How to Raise the Perfect Dog (28 page)

It’s also vital that the moment you let your puppy inside the dog park, you check your
own
energy. If you are tense or distracted or, like Chris Komives, overly worried about managing your puppy’s experience, the puppy will sense it and react accordingly. Remain calm and neutral, communicating to your puppy that whatever happens, you will come up with the right solution. I sat down on a bench at the side of the park and happily observed my miniature schnauzer experience this new adventure.

Two beagles came running up to greet Angel as he entered the park. I was impressed at how polite and quiet the beagles were; they were the perfect ambassadors. Angel was curious but still hesitant around the two older dogs, sniffing them but not asking them to engage in play. The fact that he was so respectful in this new situation reaffirmed to me how much Angel understands manners and social limits. He was saying, “I’m not 100 percent sure about this, but I am curious about it.” Perfect! However, he did wander over to the side of the park, lift his leg, and mark—a very mature gesture for a four-month-old.

A tiny white dog that looked like a toy poodle mix wandered over toward Angel and the two sniffed each other cautiously. “I’m not sure about you,” the white dog was saying. Angel’s response was “I’m not sure about you, either!” After the first round of introductions, Angel made an invitation to play, but the offer seemed a little too dominant for the white dog, which backed away. Would I have to intervene? It turned out that the little white dog could take care of himself. He ran away, communicating to Angel, “I don’t want to play with you because you’re a little too harsh for me.” But Angel did well in that he didn’t try to force the issue. He took no for an answer. That’s great canine etiquette. Instead, he came back to me for reassurance. I gave him a treat for returning, letting him feel “It’s okay, whenever someone doesn’t want to play with me, I can always come back to my owner and get reinforcements.”

We didn’t spend more than fifteen minutes inside the dog park for this first visit. That’s plenty of exposure for a four-month-old puppy. But we left on a happy note—my little Angel proved he has the perfect manners for many more successful dog park visits.

Next it was Mr. President’s turn. As soon as we got inside the outer gate, the blustery little guy ran smack up against the fence to meet the beagle greeters, using his eyes, not his nose, and starting to get a little overexcited by puffing up his chest in that typical bulldog way. This is an example of how a bulldog’s biology and body language can accidentally send a challenging message to other dogs, even if he doesn’t intend to be threatening. This isn’t a good way to enter a new social situation, so I knew I’d have to be a little more vigilant with him than I was with Angel. I waited until Mr. P. had relaxed a little, then let him inside the park.

Mr. President took off running, hurrying after the same little white dog that had just rejected Angel. His ears were back, signaling a submissive energy, but again the approach was very forceful, very bulldog. The little white dog turned around and gave a warning snap—he really didn’t want to play with him. I was proud of Mr. President because, just like Angel, he got the message right away and respected it. Unfazed, he then trotted off to investigate the beagles. He greeted them in a very polite manner, and they engaged with him informally. They seemed to feel more comfortable inviting Mr. President to play, probably because he was less mature at this point, not lifting his leg yet, and giving the beagles the feeling that they could control the play more. I heard them howl for the first time, but it was a playful howl. I liked the fact that Mr. President was experiencing this, because we don’t have beagles at home. He was being educated in the fact that a hound’s howl doesn’t mean anything threatening; it is just how they express themselves. This is why it’s important to introduce your puppy to all kinds of breeds of dogs. It’s like introducing your child to many different nationalities of children—they become more tolerant and understand that just because individuals express themselves differently, it doesn’t make them a threat.

Mr. President returned to me after playing with the beagles, and after I engaged his nose again, I gave him a treat. I was reinforcing both his willingness to experience this new adventure and his response in staying connected with me. As we left the park, I reflected that the day couldn’t have gone better. As different as Angel and Mr. President are as breeds, they both came to a new social situation sharing the same playful yet active-submissive energy.

TIPS FOR INTRODUCING PUPPY TO THE DOG PARK

• Make sure your puppy is in a calm-submissive state before arriving. I suggest that you tire him out with a structured walk and, if necessary, a vigorous play session first.
  

• Keep your energy calm-assertive from the time you leave the house. Don’t talk to your dog in a high, squeaky voice on the ride over. Before you enter the park, go on another short walk, so that he’s not springing out of the car full of energy.
  

• Check out the park before you go in. If you sense there are too many large dogs or the atmosphere feels too unstable, save the experience for another time.
  

• If necessary, keep your puppy on a leash and walk him over to the dogs in the park that seem most stable and balanced.
  

• Supervise from a distance, but be ready to step in and block or redirect if you sense your puppy isn’t reading other dogs’ signals, or that they aren’t reading his.
  

• Don’t “rescue” your puppy from challenging situations by grabbing him and carrying him away. Instead, use your body and energy to prevent escalation of a challenging situation.
  

• Check your own energy at all times. If you are tired, nervous, or impatient, your puppy will mirror those emotions.
  

• Be a “partner” to your puppy’s experience, not a rescuer or an enabler of bad behavior!
  

My dream is of a world where there are fewer dogs accidentally biting children, fewer dog altercations, and no more fatal dog attacks. By socializing your puppy to dogs and people when she is young and making sure her manners are in order with both species, you are not only shaping a better life for the both of you, you are also contributing to the pro-dog society that I am committed to helping build.

