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Issue #108
The Fab 5: Easy steps to a better-behaved besty
Recently I had a client who wrote on her contact form that she had attended classes at a dog training school. I knew the school, and it was a good one, so I was surprised when she said she was a bit disappointed and stopped going. She said that while she had liked the classes, there was a bit too much talking and too little actual interaction with the dogs. The other reason she gave me was that the homework was too much for her. The instructor gave them homework assignments each week and they were expected to work for 20 minutes a night or so on the training. My client said that she couldn’t keep up with the homework, felt left behind, frustrated and simply stopped going to class.
Now, I’m sure many of you assume that I am going to lay the blame here at the client’s feet. I mean 20 minutes out of a night, that’s all. We could all find just a measly 20 minutes, couldn’t we? Sure we could. And then, when we were done, we would go walk our unicorns in the magical Toffifay Forest while Ryan Gosling runs shirtless serving drinks and finger sandwiches.
The reality is that, despite our best intentions, few of us are able to commit a block of time to one thing a night, be it dog training or the treadmill that your laundry is drying on as you read this. So, in the interest of saving you the guilt and shame of having to return to yet another class and sit next to that darn couple with the Border Collie showoff who not only knows every command, but can also order hors d'oeuvres in French and calculate a 20% tip, I’m going to give you five quick tips that the rest of us can do to look as smart as Puppy LePew.
1. Be here now, y’hear?
Make sure your dog isn’t looking out the windows or fences where she can see people – or other dogs – passing by. Most dogs will begin to bark at strangers, or get agitated when they see dogs. This leads to territorial aggression, leash aggression and redirected aggression. Even if I lost you at “leads to” you
don’t need to be a behavioral consultant to know that anything that fosters aggression isn’t a good thing. Dogs need to learn that when they’re in the house they are pets, not police. Barking at a window or fence significantly increases the chance that you’ll start to see repeat performances whenever your dog is restrained, whether it’s on a leash or at a window or fence.
2. Kibble: the new fashion accessory
Wear kibble in your pocket all the time, and feed your dog her meals throughout the night or day when you are home with them. Simple. If you are standing upright at home, you have kibble in your pocket. You’re going to feed your dog anyway at some point, right? So why not get something back? If you have a pocket full of kibble, you have to get rid of it before bed, because it’s insanely uncomfortable to sleep on (yes, I speak from experience). Throughout the course of the evening, look for three ways to get rid of it: a) Catch and reward your dog any time they do something you like without your telling them to; b) Train for 30 seconds while waiting for your tea to boil; and 3) Tell your dog “trade” when they have something and trade it for kibble, before giving it back to them.
3. Stuffed bones and other stuff to stuff
Keep stuffed bones or Kongs in the freezer all the time. Put your dog away in her crate for an hour or so when you are home, and give her a stuffed bone so that she gets used to the idea that she is sometimes put away. Give her a stuffed bone the moment the doorbell rings, and she’ll begin to learn that when guests come in, she should lie down and entertain herself for a while until everyone is settled. Won’t your mother-in-law be so impressed by your well-behaved dog when she comes to visit? She still won’t approve of you, of course, but at least your dog will be in her good books.
4. Meatballs = Miracle workers
Don’t step out your front door without a leash on your dog and meatballs in your pocket. When you go out, have your very highest-value treats in hand. This is not about bribery, it’s about control. And if you have something special – that your dog loves – you have a way to turn any situation to your advantage. Go by a yard where a dog charges a fence barking aggressively? A meatball reward for your dog can help to keep your dog walking past politely and assuage their fear or tension. A big truck hits a pothole and makes a loud bang next to you? Rewarding your pup can help them recover quickly and reduce the severity of that sudden fright’s impact on their long-term behaviour.
5. All You Need is Love (well, that and the aforementioned meatballs)
Love your dog. Don’t over-think things. Doing things like ignoring them for twenty minutes when you come home, or never allowing them to shove their head under your arm for a pat will do nothing but keep them guessing as to which personality is showing up next. You have to teach your fur kid manners, of course, and if they’re being rude or pushy, then obviously it’s correct to ignore or withdraw your attention. But there is no reason whatsoever that your dog shouldn’t be permitted to initiate attention, affection or play with you at times, so long as they’re polite. They won’t respect you any more if you act like a dictator, so relax and enjoy a guilt-free couch cuddle with them. Your relationship will be stronger for it, and that will give you better training when you need it.
Joan Weston owns Fangs But No Fangs Canine Behavioral Consulting Services in Caledon, Ont. Although specializing in aggression, Joan works with all types of training and behavioural issues in dogs. If you have a question or subject suggestion for Joan, please send it to info@dogsdogsdogs.ca.
Now, I’m sure many of you assume that I am going to lay the blame here at the client’s feet. I mean 20 minutes out of a night, that’s all. We could all find just a measly 20 minutes, couldn’t we? Sure we could. And then, when we were done, we would go walk our unicorns in the magical Toffifay Forest while Ryan Gosling runs shirtless serving drinks and finger sandwiches.
The reality is that, despite our best intentions, few of us are able to commit a block of time to one thing a night, be it dog training or the treadmill that your laundry is drying on as you read this. So, in the interest of saving you the guilt and shame of having to return to yet another class and sit next to that darn couple with the Border Collie showoff who not only knows every command, but can also order hors d'oeuvres in French and calculate a 20% tip, I’m going to give you five quick tips that the rest of us can do to look as smart as Puppy LePew.
1. Be here now, y’hear?
Make sure your dog isn’t looking out the windows or fences where she can see people – or other dogs – passing by. Most dogs will begin to bark at strangers, or get agitated when they see dogs. This leads to territorial aggression, leash aggression and redirected aggression. Even if I lost you at “leads to” you
don’t need to be a behavioral consultant to know that anything that fosters aggression isn’t a good thing. Dogs need to learn that when they’re in the house they are pets, not police. Barking at a window or fence significantly increases the chance that you’ll start to see repeat performances whenever your dog is restrained, whether it’s on a leash or at a window or fence.
2. Kibble: the new fashion accessory
Wear kibble in your pocket all the time, and feed your dog her meals throughout the night or day when you are home with them. Simple. If you are standing upright at home, you have kibble in your pocket. You’re going to feed your dog anyway at some point, right? So why not get something back? If you have a pocket full of kibble, you have to get rid of it before bed, because it’s insanely uncomfortable to sleep on (yes, I speak from experience). Throughout the course of the evening, look for three ways to get rid of it: a) Catch and reward your dog any time they do something you like without your telling them to; b) Train for 30 seconds while waiting for your tea to boil; and 3) Tell your dog “trade” when they have something and trade it for kibble, before giving it back to them.
3. Stuffed bones and other stuff to stuff
Keep stuffed bones or Kongs in the freezer all the time. Put your dog away in her crate for an hour or so when you are home, and give her a stuffed bone so that she gets used to the idea that she is sometimes put away. Give her a stuffed bone the moment the doorbell rings, and she’ll begin to learn that when guests come in, she should lie down and entertain herself for a while until everyone is settled. Won’t your mother-in-law be so impressed by your well-behaved dog when she comes to visit? She still won’t approve of you, of course, but at least your dog will be in her good books.
4. Meatballs = Miracle workers
Don’t step out your front door without a leash on your dog and meatballs in your pocket. When you go out, have your very highest-value treats in hand. This is not about bribery, it’s about control. And if you have something special – that your dog loves – you have a way to turn any situation to your advantage. Go by a yard where a dog charges a fence barking aggressively? A meatball reward for your dog can help to keep your dog walking past politely and assuage their fear or tension. A big truck hits a pothole and makes a loud bang next to you? Rewarding your pup can help them recover quickly and reduce the severity of that sudden fright’s impact on their long-term behaviour.
