What a fantastic book with practical applications for working with a reactive dog.

If you have never read a dog behavior book before and you are trying to work with your own, or help someone with their reactive dog, then this book will be immensely helpful.  The beginning of the book covers basic dog behavior, how dogs learn, and what can cause reactivity. Brown also covers basic learning theory and ways to manage a reactive dog safely before you even start training.

When clients call me with reactive dog issues they are scared, frustrated and want it to end… NOW please. And boy, can I relate. Dogs can become reactive for all sorts of reasons, you can have a very well socialized dog that as he gets older decides he doesn’t like to be bowled over and jumped on by ill-mannered puppies. Or maybe a single traumatic event happens and now he thinks all dogs are scary. For whatever reason you now have a reactive dog and you are struggling to manage your dog’s triggers. This situation is stressful, it is frustrating, but believe me, you are not the only one with a reactive dog and there are effective ways to manage the situation and help your dog learn to cope.

Rehabilitating a reactive dog can take weeks or months. Rehabilitation never really ends. You will always have to maintain a certain level of practice for your dog to continue to feel safe and non reactive. Learning how to rehabilitate your dog is more of a lifestyle change than a training program. This can seem daunting, but when your dog is a member of your family and a good friend, it is much more daunting to think about giving them up and passing on your responsibility to someone you don’t know and may just make things worse (yes I know I have trust issues).

So if you are struggling with a reactive dog, stop being embarrassed, realize that many people have gone through this before and have successfully  rehabilitated dogs. Get this book and get a good behaviour professional to help you out!

Jumping is one of those major issues people seem to hate about their dogs. So I feel it  is time to address this issue here.

Dogs jump for a couple of different reasons, in the picture to the left, you can see my dog, Cooper, jumping in excitement for a tennis ball. But notice how he isn’t using my hubby as a spring board, he is simply showing his excitement, and when asked to sit for the incoming ball throw, he will sit at the speed of lighting, reading himself to launch after the ball.

This polite jumping is not accidental, it is the kind of jumping we taught Cooper was acceptable in this situation. By giving a ‘no reward marker’ or stopping play when his jumping became too rambunctious, we gave him clear and consistent signals that jumping on legs or physically grabbing the ball was unacceptable behavior.

You can teach no jumping at all in a very similar way. The biggest issue people have with jumping is when their dog jumps on them, a visitor, or a child when greeting them at the doorway. The reason dogs do this is not related to  dominance or aggression, but because they are excited and happy! The natural way for dogs to greet pack members returning from a hunt is to sniff their mouths and necks. This helps them find out where their mates have been and what they have been up to. It is also a show of submission when they lick around the other dog’s face and mouth.

I know it doesn’t look like a submissive behavior when a 20 KG bull terrier is launches himself towards  your face with his tongue protruding, ready to give you a doggie facial, but to a dog, our mouths are inconveniently high! It is quite instinctual to want to show your ‘dominant’ pack members how much like a puppy you are and how you would love it if they just regurgitated a little food for you!

Now, this does not mean I am advocating letting your dog face mop you whenever you come home. What I am saying is jumping, licking faces, and greeting people as they enter the ‘den’ is quite natural for dogs, so it doesn’t make any sense to punish the behavior. That would be like punishing a western businessmen for offering to shake hands with a Japanese businessmen.

The Jumping behavior is, however inappropriate behavior for greeting human pack members. Therefore your dog must be taught the correct way to greet humans, just as the western man must be taught to bow properly to greet the Japanese man.

There are a number of things you can do, exercises or just practical routines to follow, that will give your dog instructions on how to fit in better with his family.

Make a leader’s entrance: Enter the house calmly with head up and body relaxed. Do not speak to, look at or touch your dog for at least 3 minutes or until your dog has shown you calm behavior. If your dog is getting pushy and insistent than walk forward into your dogs “space” and claim that space as your own, again without words, just using your body language and behavior to give your dog the ‘hint’. Go about your normal routine as if your dog wasn’t their.

No reward marker: Enter through the door, as your dog jumps exit and shut the door. Only enter when the dog is sitting, or backs up from the door. Alternatively- Enter completely, then when he jumps cross your arms, turn your body away by 45degrees and look at the corner of the ceiling. Continue this behavior until your dog offers a sit, or backs off. This exercise is very affective when you don’t talk to your dog at all when you enter.

