I know I've quoted it before, but I need to say it again just so everyone knows where I'm coming from. Remember that scene in Miss Congeniality when Gracie has her interview with the other finalists? She does a great job and then adds in her own addendum after the applause. Gracie's coach (Victor Melling) states "One brief shining moment...and then that mouth."
That's pretty much how the next two years are going to be.
My mouth will probably get me into trouble and whoever makes blood pressure medication will probably ask me to make commercials when I start downing pills by the dozen.
Having graduated last May with a Bachelor's, I'm just starting school (again!) to become a vet tech. And since vet tech school is not dog training school, I've agreed to keep my mouth shut (aka "Smile and nod") whenever we go through the behavior segments, as well as do my job whenever I have to care for the dogs...who are required to wear headcollars. Gentlemen and ladies, start your bets as to when I blow a gasket.
Anyway, the chapter on animal behavior in the $88, 10-lb monster of a book is quite amusing. That phrase on "technicians should encourage owners to use [a head halter] as standard practice in place of choke chains or pinch collars"? Nope. They'll hate me for it. I'll begrudgingly walk their dogs on them (with a backup kennel lead), but you will not hear such recommendations coming out of my mouth. Maybe out of the mouth of the tech standing next to me. But not mine.
I'd also like to discuss something else in that chapter that makes training a little touchy. As you've probably guessed, when referring to dog behavior, everything is all behaviorism and "Punishment doesn't work." There's also a section in here that I'll dissect over a few blogs called "Guidelines for evaluating a dog trainer or behavioral consultant" with a subheading of "Finding and working with dog trainers."
One bullet notes "Avoid trainers who offer guarantees about results. They are either ignoring or do not understand the complexity of animal behavior."
The problem with this is that it puts you, the consumer and dog owner, in danger.
Dog training is both an art and a business with a little science thrown in for good measure. Behavior is something that is indeed complex, I'll give them that. But to not offer a guarantee from a business standpoint is suicide for the company. Any good businessman wants someone to use his product and be satisfied with it, but if he does not back it up with some type of guarantee and money-back offer, three things will happen: unsatisfied customers, many of whom can be quite outspoken, can spread the word that some of your products are of iffy quality, others will sue you to get their money back since they have no other recourse, and unles he's doing some deals involving offshore accounts, the business will most likely lose revenue.
In the sense of dog training, many trainers and training classes will outline what is expected during the course of the class. The dog will learn sit, heel, down, etc etc. But is this guaranteed? Will the dog KNOW for sure how to do those by the end of the session, or will it just know how to perform for a cookie? Everyone here knows the story after story we get of dogs who have graduated petstore training classes who act as if they know nothing.
This, in my opinion, is why guarantees are necessary.
The class has expectations of the dogs and a list of goals for them to meet, and I'm sure every person who takes their dog in there just wants a well-behaved pet they can take anywhere. And the truth is, every dog out there (physically and mentally able) is capable of being That Dog, which is why good trainers DO offer a guarantee on their services. Making excuses for why a dog cannot do a particular exercise gets you nowhere, and in fact sets the dog back, not because of its own limitations (real or imagined), but because the owner sets HER OWN limitations. Human limitations are not shared by dogs, and nor are excuses.
When I come out of a training class, I want to know that my dog can sit, down, heel, come, etc. on command, the first time, and with a wag in his tail and spring in his step. These results should be GUARANTEED in any training program, if nothing else, because they are the most basic things a dog should know. I can be a bit more lenient on other things: competition obedience isn't for every dog, nor is Schutzhund or agility. Anyone who offers guarantees that my dog will break speed records in agility after taking a few classes is wearing a bumhat!
Simply put, money-back guarantees are necessary in dog training and should be required. Too many dogs are abandoned for behavior issues already, and to not be able to tell an owner "I CAN fix this, and if not, then my efforts are at no cost to you" starts up the big flashing neon warning sign in my mind that reads "This is a fraud." Unfortunately, I am not everyone (let's all give thanks for that!), but in this case, a word to the wise is imperative.