5. All You Need is Love (well, that and the aforementioned meatballs)
Love your dog. Don’t over-think things. Doing things like ignoring them for twenty minutes when you come home, or never allowing them to shove their head under your arm for a pat will do nothing but keep them guessing as to which personality is showing up next. You have to teach your fur kid manners, of course, and if they’re being rude or pushy, then obviously it’s correct to ignore or withdraw your attention. But there is no reason whatsoever that your dog shouldn’t be permitted to initiate attention, affection or play with you at times, so long as they’re polite. They won’t respect you any more if you act like a dictator, so relax and enjoy a guilt-free couch cuddle with them. Your relationship will be stronger for it, and that will give you better training when you need it.
Joan Weston owns Fangs But No Fangs Canine Behavioral Consulting Services in Caledon, Ont. Although specializing in aggression, Joan works with all types of training and behavioural issues in dogs. If you have a question or subject suggestion for Joan, please send it to info@dogsdogsdogs.ca.
Issue #107:
Power to the Pup-ple
The other day my nephew posted one
of those little photo posters on Facebook. You know, the ones that say something cute about being a
princess, or mock healthy lifestyles with a picture of someone in period costume. Given that his strengths lie more with
Play-Doh than Plato, I wasn’t expecting the epiphany that awaited me.
His sign read: 'Strict parents
create sneaky kids'.
As I read this, something started
to occur to me, and inside my head, the little voice awoke, and began to clear
off its desktop. Snickers wrappers, notes to self (where else did you think
they ended up?) and New Yorker magazines that it hadn't gotten to just yet were
all pushed aside. The voice said
it again: Strict parents create sneaky kids. And again. (Not
sure about your little voice, but mine can be a bit OCD at times. It's really annoying.)
Such a simple turn of phrase, yet
it summed up the principles of human and canine behavior beautifully. When we
lose the power to control our lives, our environments or our pleasures, then we
begin to lose the will to engage with life itself. Put another way, if we are denied privileges or access to
pleasure, with no way to earn the opportunity to engage them, we lose the
motivation to cooperate and participate.
Deer mouse in the headlights
Why should you think about this in
terms of your own little Popeye the Pug?
Because, without going all Stephen Hawking on you, in scientific terms,
having control is one of the most powerful behavioral reinforcers and keys to
overall happiness that you, your dog, and your deer mouse for that matter, can
experience. Why deer mice, you may
well ask? Deer mice are nocturnal,
and actively dislike bright lights.
When given a way to turn off a bright light that was turned on in their
enclosure, they quickly learned to press a lever to return to their preferred
nocturnal settings. Now here’s the
interesting part of the research.
When the deer mice learned that they could also turn the same light on
by pressing the lever, they actually turned the light on frequently, just to be
able to turn it off again. Having
the ability to control their environment through their behavior proved to be
more rewarding to them than simply having it exist in its optimal state,
without having any influence one way or the other. And before you assume that it’s only cute furry little
things that feel that way, similar findings have been replicated with humans,
dogs, elephants and even flatworms.
Yeah, but my neighbour said…
This simple truth discredits fully
the old training cliché that your dog must never be allowed to initiate play,
affection or attention. If you
have a big dog, you may have experienced the crafty snout-under-the-elbow
maneuver to get you to pet him. Or
maybe your dog has brought you a toy, and, if you live with our bulldogs,
rammed you in the shins with it until you played or got a lift to the
hospital. And while you were icing
your shins, you may have remembered that advice from your neighbor, about not
letting the dog learn that he can control you, otherwise he’ll vault to the top
of the pack.
But, with all due respect to your
neighbour, when you do your best to show your dog that you reign supreme over
him – and that nothing he does can make you play with, or pay attention to, him
– he won’t infer what you had hoped from your display of dominance (i.e. not to
try to engage you). He will simply
withdraw, or make his own fun.
There is no reason in the world not
to allow your dog to exert control over you at times. Giving him these opportunities allows you to pick and choose
behaviors that you want to see repeated.
For example, if every time you caught your dog sitting down, you grabbed
a ball and invited him to play, you would quickly find him offering his tush to
the ground a lot more often. If
every time your dog jumps on the blanket that you put down to protect the couch
you petted him, he’d figure out that being on the uncovered portion of the
couch didn’t pay off, and he’d start to go to his blanket on his own, without
you having to tell him to do so.
When you describe your relationship
with your dog, most of us use words like partner or friend. What kind of friend would you be if you
never let the other person make any decisions in the relationship? You’d be a lonely one, as it wouldn’t
take long for your former pal to find a more rewarding relationship. While our dogs need to learn manners
and rules, it’s equally important that we teach them that they have the power to
earn rewards, whatever they may be.
And as they say in Pug-a-Bully Circus, ‘If the Flatfaces ain’t happy,
ain’t nobody happy.’
And a happy dog means a happy home.
Issue #106 - Dec 2012/Jan 2013
“Choose it and use it” or “Fail’em and nail’em”?
There are two ways to train your dog to do what you want. The first way is to structure the situation so that they make the right choice in the first place, and then reinforce that behavior so that it occurs more often. Let’s call this CHOOSE IT AND USE IT (CIAUI) training. When you approach parenting in this manner, you think about what you want the pup TO do, rather than trying to teach the absence of an action. You create a situation in which Pup is able to make the right choice, either by using a reward to get him to do what you want, or a physical barrier so that he doesn’t rehearse what you don’t want.
Impaw-tent acronyms: CIAUI & FAN
In CIAUI you decide what you want, when you want it, and how you want the pup to do it. It puts you in the driver’s seat with full control. Here’s an example. The doorbell rings and you run your dog to his crate where he gets a bone stuffed with peanut butter before you open the front door. He then learns that the doorbell means run to his crate. Much more polite for your guests than being hounded by hounds whenever they come for a visit.
Holy Whack-a-Moley
The opposite of CHOOSE IT AND USE IT is FAIL’EM AND NAIL’EM (FAN) training. In the FAN paradigm, you put your dog in a situation where they will most likely fail, and then you punish the behaviour in the hopes of suppressing or eliminating that particular choice. This is learning by the process of elimination, and the way the game is structured, it’s neither efficient nor enticing. Here’s how it works. The doorbell rings and you open it. Your dog runs, jumps up, barks, sniffs areas of the guest that ought not be sniffed, grabs their shoe or growls and lunges. When they do these, you take hold of Pup’s collar and pull him back firmly, saying a stern “No!” By punishing him, you hope to decrease how often he does the behaviour that you just corrected. Of course, this may not eliminate the other six options, so that you may end up repeating this scenario for each of the other behaviours until you have sufficiently whacked all seven moles and broken your dog of that behaviour.
When the “Sit” hits the FAN
So which one should you consider whether you’re training a simple “Sit” or eliminating a problem behaviour? Well, that depends. The advantage of CIAUI is that you are using your brain, not your brawn. It’s easier and it lets you decide what you want your pup to do. You will enhance your relationship, and give your dog a clear understanding of what to do and how to do it. If you make a mistake or have poor timing, the worst thing that can happen is that your dog may get a few extra rewards – but he’ll still be happy to work with you.
The advantage of FAN training is that you don’t need a brain to do it. It’s just a reflex; you need neither skill nor intellect to squash behaviour using punishment. The potential drawbacks, however, are numerous. You risk increasing stress and anxiety by punishing your dog randomly until they are able to make the connection between the behaviour and the punishment. There’s a risk of increasing aggression if they associate another person or dog with the punishment. You will damage your own relationship, and it may break your heart when you reach for your dog’s head to pat them, and they begin to shy away or crouch down in fear. Finally, unless you are comfortable causing your dog significant pain or distress, it will take longer to achieve your goals, because rather than teaching your dog what’s expected of him, he must solve the puzzle through the process of elimination.
The bottom line is that both methods can work. It is possible to achieve your behavioural goals by using the FAIL’EM AND NAIL’EM method as well as the CHOOSE IT AND USE IT method.