For guests or children: For adult guests, instruct them on how to perform these exercises, this can help a dog generalize the new ‘sit at the door’ behavior, but be sure to practice with your dog yourself at first. You will find that some guests, children, and the elderly will not be able to help you with this practice. For these cases you should manage the situation by crating your dog with a safe toy or a chew treat before the guests enters.

Some of these will work for your dog, others may not (or may take awhile). A lot of it depends on how long the jumping habit has gone on for, how bad it has gotten, and how consistent you are with following the new routine.

Just a quick reminder that this Monday is the SPCA’s annual Cupcake event. So if you like cupcakes, or you like making cupcakes, go to your local SPCA and bring them a batch to sell, then buy a bunch that someone else has made!

I have never made cupcakes before but I had inspiration this morning when I sat down at the computer to look up recipes. I knew I wanted to use cream cheese frosting (my favorite) but I don’t always feel very good about eating cupcakes. I am one of those people that likes to REALLY enjoy what I eat and if I don’t LOVE it I don’t want to waste my time and calories.

So I decided Carrot Cupcakes! My favorite kind of cake and also goes fabulously with cream cheese frosting, perfect:) And I am happy to announce that they came out perfectly. I even added a little lemon zest to the frosting so it has a nice citrus undertone. I hope whoever buys them to support the dogs and cats looking for homes, really enjoys them!

I first got interested in the subject of canine nutrition when I got my dog, Cooper. He never liked eating. For years I had heard that if dogs won’t eat their food it is because they are picky, or trying to “control” meal time.

But Cooper didn’t seem to be trying to control anything, he just didn’t care much about food, he would wander over to it, sniff, take a couple bites, then leave it for awhile. He never asked for anything else instead.

Then in 2007 around March-April, there was a major pet food recall. Dog and cat food was recalled from dozens of brands, some very “high quality” Vet and pet store brands! Over 5,000 cats and dogs died in those months across America and no one knew what caused it. The problem was widespread and became deadly extremely fast. Within 3 three days of eating contaminated food the pets would go into kidney failure, most of them died.

I was living in Singapore at the time, and although one of the brands I used for my pets was in the recall, the contaminated food seems to have just gone to the US and Canada. This was a huge awaking for me. What was IN our pet’s food?!  More than just unintelligible ingredients it turned out that more than one contaminant had been in the affected pet foods including rat poison. On their own, each contaminate would have eventually killed many pets, but probably much more slowly and in such a way that no one would have suspected the food as the direct cause. But the contaminants together reacted and made the food deadly, almost immediately.

Having spent much time working and feeding carnivores in zoos, I had plenty of experience feeding a raw, natural diet to those animals. Were dogs and cats any different? In some ways, yes they are. In most ways they are exactly the same. The biggest difference is in their introduction to a raw diet. Dogs and cats that have been on commercial food their entire life can sometimes become “addicted” to the processed food. For the first week of adding raw food to a dog’s diet they can sometimes get a small amount of diarrhoea, because the natural enzymes used for breaking down proteins haven’t been needed for the processed food, so it takes about a week to build them back up again. Cats will sometimes ignore raw food, the only explanation is that they are creatures of habit, and the new healthier food doesn’t “look or smell” like commercial food, so they don’t eat it.

I still have trouble getting my cats onto raw food. My dogs however, eat it with gusto. I love feeding time actually, the crunching of raw bones is so primal and they seem to have so much fun! Cooper never looks dejected by his meals anymore. Both my dogs have been on a completely raw natural diet now for 1 year. The benefits have been noticeable and include; Clean teeth, clean breath, small faeces that is hard and easy to clean up, their skin and coats are shiny and healthy. A Natural diet also has the added benefits of longer lives with less disease.

However the raw natural diet is not for the feint of heart. It is not overly convenient, and you have to make sure your animals are getting a good balance of many different types of food, including some vegetables prepared properly for optimum digestion. If you are interested in learning more about canine nutrition then I would highly recommend reading up on the subject. Not everyone has the same opinion, although even most pet  food companies now admit that adding 1-2 raw meaty bones a week is good for your pet’s dental health. A few books that could help you are Give your Dog a Bone –Ian Billinghurst (how to feed a balanced raw diet), Food Pets Die For –Ann M. Martin(why not to feed commercial),  and Raw Meaty Bones –Tom Londsdale (the possibilities that commercial foods actually cause diseases).

