Bonding with Your Dog

Does your pet wake you up to go outside even when your spouse is downstairs, leash in hand, ready to take them for their morning walk? While it’s a great feeling to be your dog’s first choice, favoritism in pets can cause a lot of strife in your household—not to mention ruin your beauty sleep. Here are a few tips to help your furry friend bond with every member of the family:

1. More One-on-One Time

If your dog is resistant to walking with your significant other or another member of your immediate family, it is important that they spend as much solo time together as possible. Your dog needs to associate all good things in life (food, treats, play time, snuggles, etc.) with everyone in your household, not just you.

2. Monitor Training Methods

Does your spouse or child use an aggressive tone of voice when walking the dog? Are they constantly pulling on the leash or rushing through the walks? Pay close attention to how your family is interacting with your four-legged friend. Chances are that the dog simply finds your training methods to be more pleasant, which is why they prefer you to the rest of the family. Make sure that everyone in your family is employing the same dog training methods and your pup will soon enjoy every walk, regardless of who is at the other end of the leash.

3. Build Trust

The underlying issue here is that the dog simply does not trust anyone but you. Luckily, this issue is generally easy to solve—your four-legged friend just needs to spend lots of quality time with everyone in the house. And, of course, positive reinforcement in the form of an extra tasty treat never hurts!

Here are a couple of additional pet training resources to train your dog and help them become best pals with everyone in the home:

“Dog: Training Nothing in Life is Free” from by Humane Society of the U.S.

“The Other End of the Leash” by Dr. Patricia McConnell

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