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November 2006 Archives
Demonic Dasher
When clients become afraid of their dogs, it presents a major roadblock to rehabilitation. To get past the problem, there first needs to be established trust and respect between owner and dog and I would recommend seeking the advice of a professional. In other words, if you don’t trust him, he can’t trust you back.
After working with a trainer, you must continue to practice with your dog on your own. Have your spouse, partner, or a friend become a “coach” and observe how you interact with the dog making sure the energy and body language you are sharing remains calm and assertive.
Dueling Basset Hounds
There is a misconception when dogs fight, you must only discipline the one that started it. But we could notice the fight 20 seconds after it started and have no idea from the energy of the dogs who started it.
Dogs move through states of mind and emotions much quicker than people, so my personal philosophy is to always discipline the dog with the highest level of intensity at that moment. The dog that started the conflict may have submitted right after the fight began. And by going after the dog with the highest level of energy, you control the pack; they learn that a certain level of intensity is never acceptable to the leader.
The ultimate goal, of course, is to create a fight-free environment. Do this by learning to read your dog's body language and energy, and assessing and correcting the situation before the fur starts to fly.
Vet Dog
People often ask me how to handle big and powerful dogs. Powerful breeds can indeed be dangerous in the wrong hands and I always recommend people call in a professional to help them assess and get control of their particular situations. Often though, it's not necessarily the size or breed of a dog when it comes to physical control. It's all a leadership game.
My friend Jada Pinkett Smith is a 100-pound woman who controls a pack of four 100+ pound Rottweilers all at the same time. It's not her physical strength that commands respect, it's her psychological strength and the power of her intention.
My client Betty McVay has beaten cancer twice and it was that determination and inner strength that we channeled in helping her achieve a leadership role with her beloved dingo-mix, Aussi, a dog much more physically powerful than she is.
Mental strength is uniquely human and the key to controlling animals that are more physically powerful than us. Once you get the hang of it, the power of our minds and our energy are better than any leash or collar.
Fab Five
It makes no sense to put a group of dogs together in a home and immediately expect them to be "friends." I've been called in to help a lot of households where a small pack of two, three, or four dogs weren't getting along and causing fights.
Usually, the owners have missed all the warning signs of this type of aggression. It tends to begin with nervousness, tension, dominance, insecurity, or anxiety from one or more members of the pack.
The best solution for this type of situation is to insist on calm-submissive behavior from all your dogs before you introduce them to each other. As pack leader, you must be the one in charge and directly address the trouble makers before their aggression goes from one to ten.
If the situation has already escalated, which is when I'm called in, sometimes you have to temporarily separate the unbalanced dog or dogs from the others to prevent an attack. In this segment, I'll show you how I helped this family reintroduce their combating canines, but before you try it with your own dogs, make sure to consult a professional!
Pushy Poodle
I'm frequently asked how to teach children to behave around dogs, but particularly excited dogs. Children move rapidly and tend to be high-energy already, and overly excited dogs can knock over or scratch a small child. It's very important that they learn proper human-dog "etiquette."
When meeting any new dog for the first time, you need to teach kids my "No touch, No talk, No eye contact" rule. Do not approach the dog. Let him come to you and the child first. Allow him to sniff and find out who you are. He must be comfortable with you before you reach out and give affection, or invite the dog to play. By practicing this rule, and asserting their position, they will soon understand the basic fundamentals of pack leadership.
Saving Sara
The body language of an over-protective dog, such as Sara, a shepherd-mix, can often escalate into the dangerous "red zone." When I saw her, her ears were forward, eyes fixated, mouth closed, and body poised in a kind of hunting "ready to attack" mode. It was predatory stance; ready to charge.
It's so important to be able to read your dog's body language. You'll see with aggressive dogs that they will often display trigger signs before reaching that dangerous state. If you know what to look for, you can block or redirect that escalating behavior or "snap them out of it."
For example, with less aggressive cases, you can throw a ball to redirect her attention or use quick phrases such as, "Come on, come on, come on!" In more serious cases, you will need to block and use more assertive commands such as "No" or "Stay."
Remember, no matter what you do, you must remain calm and assertive. Frustration, fear, anger, or anxiety will only reinforce unwanted behavior in an uncontrollable and unbalanced dog.
Maya Madness
This segment shows how an overly excited dog makes for an uncontrollable walk. Remember in the dog world, excited doesn't always mean "happy," although we often think it does.
