I recently met with a client and her new puppy. The puppy, four-month-old named Daisy, weighed fifteen pounds. It was expected that Daisy would be at least forty-five pounds when fully grown.
Daisy was taken from her litter at five weeks of age and placed with a rescue. By the time she was adopted, Daisy was eight weeks old. That meant that she was missing a good bit of important social experiences that puppies are usually exposed to. Careful introduction to people, children, appropriate dogs, other puppies, places, things, sounds, sights, and novel objects was begun right away. Daisy’s adopter saw the importance of this plan and enthusiastically followed it to the letter.
When we met again to evaluate Daisy’s progress, I noticed that Daisy was happily pulling her adopter towards me while on leash. At our third session, Daisy again pulled her owner to me, this time with even more strength and gusto. I knew it was time to teach this puppy the meaning of “good things come to those who wait!”.
Because my client was so keen on socializing her puppy, she had happily allowed Daisy to pull her towards anything and everything. Her intentions were good; she wanted Daisy to feel brave and comfortable in the world by exploring anything that came to Daisy’s attention. The problem was that Daisy was also learning to pull anywhere, anytime, even if that meant dragging her human along for the ride.
Within a very short time, Daisy was going to be a sizable dog. Pulling her family members wherever she wanted to go could be a problem for obvious reasons. Not everyone welcomes forty-five pounds of dog slamming into them! If a person preferred to not meet Daisy, Daisy wouldn’t understand why she was being prevented from approaching. This could lead to leash-induced frustration. This example is only one the many good reasons it is important to teach a puppy the meaning of “not now, dog!”
As a behavior specialist, I am always thinking ahead: how does what is happening today influence how the dog may behave in the future? An always-important aspect of dog training is to teach tolerance to frustration and to build impulse control.
I acknowledged my client for her admirable commitment to her dog’s emotional well-being and development, and then we created a plan to teach Daisy to visit people, only now, on cue!
Here was our plan:
- We practiced various impulse control games, teaching her how to “leave it.” Daisy’s adopter practiced these games for a couple of minutes every day.
- We practiced rewarding Daisy for walking next to her human on leash. Daisy was rewarded at her person’s side, building value for being next to her. I asked that she practice this every day when she took Daisy for a walk.
- We carried high value treats that were sure to capture Daisy’s attention even in the face of distractions.
- We worked on teaching Daisy to sit before greeting people, starting about 20 feet away. In the beginning, if we were any closer, Daisy was too excited to perform the behavior. Over time, we were able to decrease that distance to about 5 feet away.
- We put greeting people on cue, using the verbal cue “Go say hi!”
- We practiced by using people Daisy already knew before taking it on the road with new people. Much easier to ask friends and family to help train Daisy in a set-up, versus trying to train this new skill in real-time with people who may themselves be too excited to greet a happy puppy!
Using the protocols described, I am happy to report that little Daisy quickly caught on to this new game and is now much easier to manage on leash. This will be even more appreciated (by everyone!) when she reaches her full size (and weight!)
It’s been a year since I’ve blogged—and I have a good reason! I took a full-time position as a Director of Pet Behavior at the North Shore Animal League America. There was and is a lot to take on so it was occupying my full attention. I have since been able to carve out some time to write again, because frankly, I missed it.
In this blog, I want to talk about a topic that is near and dear to me. Not just because of experiences with my dogs, but from what I see working in animal welfare. A dog can show anxiety and fear in different ways. Sometimes, it’s not obvious that the dog’s behavior is a symptom of fear.
For example, my dog, Marvel, a Jack Russell/Yorkie Terrier mix, displayed fear by barking, lunging, and charging in appropriately. I was actually contemplating not doing agility with Marvel because his reactivity was so bad. And I LOVE this dog performance sport. I am one of those people who uses vacation days to attend agility competitions and seminars.
Marvel’s reactivity showed up as alert barking and charging people and dogs. He was so sensitive to the environment that it seemed like his brain was exploding. At a seminar, two and a half years ago, Marvel actually left the training ring and charged a very large dog that was walking into the building. Thankfully, the other dog was a nice dog that was just startled by my little 7-pound Firestarter. I felt badly for anyone affected by Marvel’s behavior. I was also concerned about Marvel’s safety and mental health. The elevated levels of cortisol (stress hormone) and adrenaline were not healthy for him.