Which begs the question: if you are able to achieve success by being positive and kind to your dog, who would intentionally choose to be harsh and hurtful instead – and why? When you look at it in this light, the choice seems clear. Set exact images in your head of what behaviour you want your pup to do in a given situation and help your dog to achieve it. The clearer you are, the easier it will be for your dog to understand and comply, and that will make both of you a lot happier.
Impaw-tent acronyms: CIAUI & FAN
In CIAUI you decide what you want, when you want it, and how you want the pup to do it. It puts you in the driver’s seat with full control. Here’s an example. The doorbell rings and you run your dog to his crate where he gets a bone stuffed with peanut butter before you open the front door. He then learns that the doorbell means run to his crate. Much more polite for your guests than being hounded by hounds whenever they come for a visit.
Holy Whack-a-Moley
The opposite of CHOOSE IT AND USE IT is FAIL’EM AND NAIL’EM (FAN) training. In the FAN paradigm, you put your dog in a situation where they will most likely fail, and then you punish the behaviour in the hopes of suppressing or eliminating that particular choice. This is learning by the process of elimination, and the way the game is structured, it’s neither efficient nor enticing. Here’s how it works. The doorbell rings and you open it. Your dog runs, jumps up, barks, sniffs areas of the guest that ought not be sniffed, grabs their shoe or growls and lunges. When they do these, you take hold of Pup’s collar and pull him back firmly, saying a stern “No!” By punishing him, you hope to decrease how often he does the behaviour that you just corrected. Of course, this may not eliminate the other six options, so that you may end up repeating this scenario for each of the other behaviours until you have sufficiently whacked all seven moles and broken your dog of that behaviour.
When the “Sit” hits the FAN
So which one should you consider whether you’re training a simple “Sit” or eliminating a problem behaviour? Well, that depends. The advantage of CIAUI is that you are using your brain, not your brawn. It’s easier and it lets you decide what you want your pup to do. You will enhance your relationship, and give your dog a clear understanding of what to do and how to do it. If you make a mistake or have poor timing, the worst thing that can happen is that your dog may get a few extra rewards – but he’ll still be happy to work with you.
The advantage of FAN training is that you don’t need a brain to do it. It’s just a reflex; you need neither skill nor intellect to squash behaviour using punishment. The potential drawbacks, however, are numerous. You risk increasing stress and anxiety by punishing your dog randomly until they are able to make the connection between the behaviour and the punishment. There’s a risk of increasing aggression if they associate another person or dog with the punishment. You will damage your own relationship, and it may break your heart when you reach for your dog’s head to pat them, and they begin to shy away or crouch down in fear. Finally, unless you are comfortable causing your dog significant pain or distress, it will take longer to achieve your goals, because rather than teaching your dog what’s expected of him, he must solve the puzzle through the process of elimination.
The bottom line is that both methods can work. It is possible to achieve your behavioural goals by using the FAIL’EM AND NAIL’EM method as well as the CHOOSE IT AND USE IT method.
Which begs the question: if you are able to achieve success by being positive and kind to your dog, who would intentionally choose to be harsh and hurtful instead – and why? When you look at it in this light, the choice seems clear. Set exact images in your head of what behaviour you want your pup to do in a given situation and help your dog to achieve it. The clearer you are, the easier it will be for your dog to understand and comply, and that will make both of you a lot happier.
Space(y) Invaders
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I didn’t know what to say. I stammered, “But she was so in my face and…”
An older woman cut me off and put her arm around the close-talking glossolalist.
“You’re a bully, you know that? You’re twice her size,” she snapped.
I stood there, completely befuddled. Was I the only one to recognize that I was the victim, and she the aggressor?
In public, no well-meaning stranger races at you…unless one of you is on fire
This scenario gets repeated every day. It happens on the street, in your yard or at the park. More often than not the outcome is the same. Those nearby comfort the perpetrator while the victim, forced into action by fear and discomfort, is chastised or punished by those who love them. I am, of course, now speaking about our dogs, and the impossible behavioral standards that we seem to expect from them. If your dog won’t tolerate every type of human or animal transgression with a dopey smile and a wag of the tail, she is branded dominant or aggressive. It’s destructive, it’s labeling, and it needs to stop.
Rudeness comes in all species, and dogs are no exceptions. A dog who runs at yours straight on as fast as they can is threatening, regardless of their mindset. If it happens often enough, it will eventually elicit aggression in even the most well-socialized dogs. Proper four-pawed etiquette isn’t that dissimilar to our own, and if you substitute the butt sniff for the firm handshake and eye contact introduction, they’re almost identical. In public, no well-meaning stranger races at you, unless one of you is on fire. A non-smoldering stranger charging at us triggers an autonomic response to prepare for conflict or flight. We get a rush of adrenalin as our muscles tense up while our brain frantically tries to plan our next move. You or I would brace for a confrontation; why do we punish our dogs for the same normal response?
Other times, the triggers are less obvious, like bouncing around barking in and out of “play bows” trying to elicit a response. Your dog is waiting – observing a grace period – in the hope that you will find your parenting brain and get this obnoxious twit away from him. But too often, we fail them, standing by while Bouncy Butt gets more and more irritating. Finally, your dog lunges, growls and maybe even pushes the other dog to the ground and pins them. Horrified, you pull the dogs apart.
In the vast majority of cases there is no damage to either dog, save for a stray spit wad. For most rational dogs or people, we’d consider that an appropriate correction. It is the equivalent of my push back in the first example. I didn’t hurt the close-talking glossolalist, I simply grasped her firmly and moved her away from me. She got the message, and I stopped once she no longer tried to get close to me. As absurd as it would be to conclude my defensive, instinctive response were objectionable and the close-talking aggressor’s actions reasonable, it would be no less absurd to correct your dog for finally teaching Bouncy Butt manners.
Don’t be a dog park pariah
As a doggy parent, you are responsible for keeping your furry friend safe. Safe from physical harm of course, but also safe from psychological harm. If your dog is put in situations that make him anxious or afraid while you stand blithely by holding the leash, then he will learn that he is not safe with you, and that you are unable or unwilling to protect him. Eventually, he may learn that if he lashes out at the thing that scared him, it will go away. The majority of aggression begins as fear-based behaviour. When dogs learn that they must act on their own to discourage potential threats, they will, and they will start to react earlier to any dog they perceive to be a possible aggressor. And then your dog is labeled as dominant, aggressive, reactive or dangerous, and you feel like a dog park pariah.
The worst part is that it all could have been prevented if you’d only stepped up in the first place and dealt with Bouncy Butts yourself. Your dog isn’t always wrong when he reacts to another dog, or person for that matter. And if you aren’t sure, then contact a knowledgeable behavioral consultant for an assessment, to make sure that he’s not being a bully. But sometimes a well-timed growl is worth a thousand words…and your dog isn’t automatically a brute if he’s the one who uttered it.
An older woman cut me off and put her arm around the close-talking glossolalist.
“You’re a bully, you know that? You’re twice her size,” she snapped.
I stood there, completely befuddled. Was I the only one to recognize that I was the victim, and she the aggressor?
In public, no well-meaning stranger races at you…unless one of you is on fire
This scenario gets repeated every day. It happens on the street, in your yard or at the park. More often than not the outcome is the same. Those nearby comfort the perpetrator while the victim, forced into action by fear and discomfort, is chastised or punished by those who love them. I am, of course, now speaking about our dogs, and the impossible behavioral standards that we seem to expect from them. If your dog won’t tolerate every type of human or animal transgression with a dopey smile and a wag of the tail, she is branded dominant or aggressive. It’s destructive, it’s labeling, and it needs to stop.
