How to Raise the Perfect Dog Read online

  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.3

  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.

  If they don’t succeed in bringing us back, it’s a logical next step for them to try to dig themselves out from behind walls if they can’t find us any other way. In Marley and Me, John Grogan wrote that Marley’s separation anxiety and fear during thunderstorms became so extreme that he actually made holes in the drywall, digging until his paws bled, trying to get out and find his pack again. The problem was, the Grogans let Marley’s anxiety escalate to the point of no return. You don’t want to wait until your neighbors are calling the apartment manager or homeowners’ association, saying, “That dog’s got to go.” Instead, prepare your dog for such situations by setting up the separation in stages, so it never turns into full-blown anxiety.

  To condition Angel out of his separation anxiety, I would practice putting the other dogs in the garage or in the house, leaving him outside alone. Then I’d hide just out of his sight. It would take him a few minutes, but eventually he would start crying. If I waited too much longer, the crying would become screaming, and I didn’t want it to go that far. Instead, I would come back from my hiding place and immediately address his behavior. I stood as far away from him as possible, since eventually I want to be able to be miles away from him, and had a conversation using my “tssst” sound, my body language, and my energy to communicate to him “I don’t agree with your behavior. I want you to relax.” One finger up means “Sit,” and when Angel complied, I would check his energy. At first, even though he was sitting, I saw that he was still in an alert state, yawning. Many people make the mistake of thinking yawning means a dog is relaxed, but puppies often yawn when they are anxious or frustrated by a situation they can’t figure out. I could tell by Angel’s anxious eye contact and his stiff body that he hadn’t relaxed yet, so I stayed where I was until he went into the relaxed state I was seeking. About thirty seconds later, he moved away. I would then go and hide again.

  The second time I left Angel alone, after a minute or two he started pacing. Then he started darting to the side of the house. This is typical—he was trying to find a way out. That’s the part of his survival programming that says, “I need to find a way to be part of my family again.” This is why we have to be very patient, and this is why we have to prepare for separation in stages. In this case, I came back out, addressed Angel again, waited, then hid. Each time, I tried to stand a little farther away when I addressed him. Each time I did the exercise, Angel would stay calm a little longer before he became anxious.

  I knew I was making progress with Angel after the third time I corrected him. After waiting several minutes and not hearing any whining, I sneaked back into the room and crept toward the window. There was my little schnauzer, stretched out on the patio, resting in the sun with his eyes closed. This was exactly what I wanted. There was no need to get all excited and no need to reward him, because his behavior—being over his anxiety—was a reward in itself. What I do instead when I see such progress in my dogs is to silently thank God for helping me to teach them that I mean no harm when I leave, that it’s not a bad thing, it’s just how we live. For me, prayer increases my own relaxation, so my energy creates a more relaxing environment for my dogs and for my family.

  5

  YOUR HEALTHY PUPPY

  Health Care Basicsm

  Cesar stays relaxed while cleaning Mr. President’s jowls

  This is a book about puppy behavior, not puppy biology, but when you bring any new dog home with you, you are automatically taking responsibility for every aspect of his health and welfare for the rest of his life. That is why preparation and prevention are so important. All it takes is one disease, accident, or injury to bring home the harsh reality of how very expensive caring for a sick animal can be. I’ve faced it myself many times over a lifetime of living with dogs—emergency veterinary bills can easily run into the tens of thousands of dollars. Of course, once we fall in love with an animal, no amount of money is too much for us to spend to save his life or take away his pain. But we can lower the odds of having to go into debt or empty out our savings for the dog we love if we take certain precautions early on.

  SELECTING FOR HEALTH

  Prevention starts with the choice of how and from whom you get your puppy. Top-notch breeders like the ones who have contributed to this book keep up with the latest research about genetically transmitted defects or illnesses, and they are meticulous about selecting dogs whose parents and grandparents also have clean bills of health. German shepherds, for instance, have a history of genetically transmitted hip problems. To prevent passing this tendency on to the puppies in their lines, Diana and Doug Foster study a comprehensive pedigree database before selecting sires and dams to mate for their Thinschmidt kennels. Diana says,

  It’s time-consuming, but it’s really important. It shows you the line breeding, what’s coming up, how many generations, the father, the grandfather, all the way back. We have to be careful not to breed too close. Then we have to study, what did both the lines—the mother and the fathers—produce in the past? If there are any issues like the hips, for example, that’s a red flag. Don’t put that combination together. We breed on the much stricter German standard, where there is a numerical rating system for hip dysplasia, so that’s something else we
take into account. It’s actually a science—we don’t just put two dogs together because they both have pretty colors. And a lot of people don’t know that. So when they come to us, and they ask, “Why are your puppies so expensive? I just looked at one that’s half the price, and it looks just as good,” we try to explain to them what goes into creating a dog that’s not only got a great temperament but will have a long, healthy life. They don’t always listen, and will go for the cheaper one. Sometimes it’s a disaster.

  If you do buy your puppy from a reputable breeder, that breeder will want to stay in touch with you throughout the puppy’s lifetime and be updated on any health problems that develop. Brooke Walker will even pay for a necropsy on any dogs from her lines if they pass away prematurely, to make sure there weren’t any hidden health problems that may affect future generations of her prize miniature schnauzers.

  If you are adopting your puppy from a shelter or rescue organization, try to get as much information as possible about the puppy’s parents or, at the very least, the area from which he was rescued and the general health of the animals there. Make sure the puppy has had a thorough veterinary checkup, and get all the records that exist on any procedures or vaccines he has undergone since he came to the rescue. You can’t ask the puppy, “Did your mom have a tendency toward chronic eye infections?” but the more information you can gather about his past, the better armed you will be if you come up against genetically or environmentally transmitted problems in the future. If you are adopting an older dog from a shelter or rescue, a previous owner or rescuer may have put together important medical information about the dog. Make sure you don’t bring your dog home without asking.