One year after I committed to working on Marvel’s reactivity, we attended our first agility trial. Marvel was a ROCKSTAR! I was thrilled with his ability to stay in the game and focus on me. And most importantly, he was HAPPY!! My personal goal is to try out for a World Team with Marvel by 2018, possibly even sooner. This wasn’t possible one year ago—it wasn’t even on the radar.
Dog training and behavior modification is an ongoing process with any animal. You are never done practicing skills. Just like training agility, you have to regularly work with your dog to maintain his skills and build his confidence. As an example, we had a setback a few months ago at a trial. Marvel was fast and focused when in the ring and moving from point A to point B around the trial arena when on leash. However, when playing off leash, fetching a ball, with the rest of my canine crew, Marvel did charge after a dog walking right by us. We were in a fenced-in area but because he is so small, he was able to slip under the fence. Fortunately, Marvel did not bite the other dog—only charged at her, barking. I felt badly that the dog and handler were startled. Although it was a personal blow and I felt terrible, I learned from it. I have worked hard with Marvel to teach him to have self-control in specific contexts but I hadn’t spent enough effort teaching him to generalize that self-control to other contexts. The only way to generalize his self-control is to work it in different contexts. I also recognize that Marvel is using all of his brain-power to play the agility game with me, so expecting him to be able to stay focused outside of the agility ring is probably really difficult for him. Now, Marvel stays on leash at trials and seminars unless we are in the ring.
Why am I sharing this? Because setbacks will happen. They are part of the journey. When it comes to modifying behavioral issues, we are never done. Be kind to yourself and learn from them. I am also sharing this personal example to help you understand how the canine brain works. If your dog understands a cue or behavior in one context, it doesn’t mean he will understand it in a different context—especially if you haven’t specifically trained him in that new situation. And of course, adding anxiety and stress make it even harder for the dog.
So the takeaway lesson here is ‘practice, practice, practice’ –forever! Yes, your dog’s behavior can improve and you will be able to breathe more easily…and remember to be mindful of how your dog needs your support in various situations.
As you know, I’m a dog trainer. Many of the calls I receive are from dog owners who are experiencing some kind of problem with their dogs. I am known to be a problem-solver—people come to me to fix problems with their dogs. This can include issues ranging from basic housetraining to a dog that is fearful and barking and lunging at other dogs. I love what I do and I’m really good at it.
The problem I frequently observe is that people train reactively instead of proactively. Clients call after a serious behavior issue already exists. Understandably, clients want to know how to stop the dog from doing something the client doesn’t like.
Recently, my associate was working with a client whose young dog got enjoyment out of barking at and grabbing his wife’s pant legs. Basically, the dog was having a great time harassing the wife in order to get a reaction out of her. The dog had learned that he would get what he wanted (his owner’s attention) if he behaved this way. My associate gave the client many tools to start addressing the problem, however the client insisted on wanting to know what to do in the moment when the dog behaved that way. His focus was on the problem itself, instead of on how to transform it. That’s where we come in. Our job is to teach dog owners how to train proactively instead of reactively. We created a behavior modification program for the client where we taught his dog a variety of alternative behaviors along with impulse control. At the same time, we taught the client how to manage the dog in a way that prevented the dog from continuing to practice harassing-type behaviors. It’s still a work in progress, but we are on the right track.
Sometimes clients do call to start off on the right foot with their new puppy or newly adopted dog. As soon as the dog comes home—or sometimes even before (which trainers love!)—the new dog owner has already chosen a trainer to work with. An experienced trainer can spot things in the dog, as well as the owner’s interactions with the dog, that could cause problems down the line. By shining light on them and changing the way the owner communicates with the dog, proactive training is accomplished.
So call a trainer before a problem gets out of hand!
Clarity and harmony…a better way of living with your dog.
A client recently admitted to me that she has not been carrying treats with her on walks with her dog. She said it is annoying, can get messy, and she just didn’t want to deal with it.
