If you cannot be silly with your dog, then who?

Debbie has a dog named Joe that will follow her every command as long as she has a treat in hand. But Joe is no fool and consistently calls Debbie's bluff whenever she asks him to comply without the bribe. "The problem is bigger than obedience," she explains. "He knows how to do everything, he just isn't interested in me. Making me happy is last on his list of priorities."
How many people can honestly say that their dog, the one species on earth said to be endlessly loyal to humans, does not like them? Ouch! This is a problem.

I've spent a lot of time observing Debbie and Joe's behavior in class, and I can confidently say that Debbie seems like a generally pleasant person to live with. Reserved and calm in demeanor and gait, she does not appear to be a shouter, rough houser, or prone to any kind of major meltdowns - something I am usually pretty good at detecting in people, no matter how hard they try to mask it. If you need to hit pillows and count to 10 more often, I am the kind of trainer who will call you out on it. Not Debbie though; she is consistent, patient, and clearly a woman who means business. Nothing wrong with her training style at all - except for the minor inconvenience of her dog "not liking her."

I watch Joe perform some basic obedience techniques, and he runs through the process like a pro with his eye on the treat. He views training as a show, and he is an actor who memorizes and performs his lines. He is clear about one thing up front: He does not work for free, especially when he has reenacted this show a million times and is bored to death with it.

I have my suspicions as to what has gone awry here, but to make sure, I ask a few more questions. How do you react when Joe enters the room at home? "I usually call him over to me," she explains in an exasperated tone. "I want to cuddle with him, but he wants nothing to do with me. He just looks at me and walks out of the room."
Do you ever give Joe treats for doing nothing other than just being with you? Debbie's mouth goes slack as she gasps, "just give him treats for free? He is already spoiled enough, don't you think? He won't even look at me unless I have food!"
And what about play time? What do you do to interact with him just for fun? Debbie grins as though she's got me on this one. "I walk him twice a day on a leash out to the woods. Once we're there, he is allowed to run free and explore with our other dog."
That is a wonderful gift, but what activities do you do with Joe that actually involve you playing with him? "The woods doesn't count?"

What I conclude from these few short replies and their behavior in class is that Debbie has been so diligent about teaching Joe his manners, that Joe seems to view every direct interaction with Debbie as some obedience ploy, at the end of which, he earns a reward. If the reward is something Joe is not interested in or cannot detect, he chooses not to play the game. Joe can't even walk into the room without Debbie asking him to come. Sure, there may be some good cuddle time waiting on the other end of that request, but Joe lives in the now, and her call to "come" just sounds like another order. Joe must want something first, then be asked to earn it.

At the core of Debbie's frustration there seems to be a lack of relationship. Joe certainly doesn't hurt for the good things in life, but most of what he enjoys is entirely separate from Debbie. Even his play time in the woods, as wonderful as it is, has nothing to do with Debbie; she is simply the means by which Joe must use to get there. She is a hurdle to get past in order to reach the fun part, but at no time during the fun part is Debbie actually part of the fun.

The tricky part about this situation is that Debbie has done nothing wrong. In fact, I did not suggest that she change a single thing about her training style, since Joe had clearly mastered all of his obedience cues. Instead I recommended that she add something.

Unlike the majority of cases that I see, Debbie has had no problem slipping into the authoritative role with her extremely cute and tiny pooch. It is instead with the role of friend and companion that she is struggling. With most dogs this is a battle that we do not face, as most dogs are happy just to hear their name, and most people are not quite as diligent as Debbie. But these two have certainly been paired for good reason. Like people, dogs are individuals; and if you are going to be Joe's friend, you are going to have to learn to drop the demands for a little while and just be a dog. This meant that Debbie was going need to lighten up.

So it was with this in mind that I recommended, despite her perfect posture and pristine clothes, that Debbie learn to play bow and roll around like a dog. He'll probably look at her funny the first few times (dogs know an unusual behavior when they see one), but this confusion will quickly turn into an opportunity for Joe to play along with Debbie as her friend; rather than perform for her as a servant. There are a few rules to this play time: 1) No one else is allowed to partake - not even the other dog. 2) She is to use a toy that only she and Joe play with alone and it needs to be a favorite of his. 3) When play ends, the toy gets put away.

I also recommended that Debbie focus more on using Joe's life rewards when working on obedience, such as insisting on a good sit stay before Joe gets to go outside on his walk. Incorporating his obedience into normal daily activities will transition Joe away from the "dog & pony show" that he is performing now, and teach him to apply his lessons for more practical use. She should also make sure that everyone else in the home is playing by these rules so he doesn't get mixed signals.