Rudeness comes in all species, and dogs are no exceptions. A dog who runs at yours straight on as fast as they can is threatening, regardless of their mindset. If it happens often enough, it will eventually elicit aggression in even the most well-socialized dogs. Proper four-pawed etiquette isn’t that dissimilar to our own, and if you substitute the butt sniff for the firm handshake and eye contact introduction, they’re almost identical. In public, no well-meaning stranger races at you, unless one of you is on fire. A non-smoldering stranger charging at us triggers an autonomic response to prepare for conflict or flight. We get a rush of adrenalin as our muscles tense up while our brain frantically tries to plan our next move. You or I would brace for a confrontation; why do we punish our dogs for the same normal response?
Other times, the triggers are less obvious, like bouncing around barking in and out of “play bows” trying to elicit a response. Your dog is waiting – observing a grace period – in the hope that you will find your parenting brain and get this obnoxious twit away from him. But too often, we fail them, standing by while Bouncy Butt gets more and more irritating. Finally, your dog lunges, growls and maybe even pushes the other dog to the ground and pins them. Horrified, you pull the dogs apart.
In the vast majority of cases there is no damage to either dog, save for a stray spit wad. For most rational dogs or people, we’d consider that an appropriate correction. It is the equivalent of my push back in the first example. I didn’t hurt the close-talking glossolalist, I simply grasped her firmly and moved her away from me. She got the message, and I stopped once she no longer tried to get close to me. As absurd as it would be to conclude my defensive, instinctive response were objectionable and the close-talking aggressor’s actions reasonable, it would be no less absurd to correct your dog for finally teaching Bouncy Butt manners.
Don’t be a dog park pariah
As a doggy parent, you are responsible for keeping your furry friend safe. Safe from physical harm of course, but also safe from psychological harm. If your dog is put in situations that make him anxious or afraid while you stand blithely by holding the leash, then he will learn that he is not safe with you, and that you are unable or unwilling to protect him. Eventually, he may learn that if he lashes out at the thing that scared him, it will go away. The majority of aggression begins as fear-based behaviour. When dogs learn that they must act on their own to discourage potential threats, they will, and they will start to react earlier to any dog they perceive to be a possible aggressor. And then your dog is labeled as dominant, aggressive, reactive or dangerous, and you feel like a dog park pariah.
The worst part is that it all could have been prevented if you’d only stepped up in the first place and dealt with Bouncy Butts yourself. Your dog isn’t always wrong when he reacts to another dog, or person for that matter. And if you aren’t sure, then contact a knowledgeable behavioral consultant for an assessment, to make sure that he’s not being a bully. But sometimes a well-timed growl is worth a thousand words…and your dog isn’t automatically a brute if he’s the one who uttered it.
Be cool, go to school
I teach at one of the most behaviorally knowledgeable training schools in the world. I can say that with utmost confidence because both the owner of the school and I recognize the importance of constantly sharpening and updating our skills…and because I’ve seen so many other facilities at which the instructors last saw the inside of a classroom when the Blue Jays were World Champs. Tuition at our school includes a three-hour behavioral seminar, we offer day classes for shift workers, and we even have a program for dogs who bark or lunge at dogs on leash, so that they can learn too.
So with all that going for us, why on earth did we just get an email from someone with four-year-old Labradors who chose not to bother with classes when they were puppies? Now they want to repair four years of behavior problems, the bulk of which were entirely preventable had they taken classes when the dogs were ten weeks old. Not attending a well-researched, positively based school with your dog from the get-go makes about as much sense as home schooling your kid armed with a subscription to Maclean’s and your junior high math book.
The operative phrase here is “positively based school”. Sadly, there are a lot of crackpots out there, and going to a school which happily promotes using shock collars on puppies, or brags about never using food in class, are sure signs of troglodyte trainers from whom you should flee before they use the strap on the kids and proffer leeches to cure what ails you. Go sit in on a class and find a school that you’re comfortable with. You can always drop me an email for trainer references, as I personally try to maintain a list of knowledgeable and safe trainers throughout Ontario and Canada.
So you’ve got some good schools nearby, you’ve got a dog. What’s your excuse du jour to justify the belief that winging it on your own is better than learning with a professional? Let’s look at some of the most common ones.
Excuse #1: “We don’t have time.” I love that one. Especially with puppy owners.
So you thought it was a plan to have an infant who doesn’t speak English, is prone to tantrums, pees in the living room and bites for entertainment purposes. But when you were plunking down the credit card, it didn’t occur to you that you would need to budget an hour a week for that infant’s education?
Getting into classes statistically lowers the likelihood of rehoming or euthanasia due to behavioral issues. Isn’t that investment into your human or fur-child’s emotional wellbeing one worth making?
Excuse #2: “We can’t afford it.” I sympathize with that argument to a point. We all have budget issues, and emergencies arise. Our dogs have made a concerted effort to bankrupt us over the past six months with their medical issues and diets at a cost that North 44 would be ashamed to charge. But for those of us who make a planned and deliberate choice to get a dog, whether from a breeder, a rescue or a shelter, that decision is made with the understanding that you will have to pay for vet visits to keep them physically healthy. Classes are as important to the psychological and social development of your dog as check-ups are to their physical health. And here’s the bombshell: Statistics show that behavioral issues and abandonment account for the largest percentage of dogs fated for euthanasia, not health problems. You’ll pay over a thousand dollars for your first year of vaccines and spay or neuter. Paying $300 to learn how to lay foundation for success for the next 14 years should be a no-brainer.
Excuse #3: “We didn’t do classes with our other dog, and that dog turned out just fine.” [Often paired with “We did classes with our other dog, so now we know what we’re doing.”] Certitude of conviction is the calling card of fools. Neither of these really makes much sense. Seriously. By the logic of the second, your parents had no need to send any of you to school if your older sister went. She knows what she’s doing, she could’ve taught you social studies just fine. Of course, you would have killed each other in the process, but hey, she took a class, she’s totally qualified to teach any human. The logic of the former is similarly specious. “I rode a bicycle without a helmet and drove after too many drinks in college, and I turned out fine, so why worry about helmets and DUIs with my fur-kids?” Dude. Stop it. You need to check that ego right now, and remember that you can always get better and more efficient with proper training -- and that benefits all your dogs, past, present and future.
Excuse #4: “Our dog is too old.” This is another one of those commonly held beliefs that ranks right up there with “If you swim less than an hour after eating you’ll sink like the missing Stanley Cup puck from L.A.”. One of the best defenses against cognitive dysfunction in dogs, like people, is to challenge the mind in new ways to keep it sharp. Taking a 10-year-old dog to a beginner agility or tricks class will enhance both their quality of life and your relationship with each other. Dogs love to learn, and my advice to clients is to go back and do a group class of some sort about every 18 months to 2 years. It will hone your skills, keep your dogs’ skills up and give you an hour a week of quality time with your fur-kid.
Let’s be honest, there are always a million reasons not to do something. We can rationalize anything if we try hard enough. But the bottom line is that, if you have access to safe, fun and professional schools, there’s no good reason not to take that step to improve your skills and awareness in training and behavior. Go stretch that comfort zone, have some fun and train your dog. We’ll all be better for it.
So with all that going for us, why on earth did we just get an email from someone with four-year-old Labradors who chose not to bother with classes when they were puppies? Now they want to repair four years of behavior problems, the bulk of which were entirely preventable had they taken classes when the dogs were ten weeks old. Not attending a well-researched, positively based school with your dog from the get-go makes about as much sense as home schooling your kid armed with a subscription to Maclean’s and your junior high math book.
The operative phrase here is “positively based school”. Sadly, there are a lot of crackpots out there, and going to a school which happily promotes using shock collars on puppies, or brags about never using food in class, are sure signs of troglodyte trainers from whom you should flee before they use the strap on the kids and proffer leeches to cure what ails you. Go sit in on a class and find a school that you’re comfortable with. You can always drop me an email for trainer references, as I personally try to maintain a list of knowledgeable and safe trainers throughout Ontario and Canada.