As for those poor sods who paid money for a course in cookie-bribery? Refund all expenses paid to every one of them. I know they worked hard to try and make their dogs understand what they want, but until each dog comes out of those classes on the road to knowing the most basic commands under the most pressing of distractions and any behavioral issues successfuly cleared up, don't make their owners pay a cent. In the end, they'll just spend the money they saved on a trainer who will actually help them with their dog rather than dispense feel-good advice on the guise of being "on the cutting edge of behavioral science" and "dog-friendly."
Let me add also that this blog is applying the assumption that anyone who goes into training with a professional is actively working with their dog using that professional's advice and seeking to get the most for their money out of that particular training program. Unfortunately, many people who go into a training class do it with the attitude that all they need to do is find that one magic moment when things just "fall into place" or apply that one "magic tool" and from that moment on, the dog will be perfect. This is where the guarantee falls apart, and as Adam describes in his book, the dog might work for the trainer...but when it comes to working for the owner, the dog all of a sudden turns back into its old self, responding inconsistently or not listening at all. Professional dog trainers can pretty much tell this type of owner, and they're not fooled by the excuses that "But we worked on it!" when obviously, the lesson was neglected. This post then, is geared more toward the owner/handler who is actively seeking to make a change in his dog's behavior and using all advice offered by the trainer.
I've noticed a phenomenon that I don't think is new, but it definitely becoming more prevalent.
I first thought about it when I started reading about these new halter things for dogs and how they were much more painless, funfun, etc...and I thought "Oh, OK" and moved on. It wasn't until I recently read through a dog magazine (pet products for people who think their dogs need poofy spa stuff), observed people interacting with pups at the pet store and read a spot-on entry on a horse-related blog that it all came together.
I call it the Gentle Overload. I'm sure there's a more appropriate word for it consisting of four letters, but I'll refrain from that.
See, when I started reading about halters, the advertising suggested how gently you were to use it: it "gently" turns the dog's head to the side using only "gentle" pressure from you. The no-pull harnesses "gently" guide the dog to the side when it pulls.
Please note: there is NOTHING 'gentle' about putting one of these restraint devices on a dog, especially for a dog that really doesn't a) WANT to wear one, or b) ACKNOWLEDGE that it is even wearing one!
Various pet products tout their comfort and how they take the main idea above and beyond [with my comments in brackets]: booties "protect precious paws from mud, sale, fire ants" among other things [I didn't know I should walk my dog where there's mud? Should I not have played in that area where I saw them spraying fire ants?], high-priced Dremels "gently grind away nails...without scaring your pet" [how can one 'gently' grind away something? Should I tell my manicurist to not be as rough with those nasty nail files? Or should my farrier get a finer rasp so he doesn't slough away too much of my horse's little hoovsie?], and an eye cleaner "gently cleans lids and lashes" [yeah, right! If it's needed, of course, but I don't think your dog so much cares that its eyes look battingly beautiful as much as it wants your darn fingers off a very sensitive area!].
Maybe someone can enlighten me on why we suddenly have to treat our pets with kid gloves. Just like with the mustang on the horse blog (which can be read here, but the way), it seems more and more these days that our pets are made of the most fragile bone china, or the lightest balsa wood. We must understand that they can hurt us very badly, but to otherwise lift a finger against them is to fracture their fragile self-esteem, or even cause them to wither to dust and blow away.
Is it something to do with the fact that more and more people are relating to their dogs as children and treating them as such? If so, let me say this: you may have a dog in PLACE of a child, but your dog is NOT a child! Oh, I understand that dogs communicate better with humans that our closest relatives, but that doesn't make them human. It's similar to children who dress up dolls and put them in strollers as if they were real children: the child might relate well to the doll because it is so similar to being a real person, but it is still not real. (Thank goodness for this, because I'd just come unglued if TODDLERS starting having children. Heaven knows that I go on enough rants about teen pregnancy!)