A happy, healthy walk starts with you. Be calm and assertive from the time you put on your shoes and pick up the leash. Don't anticipate or visualize any "bad" behavior from the dog. If she starts jumping around in anticipation, stop what you're doing and wait until she becomes calm-submissive. For a dog, learning to be patient is a psychological exercise in itself. She'll soon begin to understand that this calm-submissive behavior will earn her the reward of a walk.
The lesson continues when you reach the front door. You must leave first and then give her permission to follow you. If she's barreling out ahead of you, not only is she displaying dominant behavior, it can lead to accidents.
It's okay for your dog to be excited about going for a walk, but you both will enjoy it a lot more if she's in a calm-submissive state before the leash is on.
Blood, Sweat, and Tears
Contrary to popular belief, it's not always necessary to use physical corrections with a territorial dog in order for him to see you as the pack leader. And although dogs are naturally prone to protect their space, you will see that an aggressively territorial dog like Butch does not respect his pack leader. However, you can win a dog's respect by "outlasting" him psychologically. In other words, it's often just a contest of wills.
A dog sees things in terms of cause and effect, so when you move away from a place or object he is guarding, the more it reinforces his belief that he "owns" it. By not backing away from the situation, you can actually begin to recondition him to realize that he doesn't have that power. Dogs are familiar with this strategy. For example, cattle dogs don't physically touch cattle when they're herding, but they make the animals think they're going to.
One thing to always keep in mind is that this doesn't happen overnight. Like every aspect of training, you must have patience!
Four Alarm Fire Dog
By now, you know my mantra: Exercise, discipline, THEN affection. And when raising a puppy, it's important to keep in mind that everyone in the human "pack" needs to be on the same page when it comes to a training strategy. In the case of Wilshire, some pack members didn't seem to understand that while he was receiving those three components, by mixing up the order, they were in fact reinforcing his bad behavior. I see this happen a lot with my clients. It's called "intermittent reinforcement," and it is a sure way to get a dog not to respect your authority.
With wild dogs, the entire pack pitches in to raise the pups, which quickly learn to submit to and take direction from the adults. It can be the same with domestic dogs if we learn not to stray from the natural principle. By following the exercise, discipline, affection formula, the dog gets the same behavioral cues from everyone he interacts with. He'll then begin to accept all human beings as the pack leaders, just as they do in nature.
Imaginary Walls
You may have heard me say this in the past: Fish swim, bird fly, and dogs walk. It is the most important activity you can share with your pet. It is part of dogs' genes to walk, migrate, and explore. Wild packs do this daily in search of food and water. If you have a dog that refuses to take a walk, he or she is unstable and that is a serious problem.
I would first advise you to seek the advice of a trusted vet to make sure there are no physical or neurological problems. Once those are ruled out, a professional trainer can help teach you the proper pack leadership skills you will need to incorporate during the walk to help ease any anxiety your dog may be experiencing.
Genoa's Nightmare
Exposing a dog to an object or situation it fears may seem cruel to some. And it can worsen the situation if you don't know what you're doing since there is the risk of intensifying the trauma. But done correctly, what some psychologists refer to as "flooding," can ease the dog of its fear. What you have to do is replace the fearful association with a positive experience. This can happen by using food, soothing massages, or incorporating play time around the fearful object.
I myself experience this every time I get on a plane. I have a terrible fear of flying. But I must fly about every two weeks and even though I may never be 100% comfortable flying, the more I get on that plane, the less I fear it. For me, squeezing my wife's hand distracts me from all of my bad thoughts and associations, if only for a short time.
I believe it is far more cruel to let an animal suffer from fear that is often human-induced than have him experience a few moments of discomfort in order to improve its confidence. Remember, the beauty of dogs is that they move on so much faster than we do.
Molly the Farm Dog
Contrary to misstatements by some critics, I do not advocate the permanent use of electric or prong collars or similar devices. I do, however, believe in using the right tool for the right situation, though solely for training purposes, with the idea that with proper instruction and consistency, the tools will eventually no longer be needed.
No two dogs are alike. And their life experiences differ with each case. I felt that the use of the e-collar was best for Molly, in order to save her life. In her two short years, she had already lost an eye, some teeth, and survived a run-in with a tractor tire. The next one could be her last.
What she needed was a deterrence -- an understanding that the tractor tires were off-limits. The collar provided that physical connection. We made sure that the setting of the e-collar was not high enough to cause Molly any pain.
As you will see, she passed with flying colors and her owners were able to remove the e-collar after two months.
In my opinion, an e-collar can be a life-saving tool, like a defibrillator to an EMT. But neither tool is meant to be a permanent solution. The tried and true principals of solid pack leadership were what ultimately corrected Molly.
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