Slightly apprehensive, Debbie smiles and agrees that I might have a point. She even agrees to try the rolling on the ground, even though she is not fond of the idea of looking so silly. I urge her to give it a go when no one is home, so the pressures of human onlookers does not affect her ability to have a good time. After all, no one is as trustworthy, loyal, and appreciative of a secret as a dog. Sometimes a silly secret is all it takes to form a great friendship.

A fur family that would make Noah proud.

I started my fur family small and within my own means.
I got a harmless little cat.
Ripley was rescued from an unusual mommy - an orange female tabby who was a stray and got impregnated by a wild giganta-cat. Her kittens seemed like normal domesticated cats with the exception of Ripley, who was the largest of the bunch. Upon entering the room to meet him, he shot out from under the bed leaving his siblings behind, and thoroughly examined my feet while talking in his short quack-like meows. At the time I assumed he was saying, "take me, I'm cute!" Had I known what he was really saying, I may have reconsidered.

Ripley's playful, yet slightly fierce personality bloomed shortly after we brought him home. What at first seemed to be cute kitten play, turned into the ferocious ankle biting of all strangers. In his first year he hit 17 lbs; having grown so fast that he constantly bonked his head on low lying tables in the living room. He was incredibly intelligent too, and began fetching hair ties and anything that we agreed to throw for him. When alone he would use his enormous paws to open every cabinet and drawer within reach to find more hair ties and toys, then leaving the cabinets gaping open. It was a lot like sharing your bathrooms and kitchen with a poltergeist.

Considering his enormous size, eventually topping out at 24 pounds, his protective nature, and his propensity for games like fetch and "I'm going to lick your eyelids until you wake up," I realized that I probably should have just gotten a dog to start with.

After spending many hours contemplating where I went wrong with Ripley, I accepted that I simply adopted the Tony Soprano of cats. After a number of attempted hits on the neighbor's cat's, dog's, children, and anything else foreign and funny smelling to him, it became clear to me that Ripley needed to learn to share. I hoped to at least socialize him to a point where I would not have to wrap visitors in protective gear before allowing them to enter the apartment, so I rescued a six week old gray and apricot colored ball of attitude, hoping their personalities would mesh.

It was a little scary at first, but Ripley took surprisingly well to Olive. Almost maternal, he would let her nurse on his belly while he meticulously groomed her ears and butt. They had an understanding with each other: she could tackle, bite and growl at him, but when cleaning time came, she held still for the Godfather.

When Ripley met my husband, I became old news. It was no big deal though, as Olive had already parked her pear-shaped body on my shoulder and had no intention of moving for anyone, not even me. Now this is a place where she literally puts herself when she is in need of cuddles. About five times a day she jumps into the bathtub, "meers" at me until I give her a drink, "meers" again because she does not like the splash it gives her when it hits the tub, gives up, jumps onto the bathroom counter, drinks from the faucet, and then crawls up my chest to claim her shoulder seat. Whoever said cats are not loyal never met Olive.

A few years of kitty bliss went by before we bought a house and decided it was finally time for the dog we had waited so long for. Upon passing Lyla's cage at the Humane Society, we both immediately recognized the look on her face, which said quite simply: I DO NOT BELONG HERE.

Lyla was afraid and distant the day I picked her up to go home. I expected a bouncy six month old puppy in the car, but Lyla found a corner in the back seat and froze there for the entire hour drive home. The true puppy slowly surfaced in Lyla over the next few months however, and it was a relief to see her start doing normal destructive puppy things, indicating that she had finally become comfortable in her new home. Eventually she started making eye contact with us and trusting us to ride in the car again.

In four short months Lyla also proved that she is quite the over-achiever. Within a day she learned that ringing the bells on the door would get her outside - especially at 6pm for some quality frogging time. She also mastered her obedience skills in record time, except for the less practical tricks that she feels are silly. Upon teaching her to rollover, she made it clear to me that this trick was better suited for circus acts, and looked at me as if to say, "does it look like I'm wearing a red nose and clown shoes, lady?" But with all of her practical and sophisticated tendencies aside, she will still allow me to put stupid hats on her and balance treats on her nose. Not her favorite trick, but it's her way of allowing me to have my silly fun.

Jack, on the other hand, looks like this to everyone meeting him for the first, fifth or 978th time. In fact, I don't think I even knew he had eyes when we first brought him home. It seemed as though we had adopted a big wet nose and tongue. The only thing tipping us off that there was more to him than a head was the pain his paws were causing as he climbed up our bodies to get to our faces.

Unlike Lyla, personal space is a lost concept to Jack. He is all affection, in your face, on you, licking, snarfing and licking some more. An athletic 37 pound blur of squirrel chasing black and white spots and freckles; Jack is energy. I have often considered running a cord to his butt, as I'm sure he puts off enough energy to power our house.