8
PROBLEM-FREE PUPPIES

A sleeping Blizzard

J
uliana Weiss-Roessler, the writing and research director for my Internet newsletter and blog, conducted an online reader survey, asking our subscribers to list the most common and frustrating issues they have had with their puppies. Here are the results from the 1,342 top responses, along with my solutions for raising a problem-free puppy.

COMMON PROBLEM 1
Jumping Up on People (51 Percent)

When a puppy comes running up to us and jumps on us, we think, “She loves me, she is so happy to see me!” We feel special and chosen and cherished. And who doesn’t thrill to watch puppies jumping and leaping about in play? They are so carefree, so full of the joy of life. These are the reasons we want puppies in our lives, to bring us that enthusiasm, that appreciation of the everyday things we take for granted.

But clearly, 51 percent of our newsletter survey respondents have had more than enough of their puppies’ jumping on them. Generally, when jumping up on people is a chronic problem for a puppy, it will continue to be problematic as she grows older and larger. “A German shepherd puppy jumping on you may seem cute,” says Thinschmidt German shepherd breeder Diana Foster, “but a 120-pound German shepherd dog can actually knock you down and injure you.” Puppyhood is the best time to nip this behavior in the bud.

Since puppies’ strongest ability is their sense of smell, and since their primary purpose during the first eight months of life is to investigate and learn about everything in their new world, they will naturally want to check out and smell every human that comes into their environment. As humans, the strongest scents we project come from our genital areas and from our mouths. We’ve all had the experience of a less-than-well-mannered dog sniffing our crotch areas—though within the dog world, sniffing genitals
is
considered good manners! Puppies need to stand up on their hind legs and put their paws on a person in order to get close to those areas. Since we tend to cover our genital areas with clothes, the next strongest scent for a dog to check out is coming from our mouths. Puppies and small dogs will want to jump up to get closer to our faces and find out what’s going on there.

It’s a challenge for humans not to see a puppy jumping on them as an “I love you” or a “hug.” The truth is, sometimes puppies are just anxious, and they have learned that if they jump on the human, the human will pick them up and bring them toward them and calm them down. A lot of people say, “Well, as soon as I pick him up, he calms down.” Unfortunately, this is a Band-Aid solution. The behavior you want to remove is not gone. It’s only put on pause. When you stop a puppy and scoop her up in the middle of an anxious moment, you are never allowing her to develop the vital life skill of learning to calm herself down, on the ground.

As always, I advocate that prevention is the best medicine. You can avert a jumping-up problem from day one by practicing the simplicity of the no touch, no talk, no eye contact rule whenever you first greet your puppy. This sends a calming signal and helps a puppy to stay focused on her nose. Her nose will keep her on the ground, and her eyes and ears will react differently. Chris and Johanna Komives took the prevention route with Eliza from day one, and the results have paid off. “We don’t give affection if she’s jumping on us. We wait until she’s seated (or better, goes to her place) before acknowledging her when we return from work.”

The second step is to really claim every step you make. Own your space and ignore or actively discourage the jumping behavior by moving through it calmly and assertively. When Angel had his “sleepover” at Melissa and John’s apartment, he never even attempted to jump on John, but when in a playful mood, he attempted to leap at Melissa’s legs as she walked through the apartment. Right away, he was able to distinguish John’s stronger energy from Melissa’s softer energy—even with her experiences working with me for nearly six years!

Although Melissa could not change her essence, she did have the education and knowledge to know how to
refocus
her energy and stop the unwanted behavior. All she had to do to discourage Angel’s jumping was to turn around, look him in the eye, and put the palm of her hand out in front of her, a gesture Angel immediately recognized as meaning “stop.” She would wait until he backed out of her space, sat down, and relaxed, and only then would she go on about her business. It took doing this several times over the course of his visit, but eventually she was able to stop him right at the moment he looked as if he wanted to jump. “Patience and repetition” were the solutions, she reported. “I had to stay consistent with my discouragement of his jumping, even though it looked so adorably joyful.”

Ultimately, that is the key to stopping any unwanted puppy behavior—making sure you don’t go into your own emotional fulfillment mode and get caught up in how extremely cute the puppy is. Yes, she may be the cutest thing on four paws. But as a pack leader, you have to go beyond that and really honor what the puppy needs from you at that moment.

COMMON PROBLEM 2
Chewing (38 Percent)

For a puppy, the activity of chewing serves three important purposes. First, they’re exploring new things, and since they don’t have hands, they use their mouths. By touching with their mouths, they learn “this is okay, this is not okay.” Puppyhood is an era where everything new is an adventure, and it is in the puppies’ natures to be curious and use their noses, then their mouths, to investigate.