So you’ve got some good schools nearby, you’ve got a dog. What’s your excuse du jour to justify the belief that winging it on your own is better than learning with a professional? Let’s look at some of the most common ones.
Excuse #1: “We don’t have time.” I love that one. Especially with puppy owners.
So you thought it was a plan to have an infant who doesn’t speak English, is prone to tantrums, pees in the living room and bites for entertainment purposes. But when you were plunking down the credit card, it didn’t occur to you that you would need to budget an hour a week for that infant’s education?
Getting into classes statistically lowers the likelihood of rehoming or euthanasia due to behavioral issues. Isn’t that investment into your human or fur-child’s emotional wellbeing one worth making?
Excuse #2: “We can’t afford it.” I sympathize with that argument to a point. We all have budget issues, and emergencies arise. Our dogs have made a concerted effort to bankrupt us over the past six months with their medical issues and diets at a cost that North 44 would be ashamed to charge. But for those of us who make a planned and deliberate choice to get a dog, whether from a breeder, a rescue or a shelter, that decision is made with the understanding that you will have to pay for vet visits to keep them physically healthy. Classes are as important to the psychological and social development of your dog as check-ups are to their physical health. And here’s the bombshell: Statistics show that behavioral issues and abandonment account for the largest percentage of dogs fated for euthanasia, not health problems. You’ll pay over a thousand dollars for your first year of vaccines and spay or neuter. Paying $300 to learn how to lay foundation for success for the next 14 years should be a no-brainer.
Excuse #3: “We didn’t do classes with our other dog, and that dog turned out just fine.” [Often paired with “We did classes with our other dog, so now we know what we’re doing.”] Certitude of conviction is the calling card of fools. Neither of these really makes much sense. Seriously. By the logic of the second, your parents had no need to send any of you to school if your older sister went. She knows what she’s doing, she could’ve taught you social studies just fine. Of course, you would have killed each other in the process, but hey, she took a class, she’s totally qualified to teach any human. The logic of the former is similarly specious. “I rode a bicycle without a helmet and drove after too many drinks in college, and I turned out fine, so why worry about helmets and DUIs with my fur-kids?” Dude. Stop it. You need to check that ego right now, and remember that you can always get better and more efficient with proper training -- and that benefits all your dogs, past, present and future.
Excuse #4: “Our dog is too old.” This is another one of those commonly held beliefs that ranks right up there with “If you swim less than an hour after eating you’ll sink like the missing Stanley Cup puck from L.A.”. One of the best defenses against cognitive dysfunction in dogs, like people, is to challenge the mind in new ways to keep it sharp. Taking a 10-year-old dog to a beginner agility or tricks class will enhance both their quality of life and your relationship with each other. Dogs love to learn, and my advice to clients is to go back and do a group class of some sort about every 18 months to 2 years. It will hone your skills, keep your dogs’ skills up and give you an hour a week of quality time with your fur-kid.
Let’s be honest, there are always a million reasons not to do something. We can rationalize anything if we try hard enough. But the bottom line is that, if you have access to safe, fun and professional schools, there’s no good reason not to take that step to improve your skills and awareness in training and behavior. Go stretch that comfort zone, have some fun and train your dog. We’ll all be better for it.
Trial of an Overprotective PugMom
by Joan Weston
Overzealous? Neurotic? Perhaps, but flat-faced breeds are particularly vulnerable – if not downright reckless – in the summer heat. Joan Weston explains why.
When the summer temperatures hit, as they did in March this year, Torontonians shed their exoskeletons of down to revel in the sudden thaw that Floridians call ‘a bit nippy’. While the warm weather is great for getting out, we all know how important it is to guard against overheating, both human and canine. Going for a run on a 21-degree day is a great way to sweat off a few pounds; running while wearing a fur coat is a great way to sweat off the equivalent of a pair of sumo wrestlers after a beer-and-wings party.
The precautions that need to be taken with dogs are well publicized. Keep them hydrated, don’t overdo it, make sure they can get into shade and know the warning signs of hyperthermia, such as pale gums, increased heart rate and disorientation.
In nature, there is a frog which, when winter comes, virtually shuts itself down to the point of near death to await the spring, and desert animals who burrow away into the coolness of the earth to wait out the scorching heat of day. My dogs possess none of this survival acumen. The Westons of PugaBully Circus have Bulldogs and Pugs. Beautiful yes, but their design flaws rival those of the Dodo bird, and we all know what happened to him.
Bulldogs and pugs have enormous heads, heavy muscular bodies and move with the athletic fluidity of a pregnant woman getting off a hammock. One of our dogs spent months at the chiropractor to resolve periodic lameness in his front left leg. It turned out that his head is too big, and his neck was cramping up. True story. If that weren’t enough, their cooling system is built around an airway the size of a cocktail straw, and would work beautifully if they were the size of a carpenter ant, which, as we already established, they are not. And when you consider that the exercise of moving from the sunny spot on the couch to the sunny spot on the floor generates locomotive panting and exhortations, you can see where the problems arise.
Heat can be deadly to flat-faced breeds, and one would think that mother nature would endow them with similar survival tools as the frog and prairie dog. And one would be wrong. They ride that ragged edge of danger, taunting death with swashbuckling derring- do. They do this by lying in the exact spot where the sun is magnified through the sliding door. For hours. Then, when it seems they are certain to perish, they finally awake, panting and woozy, and wobble over to the water dish to rehydrate. The brain sends signals to the neurons with red alert lights flashing that the system is overheating. The bulldog processes this information, and slogs back over to the sunspot, where he collapses again, snoring in the face of death. And there they lay, until one of their frantic mothers shouts at them and forces them into the shade. Such is our daily routine during the warmer months.
Now factor in their well meaning, but delusional, mother. I like to compete in obedience, play flyball, throw the Frisbee and perform with shows at fairs. All of these require movements that occasionally break into a trot, for which my dogs are ill-equipped. These activities are also rarely offered outdoors in January; thus, I am forced to reconcile the collision of two worlds: owning dogs who are built for lounging rather than launching, and keeping said dogs from overheating when the temperature goes above freezing.
Now you understand why it is that I know everything there is to know about cooling your dog. Air-conditioned crates? The company went out of business a couple of years ago. I’d say business wasn’t so hot [rimshot] but I want you to keep reading. Cooling coats? Only get ones which cool the underside of the body, including important groin or armpit areas, as those are most effective. Fans? If you rig a computer fan, you’ll triple the cooling capacity and strength of those puny crate fans. Of course, it will be as loud as a GO train, but that’s a small price to pay for a cool dog. And did you know that spraying a mist of water from a spray bottle in front of the fan as it’s blowing on your dog will lower the air temp by almost 25 degrees?
Yeah, now who’s looking at who like they need a life, huh? You want some more of this? Okay, for car cooling, buy the foil insulation like you wrap around a water heater. A couple of stick-on magnets let you run it over the roof of your parked van and hold it to the hood and tailgate. This will effectively keep the van about 30% cooler as the heat is not gaining purchase in the metal roof. If you have a dog who is in distress, and starts panting heavily enough that they’re bringing up white foam, shooting a stream of lemon juice from the little plastic ReaLemon will immediately break up the foam so that they can breathe and will help stop the gagging. In an emergency, cool the dog slowly, don’t dump them in an ice bath or you risk shock. Using an alcohol soak on the feet can help to cool them faster than wetting them, if you have good air flow. And don’t put a wet blanket or coat on a dog if you do not have air movement, otherwise, you insulate the body and increase heat retention.
Yeah, I just went from crazy to cool, didn’t I? I know I have a bit of a problem. I’m okay, I can own that. But when you have dogs with the survival skills of lemmings at Niagara, sometimes moms need to be a little overprotective. And I’m not crazy…I’m just caring.