Jack likes to challenge us. We've tried very hard to communicate to Jack that his lust for attention and constant face washing may be teetering on the delicate edge of coo-coo. But he remains relentless in his efforts, insistent that we need his face licks and spotted little body in our laps as often as possible. He is so persistent, we are even beginning to believe he might be right.

The next edition to our family would come in a very confused package. At four weeks old, Titus was found in a woman's front yard screaming full blast after a nasty storm. The woman brought him to me, milk face and all and I crumbled under his foofy charm.

We're not sure if it is her maternal nature or love for cat poop, but Lyla claimed Titus immediately. And like a mean joke being played on the new kid, Ripley and Olive laughed from a distance as the new cat grew to believe himself to be...
a dog.

Nowadays Titus wakes up with the dogs, goes outside in the morning with the dogs, tries to eat dog food, rings the bells on the back door, poops in the backyard, and lays around on the floor on his back just like the dogs. He even joins the training circle to sit and wait for his treats, offering a paw when prompted for a shake.

Although he is the smallest dog in the group, and his freakishly long tail is always in the way, no amount of tail squashing or chewing on his head will deter him from taking part in his pack. He is truly a dog's cat, or a cat's dog - or something... We don't really know what he is anymore, but he's cute.

With five animals total, Jason and I were of the opinion that we no longer had any vacancies. At this point we recognized that if the animals were to form a coo against us, we would have good reason to be frightened. We were already knee deep in yard poop, which is what we tried to explain to Mo when he followed us home on a walk one day.

Mo(hawk), as we dubbed him in a less than witty moment, is undeniably one of the coolest dogs in the world. First off, thanks to his Ridgeback roots, he has a full blown mohawk that sticks up about an inch off of his back. Secondly, his big square head has summoned more pity from strangers than I care to count. Thirdly, much like Winnie the Pooh, he is a big, golden, cuddly bear made entirely out of honey. Fortunately Mo is the persistent type and barked at our window until we let him in...

Whereupon he immediately did this on our floor.

Weeks of discussing permanent homes for Mo passed before we finally realized that no home for Mo would be good enough. Our previously "full" home was indeed missing something. It was missing a big, lazy, square head, which is what he was trying to tell us from the start. Luckily he knew we'd come around.

Through the years there have been many changes to our little family combining the old and young, big and small. Some were surprisingly smooth transitions, while others have taken a considerable amount of effort and resulted in temporary relocations to the top of our fridge. Explaining change to a being that does not speak your language can be tricky, but time and patience have been on our side, resulting in a sometimes chaotic, but surprisingly harmonic existence.

Rarely a day passes when we are not cleaning up a surprise; rarely a month goes by without the added expense of a vet visit. But, with freshly licked faces, we witness dreams of squirrels on a daily basis. Olive is always there in the morning, purring and waiting for one of her shoulder rides. Lyla knows just how to sleep on you without causing discomfort. Ripley is always surveying and quacking from his roost on the fridge. And Mo is always there to remind us that, no matter how full our hearts may feel, there's always room for one more friend.

The Master of Subtleties

Your dog hears and smells hundreds of times better than you do. His sight is not great, but he is observant and an expert at communicating based on body language. He is truly a master of subtleties.

People, on the other hand, are strong verbal communicators. Sure, we have body language, but most of us have very little awareness of it. If you don't believe me, go to a shopping mall, stand in the walkway, and count the number of people who obliviously bump into you. You will either laugh or be incredibly annoyed.

Apply this same oblivious nature to approaching a dog. A person who is not aware of their body language, or more importantly, not aware of how dogs perceive it, will approach the dog head on and reach for the dog's face to pet it. Then they will tower over the animal, loudly speak some foreign language, and stare into it's eyes. All of these actions can be interpreted as very aggressive behaviors to a dog. If some stranger walked up to me and reached for my face while barking, I wouldn't react very well either.

Luckily, many dogs have a better understanding of our body language than we do and they can see past our lack of consideration. Most will either let us pat and coo away while they enjoy the attention, while others will respectfully back away from our hands until they are able to get a better read on us.

Then there is the other type of dog that has very little patience for our rudeness. They can be cautious by nature or easily intimidated. Sometimes they have been neglected and mistreated; or simply unaccustomed to the quick movements of a child. Maybe they are just old. Much like humans, a dog's tolerance for another's short-comings tends to diminish with age.

Whatever the case, it is not smart to gamble on the type of dog you are dealing with. Instead you should approach with calm caution and respect to introduce yourself properly. You are the more intelligent life form, so act this way. Protect yourself first. Do not crouch or make your face available, as this is a poor position to be in if the dog decides you are foe instead of friend. Dogs only attack your butt when they can't reach anything else. An aggressive dog will go for your face and jugular if you make it available.

