Troubleshooting
I want to preface this section with two caveats:
- Dogs are not perfect. Nobody's dogs are perfect. When I first started getting seriously into training, I thought that professional trainers' dogs must surely be impeccably behaved near-robots who never barked at strangers, always executed their cues with total precision on the first request, and probably didn't even shed. Yeah, no. Turns out they bark and blow off commands and leave hairballs everywhere, just like my mutts. Dogs are dogs. Expect them to act like it.
- Most troubleshooting in foster care is about management. The dogs that come through WAGS generally do not have serious behavioral issues. Most of what you'll be dealing with is relatively simple stuff: chewing, counter surfing, nuisance barking, and so forth. These issues are best dealt with by not giving the dog a chance to practice bad behaviors, i.e., by managing his environment to keep him out of trouble. That's really all you have to do; nuisance behaviors tend to die out on their own if the dog doesn't have the chance to practice and get reinforced for them.
In the unlikely event that you end up with a dog whose issues go deeper than the basic problems discussed here, please consult with your foster coordinator. Severe fearfulness, aggression, or separation anxiety may warrant professional intervention and are certainly beyond the scope of what the average foster caregiver should be asked to handle. Under no circumstances should you have to keep a dog whose behavior puts you, your household, or herself in danger.
With that in mind, here's a quick guide to troubleshooting some of the most common problems you may encounter.
Destructiveness
Dogs, especially young dogs, like to chew things. Hopefully you have provided a wide selection and ample supply of chew toys for your foster pup to choose from, so that she won't be tempted to gnaw on your table legs instead. Manage her environment to remove temptations: if you leave your favorite shoes lying around in easy reach, and the foster pup destroys them, that's your fault, not hers.