When the summer temperatures hit, as they did in March this year, Torontonians shed their exoskeletons of down to revel in the sudden thaw that Floridians call ‘a bit nippy’. While the warm weather is great for getting out, we all know how important it is to guard against overheating, both human and canine. Going for a run on a 21-degree day is a great way to sweat off a few pounds; running while wearing a fur coat is a great way to sweat off the equivalent of a pair of sumo wrestlers after a beer-and-wings party.
The precautions that need to be taken with dogs are well publicized. Keep them hydrated, don’t overdo it, make sure they can get into shade and know the warning signs of hyperthermia, such as pale gums, increased heart rate and disorientation.
In nature, there is a frog which, when winter comes, virtually shuts itself down to the point of near death to await the spring, and desert animals who burrow away into the coolness of the earth to wait out the scorching heat of day. My dogs possess none of this survival acumen. The Westons of PugaBully Circus have Bulldogs and Pugs. Beautiful yes, but their design flaws rival those of the Dodo bird, and we all know what happened to him.
Bulldogs and pugs have enormous heads, heavy muscular bodies and move with the athletic fluidity of a pregnant woman getting off a hammock. One of our dogs spent months at the chiropractor to resolve periodic lameness in his front left leg. It turned out that his head is too big, and his neck was cramping up. True story. If that weren’t enough, their cooling system is built around an airway the size of a cocktail straw, and would work beautifully if they were the size of a carpenter ant, which, as we already established, they are not. And when you consider that the exercise of moving from the sunny spot on the couch to the sunny spot on the floor generates locomotive panting and exhortations, you can see where the problems arise.
Heat can be deadly to flat-faced breeds, and one would think that mother nature would endow them with similar survival tools as the frog and prairie dog. And one would be wrong. They ride that ragged edge of danger, taunting death with swashbuckling derring- do. They do this by lying in the exact spot where the sun is magnified through the sliding door. For hours. Then, when it seems they are certain to perish, they finally awake, panting and woozy, and wobble over to the water dish to rehydrate. The brain sends signals to the neurons with red alert lights flashing that the system is overheating. The bulldog processes this information, and slogs back over to the sunspot, where he collapses again, snoring in the face of death. And there they lay, until one of their frantic mothers shouts at them and forces them into the shade. Such is our daily routine during the warmer months.
Now factor in their well meaning, but delusional, mother. I like to compete in obedience, play flyball, throw the Frisbee and perform with shows at fairs. All of these require movements that occasionally break into a trot, for which my dogs are ill-equipped. These activities are also rarely offered outdoors in January; thus, I am forced to reconcile the collision of two worlds: owning dogs who are built for lounging rather than launching, and keeping said dogs from overheating when the temperature goes above freezing.
Now you understand why it is that I know everything there is to know about cooling your dog. Air-conditioned crates? The company went out of business a couple of years ago. I’d say business wasn’t so hot [rimshot] but I want you to keep reading. Cooling coats? Only get ones which cool the underside of the body, including important groin or armpit areas, as those are most effective. Fans? If you rig a computer fan, you’ll triple the cooling capacity and strength of those puny crate fans. Of course, it will be as loud as a GO train, but that’s a small price to pay for a cool dog. And did you know that spraying a mist of water from a spray bottle in front of the fan as it’s blowing on your dog will lower the air temp by almost 25 degrees?
Yeah, now who’s looking at who like they need a life, huh? You want some more of this? Okay, for car cooling, buy the foil insulation like you wrap around a water heater. A couple of stick-on magnets let you run it over the roof of your parked van and hold it to the hood and tailgate. This will effectively keep the van about 30% cooler as the heat is not gaining purchase in the metal roof. If you have a dog who is in distress, and starts panting heavily enough that they’re bringing up white foam, shooting a stream of lemon juice from the little plastic ReaLemon will immediately break up the foam so that they can breathe and will help stop the gagging. In an emergency, cool the dog slowly, don’t dump them in an ice bath or you risk shock. Using an alcohol soak on the feet can help to cool them faster than wetting them, if you have good air flow. And don’t put a wet blanket or coat on a dog if you do not have air movement, otherwise, you insulate the body and increase heat retention.
Yeah, I just went from crazy to cool, didn’t I? I know I have a bit of a problem. I’m okay, I can own that. But when you have dogs with the survival skills of lemmings at Niagara, sometimes moms need to be a little overprotective. And I’m not crazy…I’m just caring.
Puppy Points
By Joan Weston
April/May 2012, Issue #102
Getting a puppy is a lot like becoming first-time parents. You’re going to worry a lot, make the incorrect assumption that everyone thinks your child is as wonderful as you do, and get a lot of unwanted advice.
Don’t worry. Dogs are more like babies than you realize, and one great feature is that they’re generally built to withstand the mistakes and tribulations of new parents. They’ll forgive you when you’re unfairly short-tempered, they’ll figure out some of your commands – even if you have the clarity of a sirocco in your teaching skills – and they’ll perfect that big-eyed greeting-card look that melts your heart.
One of the most important things for new puppy parents to remember is to trust your instincts. An easy check is “How would I handle this if it were an eight-month-old baby?” It’s not likely that you’d grab your niece by the back of the neck, shake her and then hold her face down on the carpet for trying having a tantrum when you took away the knife that she found. While you can have rules, structure and consequences, neither violence nor intimidation have a place when raising babies, be they two- or four-legged.
FIXING STUFF IS HARD, JUST ASK HUMPTY DUMPTY
An easy way to stop bad habits is to simply prevent your puppy from learning them in the first place. Invest in baby gates, a crate and an exercise pen. Every moment that your puppy is awake, she is learning about her environment, both good and bad. The simplest way to deal with problem behaviours is to not set her up to learn them. In this case, prevention is worth more than a pound of cure, it’s worth about as much as an Argos offensive lineman. When your puppy cannot be fully supervised, put her in her ex-pen, have her in a puppy safe room with you to keep her within sight at all times or put her in a crate. If she’s little, you can take advantage of the puppy papoose type carriers that you wear on your chest. Our Pugs were too young to have freedom when they were babies, but we felt badly putting them in a crate all the time, so my wife spent a fair amount of time doing housework wearing a Pug strapped to her. We even added a spring clamp that held a chewie stick at gnawing level, so that Weenie often appeared to be smoking an oversized cigar while the wife was doing dishes.
GET OUT OF HERE!
The critical socialization and exposure times for puppies are roughly between 2 to 14 weeks. Once your puppy has had one set of shots, and been home from the breeder for at least ten days, he is ready to get out in the world. Until he’s had his second set of vaccines, don’t frequent high-traffic dog spots, such as pet stores and dog parks. BUT…really make an effort to take that puppy everywhere else. Pay attention to exposing him to different environments, sounds and terrains. Take high value soft treats, such as hot dogs or cheese that you can use to reward him with little tiny nibbles when he sees new or scary things. The risk of your puppy catching an illness that isn’t treatable is negligible when compared to the damage and future behavioural impact that may be caused by isolating him through these critical learning stages.
YOUR EYES ARE SAYING YES, BUT YOUR TEETH ARE SAYING NO
Learn to speak dog. Despite what some trainers would have you believe, much of dogs’ body language and signaling is similar to our own. The first warning sign of tension is stiffening or freezing. A tightly closed mouth, lip licking and looking away are all signals that your dog is feeling tension. Whenever you see these signals back off and help relieve the pressure. To learn body language, www.dogwise.com is a great resource for trustworthy books and videos on all things dog. Brenda Aloff and Turid Rugas are two examples of authors with great books on body language and calming signals.
CATCH ME IF YOU CAN
Your puppy is always learning, whether you’re in the mood to train or not. Too often, puppy comes in and sits at your feet, or lies on his mat, or picks up his own toy to receive…nothing. But grab one little pair of underwear and the house turns upside down! Get better at noticing and rewarding when your pup makes a good choice on his own. If you gave him a kibble every time he went up to someone and sat down without being told, he’d soon learn approach and sit as a default behavior. Wear meals around the house – just keep kibble in your pocket at all times – and you’ll find that you’re able to notice and reward plenty of good choices that your puppy makes on his own. Using meals for training around the house strengthens your relationship and encourages your pup to engage with you.
