In the past two months, I’ve received calls and or emails from two different shelters asking me for advice on training a dog who is both blind and deaf. There are terrific web sites for training blind dogs and for training deaf dogs, but I’m not aware of a web site devoted to training a dog who is both. I thought that publishing some ideas here (ideas I have gathered from many other sources) would not only help other rescue workers, but I’m hoping that it will generate a dialog on how to best train these dogs who not only have the misfortune to find themselves deaf and blind, but homeless as well. Let me be clear, I’m not stating a position on whether these dogs should take up precious rescue resources when plenty of “able bodied” dogs are euthanized every year. That’s a debate for another time. The reality is that some rescues will take these dogs, do their best, and try to place them (or not). So, how do we train these dogs?

Work to Eat: It can be incredibly difficult to exercise a dog who is both deaf and blind so environmental enrichment is absolutely necessary to lower anxiety and tire out the dog’s brain. Don’t feed any food out of a bowl and make sure all the dog’s calories come out of toys or by hand in training. There are an amazing array of work to eat puzzles on the market now.

Stay on a Mat: An excellent way to position (and keep track of) a blind/deaf dog is with a mat. You can reinforce him every time the dog finds the mat. You can make it easier for the dog by scenting these surfaces. According to many people, lavender is the “relaxation” scent. Make sure you dilute the scents with water and spray them on the surfaces. If you can smell it, it’s probably way too strong for the dog. Finding the mat and staying there is the first thing I teach these dogs. Safety first! Giving a dog frozen stuffed Kongs on the mat will help build the dog’s duration on the mat. If the dog rolls the Kong off the mat, lure the dog back to the mat with the Kong (hopefully he doesn’t guard Kongs).

Follow the Carpet: Make paths out of carpet runners or other substrate material and teach the dog to walk on the path. Following the path keeps the dog safe and out of trouble (hopefully).  Again, you can scent these paths to help the dog along.

Condition a Marker: You’ve got to come up with a touch somewhere on the dog’s body to let him know he’s getting it right and that’s why he’s getting the food. Decide on a body part (I like the neck for this). Touch the dog in exactly the same way and in the same place each time (decide if you want to use a tap, short touch, long touch, or stroke). Condition this marker just like you would if you were charging a clicker. Touch/food, touch/food as randomly as possible (try not to fall into a pattern). I’ve used vibration collars with deaf dogs to get their attention so I can give them the “thumbs up” but they can be pricey and frankly, any piece of equipment has the potential to be lost or broken. I’ve had trouble convincing owners that they want to have that big remote handy at all times. If you do use a vibration collar (I would use it to train the dog to find his mat), make sure to introduce it to the dog carefully. You want the “page” to predict a treat, not startle the dog into a panic.

Target Train: Teach the dog to touch a target with his nose. Scent the target so that he can find it. I like using something sturdy like a wooden spoon because you can tap it on the floor and the dog should pick up on the vibration. This is an excellent way to lead a dog around so you don’t have to be hauling him around by his collar all the time.

Training Behaviors: With a dog who is both deaf and blind, I think that lure/reward training is the way to go since shaping can be next to impossible if your “clicker” is a touch to the dog’s body:

1. Lure the dog into a sit.
2. When his butt hits the floor, touch him in his “clicker spot” to let him know he got it right.
3. Give him the treat.

Once he’s offering sits voluntarily, you can add the cue. I like a tap on the butt for this, it seems a natural to me. You insert any cue whether it’s verbal, a hand signal, or a touch in the same way:

1. Tap him on the butt.
2. Wait a few seconds (at first he won’t know what it means), then lure him into the sit.
3. Touch him on his “clicker spot” to let him know he got it right.
4. Give him a treat.

Over time, he’ll figure out that the tap on his butt means “if I sit, I’ll get a treat”. You can repeat this with any behavior you want him to learn as long as the behavior can be lured.

Anyone out there with “special needs” dogs? Are there dog trainers reading this with experience training dogs who are both blind and deaf? I’d love to hear all the creative ideas out there!

You’re out on a relaxing walk with your dog when you see another owner walking towards you with their dog. The owner says to you, “can our dogs say hello”? How do you decide whether allowing your dog to greet a strange dog on leash is a good idea? After all, some of these greetings go beautifully with both dogs and owners parting company with a smile. Other greetings with dogs on leash go horribly wrong with both dogs and owners leaving the scene upset with pulses racing. What went wrong?

If you’re not sure how your dog will react to an unfamiliar dog on leash, my advice is simply don’t do it. You owe it to  your dog to be their advocate and enough scary encounters with other dogs can result in your dog developing negative associations with other dogs. That’s something none of us wants to happen.