I told her I understood–it’s definitely one more thing to remember. But, I know that she will not get the results that she expects without consistently rewarding her dog for the behavior that she wants.
I’m going to show her how she can set herself up for success with a (small) dog walking bag. It will need to have room for a house key, cell phone, poop bags, and treats, everything she needs for every walk with her dog. A great source for the bag is LeSportSac. I’m also a fan of fanny-packs–yes, we’re bringing back the 80s! Hands free treat portability with little mess!
I reviewed a very important concept in dog training and behavior modification: reinforcement builds behavior. The only way a retirement account grows is if you make investments into it and give it time for the interest to accrue. You will not see immediate returns on it. It requires patience—think marathon, not sprint. The same thing is true of dog training. The more rewards you give your dog when teaching a behavior, the more value it has for him, the more likely he will repeat the behavior you desire. For the dog it’s very simple—it’s not about control. It’s just about what feels good for him in that moment. Dogs live moment by moment, so we make the investment by carrying treats and rewarding more of what we want in order to build the behavior that we want.
I also realized that it wasn’t just about value for the dog–the owner was not seeing a value in preparing treats in advance or bringing them with her on walks. She believed that at this point she should have control over the dog–that’s what every dog owner wants. When I see her at our next session, I am going to remind her out how awesome her dog’s recall is at the dog park. I will explain that through the timely delivery of reward (treats) and by taking the time to build the behavior of recall, she now has off-leash, vocal control of her dog. She reinforced her dog’s behavior and now she is reaping the benefit of that work. I hope this will help her to understand how rewarding appropriate behavior on walks with treats will result in better behavior on walks by her dog.
Clarity & harmony…a better way of living with your dog.
I posted this originally on my DogCentric Facebook page. I received so much interest, I figured blogging would be a good way to continue sharing the message. I’ve also expanded on it a bit.
Sometimes when you have a dog with behavioral issues, such as reactivity, you can’t always do what you want to do…sometimes you have a picture in your mind about how you think things will go with your dog and what your life together will look like. And then your dog develops behavioral issues and that changes things.
When I adopted Marvel at 5 months, I had this vision in mind that he would be a rockstar agility competitor and that all I had to focus on were skills supportive to agility, other than general manners to be part of a family. He also was friendly and social with people and other dogs–really lovely. As he matured, all this began to change–especially so in the last 4-6 months. Marvel started to charge at dogs, barking and nipping to get them to go away. He also barked at people close to him when indoors. He no longer wanted people that he didn’t know extremely well petting or handling him.
I’ve finally embraced who Marvel has become in the past month. As a result of embracing the journey and not focusing on the end goal, Marvel is teaching me so much about living with and training a dog like him for agility. I learned a LOT about Marvel this past weekend in regards to his reactivity. He improved in his impulse control and demonstrated better understanding with the training. Most of the time, our focus was working on Marvel staying with me in that environment rather than working the agility sequences. We had to skip a few exercises because it would have been too much for him to handle at this time. The result of managing his threshold throughout the workshop: a couple of smokin’ fast runs, staying with the momma, at the end of the day!
The universe works in interesting ways–made me chuckle today. I received a call for a new client who has a dog with the same exact issues as Marvel. I’m clearly the right dog trainer for her.
Clarity & harmony…a better way of living with your dog.
With the recent behavioral issues and medical concerns we have been dealing with around Marvel, my trainer brain has been on overdrive. One of the things I’ve been thinking about is whether his recent reactivity is a behavioral issue, rather than a medical issue. And if it is, was there anything I did to contribute to it.
Tricky is being worked on for a sore muscle–handling.
As a trainer, and a terrier owner, I distinguish petting as different from handling. Petting is about stroking the dog in a way that is pleasurable for the dog. It’s often solicited by the dog in some manner. Handling is different. Handling can include: inspecting the dog, manipulating their body parts, and moving the dog physically. Examples of these handling maneuvers can include baths, vet examinations, grooming, inspecting for ticks, putting on clothes, pulling the dog off the couch, picking up and moving a dog from one spot to another, picking up a dog and holding him in your arms…you get the picture. It’s often NOT solicited by the dog nor enjoyed by the dog.