THE FINAL WORD
Get enrolled in a positively based training school by ten weeks of age. Ask the trainers for advice, not your brother-in-law. And most importantly, have fun. The puppy stage is fraught with too little sleep, too much poop and a lot of worrying. Luckily, there’s also too much cuteness, a lot of love and a boatload of cuddling. You’ll laugh, sigh and, somewhere along the way, you’ll both learn stuff about each other without even realizing, as you develop one of the most meaningful friendships you’ll ever have.
One of the most important things for new puppy parents to remember is to trust your instincts. An easy check is “How would I handle this if it were an eight-month-old baby?” It’s not likely that you’d grab your niece by the back of the neck, shake her and then hold her face down on the carpet for trying having a tantrum when you took away the knife that she found. While you can have rules, structure and consequences, neither violence nor intimidation have a place when raising babies, be they two- or four-legged.
FIXING STUFF IS HARD, JUST ASK HUMPTY DUMPTY
An easy way to stop bad habits is to simply prevent your puppy from learning them in the first place. Invest in baby gates, a crate and an exercise pen. Every moment that your puppy is awake, she is learning about her environment, both good and bad. The simplest way to deal with problem behaviours is to not set her up to learn them. In this case, prevention is worth more than a pound of cure, it’s worth about as much as an Argos offensive lineman. When your puppy cannot be fully supervised, put her in her ex-pen, have her in a puppy safe room with you to keep her within sight at all times or put her in a crate. If she’s little, you can take advantage of the puppy papoose type carriers that you wear on your chest. Our Pugs were too young to have freedom when they were babies, but we felt badly putting them in a crate all the time, so my wife spent a fair amount of time doing housework wearing a Pug strapped to her. We even added a spring clamp that held a chewie stick at gnawing level, so that Weenie often appeared to be smoking an oversized cigar while the wife was doing dishes.
GET OUT OF HERE!
The critical socialization and exposure times for puppies are roughly between 2 to 14 weeks. Once your puppy has had one set of shots, and been home from the breeder for at least ten days, he is ready to get out in the world. Until he’s had his second set of vaccines, don’t frequent high-traffic dog spots, such as pet stores and dog parks. BUT…really make an effort to take that puppy everywhere else. Pay attention to exposing him to different environments, sounds and terrains. Take high value soft treats, such as hot dogs or cheese that you can use to reward him with little tiny nibbles when he sees new or scary things. The risk of your puppy catching an illness that isn’t treatable is negligible when compared to the damage and future behavioural impact that may be caused by isolating him through these critical learning stages.
YOUR EYES ARE SAYING YES, BUT YOUR TEETH ARE SAYING NO
Learn to speak dog. Despite what some trainers would have you believe, much of dogs’ body language and signaling is similar to our own. The first warning sign of tension is stiffening or freezing. A tightly closed mouth, lip licking and looking away are all signals that your dog is feeling tension. Whenever you see these signals back off and help relieve the pressure. To learn body language, www.dogwise.com is a great resource for trustworthy books and videos on all things dog. Brenda Aloff and Turid Rugas are two examples of authors with great books on body language and calming signals.
CATCH ME IF YOU CAN
Your puppy is always learning, whether you’re in the mood to train or not. Too often, puppy comes in and sits at your feet, or lies on his mat, or picks up his own toy to receive…nothing. But grab one little pair of underwear and the house turns upside down! Get better at noticing and rewarding when your pup makes a good choice on his own. If you gave him a kibble every time he went up to someone and sat down without being told, he’d soon learn approach and sit as a default behavior. Wear meals around the house – just keep kibble in your pocket at all times – and you’ll find that you’re able to notice and reward plenty of good choices that your puppy makes on his own. Using meals for training around the house strengthens your relationship and encourages your pup to engage with you.
THE FINAL WORD
Get enrolled in a positively based training school by ten weeks of age. Ask the trainers for advice, not your brother-in-law. And most importantly, have fun. The puppy stage is fraught with too little sleep, too much poop and a lot of worrying. Luckily, there’s also too much cuteness, a lot of love and a boatload of cuddling. You’ll laugh, sigh and, somewhere along the way, you’ll both learn stuff about each other without even realizing, as you develop one of the most meaningful friendships you’ll ever have.
The day the dogs rebelled
By Joan Weston
My wife started a new job on Monday. This was welcome news in our household, since we were starting to consider hooking the dogs up to a treadmill to power our dishwasher and cut our electric bills. Seeing as how we only have access to Bulldogs and Pugs, it’s unlikely that our efforts would have reaped more than a rinse of a coffee cup, at best, before the dogs overheated and needed to be rushed to the vet.
When Bumblebee heads off to work, that leaves me in charge of our dogs. The tasks are herculean when she does this; it’s like Little House on the Prairie in Ontario. I have to get up, often before 10:00 a.m., fix their breakfasts, fix my breakfast, let them out, let them in, watch SportsCentre, eat my own breakfast before the ‘top 10 plays of the day’ and time the dog feeding for when the soccer highlights start, so I can be back on the couch by the ‘highlight of the night’. It’s overwhelming on a good day, and when we can afford it, I plan to hire a jovial assistant with an accent who will tell anecdotes of her homeland while she deals with the dogs.
Back pain provokes dog reign
On this particular day, however, I was presented with a life-altering challenge. When I went to get out of bed, my lower back seized up, knotting me into a painful sequence of seeking a comfortable position, which rendered me looking like a drunken Twister-tournament contestant. I finally settled into the shape of an opening parenthesis.
I became a walking half-emoticon.
Now, inasmuch as I know that dominance has little to do with canine behavior, on that day, my dogs suddenly reverted to the 1920s wolf within. Considering that we share our kitchen with round flat-faced creatures whose couch time is exceeded only by their gas output, that’s a fair leap back. Not like, say, a husky, which has only to sidestep a couple of decades. No, my dogs are about as far off the evolutionary scale from the wolf as you can get. If the wolf were Michelle Obama, then my dogs would be Roseanne. But on this day, Roseanne went to Harvard.
Puggy Sue got carried away
Puggy Sue noticed it immediately. She is the Minister of Behavioral Activities in our home, and a large part of her day is spent pushing papers on her desk and assigning different dogs to their respective crates and corners for time-outs. With the passing of our 14-year-old, she has now assumed the Queen’s role, and rules with all the frivolity of Hannibal having stepped in elephant poop.
When I first came downstairs, she regarded me carefully. I could see the wheels turning in her baseball head. ‘At last…the fat one grows weak…the time for me to take what is rightfully mine draws nigh!’ Pug also fancies herself a literature snob, and sometimes devolves into period English. She walked into the kitchen with me, moving in and out of my feet in a clear attempt to cause me to face plant into the stove. I avoided her, shoved her out the door and went to get the others to do the same.
When they came back in, it was clear that there had been a conference. Puggy Sue had alerted the battalion to the sudden change, and plans for their offensive had been laid. Unfortunately, she chose Spike as her lead attacker.
Spike & Sea Monster enter the fray
Spike is a stunningly beautiful bulldog. Which is fortunate, because his beauty is uncluttered by banal thoughts about, well, pretty much anything. He ran in to lead the attack, but on the way passed a shoe, a bed, a Nylabone and a sandal. He short-circuited, and began to spin in a joyous circle of indecision and incomprehension at the sudden bounty which lay before him. He grabbed the shoe and ran to the front hall. This caused a chain reaction. Weenie, a Pug who makes Spike look like the leader of his local Mensa chapter, ran behind him, shrieking in joy. This caused Sea Monster, the oversized Wooly Mammoth of our group, to run in a frenzied loop around the kitchen, hall and dining room, while bucking and leaping randomly. Since he outweighs everyone in the house by nearly thirty pounds, this meant that Puggy Sue, upon getting hip checked by the running behemoth, went sailing into the wall in a curly tailed ball of fury. Sliding on the hardwood, she hurled epithets at him, while her legs scrambled under her to gain purchase so she could administer a correction, the likes of which this world had rarely seen. As she stopped sliding, she paused and launched herself after Sea Monster, but, due to a lost eye many moons ago on the high seas, didn’t see Captain Danger, the puppy, running through to join the melee.