Stay standing, and give the dog the first opportunity to approach you and check you out. Avoid eye contact as to not challenge the dog, and move gently and slow enough so that the dog can assess you first. Speak soft, and when the dog is relaxed, pet him with the back of your hand to the side of his body. If he is enjoying it, then move to the chest area to solidify the friendship. There isn't much sweeter to a dog than a nice chest rub.

The safest place to introduce yourself to a new dog is on neutral ground like a park. Dogs are territorial and will instinctually become less friendly if you are an intruder in their home. When entering someone's home who has a dog, the people should take a moment to introduce the dog to you properly, informing the dog that you are welcome. The people should take a moment to shake your hand (or a nice hug will do), pat their dog, and then take your hand gently to the dog to offer a sniff. Their pooch will appreciate the gesture.

Help! My Dog Nips!

Yesterday I received a frantic email from a student:

"Help! My dog nipped at my son! I have to get rid of the dog now and I am so distraught!"

Naturally, your children are always going to come before the family pet. If this is not the case, a family counselor is needed, not a dog trainer. However there is an unspoken and (unfortunately) unwritten agreement that comes into play when you adopt a dog. Part of this agreement says that you are accepting this dog into your home permanently and understand that, like people, dogs are not perfect. There will be issues, and no matter how small or large the issue, you are accepting responsibility for them. They are officially part of your family.

In this way, kids are like dogs. Just because they stay out until 3am worrying you sick doesn't mean you get to drop them off somewhere the next day. If that were the case, I might consider having some of my own. The point is, nowhere in this agreement is there an Offload Clause wherein it states that you can dump the dog in someone else's backyard the moment they start acting like a dog. Dogs, like children, are not disposable. The right thing to do here is try to work through the issue, not give up entirely on the dog. If you feel differently, you may want to consider adopting a surer thing, like a fish. I hear that Goldfish never bite.

The truth is, no matter how sweet, cuddly, docile, or smart your domesticated pooch is, dogs are animals; and this kind of animal is born with sharp teeth that are perfectly tailored for ripping flesh from bones. Yes, even precious Foofookins, the cottony white malti-poo would be tearing bloody flesh from a dead zebra if she were left to her own devices. Thankfully you bought her that cute little pink dish from which she can delicately nibble her kibbles... and you live nowhere near zebras.

When bringing one of these carnivores into your home, you should prepare yourself for the possibility that your dog may try to use those teeth for intimidation or defense. Educate yourself on how to react in such a case to address the issue before a nip turns into a bite. A nip is a warning. Trust that if your dog actually wanted to bite you, he wouldn't miss. If nipping is not addressed, the dog recognizes the power of his teeth and will use it whenever it is convenient.

The first step in addressing any kind of unwanted behavior is figuring out why it has taken place.

If Timmy is pulling his tail and hurting the dog, I would say a nip was a smart reaction for the dog to take before he was forced to fully defend himself. I would also say that Timmy is the one in need of training, otherwise he may someday lose an eye. However if Timmy is casually walking by the dog and the dog lashes out, there is definitely something a muck. Before you act, take a deep breath, look around, and find the cause. Without knowing the reason, you cannot not address the problem and you could make it worse. Here are a few questions you can ask to help identify possible causes:

• Does the dog have his favorite toy?
  
• Does he have food of any kind?
  
• Is he protecting something like his bed?
  
• Is he wounded or sick?
  
• Is he scared of something like a rain storm or a stranger?
  
• Is he on or near his favorite person?
  
• Does he bark or nip in response to verbal reprimand or correction?
• Did the nip occur during play?
  

The exercises involved in getting your dog over food aggression are far different from the techniques you might use to address nipping in response to a correction. Sometimes dogs react irrationally when they do not feel well, but you would not want to punish your dog because he is sick and moody. Obviously, a trip to the vet would be a better option. So take care in noticing what your dog's motives are so you can fix the problem instead of make it worse.

If you can't figure out the cause on your own, contact a qualified dog trainer or behaviorist to help (there's no universal certification, so check references!). For anywhere from $50 to $100 a trainer can help you assess the situation and give specific guidance on how to react. Experience goes a long way, and a trainer can often identify the more subtle reasons for a dog's actions such as breed specific behaviors. For instance, Border Collies often nip out of innate response because they are herding dogs.

If it sounds like a lot of effort or money to spend, consider the time, money and emotion that you have already invested in your pet. Comparatively, if $100 still sounds like too much, you should definitely reconsider adopting that fish.