I found the Ian Billinghurst book the most helpful if trying to move to a raw diet.

These associations not only provide educational support to their members,  they usually provide a certification process. These certification programs vary but can involve an exam or series of essays and case studies you must submit for peer approval. Many of these various associations will accept certifications from other well know associations so you don’t have to recertify if you want to be a certified member of more than one.

There are also a huge number of books on the various canine subjects that are well worth reading. I do book reviews of many of the books I am reading on my blog and so if you are interested in finding out more about these, that is a good place to start.

Then you will find the differences in what people call themselves based on how they train.

-Behaviourists are usually based on a Skinner philosophy that hold very strictly to the idea that behaviors must be observable and  “discounts any independent activities of the mind”. In reality many trainers who use the term “behaviourist/behaviourism” do not realise that is has no association with canine psychology, so they usually have a little of that thrown into their training paradigm.

-Most obedience instructors use learning theory and I have found that although they can train a dog to do almost anything, they will have a hard time explaining “how” they got the dog to do it! They usually site a training method like “dominance theory”, or “positive reinforcement” to explain what they are doing. But if you ask them to explain the principals of their training you will get a huge variety of responses, some quite reasonable and some so far out in imagination land that they are laughable, (I once heard a obedience instructor tell his class in all seriousness that you shouldn’t bow to your dog or he will think he is “King”). In what universe do dogs, live in and understand monarchies?

An Ethologist is someone who observes behavior and tries to understand why the behavior is happening, usually based on how an animal behaves in its natural environment.  As a consultant who considers herself a canine ethologist, I would observe the dog and listen to my clients observations of their dog’s behavior, then formulate their training plan based on these observations. A training plan would include reasons for these behaviors based on their instincts, environment,  previous experiences, and on the dog’s observable temperament. Observable temperament is what a dog is likely to do in any given situation.   Then I would find some possible alternate behaviors, using the laws of learning, and change the dog’s motivation in that situation. This involves teaching new behavior patterns and alternate acceptable behaviors in the form of basic or advanced obedience cues put on automatic.

The cues themselves are unimportant, except for the fact that they build confidence in the subject (the dog), that their trainer (the owner) is reliable, calm and confident. They teach the dog how to learn to learn, enjoy learning, and teach the dog’s caregiver how to change the dogs motivation in a situation where teaching an alternate behavior is simply not enough.

Although these training styles differ, I am sure you have noticed that they are also all linked. You hardly ever meet a behaviourist with no understanding of dog psychology or how to teach an obedience cue. You will be hard pressed to find a obedience instructor who doesn’t teach a little behaviourism, and an ethologist must have a good working understanding of the psychology of their chosen species, as well as a clear understanding of the laws of learning in order to explain/solve any behavior problem.

You will still find the occasional “trainer” with little or no experience in any of these fields, so buyer beware. Do a little research yourself, ask a lot of questions and if you are unhappy with, or don’t understand the answers then look somewhere else!

Many of the dogs I see are not toilet trained. The first question I always ask these clients is “How often does shadow NEED to go to the toilet?”, the answer I get most often is “I don’t know.”

Toilet training becomes immensely easier when you can answer this question with complete confidence. There is a quick rule of thumb for house training puppies that is; 2 months old = 2 hours, 3 months old = 3 hours, 4 months old = 4 hours, etc…  Then your puppy can probably hold a little longer at night. Some puppies can sleep through the night, others might need a potty break.

The way to figure out how often your puppy actually needs to go is to start timing her. I encourage my clients to keep a Training Log. You keep the notebook by the door and whenever anyone takers her out for a break they write in the book; what time, what she did (pee or poo), and how long it took. Keeping the log will keep everyone in the house on the same timetable and show you quite clearly how often shadow actually needs to go out.

For people that have their dog mostly toilet trained (1-2 accidents/week). keeping the log will help you get over that last hurdle. However for beginners (young puppies) you will probably need to do a bit more to ensure the house is accident free.

1. Shadow should NOT get free reign of the house and should always be supervised. This is especially true when she hasn’t had a break in awhile. If you can’t supervise her, then I highly recommend getting a crate and doing some positive crate training. She can stay in the crate with a chew toy when you are too busy to watch her, and she may not be “empty”.