There is something many of us in the dog training field call SDS, “Small Dog Syndrome ”. It’s the sassy-ness and ‘bad attitude’ that people believe small dogs can have. It’s not a real thing–but rather a way to label the possible result of what many people, including myself to some degree, do to small dogs: things that they would not do to a large dog, such as an 80 pound Rottweiler. Small dogs are often physically managed and manipulated against their will simply because of their size. This can create frustration in the dog and/or distrust of hands reaching for them. This can result in an aggressive display by the dog when he or she feels ‘invaded’. Not all small dogs feel this way but in my many years as a dog trainer, I have met many dogs who do.
Although I have been good about not letting strangers reach for Marvel and pick him up, my fiance and I have been guilty of doing this. I have put clothes on him when the weather is cold and he doesn’t like to wear them–he tolerates them and I’ve done some work so that he does tolerate it. So even though these are not huge things, they could become completely intolerable when the dog is in pain. Perhaps this is what happened with Marvel last week.
Marvel in my arms after I cued him to jump up.
Some of the things I have done so that I don’t have a dog struggling with “SDS” is to teach Marvel to jump into my arms instead of me reaching down to pick him up. I have also taught him to Hand Target (touch his nose to my hand) to get him to move from point A to point B. He also knows specific words and hand gestures so that he is moving on cue versus being physically managed. There is so much more to living with a small dog and how to prevent them from becoming aggressive to handling that I will address in a future blog. I will also continue to share our journey, both medical and behavioral, with you as we try to help our little guy feel relaxed and comfortable.
Clarity & harmony…a better way of living with your dog.
One frustrating thing about being a dog trainer happens sometimes when things go really well with a client and my training package with them ends. Everyone walks away feeling satisfied. I feel that I’ve done my job and made a difference in both the dog’s and the family’s lives. Just when I’m done patting myself on the back, I hear from the client weeks or months later that things are back to the way they were when we first started working together. I used to feel frustrated with the client and my ability to help them. What I have learned over the years is that it often takes a really long time for a new behavior to become a habit. And sometimes it’s difficult for the client to change their own habits to support the new behaviors.
I heard an instructor once say that “in order to change dog behavior, you have to modify your own behavior.” This meant creating new habits of behavior in the human. Recently, this statement has been coming to mind again. It got me thinking about what it takes to change human habit. I have been participating in a personal development program for the past three years with Landmark Education. Much of their work focuses on creating new actions based on supportive ways of thinking—creating new habits. For example: I used to be chronically late. I grew up blaming it on my parents and my culture–I grew up “operating on Indian time.” It used to be a point of humor and frustration for my friends and family. More recently, when I started losing business opportunities, I decided to create a new habit of being punctual. After working on this for the past two years, I no longer view myself or operate as a ‘late’ person. That doesn’t mean I’m not late from time to time, but it’s no longer this ‘thing’ that defines me.
So back to my clients: I now tell my clients it may take close to a year to fully change their dog’s behavior. I want them to understand the commitment involved to meet the goals they may have. While learning basic manners is relatively easy and can be accomplished in a much shorter period of time, changing a complex behavior isn’t as easy for a dog to do. I also have some personal experience on what it takes to change habits. My experience is corroborated by research done by Phillippa Lally, a health psychology researcher at University College London. In a study http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ejsp.674/abstract) published in the European Journal of Social Psychology, Lally and her research team decided to figure out just how long it actually takes to form a habit. Her team found that on average, it takes more than two months before a new behavior becomes automatic — 66 days to be exact. And how long it takes a new habit to form can vary widely depending on the behavior, the person, and the circumstances. In Lally’s study, it took anywhere from 18 days to 254 days for people to form a new habit. And this doesn’t mean that the person had to perform the new behavior every day for it to form into a habit—they could mess up from time to time and it could still form.
Clarity & Harmony…a better way of living with your dog.
This has been a difficult couple of weeks for those of us in the animal welfare and behavior fields. About two weeks ago, Dr. Sophia Yin, one of the world’s most respected and well-known veterinary behaviorists committed suicide. Many called Dr. Yin “a pioneer in the field of force-free, positive-reinforcement dog training.” I agree. She bridged a conversation between veterinarians and dog trainers on how to best support the animals in their care, minimizing stress.