But what if your dog loves other dogs? How do you decide if that unknown dog will enjoy meeting your dog? After all, how many times have we said “yes” to the “can our dogs meet?” question and had the encounter go wrong? Here are some tips for making this dog/dog greeting decision and some tips on keeping the encounter a pleasant one.

How is the other dog looking at your dog? Is the other dog staring at your dog silently without looking away? Just say “no”. Polite dogs look and then look away, look and look away, they don’t stare. Is the other dog avoiding looking at your dog completely? Just say “no.” Some dogs won’t look away from your dog because they are anxious or fearful and there could be other reasons they can’t look away. Regardless, it’s still a “just say no” response to a dog/dog greeting.

Do you feel comfortable reading the other dog’s body language? I won’t go into a full blown description of dog body language here, but if the other dog seems uncertain (tail tucked, ears back, won’t look at your dog) then that other dog is afraid and regardless of whether that owner is trying to “socialize” their dog on leash, for your dog’s and the other dog’s sake, just say “no.”

Is your dog, the other dog, or both dogs dragging their humans toward one another? Some owners think this is a sign that their dogs will love meeting one another. This is a circumstance in which I always say “no.” Dogs are sensitive to barrier frustration (seeing another dog but not being able to get to them) and that combined with their oxygen supply being choked off if they’re on neck collars can cause the initial contact between the dogs to be too heated. Even if both dogs love other dogs, the level of excitement when they first meet can cause a scuffle between the dogs.

So, you see a dog on a loose leash coming towards you with relaxed body language,  looking at your dog and looking away, ears up and rotated out. You decide to go for it and let your dog meet another dog on leash, now what?

Keep it brief. All most dogs want by way of a greeting is a a quick butt sniff. (Isn’t talking about dog behavior fun?) If both dogs go nose to nose (how rude!) one should veer off for the butt sniff. If one dog’s head goes above the other dog’s head, either play will break out or a scuffle will break out. If you’re lucky and play breaks out, drop the dogs’ leashes (if it’s safe to do so.) When dogs get tangled up and feel their escape route cut off, they can get afraid and play can tip to a scuffle. Again, keep it brief, thank your playmate’s owner and enjoy the remainder of your walk! If you want to talk with the owner of the other dog, separate the dogs after their initial greeting and put them on a sit next to you.

Do you have other tips for successful on leash greetings? Please take the time to share your knowledge and experience!

Some time ago, I wrote an article titled Pass It On, Redirected Aggression in Cats and Dogs.  In that article, I wrote: “Redirection of a behavior is one of three forms of conflict behavior seen in animals, and humans.  The other two forms of conflict behavior are “approach-withdraw” and “displacement behavior,” which I’ll discuss in future blog entries.”  But I never did… so let’s talk about the other two now.

The example that I gave in that earlier blog was: “(conflict) behaviors are methods for resolving internal conflicts: a hungry dog, faced with a bowl of food and an aggressive canine owner of the food might express any of these three ways of resolving a conflict between approaching for food and fleeing the aggressive owner of the food.”  Another example might be a dog which has been severely frightened.  One of the ways of resolving this internal conflict in drives and motivation, in fact physiological and neurological demands, is familiar to most of us: approach-withdraw, or “flight or fight” as it is commonly, but incorrectly, called.  The other, like redirected behavior, is less well known, the least well known and often the most confusing option: displacement behavior.

Flight or fight: I guess “flight” is ok as a term: dogs and cats don’t actually take flight, but the use of the term “flight” to mean a hurried departure is quite correct.  Animals, including humans, placed into a conflict situation, will often attempt to resolve that conflict through a sudden, almost desperate, withdrawal, a “flight” from the conflict, or by a sudden, again almost desperate and totally out of character, attack or “fight”.  Thus, one example of an “aggressive” dog.  Is this an aggressive dog?  Sure, by the strict definition of aggression, a dog approaching a person or other dog, clearly behaving in such a way as to drive away or remove that person or dog.  But what is also important, in establishing risk or in treating the aggressive behavior, is the motivation: if this is a conflict-resolution behavior, that tells me something much different than if I can establish that it is a habit, a learned behavior, a genetic trait, a function of early deprivation, or any of the other myriads of possible causes and triggers for aggression.

One characteristic of this approach-withdraw behavior that I often see in this behavior is perseveration: the animal (and I know a few people like this) will run away, a little ways, stop, gain their nerve, begin to return and “fight”, lose their nerve, back away into a “flight”, and often hit a balance point, almost rocking back and forth in this conflict situation.

Another behavior that I have seen in these situations, and not one I recommend intentionally testing for, is when a dog in this conflict situation does attack, you can frequently turn the behavior off very quickly by simply shifting the behavior back over the balance point into a flight.  A loud “Hey!” in the face of such an attack has generated a sudden stop, turn, and run on more than one occasion.  The dog, and I have had cats like this too, was in a conflict situation, decided to attack (“fight”) but could easily be switched back to the flight decision by an increase in the scariness of the stimulus.  Again, not an effect that you want to count on, just in case it’s NOT conflict behavior, but it can save the day once in a while, and help you to explain what happened to your client.

