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Old December 8th, 2008, 03:20 PM
kandy kandy is offline
Hazel's Personal Servant
 
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Wyoming
Posts: 1,742
I know that some folks attribute pretty much any dog behavior to a dominance thing, but I don't buy into the whole "everything your dog does is a dominance issue" school of thought.

In Skylar's case, I would guess that you already know the answer - she wants attention and she wants it now. She probably didn't get much attention in her life, and now that she has humans who love on her, she wants it constantly.

I see the difference in my two dogs - Hazel, who has been with us since 9 weeks and always lavished with as much attention as she could want, will come up to you for a pat on the head or a belly rub and then is content. Malone, who was adopted from the humane society, is extremely demanding and needy. He constantly wants to be petted and loved on - and he will nudge your hand, lick your hand, put his paw on you, whatever it takes to get your attention. He's not trying to be alpha, he's trying to get me to pet him. He doesn't have very good aim, and has scratched me before, so we started teaching the 'no paws' command, and 'back off' for when he's being just generally demanding. He's getting better about the pawing, and I never pet him when he's being demanding. I wait til he sits and waits quietly for a moment, then I'll pet him.
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Kandy
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