, WILL cause a domesticated animal to revert to feral ways in order to survive.
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Thanks to Sandra for mentioning Tellington TTouch. I meant to add it to the list as well. Its a wonderful modality that has helped many animals.
Dr. Sue
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All of my animals, even the bird, are rescues and we all know what that means. 2 of my dogs had been through such abuse and neglect, I didn't know if they would ever heal. It was 7 years ago when I got them and still today, the older leader and protector of the 2 is terrified of grown men. He will literally urinate in the floor if a man gets near him and he can't get away. Everyone of his problems stem from his past, not from anything I did and I've had him for most of his life. I've been a wonderful friend and caregiver to all of my furry kids and when they have behavior problems, it doesn't automatically mean I need to look at myself because it must be my fault. I don't think this author has spent much time with animals. This article sounds like something out of a self-help/blame yourself book.
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Carol H - where are you getting your information? Clearly it's not from personal experience!
It is true that an animal that is bored will get into things he shouldn't. It's no different than a kid that is bored and gets into stuff that he knows is off limits.
The behavioral issues of animals are not that different from humans. They have all the same emotions and needs that we do.
Your comment that they do not kow the difference between right and wrong is so off base!
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