How about the third form of conflict resolution, displacement behavior?  It’s an odd one, and more controversial as to its value and cause.  Perhaps you have been in a situation in which there is a conflict, some stress, a dog that is unsure of what it should do.  That dog’s body language signals will be in conflict, flicking from fearful and anxious to aggressive.  Suddenly, the dog will… urinate… or stop and eat a flower… or sit up and beg, or do some seemingly totally unrelated behavior.  This is displacement behavior, an outlet to the conflict.  We see it in humans all the time: some conflict, a disagreement at home among spouses, and suddenly one of them will jump up and light candles, or start to fold laundry.

The animal (or husband?) is in conflict and needs to resolve that conflict, and there are three ways of doing so: approach or withdraw from the stimulus perceived to be causing the conflict (“flight or fight”), redirecting behavior towards another target (often aggressively, in dogs and cats), or take your mind off it, by exhibiting a displacement behavior.  Watch for all three of these in the animals (husbands, wives, and kids count) in your life: your dog, your cat, animals at the dog park, or at the zoo.  Examples are common!  And maybe understanding these sometimes-puzzling behaviors can make our lives a little bit better, or at least a little less confusing.

One of the most commons calls we get at Companion Animal Solutions is from an owner whose dog barks, growls, and lunges at other dogs when on leash. Often, the owner is baffled because their dog loves playing with other dogs at the dog park or dog daycare. There are several reasons why dogs act so differently on leash than they do off leash. I thought it might be helpful to explore some of the more common reasons.

Dogs are highly social animals and when a dog sees another dog, they’re biologically programmed to head on over and investigate with a quick butt sniff. If a dog is on leash, their intense biological drive to investigate the other dog is being thwarted. This reaction is called barrier frustration. Even the most dog friendly dogs in the world are prone to barrier frustration around other dogs. In fact, the most difficult dogs to stay calm around for many dogs are other friendly dogs.

I worked with a Great Dane client who was enormous, black, and the belle of the ball at the dog park. In 2 years she had never gotten into the tiniest little scuffle at the dog park. How good was her dog/dog body language and manners?! When she was on leash and would see another dog in the distance (and I do mean distance), she would begin to whine and jump straight up into the air. In the beginning, I could walk her by another dog who was giving her hard eye or a dog who was ignoring her, but if the dog walking towards us started throwing play solicitation body language, look out! I call these dogs “Woo Hoo’ers” as in “Woo Hoo! I love other dogs so turn me loose to meet them!”

Some dogs react aggressively on leash because of fear. They’re afraid of other dogs. They react by barking, growling, snarling, and lunging at other dogs. This is just their way of saying “I’m not comfortable. You need to go away”. When a dog encounters a person or another dog they’re afraid of, they’ve got two choices; fight or flight. When the dog is on leash, we’ve taken away their flight option. It stands to reason that any dog is going to be more reactive with their flight option removed.

There’s another category of dog that it took me more experience to be able to identify. I call these dogs my Anxious Woo Hoo’ers. By in large, these dogs do just fine with other dogs off leash but they tend to be reactive in general and not super confident around other dogs. Not being confident around other dogs isn’t a problem until that pesky flight option is taken away. These dogs are highly conflicted. They’re super curious about the other dog but anxious at the same time. In my experience, these dogs are the quickest to react on leash towards another dog meaning they react at long distances. Often, it takes the longest amount of time to counter condition these dogs’ reaction.

We always have a Reactive Rover class going on at Companion Animal Solutions. Our classes are unique because of the one on one personalized attention each student receives and because we work outside where the problem is happening. If you’re interested in learning more about our Reactive Rover classes, check out the Companion Animal Solutions web site. If taking a class seems too inconvenient, we can always work with you privately on this problem behavior. Contact us and we can discuss which option is right for you and your dog.

I read a tragic news article:  “Puppy Owner Pleads Not Guilty for Choking Animal to Death,” Associated Press, February 26, 2010.  According to the article, the owner admitted holding the 10-week old Labrador puppy down for 20 seconds after the puppy bit the owner’s girlfriend on the nose, causing what the Animal Services officer called “a minor scratch.”.  According to the officer, the puppy was taken to an emergency vet where he “couldn’t walk, was breathing poorly and had reddish saliva and blue gums.”  The puppy died.

Without further information, of course, we do not know what motivated the owner.  Perhaps he was really angry and lost his temper, badly enough to kill the puppy.  Certainly, this does not match the description given.