Or perhaps this craze has something to do with how dogs are being treated nowadays? Recent news polls indicate that people (Americans in this case, but I suspect we are not alone) consider pets family. More and more pets are kept in the home these days, and in the home comes more interactions and a closer relationship. Unfortunately, we are back to the argument that keeping a pet in the house doesn't make it human: it simply means that at the very best, your dog gets a higher quantity of attention, interaction and care. While I VERY tempted to say that it is a "quality relationship" the dog gets by living inside, sometimes it is not. A quality relationship is a healthy one in which the dog respects the owners and their belongings, where the dog is well-behaved and responds to requests and commands in a prompt, relaxed, confident manner. (This would explain why, while my friend owns the dog, I have a more quality relationship with it when I am over there because I don't accept dominance behaviors!) However, this seems not to be the case for many dog owners. Because of their proximity to what we define as family, this mindset starts becoming something of a problem: Would I treat my little brother as I treat the dog? Why should I, when the dog is family?
Maybe the pure-positive advocates are at fault for the Gentle craze. In expecting us to train dogs without the use of a fair correction, they are in fact pushing pacifist regimes upon an animal that doesn't understand the use of checks and balances: indeed, we use the figurative imagery of the phrase "give and take," while the dog instead uses the literal meaning! I was once given the excuse that "Mother nature is harsh and we don't have to be." Whew, good thing we've found a way to tell her to stop all those tornadoes in Dixie alley, keep those darn plates still so we don't have earthquakes and tsunamis, and stop those nasty hurricanes that destroy luxury beach houses! I guess we aren't so cruel after all anyway, what with all those wars we have going on, assaults, robberies, scammers, murders, and those pedophiles are just filling a need, right? Good thing us humans are so much more peaceful than those nasty berries that give us the runs!
Dogs are extremely resilient creatures, as are most animals. We've all seen the cases where the dog or cat or horse could be used as an effective anatomy lesson on the skeletal structure, and with some care, medication if needed, and properly rationed food, the physical condition of the animal will improve. Their bodies are tough and can go through things that we humans cringe merely thinking about: what normal person looks forward getting kicked in the groin by a cow or running up and down the fells all day collecting errant sheep? What human will remain stoic and silent after a hit-and-run when a bone is sticking out of the leg, or the leg is connected by a fragment of skin?
Just as dogs' bodies are not fragile, neither are their minds. They have personalities and temperaments just like people, and some people take this to mean that their dog MUST be human, because obviously resemblance equals BEING. Oh I wish that were the case sometimes, although the thought of having to pick micro-mini horse turds out of the far corners of my room is debatable! The mind (and body) of a dog is, simply put, unbreakable through most pet owners' means: there are few things the average dog owner can do to truly break his dog short of actually trying to, and at that point we no longer call him the average dog owner. We do not put our dogs' bodies to the test with beatings, starvations and harsh chemical treatments. Even a lack of training doesn't break the mind; it only indicates that there is a relationship void that needs filled, and behavioral connections that need rewired.
So whose fault is it that we are so afraid to hurt our poor babies?
I'm guessing it's somewhere on the other end of the leash from the four-legger.
In light of the fact that Australia has been a bit wonky with its views of such training collars as the pinch and the remote, here are a few links containing information about bans, laws, and where to find products within the country (since apparently the RSPCA is banning imports in some areas). Something to keep in mind is that it's more commonly called either the Pressure Point collar (hence why you see a lot of "PP collar" references in some places), or a Behavior Modification collar. Anyone with additional links or information, please post a thread in the forum so we can add to it!
A private blog keeping up-to-date (though not anymore, sadly) of the laws regarding the pinch collar in Australia
Some Aussies with working dogs have had success ordering equipment (including pinch collars) from Euro Joe, but again, I'm not sure about the import situation.
K9 Force is located in Australia and has prong collars available for any size within the country. PLEASE NOTE there is no order form, as you must email in an order as specified on this page. I recommend looking around this site if you are in need of some hands-on help in Australia; it has some great information.
Another working dog site that sells pinch collars in Australia, but make sure to take out a second mortgage...this place tends to run a little pricey (unless I'm just naive and think they get any cheaper than that in a place where they're essentially banned).