2. Keep to a schedule, and let her out before she HAS to go. This is especially true if you are having morning accidents. If she goes at 5:30 AM then set your alarm for 5AM! (then go back to bed). This will help her build her trust in you, she will get to go out before she feels like it is an emergency!

3. Always positively reinforce going outside. Give a special treat for using the toilet outside (a small bit of dried liver afterwards)! This will encourage her to hold it until she can go out, she learns to differentiate between indoors and out! Why would she go inside when she waits a little longer and gets a treat for going out!

4. For heaven’s sake don’t scold or punish accidents! That means no growling, yelling, slapping or rubbing her nose in it. All this will do is convince her of your insanity and make her try to hide the next accident in a closet, a shoe, or your kid’s room. If you have already started training this way, then stop immediately and start with the previous steps, build her trust in you again and you will start having less accidents. Although she may occasionally regress if she feels unsafe going to the bathroom outside when you are near.

The moral of this story is; stay positive and calm, clean up messes with no fuss, stay on a schedule, and reinforce with treats for going in the correct place. Stay consistent and you will have a toilet trained puppy or dog in no time at all!

LIKES:      Meals , Treats, Sticks/Balls (chasing), Running (off lead or on), other dogs, games, Clicker Training, sniffing, grass, Kong/Chew Toys, evening massage, cuddles on the couch.

DISLIKES:     Getting patted on the head,  Strangers (especially in the house but anywhere we aren’t “expecting them”, Kids who stare at eye level, Strangers who stare or reach over head, being “handled” by the vet.

There are actually quite a few things on both lists! And some may be surprising. Many people don’t realize how little, dogs like being petted around the top of their head. Many can get used to the experience, but few really see it as enjoyable. And you should never great a dog you don’t know that way. The point here is don’t use a head pat or ear ruffle as praise/reinforcement.

Some on the list are probably exclusive to my dog, or dogs with similar “stranger danger” issues. For instance he will play slap paws with anyone, but if that same person stared at him on the street I sure he would react with defensive barking .

This list is important because it shows me what things I can use as reinforcement. Treats aren’t the only way to reinforce (although frequently the easiest and fastest). A reinforcement can be ANYTHING the dog likes. This list also shows me what we still need to work on. Because of his past, Ripley will probably never be the social butterfly my other dog is with strangers, but there are a lot of things we can do to get strangers off the “dislike” list and at least move it over to the “ambivalent” list. Some of them eventually may even be moved to the “Like” list!

As in the picture to the left, there are a lot of behaviors that we, as primates, consider gestures of affection, which dogs, instinctually, have no appreciation of.

Most dogs learn that kisses, hugs, and pats on the head mean that their humans are happy and so they learn to tolerate or even enjoy these gestures. But is it any wonder that a dog approached by a stranger may tend to duck  away when that person stretches their hand over the top of Fido’s head to pat him?  Even dogs who have never been hit, scolded, or dragged by the collar will frequently show signs of unease when approached this way.

The book The Culture Clash, Donaldson discusses how we can help dogs understand us better, and how trying to understand our dog’s viewpoint can help avoid behavior problems that eventually lead to dogs being “given up” or even euthanized! 

It is true that we shouldn’t have to behave like dogs in order for our dogs to live with us, but communication goes a long way to solving any relationship problem. Including the relationship problems we frequently have with our canine friends. Imagine if every time you had an argument with a human friend you yelled “NO"!!!” or worse yet,  slapped them with a newspaper…

And yet, our dogs remain our friends even after we frequently over react, brandish hands or newspapers, and believe they are “trying to get away with it” when they find sweet relief by peeing on the carpet behind the bedroom door. It would be great if every dog owner read this book and got some insight into their dog’s natural lives.

At the Big Cat Sanctuary in Spokane, WA, we had a lion named Jambo (ya-mm-bo). Jambo was by far my favorite of our Zoo residents because I absolutely am in love with Lions and Jambo was the only Male Lion at Cat Tales.

Jambo, however, was not the most charismatic of our cats. Lions are not like housecats, they don’t care about cleanliness the way you would expect your couch tiger to. Jambo smelled, his mane was a multitude of thick mats that had years to soak up faeces, urine, and other nasty things. Once I actually thought there was a dead squirrel on Jambo’s den box. When I entered his habitat  to clean it, I realized it was in fact a giant snarl of mane he had left behind (I took it of course)! When he was awake (which wasn’t often) he sat around with his tongue poking out of his mouth as if he just couldn’t be bothered to put it away.  Most of the time Jambo slept, so why was he the most appealing of the Big Cats to me?!