If we accept the description given, the owner deliberately held the puppy down, using quite a lot of force.  It appears this holding-down maneuver was intended as a consequence for a bite to the girlfriend’s nose.  It’s reasonable to conclude that the owner believed two things:  First, that the bite to the nose was a seriously unacceptable, even aggressive act that justified severe discipline; and second, that holding a puppy down with severe force is an appropriate way to discipline a dog, including a ten-week old puppy.

Both of these propositions are false.  First, puppies this age bite.  It’s developmentally normal and almost never “aggressive.”  (Serious aggression in puppies this age is so rare that it causes a flurry on trainer email lists if observed; many trainers simply never have seen it.)  Second, holding a dog or puppy down as a form of discipline is dangerous and unnecessary.

The danger can be to the person if the dog is an adult, particularly a large one.  Holding a large adult dog down puts the person’s face near the dog’s mouth, and a dog who panics, or decides not to put up with the human aggression, is very likely to target the face simply because it’s nearby.  It can also be dangerous to the dog, as in this case, where the size and strength disparity was extreme.

This type of discipline is unnecessary.  Dogs simply do not use “holding each other down” or “rolling other dogs over” as a way of punishing or enforcing status.  Wolves may do it, but they do so extremely rarely; but in any case, dogs are not wolves; and even if they were, we are not wolves and do not remotely understand how and when to apply this type of serious, dangerous consequence.  There are numerous other safer, saner and more effective ways to influence your dog’s behavior.

Where, then, would an owner get the idea this was a good tactic?  One popular dog training book by The Monks of New Skete advocated the “alpha roll” in its first edition, about three decades ago.  The second edition, much more recent, retracted that advice with an apology.  However, the original edition is still out there; I recently saw a client who’d done a few alpha rolls on her young dog, based on that very book, which she’d picked up secondhand.

Realistically, though, not many people read that book any more.  On the other hand, every week, millions of people watch a television star who often performs maneuvers very like the one that killed this puppy.  You can watch, on YouTube and the National Geographic website, as this entertainer grabs dogs and pushes or slams them onto the ground.  In some clips, you can literally see the dog’s tongue turning blue after some time on the ground.  No wonder many pet owners might get the idea that this is a potentially appropriate response to perceived aggression from the dog.

And, this same performer often delivers this type of consequence for behavior described as “dominant.”  I don’t doubt that he might describe normal puppy biting as “dominant.”  So again, it’s no wonder that a pet owner might be led to perceive normal puppy biting as “dominant,” and to respond in a way he’d seen repeatedly modeled on TV.

I do not know whether the owner of the dead puppy, who is being charged with felony animal abuse, has watched “The Dog Whisperer” on TV.  However, I don’t know one competent behavior consultant who did not immediately, on seeing this tragic news story, make the same guess I did.  This type of human behavior is repeatedly modeled by a charismatic, persuasive, and apparently effective role model on an extremely popular television show.  It is inevitable that someone was going to “try this at home” with disastrous results; and this puppy’s death might be that disastrous result.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but dogs bite because they’re dogs. It’s what dogs are biologically programmed to do. Every dog has the potential to bite, no matter how well socialized or friendly. I thought it might be useful to explore the different reasons why a dog might bite.

Fear Aggression: Humans never cease to amaze me in how they approach unfamiliar dogs. In my work with the clients of fear aggressive dogs, one of the topics we have to discuss is how to keep strangers from approaching their socially fearful dog. Most people assume that a dog wants to meet them. Nothing could be further from the truth with some dogs. If a dog wants to meet you, believe me, that dog will approach you.

If you can’t tell whether an unleashed dog is interested in meeting you, the best course of action is to just wait. Don’t reach out for the dog. Don’t look the dog directly in the eyes. Simply stand there like the dog doesn’t exist and wait. Even if the dog decides to approach and sniff you, don’t immediately reach down to pet the dog. Let the dog investigate and only if the dog actively solicits your attention should you reach down and pet the dog. If the dog is on leash, please ask the owner before approaching their dog and if they say their dog is fearful or aggressive, believe them. Thank that owner and wish them a good day.

Redirected Aggression: Even though human beings engage in redirected aggression all the time, people often misunderstand this type of behavior in dogs. Have you seen athletes get into a fight and the people who try to break up the fight end up getting hit? That’s redirected aggression. If a dog “has lost his or her mind” over someone coming to the door, treeing a squirrel, or fighting with another dog and you grab that dog, you run the risk of being bitten. I recommend that if possible, you just wait for the dog to calm down before grabbing it. If you need to break up a dogfight, try not to use your hands. Use a loud noise (air horn) or a can of Spray Shield, a product that sprays citronella about 10 or 12 feet.

Possession Aggression (resource guarding): Does your dog growl or snap if you go near their food bowl, try to take their bone away, or get them off the furniture? This is possession aggression or what most dog trainers call resource guarding. We humans guard our resources fiercely. We put locks and alarms on our possessions, guard the food on our plates (especially if it’s extra tasty), and resent someone sitting in our chair or place on the sofa. Some dogs guard their resources as fiercely as we do. If your dog is guarding their resources, I highly recommend hiring a professional to assist you in performing “resource exchanges” to teach Fido that if they give something up, they get something better. You can try the macho, tough route of simply out aggressing the dog, but you run the chance of being bitten and the dog’s behavior getting worse.

Pain Aggression: Often I get a call from a client because their dog has suddenly begun acting aggressively for the first time. This is a huge red flag that the dog doesn’t feel well or is in pain. In my experience, pain issues are the most under diagnosed causes of dog aggression and dog bites. Sometimes I’m told that the dog has arthritis or hip dysplasia and when I ask what medication the dog is on for pain, I’m told none. In both of these cases, I recommend a trip to the veterinarian as quickly as possible.

Territorial Aggression: This aggressive behavior is why so many mail carriers, delivery people, and utility workers get bitten. Often, what people consider “guarding their territory” is actually a fear response when an unfamiliar person comes onto your property. Barriers such as gates or tethers make this aggressive response much, much worse. If a dog is behind a fence and you need access to someone’s property, call the person you’re visiting on the phone and have them put their dog in the house or escort you onto the property.

Dominance Aggression: While many people believe that dominance is the root of all dog behavior problems, including aggression, science doesn’t back up this view. Dominance aggression is actually incredibly rare. Dominance aggression can be identified when a dog tries to control social interactions. I’ve seen cases where the dog attacked family members whenever they tried to leave the house. I’ve seen cases where the dog nips or bites when a pleasant interaction ends (play or training with food).

There are other types of dog aggression, but the ones I’ve described above are the ones of main concern to owners. If you have questions about dog aggression, you can always contact me at christine at companionanimalsolutions.com. I’m happy to direct people to books, DVDs, web sites, or other resources to help people understand dog behavior better. Has a dog bitten you or has your dog bitten someone? Please take the time to tell us about it. Discussing dog aggression is one way we learn about it!

I like to consider myself a fairly non-judgmental person.  People may do things to their pets that I think are horrible, but I cannot judge them, since, in the past, I have done most of those things myself.  We all grow and learn and change.

However, there are two things that get under my skin and make me want to slap folks upside the head.  Or at least sting them with my sarcasm.  All of my caring, nurturing and willingness to help simply fly out the window.  I end up jamming my fist down my throat so that I don’t say anything that I will regret.

Number one pet peeve.  “I’ve tried everything.”  Really.  Everything?  Well, I guess there’s nothing I can do now, is there?  No place to go from here.  Thanks for calling and have a nice life.  I suppose what they really mean to say is “I am desperate and need you to help me.”  Okay.  But do they think I wouldn’t help them unless they were desperate?  This is my profession.  I want to help.  Desperation merely gets in the way.

Maybe the underlying message is:  “I’ve tried everything I can think of.”  Better.  At least they give me a chance to think of something.  But it still does not give me much information.   What was tried?   How did the pet respond?  Even if medication was tried with no success, there are many reasons why that might be the case.  What was the dosage?  Too much or too little medication can have unsatisfactory results.  How long was the medication given?  Some medications require a month before full effects are seen.  How was the medication given?  Ear gels may not deliver the needed quantity of the medication to reach therapeutic blood levels.  There is the possibility that a different approach to medication may help.

So, my request is to please give me some information that I can process.  Let me know what has been tried.   Let me know the results.

Number two pet peeve.  “I think he is jealous.”  My first snarky impulse is to say, “Well then, I think you should stop catting around.”  But, I hold my tongue.  I take a deep breath and ask, “What is he doing?”

Jealousy is an emotion that we may or may not be able to ascribe to animals. We may be able to tell if a pet is feeling good or feeling bad, but to assign a nuanced emotion like jealousy is not really helpful.  Are we talking about bitterness or suspicion?   Possessiveness or demanding attention?  Even if I could get the cat or dog to lie down on the couch, I still can’t discuss with them any feelings of abandonment or inadequacy.  I can’t get them to understand that they don’t need to feel that way.  And even if I could somehow communicate that to them, it wouldn’t help.

You see, jealousy isn’t the problem.  It is the behavior that is the problem.  What is the pet doing that you don’t want them to do?   Urinating inappropriately?  Chewing things up?  Tearing things down?  Now those are behaviors that I can address.   Ultimately, it is the behavior we want to change.  And unless I know which behaviors are the problem, there isn’t much I can do.   I often deal with changing a pet’s emotions, but even then, I rely on body language to let me know how the pet is feeling.  Ear position, eye position, body posture and vocalizations are all reflections of emotions.  These are the things we can change.  Jealousy is not one of them.

Well, I gotta go.  I have to feed my cats, walk my dog and water my peeves.