A letter to the Victorian government to lift the ban on prong collars. This site is full of working dog owners in Australia. It's a good look-around too. Be warned that links are hidden unless you are a registered member. [It's come to my attention that this direct link, copied and pasted, to what I consider a well-written piece is consistently coming up 404. If that happens to you, click on the "Blogs" link in the bar under the cool-looking banner and scroll down to the writings. Member 'Top Dog' has the only two blog entries currently, and the letter is the second one.]
Chris Flegler has a Sit Means Sit satellite in Brisbane. If you are near that area, I highly recommend checking him out. He even has some videos up, among other SMS trainers nationwide. Sit Means Sit is a highly respected organization of trainers who use the e-collar, and their results are fantastic. It's quite the opposite of what the RSPCA wants you to believe regarding dogs who've been trained with an e-collar!
Suzi Jones has a tip straight from customs: "A tip from another forum I belong to: one person said they had their prong collar sent in 2 boxes and it made it through customs (and that this tip came from the customs office).
If you want to get a prong collar for your dogs sent in from another country Have the links sent in a separate box then the chain piece. Cost a bit more for the shipping but better then the 100 or so Aussie dollars to buy on in country."
Again, if anyone has any other link submissions or information regarding the laws of training collars in the general Oceania area, create a thread for it for the forum.
This is v2.0. I personally liked v1.0 better, but since it got eaten in the teh intertubes, I had to retype it. Same basic message, same snark, just...not as good. Enjoy anyway.
In reading through Suzanne Clothier's book, she has a few pages deicated to the concept of a dog pulling its owner along on a leash. She mentions, and I paraphrase...
When we see someone dragging a dog behind them, it is cause for an argument of cruelty. Yet when a dog is in front of the owner, dragging him along with a possible accompaniment of hacks, wheezes and coughs because of the tight collar, all of a sudden it becomes normal, accepted and OK.
I think a lot of people call it 'being a dog.' I'd go so far as to say that this is an excuse to make up for a lack of training or motivation to train the dog, but I'll draw the line at the owner who knows differently and is actively searching on how to make 'being a dog' into 'being my dog.'
It drew me to how we raise (raised?) children. We teach them society's rules as well as how to be polite and do something like ask if they want to pet a strange dog. I have been lucky with Mallory so far, and every child who's petted her at the park has asked my permission first. This gave me a moment to explain to them how she likes to be petted, as well as warn them that they'll inevitably get a SLURP on their hands. There's nothing like a dog and kid team who's happy because they're doing things right.
And then there are times when I take Malgal for her walk, quite deliberately close to or during off-leash hours at the park. I take advantage of the potential distractions as well as the presence of children and their toys so she not only learns to work under some distractions, but also continue to learn that all the wheely things that kids ride aren't out to get her. (This is why summer should be a dog trainer's dream: between the multitudes of dogs outside and the noise from urchins not in school, there are more then plenty of distractions!)
Despite our common cultural thinking that dogs are our children, they are most supremely lacking in the major manners that most people try to teach their progeny, the least of which is to simply ask before allowing their dog to come up and stick their collective nose up my dog's butt. I know this is simply how dogs do things, but sometimes I do not WANT their dog's nose in my dog's butt. It is rude, and when I'm obviously walking her at a tight heel and keeping her attention on me, the least I deserve is the "Is it OK if my dog approaches yours?"
Don't get me wrong, it is nice to have a dog that socializes with others, and Mallory does get her playtime. It's just not the first thing on the agenda.
Unfortunately, adding this requirement will also bring upon me the stigma of having a dog that doesn't want to interact, whether for aggression or fear or any other reason. I don't have an aggressive dog, despite the pinch collar. My dog is most certainly confident in herself and presents herself as the queen bee when approached. I am not afraid of other dogs that might try to come up. But as usual, if their dog is denied the opportunity to interact with mine, a majority of people it seems will do some quick critical thinking that will last about a second, and as often happens, come to a conclusion that is simply wrong.
