Today I’d like to share a story about 2 dogs I worked with about a year ago. I’m changing names for privacy. The owner contacted me about a little situation he was having with two of his dogs. Sheba is a relatively large dog who developed serious vision problems at a young age; however, she was unaware that this was a problem and managed to get around just fine, as she knew her way around the home. But she would occasionally bump into Bart, who is a smaller dog. Bart would get impatient with this and grumble at Sheba. He thought it was quite rude. Upon communicating with Bart, I realized that he was unaware of Sheba’s vision problem and also a bit perturbed that he didn’t get that memo! He then felt guilty, but also compassionate toward Sheba. I explained that nobody was upset with him. I asked if he would be willing to be more patient with Sheba now that he understood the situation, and he readily agreed. Approximately a week after our session, the owner texted me to report that Bart had stopped grumbling at Sheba and had become much more tolerant and patient with her. As with humans, clear communication is important! Sometimes just making sure an animal understands what is going on can make all the difference.