An interesting paper appeared in a recent issue of Behavioural Processes (2009, vol. 82, pp. 355).  The author, William Helton from New Zealand, examined results from three published studies in which breed and head shape were reported, to answer the question of whether morphology (head shape, in this case) reflected intelligence in dogs.  Now, a little background because there a lot of caveats associated with this work.

First, what do we mean by head shape?  The classic measure of head shape, used here, is the cranial index.  This is the ratio of the width of the skull to the overall length of the skull, and can be easily measured with calipers.  But of course, this is only one possible way to measure a skull shape.  It turns out that dogs are interesting for this kind of question because, through our breeding, we have produced a wide range of head shapes, on a continuum of cranial indices.  So extremes in the cranial index values reveal dolichocephalic dogs (with a long cranium, the running dogs and sight hounds; think greyhound) and brachycephalic dogs (with a very wide cranium, bred for fighting and holding, grasping; think Staffordshire Bull Terriers) and in between, mesocephalic breeds, whose heads are less extreme in length or width.  So we can divide breeds into three parts of this continuum, or ask as the author did, whether dogs of extreme shapes, the breeds that are more specialized in their breeding, might have a lower or higher intelligence.  One hypothesis might be that medium-head-shape dogs, of less specialized duty (historically), might be less intelligent.

Another issue is, “what do we mean by intelligence, and how was it measured?”  A very good, and very difficult, question.  We really have VERY little data on the cognitive capabilities of breeds of dogs (or of course, of most species of animals).  But some work HAS been done on what might be one aspect of intelligence: trainability.  Now, while we have a few studies on this topic, among breeds, we still have very little.  But one way that has been used to “get at this question” has been to survey experienced dog owners, especially those with a broad exposure to breeds, to rank the PERCEIVED trainability of various breeds.  One good source of such information is obedience judges, and Coren has published these very consistent and repeatable results in a number of places.  So now we are no longer talking about intelligence, or even trainability, but perceived trainability… but it’s the best we’ve got, until we do more research!

So now, to the results of this work: what is the relationship between head shape, especially extremes of head shape, and ranking of perceived trainability (our stand-in for intelligence)?  Well, to a degree not accountable by simple chance, medium-head-shape dogs are perceived to be more trainable, and dogs with more extreme head shapes, whether long or wide, are perceived to be less trainable.

There are some other interesting findings to go with this main point.  For instance, what else does head shape tell us?  It turns out that the shape of the head also tells us a lot about the visual abilities of dog.  Breeds with long heads, associated with coursing or hunting by long-distance running, like greyhounds, have a retina designed with a wide area of receptivity: their vision is most acute in the horizontal and at the horizon.  Breeds with wide heads have their greatest receptivity in the center, like primates including us, and thus have their best vision in the center and close up.  So there are differences in the nervous system associated with head shape and there certainly could be differences in other facets of their brains and learning abilities.  Perhaps it is true that highly specialized breeds, so specialized that they LOOK different, might not have needed a broad intelligence to do their job, while your basic, unspecialized, medium-head-shape dog needed more wits to get the job(s) done!

Or perhaps this study tells us more about human perception.  Perhaps there is something in us that tells us that things that look different are (have to be?) different in other ways.  The answer lies in learning more about the actual intelligence, or at least the actual trainability, of dog breeds, a project that we at Companion Animal Solutions have begun, and that other ethologists around the world are undertaking.  The questions never end, and I hope that if you have questions, you will contact us here at Companion Animal Solutions.

A while ago, I wrote a blog titled Questions to Ask Before Adopting a Dog or Puppy about the adoption process, and things to consider when you’re trying to find the right dog for your home. At the time, I was searching for a dog, which I have finally found. From the time I got the go ahead from my landlord to the day I was sure the right pup had found me was about 8 months. And it was quite the process.

In my line of work, you’d think that dogs would be falling into my lap, which is fairly true. But most of the dogs offered to me are dogs with issues, and while I do have the ability to fix a wide variety of behavior challenges, I have a husband and a job and a parrot. And it was proving to be quite an undertaking to find a dog with the types of issues that my life would be able to accommodate. As I said in the previous entry, vocal separation anxiety in an apartment building can have a very detrimental effect on your neighbor relations, and a high prey drive can be very hard to manage in a small space with a parrot and a dog. So we visited multiple shelters multiple times, and just didn’t find the right fit.

Until…

Fiona. One of our clients had purchased multiple puppies at the same time and asked us to come help them get off to the right start. On our first visit, we discussed one of the puppy’s extreme social fear- hot dogs and string cheese were not enough of a motivator to allow us to pet this eight week old puppy, while her litter mate was crawling all over us like we would expect of a dog that age. We warned the owners that she was going to need intense socialization in a very careful manner, as well as lots of practice being separated from her brother to prevent dog/dog separation anxiety.  Honestly, the first time I met this dog, I shook my head and wanted to have a discussion with the breeder about breeding for temperament, because this puppy was obviously genetically extremely fearful.

