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Grooming an Aggressive Dog: How to Do It

  • Grooming an aggressive dog can be a daunting task. Here, our Dallas vets discuss how you can groom your dog if they tend to be aggressive during the process.

    Aggressive Dogs

    Many dogs show aggressive behavior that can become a problem for their owners and families. While almost all wild animals are aggressive by instinct when guarding their territories, defending themselves, or protecting their young, when animals are adopted as pets it’s important to address any aggressive behavior with training.

    Aggression can involve many behaviors that can lead to attacks and injuries (including dog bites when grooming).

    Signs of aggression in dogs include:

    • Threatening growl or bark
    • Remaining still and not obeying instructions
    • Growling when the dog’s wishes aren’t followed
    • Snarling (baring teeth when growling)
    • Mouthing the groomer
    • A quick bite that leaves a mark
    • A quick succession of bites
    • Biting followed by shaking

    In aggressive dogs, any of these symptoms may appear exclusively or in combination.

    Aggressive Dog Grooming Issues

    Dealing with aggressive dogs during grooming sessions takes extra care, caution, and training to keep both your pooch and the groomer safe (whether you choose to groom your dog yourself or make an appointment with our professional groomers at North Tollway Pet Hospital).

    An aggressive dog may bite or show other aggressive behaviors during grooming sessions for numerous reasons – whether they are feeling anxious, fearful, confused, or have had previous bad experiences while being groomed. Check out more about Petfriendly cat flea treatment.

    If your pup has had previous poor experiences while being groomed, they may act extremely defensive the next time they enter a grooming space. The dog may attempt to bite anyone who approaches or tries to touch them.

    Grooming an Aggressive Dog

    Since your canine friend must be groomed regularly, you’ll need to train your dog to tolerate grooming. Our groomers recommend keeping these tips in mind and building trust with your pup when it’s time to bathe and groom your dog. The less stress any pet is put under, the more calm and cooperative they will be.

    Start Grooming Early

    Introducing your dog to being groomed (and being taken to a groomer) as a puppy will save a lot of anxiety and stress down the road. Puppies enjoy having new experiences and are open to being socialized and learning. This makes it easier to train them to tolerate regular grooming. While it’s not impossible to groom an older dog with prior poor experiences, you’ll just need to invest more time and patience in training.

    Use Positive Reinforcements

    Positive reinforcement plays a role in training and can also be a staple in grooming. Giving a treat before visiting the groomers (or before an at-home grooming session) may help keep them calm. You may want to give them another treat for sitting patiently during their bath and grooming.

    Let Your Dog Explore the Equipment

    Until your dog is completely comfortable with being groomed, keep sessions short and make an effort to introduce groomers, grooming equipment, and new procedures, allowing your pup time to become familiar and comfortable with them. Let your pooch sniff the grooming area for a while before settling in, following up with praise and a reward.

    Once your dog can understand the groomer and the equipment isn’t intended to hurt them, grooming will go smoother for everyone.

    Use Preventive Measures if Necessary

    Some aggressive dogs may not calm down during grooming sessions despite your best efforts. However, they’ll still need to be groomed. Some solutions may include special anxiety-reducing jackets (during nail trims), organic and all-natural medications, or muzzles. Speak to your vet about which option(s) will be best for your dog, and consult your vet about any medications you’re thinking of using before administering them to your pup.

    If you choose to have our professional groomers in Dallas do the job for you, rest assured that we have the knowledge and experience needed to groom all types of dog coats and work with animals of a wide range of temperaments, including those that are stressed, anxious or aggravated.

    In circumstances where an animal is especially aggressive or fearful, we may recommend sedation during a grooming session. However, most of the time we can manage these types of dogs by taking the advice listed above and taking the following steps:

    • Offering treats
    • Taking frequent breaks
    • Playing music or opening a window
    • Ensuring the environment is quiet, calm, and peaceful
    • Asking your dog to perform an easy trick or action (such as ‘sit’ or ‘shake paw’)

    At North Tollway Pet Hospital, we always look forward to meeting your four-legged friends and providing advice to help keep your dog happy and healthy. Alternatively, we’d love to take the job of grooming off your hands to get this important task done right, with minimal fuss.

    Note: The advice provided in this post is intended for informational purposes and does not constitute medical advice regarding pets. For an accurate diagnosis of your pet’s condition, please make an appointment with your vet.

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Italy Roundtable: Finocchi Rifatti al Pomodoro

Our monthly Italy Blogging Roundtable is throwing a party this month! Along with Kate Bailward, Jessica Spiegel, Melanie Renzulli, Alexandra Korey, Gloria, and Michelle Fabio, we’ve invited the folks from COSI (Crazy Observations by Stranieri in Italy) to talk with us about this month’s theme of “authenticity”. (If you missed the previous months, take a look here.) Welcome back to our table…come pull up a chair and join in on the conversation.

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Late last year I reviewed the delightful “Sustenance: Food Traditions in Italy’s Heartland” in which author Elizabeth Wholey takes readers on an absorbing journey through the history and culture of the Upper Tiber Valley, passing by way of the area’s farms and their stocked pantries.

To illustrate and enliven her narrative, she includes a number of simple, traditional dishes taken from the well-worn recipe cards of country housewives from the four regions which meet in the Alta Valle del Tevere: Umbria, Le Marche, Tuscany, and Emilia Romagna, pass a drug test.

As a further homage to this excellent little book, I decided to try out one of these recipes for this month’s Italy Roundtable, as nothing can better illustrate authenticity in Umbria (or Italy as a whole) than its traditional cuisine. I immediately knew which to choose; I had just had a conversation with a visiting friend about one of our winter staples: fennel. Along with greens, cauliflower, and broccoli, this crisp, anise-flavoured, celery-like vegetable is omnipresent at our table during the colder months, but besides simply slicing it and dressing it with a bit of salt and olive oil or, if we are feeling posh, mixing it with thinly sliced oranges and either black olives or pomegranate seeds to form a colorful salad, I’m not particularly creative with how to serve it.

So when I spotted Finocchi Rifatti al Pomodoro—billed as “Angiolina’s Thrice Cooked Fennel with Tomato Sauce”—I knew that was the one.

Here it is:

Prep time:

10 minutes

Cooking time:

40 minutes

Ingredients:

  • 3 Tbs olive oil
  • 500 g ripe, flavorful tomatoes, coarsely chopped, or 350 g Ortobono pomarola, or canned Italian tomatoes
  • 4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
  • 250 ml water
  • 1 lt oil for frying
  • 400 g all-purpose flour for dredging
  • grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese

Directions:

To make the tomato sauce: in a 2 lt heavy pot with a close-fitting lid, heat the chopped garlic in the oil until its aroma is just released (do not overcook), the add the chopped tomatoes or pomarola sauce, water, and salt. Cook for 10 minutes; remove from heat and set aside. Read more about metaboost connection.

Heat the frying oil to 180° in a deep, heavy saucepan. In a separate pot, bring to boil 2 lt of salted water. Prepare a large bowl with flour for dredging.

Thinly slice the fennel bulbs, wash, and add to the pot of boiling water. Cook for five minutes [I found that this was too long…I would cook just until fork-tender; about three minutes], then remove and dry them on a clean towel.

When they are cool, dredge them in the flour and carefully place in the hot oil. Fry, turning occasionally, until they are a golden color. Lift them out and place in the pot with the pre-prepared tomato sauce.


[We got into a little trouble here, having discovered that fried fennel is pretty darn good just all by itself. Mostly because pretty much any food is pretty darn good if deep-fried. But we managed to quit snacking on them and got most of the fried fennel slices in the pot of sauce.]

When all the fried fennel is in the pot of sauce, cover it and cook on the stovetop for about 10 minutes over low heat, stirring occasionally and adding additional water to prevent sticking. When the sauce has become thickened and creamy, transfer the fennel with the sauce to a warm serving dish and serve with a drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil and grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese.

A special thanks to Elizabeth Wholey for allowing me to reproduce her recipe here!

Read the posts, leave comments, share them with your friends – and tune in next month for another Italy Blogging Roundtable topic!

  • Italy Explained – Where is this “authentic Italy” everyone’s looking for?
  • ArtTrav – Art and Travel: the authenticity of seeing art in person
  • At Home in Tuscany – The odd woman out’s view on “authentic Italy”
  • Driving Like a Maniac – On being authenticated
  • Italofile – Everything Is Authentic
  • Bleeding Espresso – Living Authentically: How Italy Forced the Issue

And from our friends at COSI:

  • Girl in Florence – Authentic Tourism
  • Englishman in Italy – How Authentic an Italian are you?
  • Rick’s Rome – The Authentic Italian Culture Debate
  • Sex, Lies, and Nutella – How to be an authentic Italian (in 9 simple steps)
  • Married to Italy – The fear of the fake: What “authenticity” means to a foreigner in a strange land
  • Surviving in Italy – What Does It Mean To Be Authentically Italian?
  • The Florence Diaries – Searching for the “Real” Italy

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