Jambo and I shared a joke. Cat Tales had a “Feed the Cats” program where guests could buy 10 chicken necks and feed a Lion or a Tiger through the fence. One of the keepers (like me) had to supervise these feedings by providing plastic gloves and instruction on how to feed the cat without losing a finger. The guests had a choice, feed a Tiger (Ali, was a beautiful, charismatic, friendly Bengal Tiger) or a Lion (Jambo, described in detail above). Most people chose the Tiger. But if I was the keeper on duty, and the “guest” was a large  football player showing off to his friends, I would steer him towards Jambo as the “more exciting” cat to feed.

It took Jambo a leisurely 5 minutes to  open his eyes, yawn, stretch, remove himself form the top of the den box, and saunter over to the fence to receive his well earned offering. In fact I could have timed this process to the second because Jambo and I knew this routine so well. Most of the other keepers liked feeding the tiger because he happily jumped up for his chicken necks, where Jambo was slow and rarely did the other keepers have the patience for this process.  So Jambo seemed to appreciate the fact that I would wait for him , I actually enjoyed his “process” because I knew at least partially that a lot of it was show. I believe he enjoyed the gasps and awe as he slowly extended his body, showing off his enormous muscles and  rough  mane to onlookers. He would then settle down by my guest and me and proceed to take chicken necks from the “large” rugby player-like guest.

After the tenth neck, came the fun part. Our inside joke that never got old. I would tell the young man with me that after the last neck he should open his empty hands to Jambo and say “No More”. That was Jambo’s cue. He opened his mouthed and submitted the man to the most sinister growl, then  slam his head-sized paw against the fence right at face level.

You can imagine the reaction. Absolutely side splitting every time!  Self satisfied he sauntered back to his den box to sleep the rest of the day.

This was not exactly a  zoo-approved behavior, although the owners of the park were rarely paying close attention to what happened there. And if I am being completely honest, it wasn’t a behavior I “conditioned” in any real way. It was almost as if I had stumbled upon a cue that someone else had conditioned long ago. The really interesting thing was that for other keepers at the park, it took an effort to get Jambo to participate at all in one of these “close encounter” sessions, so most of them just didn’t bother trying. I found that over time, Jambo would come more quickly and with more enthusiasm for one of my sessions. If that isn’t classical conditioning at work, I don’t know what is!

Here is an example situation. It is 6PM in the evening, the family is trying to watch TV, it is not yet Bella’s dinner time and she is getting antsy. She is sniffing around the couch, prodding people’s legs, trying to instigate playtime. Her family is trying to ignore her while they watch their favorite show. Eventually she gets so frustrated that she bounces up and plants her feet squarely on dad’s lap and playfully nips his arm.

This is obviously inappropriate behavior. It isn’t aggressive or dominant, just annoying!  Dad can choose two options to “punish” this inappropriate behavior. He will probably yell “owe!”  and stand up. Then he could grab the dog and smack her, this does not change the Bella’s behavior but it will probably make her more nervous around dad in the future. Or dad could take Bella over to the door and send her out of the room.

Bella now has to earn back her privilege of spending time with the family. A time-out that lasts for an hour won’t teach her anything, she may even start barking behind the door because she feels abandoned. Keep time-outs to less than 15 seconds.

The best method for a successful time-out is to shut the door, count to 3 slowly, and then crack the door open, ask her for a “Sit”. If she does not respond immediately, shut the door and count to 3 again. repeat this process until she is able to control herself enough to demonstrate a sit, then  allow her back in the room. For many dogs this short time out is plenty of time for them to get themselves under control. For many other dogs they are STILL excited and may go back to jumping around the room as soon as they get the opportunity. This time don’t wait until she has jumped up and nipped someone! Move her immediately back out the door and wait for another 3-5 seconds for her to control herself again.

Coaching a dog on how to behave appropriately in a human family environment is not always easy. You do need to be consistent and take the time to show them what you want, every single time. It can sometimes be a difficult, tiring, and frustrating task. But as every dog owner learns, its worth it! And if it gets too frustrating, then maybe you could use a time-out too occasionally. If you feel too frustrated and need a break, feel free to put yourself away for a little while until you can regain control. We all need time-outs sometimes!