One of the wonderful things about my new Dog Psychology Center is that it is in an area with many varieties of fauna—plants, trees, and grass—for my pack to play in and explore. When Mr. President was about four and a half months old, I observed him following his idol, Daddy, up to the grassy ridge at the top of the property. Daddy would poke his nose through the grass and, using his fifteen years of wisdom, smell a few different varieties of weeds before deciding on the right one to chew. Mr. President watched him closely, his attention rapt. Daddy would go to one piece of grass, smell it, then move on to another and chew on it. Then Mr. President would do exactly the same thing—smell the first piece of grass, move on, and chew only the grass that Daddy was chewing. In all my years working with dogs, this kind of simple moment never ceases to amaze and inspire me. Daddy was actually teaching Mr. President which grass was okay to chew on and which was not. That’s a real-life puppy class right there.

If your puppy doesn’t have a role model like Daddy to look up to, it falls to you as her owner to make sure she is not chewing on anything that could be harmful or poisonous. Puppy-proofing your home and yard are the first steps in this direction, but puppies seem to be able to find trouble anywhere, even when you’ve gone to great lengths to protect them. If your puppy puts her mouth on a potentially hazardous or valuable item, a gentle touch on the rear or neck or an interesting scent or treat will redirect her attention and get her to drop the object. I prefer a touch to a treat in these circumstances, because that’s what another dog would offer, and you don’t want your puppy to associate chewing something bad with getting a treat reward. It’s also my experience that you should never take an object away from a dog; you should make the dog leave or walk away from the object. Supervision is key, as is having plenty of allowable, safe chewing objects on hand for your puppy to investigate.

Mr. President

Number two, chewing relieves anxiety or boredom. Some breeds are more driven than others to chew as a way to release tension—as you recall, chewing was Mr. President’s Achilles’ heel. Chewing can become a behavior a dog turns to in order to calm herself, or it can also be a way to control you, the human in her life. Many a puppy has learned that if she grabs an object, it becomes a way to get a human to come to her. It’s very similar to the way that puppies learn that if they’re excited, jumping up and down, the human will pay attention to them. In these cases, your puppies are training you to respond to them, not the other way around.

Finally, chewing is important to a puppy between the ages of four and six months because it relieves the pain of teething. It is absolutely not natural, especially during this crucial time period, to ask a puppy not to chew at all. Instead, have plenty of different acceptable chew toys on hand that you can use to redirect the behavior. I always prefer something more natural like a bully stick, or even a plush toy with something hidden inside it, instead of a rubber object. The more natural the object or the more layers the puppy has to chew through to get to the scent or taste inside, the more it will engage her mind… that’s the reason why your puppy always digs through your closet and pulls out your very best leather shoes—because of the challenge of the hunt, and because they have the most natural material in them. I’m a big fan of bully sticks these days because in this economy, it helps that they are so long-lasting. One seven-dollar bully stick can last up to six months—nearly all of your dog’s puppyhood. By your hiding the bully stick inside or behind something, burying it, or otherwise finding a new way to challenge your puppy, the same chew toy can be used over and over in new and stimulating ways.

Before leaving Crystal with Mr. President for the two weeks my wife and I would be away, I made sure she was aware that he was very much a bulldog when it came to expressing himself through chewing. “I’m really grateful Cesar warned me about this ahead of time,” she recalls.

I used a light touch on Mr. President’s neck or hindquarters to get his attention. Then I could claim whatever object I wanted Mr. President not to mess with and introduce an appropriate object for him to chew on. The biggest challenge I encountered that week was claiming my space in my car. At first Mr. President really wanted to chew on my gear shift, emergency brake, door handles, and seat belt release. I had to use my energy because I couldn’t use eye contact to claim my space while driving. Treats didn’t work because they were only a quick distraction and I think they were even reinforcing the bad behavior. But if I gave him a bully stick when we first got into the car, he’d forget all about chewing on the seat belt.

If you do come home to find your dog destroying your best leather purse, try to keep in check any immediate anger you might have. Take a deep breath, stay calm and assertive, and remember there is nothing “personal” in the puppy’s actions. Do not carry the puppy away from the object or yank the object away from her. Instead, calmly correct and redirect. With puppies, redirecting with scent is almost always effective. Utilize the momentum of the puppy’s nose and let her get engaged with the new, acceptable object. Then immediately claim the forbidden object as your own. Fortunately, normal puppies have short attention spans, which you can use to your advantage when you want to guide them away from unwanted behaviors.

Remember, dogs naturally understand the concept of ownership, of claiming an object or space. They do this with one another all the time. Chris Komives used the power of “claiming” to nip Eliza’s anxious chewing in the bud:

The only times Eliza ever destroyed anything, I’ve chalked it up to anxiety. She chewed the power supply to Johanna’s laptop when we went to a concert and left her alone all day (approximately twelve hours). We figured the power supply smelled like Johanna, so she relieved her anxiety on it. The next day I brought out a pile of wires and taught her that they belong to me. I thought her chewing wires might mean she needed more metal in her diet, so I started feeding her liver as a treat. She hasn’t touched a wire since. She’s also chewed a couple of shoelaces (but left the shoes alone). I repeated the wire exercise with the laces and she’s left them alone ever since.

COMMON PROBLEM 3
Barking (32 Percent)

If you were to drive by very slowly or walk past my house with your dog, you would probably have no idea that the Dog Whisperer and his many dogs live here. Meanwhile, there’s a single dog a few streets over that we can hear from our house, constantly yapping away.