Ahoy, Captain Danger!
Poor Pug. She ran into the side of Captain Danger and was sent pinwheeling backwards again, where she promptly slid off a step and into the den. I had to step in, because inevitably, when the house gets in this high of a state, tears and fights ensue. Of course, my delicate condition precluded me from presenting much of an authority presence, although I tried. ‘ENOUGH,’ I called out sternly, bending sideways like Bobby Goren questioning a suspected arsonist. Puppy paused, being the sensitive type, but the rest were largely unaffected. Sea Monster accomplished what Puggy Sue could not, and leapt into the side of my knees forcing me to cry out in pain and grab a crate for balance. He paused, and Puggy seized her opportunity for redemption by biting Sea Monster in the ankle and shaking him for all she was worth. Sea Monster leapt up and ran away from his pint-sized attacker and Pug was jettisoned from his hindquarters like an escape pod and flew through the air onto the bench where Spike had the shoe. I lurched over to Spike, took the shoe, now replete with a ventilation hole in one side and resisted the urge to hit everyone in the house with it just once over the head.
By the time I was able to stutter back to the kitchen, my back had artistically rearranged the knots, so that I now was walking like Marty Feldman in Young Frankenstein. Weenie stopped shrieking to look at me in puzzlement, and Puppy moved away, fearful of my new intimidating posture. At long last, I got the dogs fed and, after bending down to shut the crate door behind the last of them, took fifteen minutes to stand up. I made my way to the couch, and, with ice on my back, and a glowering Puggy Sue watching me from afar, called Bumblebee at work.
“Can you come home now? We need you here!”
Joan Weston owns Fangs But No Fangs Canine Behavioural Consulting Services in Caledon, Ont. Although specializing in aggression, Joan works with all types of training and behavioural issues in dogs. If you have a question for Joan, please send it to info@dogsdogsdogs.ca
When Bumblebee heads off to work, that leaves me in charge of our dogs. The tasks are herculean when she does this; it’s like Little House on the Prairie in Ontario. I have to get up, often before 10:00 a.m., fix their breakfasts, fix my breakfast, let them out, let them in, watch SportsCentre, eat my own breakfast before the ‘top 10 plays of the day’ and time the dog feeding for when the soccer highlights start, so I can be back on the couch by the ‘highlight of the night’. It’s overwhelming on a good day, and when we can afford it, I plan to hire a jovial assistant with an accent who will tell anecdotes of her homeland while she deals with the dogs.
Back pain provokes dog reign
On this particular day, however, I was presented with a life-altering challenge. When I went to get out of bed, my lower back seized up, knotting me into a painful sequence of seeking a comfortable position, which rendered me looking like a drunken Twister-tournament contestant. I finally settled into the shape of an opening parenthesis.
I became a walking half-emoticon.
Now, inasmuch as I know that dominance has little to do with canine behavior, on that day, my dogs suddenly reverted to the 1920s wolf within. Considering that we share our kitchen with round flat-faced creatures whose couch time is exceeded only by their gas output, that’s a fair leap back. Not like, say, a husky, which has only to sidestep a couple of decades. No, my dogs are about as far off the evolutionary scale from the wolf as you can get. If the wolf were Michelle Obama, then my dogs would be Roseanne. But on this day, Roseanne went to Harvard.
Puggy Sue got carried away
Puggy Sue noticed it immediately. She is the Minister of Behavioral Activities in our home, and a large part of her day is spent pushing papers on her desk and assigning different dogs to their respective crates and corners for time-outs. With the passing of our 14-year-old, she has now assumed the Queen’s role, and rules with all the frivolity of Hannibal having stepped in elephant poop.
When I first came downstairs, she regarded me carefully. I could see the wheels turning in her baseball head. ‘At last…the fat one grows weak…the time for me to take what is rightfully mine draws nigh!’ Pug also fancies herself a literature snob, and sometimes devolves into period English. She walked into the kitchen with me, moving in and out of my feet in a clear attempt to cause me to face plant into the stove. I avoided her, shoved her out the door and went to get the others to do the same.
When they came back in, it was clear that there had been a conference. Puggy Sue had alerted the battalion to the sudden change, and plans for their offensive had been laid. Unfortunately, she chose Spike as her lead attacker.
Spike & Sea Monster enter the fray
Spike is a stunningly beautiful bulldog. Which is fortunate, because his beauty is uncluttered by banal thoughts about, well, pretty much anything. He ran in to lead the attack, but on the way passed a shoe, a bed, a Nylabone and a sandal. He short-circuited, and began to spin in a joyous circle of indecision and incomprehension at the sudden bounty which lay before him. He grabbed the shoe and ran to the front hall. This caused a chain reaction. Weenie, a Pug who makes Spike look like the leader of his local Mensa chapter, ran behind him, shrieking in joy. This caused Sea Monster, the oversized Wooly Mammoth of our group, to run in a frenzied loop around the kitchen, hall and dining room, while bucking and leaping randomly. Since he outweighs everyone in the house by nearly thirty pounds, this meant that Puggy Sue, upon getting hip checked by the running behemoth, went sailing into the wall in a curly tailed ball of fury. Sliding on the hardwood, she hurled epithets at him, while her legs scrambled under her to gain purchase so she could administer a correction, the likes of which this world had rarely seen. As she stopped sliding, she paused and launched herself after Sea Monster, but, due to a lost eye many moons ago on the high seas, didn’t see Captain Danger, the puppy, running through to join the melee.
Ahoy, Captain Danger!
Poor Pug. She ran into the side of Captain Danger and was sent pinwheeling backwards again, where she promptly slid off a step and into the den. I had to step in, because inevitably, when the house gets in this high of a state, tears and fights ensue. Of course, my delicate condition precluded me from presenting much of an authority presence, although I tried. ‘ENOUGH,’ I called out sternly, bending sideways like Bobby Goren questioning a suspected arsonist. Puppy paused, being the sensitive type, but the rest were largely unaffected. Sea Monster accomplished what Puggy Sue could not, and leapt into the side of my knees forcing me to cry out in pain and grab a crate for balance. He paused, and Puggy seized her opportunity for redemption by biting Sea Monster in the ankle and shaking him for all she was worth. Sea Monster leapt up and ran away from his pint-sized attacker and Pug was jettisoned from his hindquarters like an escape pod and flew through the air onto the bench where Spike had the shoe. I lurched over to Spike, took the shoe, now replete with a ventilation hole in one side and resisted the urge to hit everyone in the house with it just once over the head.
By the time I was able to stutter back to the kitchen, my back had artistically rearranged the knots, so that I now was walking like Marty Feldman in Young Frankenstein. Weenie stopped shrieking to look at me in puzzlement, and Puppy moved away, fearful of my new intimidating posture. At long last, I got the dogs fed and, after bending down to shut the crate door behind the last of them, took fifteen minutes to stand up. I made my way to the couch, and, with ice on my back, and a glowering Puggy Sue watching me from afar, called Bumblebee at work.
“Can you come home now? We need you here!”
Joan Weston owns Fangs But No Fangs Canine Behavioural Consulting Services in Caledon, Ont. Although specializing in aggression, Joan works with all types of training and behavioural issues in dogs. If you have a question for Joan, please send it to info@dogsdogsdogs.ca