It took me some time to write about this loss because her death left me rattled for several days. I could not ‘get my arms around it’. I never worked with Dr. Yin in person and never had the opportunity to hear her speak in person, yet I was devastated. I felt as though I lost a mentor and colleague. I have watched Dr. Yin’s videos, read her books, followed her blog, and shared her posters and articles with clients and peers for years. A great deal of my work is shaped by the work Dr. Yin had done.
After many conversations with friends and colleagues in the field, I realized why I was struggling so much over the death of a woman I had never met. Dr. Yin was a renowned and powerful force in the animal behavior field. We assume that her death was related to ‘compassion fatigue’. If she couldn’t handle the stress and pressure involved in making a difference in this field, then how can I? Being a dog trainer is intensely emotional work. Many of the calls I receive are for aggression and fear. My clients and I often joke together that I am their personal trainer/therapist as well as their dog’s trainer. The work I do requires me to go into a family’s home and understand the dynamics of the relationships in the household. As we work together to treat the dog, I also manage the emotions of the family members. Sometimes, even all of the training we do, doesn’t work. Sometimes we end up with one of the following results: The client needs to euthanize the dog (thankfully very rarely); the dog needs to be re-homed; the family has to accept the dog for who s/he is. There is always a certain amount of sadness that follows.
I am also a trainer at a not-for-profit shelter. It takes an emotional toll on me to see dogs, struggling with the stressful conditions of a shelter environment. And I am lucky to be working at a fantastic shelter with resources to support the dogs in ways other shelters cannot, including training, enrichment, and exercise. However, the best shelter is still not a home with a couch and human affection. Dogs end up at the shelter as a stray, owner surrender, or seized by animal control. Some of those dogs are too dangerous to be deemed adoptable. Sadness follows again.
As a person who dealt with depression several years ago, I am sensitive to the heaviness and loneliness of the illness. My heart gets heavy when I learn of someone who cannot see to the other side and believes death is the only solution. I have made many changes in my life to better support myself. And when things start to feel heavy, I reach out for support. That’s what I did this time when I could not reconcile the suicide of such an incredibly impactful woman.
Like Dr. Yin, transforming animal welfare and what responsible pet ownership looks like are what matters to me. These causes fire me up each day. What I’ve learned from processing this loss is that once again, I’m not alone. I have a team of people working with me and I have friends and family to lean on. And although I am a very driven person, I have learned to balance my life’s work with time for other joys in life, including my fiancé, my dogs, agility, reading, cooking, running, and yoga. This delicate dance of balance is what has given me peace even when the world does not seem to be working. I’ve learned, through lots of self-study, that I am worth it. And in order to make the difference I want to in the world, I have to take care of me as well as I take care of the animals I care about.
Have you ever gotten ready to take a walk or hike and noticed that your dog knows he is coming with you? How about when you get ready for work–does your dog know he is not coming with you? I’ve noticed this for years. Based on what clothes and shoes I put on, my dogs knew whether or not they would be part of the activities and responded accordingly. When I started running as a way of exercising, my dogs would ‘complain’ when I didn’t take them with me. This was because running shoes used to mean we were going to play or train in the backyard together. I started leaving through the front door instead of the back door and that resolved that.
Dogs are clever and quickly pick up associations and patterns in their day to day life. A dog quickly associates the leash with going outside and a bowl with mealtime. I remember thinking it was precious when Tricky, at 12 weeks old, first responded to the rustling of a plastic bag–she associated that sound with treats! So how do dogs naturally pick up these associations without formal training?
Classical conditioning is the reason. My dogs have had multiple walks that were preceded by me putting on sneakers. Based on that, they have concluded a relationship between walks and me putting on sneakers. They think that when I put on sneakers, we are ALL going somewhere together. Dogs learn through trial and error along with association and repetition. Classical condition, simply put, is learning by association. Ever see a cat running into the room when he hears the can opener? Or see a dog tremble once he steps into the veterinary hospital? Those are examples of classical conditioning. This type of learning is happening all of the time, everywhere, whether we intend to teach something or not. Just by observing and experiencing what’s happening around them, dogs are learning through association.
This knowledge plays a significant part in dog training and behavior modification. This helps a dog trainer to understand what events happen that a specific dog associates with anxiety or fear. These emotions sometimes cause a dog to behave in an aggressive manner. Dog trainers can modify the behavior by changing the association a dog has with the currently anxiety provoking event. Over time, the dog might even feel comfortable or excited about those triggers! By focusing on a dog’s emotional state, behavior can be modified for the long term.
As a person who sees the world through the filter of ‘behavior,’ it is so interesting to me that my dogs have learned certain shoes and outfits I wear pertain to them or not. Marvel, my Jack Russell/Yorkshire Terrier mix, barks and carries on when he sees me put on a pair of sneakers to go for a jog without him. The emotion he is likely experiencing is frustration.
Here’s what I’m doing to change his emotional response: I am tossing a handful treats into his crate right before I leave for my run. After doing this multiple time, he will start to associate my sneakers with treats and good feelings instead of frustration. As a result, he will figure out that my putting on sneakers means treats for him and will run into his crate to get them instead of barking, etc. I will have changed his behavior by changing his emotional state.
Marvel & Tricky enjoying the morning sun.
There’s nothing like vacationing with your dog!
For the last week of summer, Charlotte, Tricky, and Marvel joined my fiancé and me on our vacation to Vermont. All five of us experienced a whole other level of recreation and relaxation. We chose a dog-friendly hotel on North Hero Island called Shore Acres for the first two-thirds of our trip and then stayed at The Hilton in Burlington for the last third of our trip. Because I am a dog trainer, my focus in this blog will be on dog behavior and the things we did to support all of us having a great trip.
My dogs love the hotel experience because they have been raised as travelers and have had many great travel experiences. We stay in hotels several times per year because I compete and train in the dog performance sport, agility. Each hotel is a new adventure for them. The first thing I do before I let the dogs out of the car is to carefully inspect the room for any ‘minefields’ (pills, food, socks, etc.) that previous travelers may have left behind and housekeeping has missed. After pottying my dogs, I let them loose in the room to investigate all of the new smells of the room—truly an adventure for the nose! After a frenzy of sniffing for several minutes, my dogs find comfortable spots in the room to supervise the humans unpacking and settling in.
Tricky resting in the crate while Charlotte chills out on the couch.
Dogs that are comfortable in crates are at an advantage when travelling. In fact, most hotels require that when you leave the room, the dogs are crated. My 10 and half year old girl, Charlotte, no longer has that skill. I made sure to hold on to it for my two terriers, Tricky and Marvel. A familiar crate in a new setting gives the dog a home base. A crate is also the safest way to leave your dogs alone in a hotel or other situation where strangers (such as housekeeping) can enter the room and perhaps leave the door open. When my fiancé and I were getting ready to leave the room, the terriers immediately ran to their individual crates in anticipation of receiving their stuffed Kongs. My dogs associate me getting ready to go out, especially when wearing a dress and heels, as Kong time in the crate for them! Because we have established this routine at home, it is automatic for them in hotel rooms. Routine and predictability allow dogs to feel more secure, even when in a new space.
They also received a TON of exercise. Not only because we were on vacation and that was part of the plan, but because tired dogs meant they were more likely to be ready for a good snooze instead of barking and disturbing the other human guests. We enjoyed hours of fetching in the field, swimming in Lake Champlain, running and chasing, sunbathing, lounging under trees, and watching sunsets with a glass of wine in hand (that was for the humans only!).
And because we were spending so much time together, we also made sure the dogs spent some time alone. Something that can be very challenging for dogs is having their people around 24/7 and then suddenly, when the vacation is over their humans have to go back to work. This could make the dogs anxious about being alone. Charlotte and Tricky can be this way so I keep this in mind when I spend a lot of time with them. The dogs stayed in the room while my fiancé and I had dinner dates, went kayaking, and explored Burlington. Upon returning home, I had few days before I returned to work so I made sure to step out of the house for a couple hours at a time to recondition them to being separate from me.
And most importantly, we took lots of fun pictures!
Charlotte, me, Marvel, & Tricky
Clarity & Harmony…a better way of living with your dog.
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