Two weeks later, the owners called and had decided that the little black labradoodle needed a new home. With three other puppies around, her fear was increasing, she was starting to nip and bite when over-aroused, and was very reactive when any play time was happening. Knowing that she was in a critical socialization period, and that it would be essentially impossible for them to provide the kind of socialization this puppy desperately needed, I offered to foster her. I drove to pick her up the same day (Surprise, honey! I have a puppy!), and fortunately had all of the dog equipment I needed to get her through the night. And so began my life with Fiona.

Fiona slept for the first two or three days she was with us. She woke up for potty breaks, to eat a little, and then went back to sleep. That was a pretty good indication that the owners had made the best decision for this little dog- I think she was so intensely over-stimulated with three other puppies around that she hadn’t been sleeping enough. Once she had caught up on her rest, we began our work in earnest. It took about a week before she would approach my husband, for attention, but the first time she wandered over and laid down in his lap, he was hooked. By that time, so was I.

Every potty walk was a training opportunity, and we did not bring her outside without treats of some kind. Every single person she saw was associated with treats, either because they gave them to her or because I was essentially shoveling them into her mouth as they walked past. She went to puppy class about twice a week, and had separate puppy play times in addition to classes. I exposed her to all my trainer friends’ non-aggressive dogs, my parents’ dogs, and my in-laws’ cats. She went to University Village to meet people and puppies, to Home Depot to receive treats around all the scary sights and sounds there, took tons of car rides, visited the vet for lots of cookies, and essentially had a socialization blitz for the next two months.

For the first month that I had Fiona, I didn’t have to worry about her jumping up on people- she was too scared to approach strangers and my husband and I had already taught her to sit for attention. When she did start investigating strange people, I was so excited that I would’ve let her jump on them, anyway. I’d much rather have a dog that’s so excited to see people that she’s bouncing all over the place than the dog that bites someone out of fear. Now that she’s 9 ½ months old, I hesitate to discourage her from the crazy greeting she gives her favorite people, since it took so much work to have her even tolerate direct eye contact without shivering.

The longer I have Fiona, the more I internalize (even though I’ve said this to owners a thousand times) that her training is a life-long project. She’s just now going through her second fear phase, and all of the things we worked so hard to counter-condition when she was tiny have become scary again. I find myself breaking out the treats and taking a deep breath before every walk again, and am still amazed at the things that trigger her. (Yes Fiona, I know there is an umbrella. AND that man has a hood?! How DARE he!) I also really see what a difference mental and physical exercise make in her reactivity. The days when I haven’t had a chance to take her for a good long zoom, she’s so much more alert to everything around her, and often picks up on things that I would never even notice if I didn’t have her with me.  She is a lot of work.

For all the work that she’s been, however, there have also been some things that have been ridiculously easy with her. For example, so far she hasn’t done any counter-surfing. I have left a forgotten plate of pizza on the kitchen counter with her barricaded in with it, and it will still be there when I return. She also doesn’t chew on inappropriate things, she gets along fantastically with other dogs (so far- she’s still a puppy, so that may change when she matures), housetrained very easily, and has always ridden well in the car (with a Kong and stuffed animals and chew toys). She has endeared herself to Nick completely, which is very important to me, and has been fantastic with my parrot, Kiwi. (Actually, her fear was rather helpful in this case. It only took one instance of Kiwi unexpectedly flapping off of her play stand and landing near Fiona for my poor cowardly dog to decide this angry green ball of fluff was something best avoided.)

All in all, I got very lucky. Since I’ve found Fiona, I’ve also come across two other dogs that would have been much easier to own and would have probably fit into my life just as easily. But having this project dog has made me much more empathetic to the owners of the dogs I work with. And it’s brought me to the conclusion that it’s not about finding a dog without any issues, but one whose issues you’ll be able to work with. If you’ve seen RENT, it’s summed up pretty well- “I’m looking for baggage that goes with mine.”

Got any stories about your new puppy? Are you thinking about adopting a puppy? Do you have questions about finding a puppy or setting your new puppy up for success in your new home? We’d love to hear from you!!

When I got Nickel, my oldest dog, I heard about flyball and decided to take him to class.  He seemed to enjoy it, and did all right, and I had fun.  Since I knew little about structure, sports training, or related topics at the time, it took me a while to figure out that Nick actually was not cut out to dedicate his life to performance sports.  He’s plenty smart, but low-key, and his structure isn’t so great, so he’s not that fast or efficient.  He was satisfied after a few minutes and could not see the point in doing it another ten times.  We wanted to adopt a second dog as a companion for him, and so I gave myself a crash course in dog structure and started identifying traits I hoped to find in a dog who would really love to do flyball with me.

