"At some point in their lives, most pets display behaviours that would result in their death or relinquishment, were they in some other household"

Karen Overall, pp vii, Manual of Clinical Behavioral Medicine 2013

"At the core of all anxiety conditions is the arousal level of the patient.  Heightened arousal beyond a certain adaptive level prohibits accurate observation and assimilation of the information presented, interferes with the processing of information, and can adversely affect actions taken based on these earlier steps. "

We need to take steps to teach dogs from the very beginning to be calm and that they can ask questions of people and get guidance from them on what to expect.

This will help dogs:

• learn better
• feel safer and more in control of what happens to them
• learn that they can create favorable interactions with people if they are calm

They simply need to learn to sit calmly and look at the human whenever something is wanted or needed.  A calm, quiet and relaxed dog can listen to us, just as we should be listening to them.