Buddy

The Olson Family
Blacksburg, VA

“Hi! This is Buddy, our border collie mix. He is a great dog, but, like so many adopted pets we know very little about his background. At first, this was fine—he was good, good with the kids, and loved to just be around people. Then IT happened. We were outback playing, the kids were running around and playing, too. And, he nipped one of our children. After a quick consultation of all things related to dogs, children, and nipping on the internet—I was…well…mortified. It seemed like an incidence of play but in our information rich age making that assessment seemed equally as daunting as the information I had found.

Then we found Dr. Maxwell’s webpage, http://www.petbehaviorchange.com/dr-megan-maxwell. We knew as a CAAB, Dr. Maxwell could help us. And, did she ever! She met with us, we recreated the scenario in which the nipping occurred, and she began to assess Buddy. Dr. Maxwell also provided us with a ton of materials on dog behavior training, kids and dogs, and she did assess Buddy’s behavior. We learned that it was a jumping/playing behavior not an aggressive behavior and we learned how to work with Buddy to modify this behavior. We also learned how to teach the kids to play with Buddy—this was fantastic! Dr. Maxwell’s interventions really worked with our kids and their ability to better interact with Buddy in play scenarios. The best part of our experience with Dr. Maxwell was gaining training tools to help keep the children and Buddy safe during play—this was truly priceless as inexperienced dog owners. Thank you, Dr. Maxwell!”