After a careful search, I found a tremendously athletic, drivey, and beautiful female Aussie in rescue.  In addition to these traits, I discovered, Cedi was also quite anxious and dog-reactive.  Between that and various other life circumstances, a couple of years passed before we were really ready to dive into flyball.  She had no trouble with the physical skills — running, jumping, box turn, ball carry.  The mental skills, staying focused on me and unreactive when there were a lot of dogs zooming around and barking, were much more difficult.  I got tremendous lessons in helping a reactive dog as I took her first through some basic obedience classes (no running, no balls), then some agility classes (running dogs, no balls!), and then back to flyball classes (running dogs carrying tennis balls).  She became a stellar athlete, running any position in our club’s “A” team, participating in the team’s record time that stood for a couple of years, and often double-running the whole weekend with nary a mistake.  One year she was even among the top 250 point-earning dogs in NAFA: North American Flyball Association.  Flyball reduced her reactivity.  She could walk around a tournament without a growl, and even just once-weekly practice took the edge off so she could live a comfortable life.

When she was six, she and Nickel and I moved from California to Oregon.  I’d planned to join a team an hour from the house I bought, but this turned out to be a challenge.  There was no competition-oriented team closer to me, so I started one myself.  I then realized that no one in the area seemed to know how to teach a good box turn.  Though I’d only assisted at my old club’s classes, I felt I had something to offer in this new market, so I started teaching classes.  Meanwhile, it was time to add a puppy to my family, so I brought home Mellie, a Border Collie from a carefully researched breeder.  I knew so much more now; it was so much easier to teach flyball to Mellie!

Flyball is now one of the main things I do for fun.  My club, the Portland Tail Blazers, has grown slowly with a solid core of members who get along reasonably well and share goals of training well and competing with dedication and integrity.  Flyball is a team sport, and attending tournaments can be grueling.  Tournament days can be long, eight to ten or sometimes even twelve or more hours.  In our region, the majority of the tournaments are held in British Columbia, at least a five or six-hour drive from Portland.  Tournament days are a combination of “hurry up and wait” punctuated by several ten-minute intervals of intense excitement when your race comes up on the schedule.  Exhaustion and stress can make it harder to get along even with people you get along well with!  Having a wonderful group makes all the difference.

I should add that there is also some “non-team” flyball now.  The newer league, United Flyball League International offers singles and pairs racing in addition to the regular four-dog format.  Unaffiliated dogs can race, and the singles format allows for very accurately timed speed trials, making for some fun statistics.

In addition, we get to do some fun stuff closer to home.  We receive quite a few requests to do demonstrations at events such as dog park fun days, and every year we participate in a number of these.  Our favorite demo opportunity is half time at Portland Trail Blazers games.  The staff get our equipment onto the court and set up in about two minutes; then we race six or seven rapid-fire heats; and then we get out.  We often make the races a little closer for entertainment purposes, and put a little verve into our tug and disc rewards in the runback.  A little showmanship doesn’t hurt!  We’ve played to a full house a few times, but even when the game is not sold out, it’s exhilarating to feel the energy of around 20,000 spectators.  The dogs seem totally unfazed.  They see their jumps and box and know what to do!  The more social ones often get to pose for pictures with Blazer Girls, and Spam, the tiny Staffordshire Bull Terrier, invariably gets a huge amount of attention as she looks like a toy pit bull. (Spam is the model for our club logo, and one of the reasons we take a firm anti-BSL stance.)

Although flyball seems far removed from my “real work” of being a dog behavior consultant, it’s actually been a big help for me.  In flyball contexts, I work with some very intense, aroused, high-drive dogs.  I’ve learned to tug like a pro, and how to use and control tug (and other intense play rewards) in a safe and positive way.  Flyball directly presents the issue of a dog being able to focus and behave safely in the immediate presence of things that often trigger reactive or aggressive behavior:  Running dogs, growling or barking dogs, people who run, yell, or wave stuff around, and so on.  A flyball dog must pass another teammate nose to nose with both running near top speed, in a lane two feet wide.  Being able to do this really helps dogs stop worrying so much about a dog invading their space!  All this experience has built my confidence in working with dogs that intimidate many people (including some trainers) and has given me tools to help them more effectively.  I just talked to a new client who specifically sought me out because I had experience with high-drive, reactive working dogs.

Of course, as Nickel taught me early on, flyball is not the right sport for every dog. In my next blog, I will talk about another specific type of dog that, surprisingly, may not be a good candidate for this sport.

Do you participate in flyball with your dog? What is it like to train your dog for flyball? Do you enjoy competitions? What is your favorite thing about this sport? What’s your least favorite? I can’t wait to hear from fellow flyball enthusiasts!