So if our dogs are indeed our children, since they cannot ask for themselves whether or not they can approach, let's do it for them. It is not OK to approach every dog anyway, and I personally make a point to walk on by another dog no matter what, and if it looks safe and the owner is interested, I will ask if it's OK that they sniff. It is simply etiquette and I know I'm not the only one who does it...am I? How come it is OK, even required that a child ask to approach any strange dog, yet we just let it happen when it's between two dogs? The same outcome can still happen, and the same people will still be upset because something happened against another dog, and "Thank heavens it wasn't a child!" That's probably because the child ASKED and was warned of what would happen otherwise.
And as an added bonus, let's start teaching them the manners we (or at least most people) expect out of our human children. That means no temper tantrums when things don't go the way they want, and things to play with during downtime so they don't run amok and destroy everything short of...well, everything.
The house had sat empty for too long, I guess. My parents weren't quite ready for another dog, but it turns out that she was ready for them and as the saying goes, the rest is history.
Sweet Mallory stepped out of the car into a new environment that wasn't surrounded by fence and didn't have armed guards. She had been in a prison-training program and had some training under her belt, enough to know what she was supposed to do yet little enough to know that she was supposed to do it every time. She walked on a loose leash, sat (in a very unlady-like position), lay down, and had about a 50% recall rate. Whoever taught her, though, put their own signature onto her training: she sat on command on her hip instead of on her two back legs and her Come consisted of a good recall that would automatically turn into a finish into heel position.
Apparently in the prison, she lived in the honors dorm where the men had access to...a microwave. She was scared of the dishwasher, strangely attracted to the low rumblings of the washing machine, and if it was a strange shape or made a funny noise, she didn't like it. We're a bit concerned that she isn't going to like the target range, but so far she thinks the farm is her playground and also that the screened-in porch at home was added onto the house just for her.
Her eyes go all slanty, her ears go down and her tail just sweeps side to side when she's happy. She doesn't jump anymore, and after a few weeks of crossing her legs, she's finally learning that the one area in the backyard is her bathroom instead of the whole thing. She doesn't say a peep when she's in the crate and no matter how long she's held it, the bedding is always dry in the morning.
And my mother loves the convenience and ease of the quick-release pinch collar.
She officially knows where we live now...she ran off when she was out for a walk with our neighbor and thankfully ran straight home and waited at the back door to be let in, so we know she's adjusted to our house. We've laid down some basic rules already and only given her free run in a few rooms, but the time has come for her to officially start obedience training with my family. Her sits will be cleaned up, her recalls will become more consistent, and best of all she'll be able to have play dates with neighborhood dogs since she speaks Dog. The neighborhood German Shepherd had to repeat himself a few times when he invited her to play, but she eventually accepted and they had a fun time together! She plays pretty rough and bares her teeth a lot, but he never said a word about her being over-the-top...so I'm really looking forward to that.
In moving home, I'll be helping with retraining Mallory, so hopefully there will be more frequent updates about how she's doing and what we still have to work on. We'll be enrolling in the local training club to help her work around other dogs and maybe going back to Zeke's trainer if we need some extra hands-on professional help, but otherwise we have our work cut out for us and she's got some big pawprints to fill.
I don't consider myself the smartest person in the world, but I at least think that I can pronounce my dog breeds. Maybe it's the region, maybe it's my education level, or maybe it's just that I'm a dog person...but let's take a look at three commonly mispronounced ones I have to put up with on a daily basis in the spirit of humor, truth and history.
Papillon (mispronounced "puh-pill-un," "PAB-il-on," correct "pap-ee-YAWN"), a small spaniel-like dog with rather large ears that stand straight up. When the hair on the ears grows to a suitable length, they resemble butterfly wings, where the breed gets its name. However, the reason we don't go around asking if your dog is a Butterfly is because the French got to it first: when they started breeding for that radar-dish pricked ear (as opposed to the drop-eared variety known as the Phalène), they decided to call it a butterfly&in French, of course.
Dachshund (mispronounced "dot-sun," "dock-shund," "dash-hound," correct "dox-und") is a short-legged, long-backed dog originally bred to flush badgers and rabbits in Germany. