How to Raise the Perfect Dog (17 page)

Now this same dog that equated leadership with her mother’s and breeder’s calm-assertive energy suddenly finds herself surrounded by unstable, excited energy and humans who either don’t set any limits or are mostly inconsistent with the ones they do set. The dog, formerly just one member of a cohesive, well-behaved pack, suddenly sees that all the focus, all the attention, is on her—except when she’s expected to be alone. In the brochure that she gives out when a new owner purchases one of her Thinschmidt German shepherds, Diana Foster describes the likely outcome of this situation:

The dog enters a new home, and this family hugs him, pets him, and talks to him without him having to do anything to earn it. He is given lots of attention, and is barely alone for even a few minutes. … Later it is time for bed and the family finally puts the puppy in his crate for the night. So now he has gone from almost non-stop attention to absolute isolation. This is too much of an extreme for any dog, and causes total stress and anxiety. Now you have a puppy who is barking and whining in his crate. Why? He has already made the association that being in your house means freedom to walk around freely and having people with him. Where are all the people? Where is all the attention? The pup wants more of what he had earlier. You have just set yourself up, and you need to ask if it was worth it?
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By introducing your puppy to your home on your terms, by crate-training early, and by restricting her territory to a safe, limited area for her first weeks or months at home, you are creating the rules, boundaries, and limitations that will provide the framework for her secure, happy future.

EXPRESSING DISAGREEMENT

Puppies are hungry for direction and are receptive to any limits you might want to set. But how do you express those limits kindly, fairly, and in a language the puppy will understand? A mother dog does not bribe with treats or petting to get good behavior (although she does sometimes reward submissive behavior after the fact with licking and grooming). She does not whine or cajole with her voice. She corrects the behavior of her offspring using calm-assertive energy: body language, eye contact, and touch. The pups always understand exactly what she wants, and she rarely has to correct the same blunder more than once. On the other hand, most humans correct a puppy using frustrated, anxious, or angry energy; jerky movements (such as pulling a hand or an object away, or moving their bodies away); and loud sounds—“No!” “Stop it!” “Bad dog!” You’ll hear such humans repeating their admonishments over and over and over again; then they throw up their hands in amazement that their puppy doesn’t obey them.

I believe we can help our dogs understand us better by trying to speak with them in their own language. That means I will address an unwanted behavior in a more canine style, using one or a combination of techniques I refer to as “corrections”:

1. By using my energy and intention to communicate that I don’t agree with a behavior, while never taking the dog’s actions personally and always remaining calm and unruffled (what I call
calm-assertive energy)

2. By using eye contact to communicate my energy and intention

3. By using my body and body language to own my space and to block an unwanted behavior (for instance, stepping forward purposefully into a puppy’s space to “own” it, or firmly nudging away a puppy that is trying to climb on my leg)

4. By using touch to communicate displeasure or snap a dog out of an escalating behavior:

• “Touch” never, ever means “hit”! Puppies and most dogs are very responsive to touch at the level of the kind of light tap you might use to get a friend’s attention in a darkened movie theater.
  

• Touch a puppy on the side of its neck or on the side of its hindquarters.
  

• Use a claw-shaped hand, which mimics a mother’s bite on the side of the neck, on the muscle, not the throat. This hand doesn’t “pinch;” it is firm, but it doesn’t have to use much pressure. The pressure should be proportionate to the level of the behavior (for instance, an adult dog that has escalated into a red zone will need more pressure than a puppy that has just begun chewing a shoe, which will need only a light touch). All dogs recognize this sensation from their early puppyhood and respond in a primal way.
  

• The timing of a touch correction is crucial; it has to take place at the exact moment of the transgression and end the moment the puppy relaxes and changes her behavior. Waiting until after the behavior is over doesn’t make sense to a dog, because dogs live in the moment. Cause and effect have to match in their minds.
  

• One firm touch is effective; half a dozen small pushes, pinches, or tweaks can make the situation worse.
  

A mother dog or other adult dog will also sometimes emit a low growl from time to time, using sound to convey disagreement with a pup’s behavior. All it takes is the hint of a growl from Daddy to send Junior, Blizzard, Angel, and Mr. President into “Daddy-pleasing” mode—he commands that much respect from all his adopted “grandkids.” As an adolescent, Junior has learned to mimic this growl and that’s how he keeps the younger puppies respectful of his role as a “big brother.” Taking a page from this section of the canine dictionary, I advise clients to create a simple sound that their dog will associate with the thought “I don’t agree with that behavior.” Choose another sound that means “Yes,” “Come,” or “I like that behavior.”

• I use the “tssst” sound to represent displeasure.

• I use a “kissing” sound to represent a positive action or a call to follow or pay attention to me.

• The specific sound you choose doesn’t matter at all! (There is no magic to the sound “tssst.”) It’s the calm-assertive energy and the intention behind the sound that carry the communication. Just make sure you use the same, simple sound every time.

Hand correction on Mr. President

• Timing of the sound is essential. It’s best to use it early in the escalation of an unwanted behavior. With a positive sound, don’t repeat the sound unless your dog is already giving you the positive behavior that you desire. This way, the sound reinforces the action.

• Don’t use a dog’s name to correct her. Like the positive sound, use her name only when she is giving you a positive response.

There is one more way dogs correct one another, and that is by ignoring. If an unwanted behavior remains at a fairly low level of escalation—especially if the behavior is designed to gain attention—ignoring can be just as effective as a touch or sound correction. A puppy’s littermate may turn and ignore her if she starts to play too roughly. If the first puppy still wants to play, she’s got to figure out a more appropriate way of getting the other puppy to give her what she wants. In much the same way, blocking and then turning away and ignoring a puppy that jumps up on you when you come through the door can be effective, if the intensity of the jumping isn’t too high yet.

The action you take to correct a behavior should always be proportionate in intensity to the level of the behavior that prompted it. The great thing about puppies is that if you supervise them closely in the beginning, you need never let any unwanted behavior escalate to the point where much correction is needed.

REDIRECTING AND REWARDING

It’s simple enough to block or correct a dog or a puppy when she is making a basic mistake, but that only stops the behavior; it doesn’t change it. In most situations, we also have to offer an alternative behavior. For instance, if a dog is play-biting, a claw hand to the neck can correct the behavior, but a chew toy redirects it. If a dog is trying to jump onto something, we can physically step in between and block the behavior, but if we insist that the dog sit after she has submitted, we have redirected the energy and provided an alternative solution. Once a puppy has agreed to do it our way, then we can reward and reinforce with petting or a treat or a toy, the way a mother dog sometimes rewards with licking and grooming. Reinforcing with something pleasant is a good strategy, but the reward or affection won’t be effective unless it’s offered
after
the behavior has changed and the dog is in the ideal calm-submissive state of mind. Affection should always come after exercise and discipline. I’ll talk more in Chapter 7 about how to use rewards to communicate with a dog and help condition her behavior.
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ENFORCING THE RULES

These are the basic skills everyone in the family needs to master in order to manage a puppy’s behavior:

1. Have a picture in your mind of the behavior you desire.

2. Clearly and consistently communicate that desired behavior. In this communication, energy, intention, and body language are more important (and more easily comprehended by your puppy) than verbal commands.

3. Ignore very mild misbehaviors using the no-touch, no-talk, no-eye-contact rule (they usually correct themselves when they aren’t reinforced).

4. Immediately and consistently give corrections to more obvious misbehaviors.

5. Always apply corrections with calm-assertive energy—never take your puppy’s misbehavior personally!

6. Always give your puppy an alternative acceptable behavior every time you correct an unwanted one.

7. Reward good behaviors—with affection, treats, praise—or simply your silent joy and approval, which your puppy immediately senses and understands.

Whatever rules, boundaries, and limitations you decide on setting for your dog, they have to be enforced from the moment the puppy enters your home for the first time, and they have to be reinforced consistently by all pack leaders in the family. Your dog needs to know where she stands from the very start, how the routine is going to flow, and what is and isn’t acceptable with her new pack. By being clear about those rules from day one, you set her up to succeed as a member of her new pack, which is what you want for her—and what she really wants for herself.

PREVENTING SEPARATION ANXIETY

The skills you’ve mastered in communicating limits to your puppy or new dog will never come in more handy than when you are tackling this very important issue that occurs in every dog’s life—separation anxiety. The leash, the rollover, the sit, getting your slippers—whatever behaviors you wish your dog to learn in the future—are all a piece of cake for her compared to being left on her own. This is a very common problem and is to be expected. Dogs are not programmed to live by themselves. In nature, the constant presence of the pack is what shapes their identities. The only time they have to learn to be alone is when they live among humans. We shouldn’t be surprised that they are distressed by it. But even though we are asking them to do something unnatural, we can’t feel bad about it or stress out about it, because this is the reality of how we live today.

Our modern lives make it next to impossible that our dogs are with us 24/7. But there’s a reason dogs as a species have survived millions of years of evolution in just about every environment imaginable, in every corner of the globe. They are among the most adaptable mammals nature ever created. A dog, and especially a puppy, can adjust to this new style of life with very little difficulty, if we help her to do it in stages, and if we stay calm and unemotional about it. That’s what we want to communicate to her—to relax.

The puppies I raised for this book lived at my house and were with my pack almost constantly. But they will all eventually find loving adoptive families, and at some point in all their lives they may have to spend time alone. Even Junior, who will always be my dog, will travel with me and, like Daddy before him, may end up spending hours alone in a hotel room while I go to a business meeting or a restaurant. I owe it to all these puppies to begin taking certain steps from day one, in order for them to always feel comfortable being alone and behind walls when I am gone.

Of all the puppies in this book, Angel had the hardest time with separation anxiety. I first noticed that if he was outside in the backyard and the rest of the dogs had wandered back into the house without his noticing, he would look into the window, whine, and bark. Sometimes he’d jump up and scratch at the sliding glass door or the screen. When Melissa took Angel for his little adventure away from home, the only time he whined at all was when she took his crate down to her car, right before he was to come home to me. She left him in the apartment with her husband, John, for a few minutes, and right after she left with the crate, he started to cry and run from window to window, trying to find her. John made the typical human mistake—he went to Angel and starting cooing, “It’s okay, it’s okay.” When a human does this, he is essentially saying to the dog, “Your separation anxiety is okay. I agree with how you are reacting.” You are reinforcing the behavior you want to change, and you are not offering leadership, which is the very thing that anxious dog is seeking at that moment.

Angel’s behavior illustrates something important for us to understand about separation anxiety—it’s in a dog’s nature to try to come to get us when we leave. Dogs are programmed to want to be with the pack, to follow the pack, and to try to reunite the pack when separated. If they can’t follow the pack, they’ll try to call them back with their voice. Much of the time, they succeed in bringing people back this way. What’s more, they bring them back upset or feeling sorry for the dog and guilty about leaving. Often the people they bring back also bring them treats. So the message they get is, “They’re not here to stop my anxiety, they’re here to reward my anxiety.” We can’t take our dogs’ separation anxiety personally or feel that we are doing something awful to them, to “make” them feel this way.