Since a large majority of the dogs I do have personality problems I thought it would be useful to add a section on how I deal with these kinds of animals. The first thing to keep in mind, no matter how much a person loves their dog and considers it part of the family, it is still an animal. Most people don't realize that psychologically dogs have different needs than humans do. Their brains work different and doing a simple thing like giving a dog love and affection at the wrong time does not help them. In fact doing something like giving a nervous dog love and affection is only re-enforcing the behavior and making the dog worse. They can tell what you are feeling and will react to how you behave. I can put a nervous dog on my table and after a few minutes they will almost always calm down. We humans have different needs than dogs, the main thing a dog needs is a strong pack leader, Someone who is confident with being in charge. A dog will allow you to be the pack leader if you understand how they think. It is not about being stern or mean with the dog. A human can not force a dog into following them. It has to be done on the dogs terms, in a way that a dog understands. In the pack dogs use body language and we humans are communicating with our dogs the same way. Just by doing something as simple as changing your posture will change a dogs behavior. Emotions can play a huge part in how a dog behaves as well. The two worst emotions to have around dogs are fear and anger. If a person has either of these a dog can become either aggressive or fearful and react in a negative way. However if a person feels confident and in charge the dog will feed off of this and behave accordingly.  I have groomed many dogs that no one (sometimes even the owner) have been able to handle by using these techniques. Dogs that have bitten other groomers usually give me very little trouble because of this pack mentality. If you have a difficult dog let me know when you make the appointment and I will tell you the steps to take at home right before I come out to make his/her experience much better. These are also things that you can do on a daily basis to help manage a dog with a behavior problem.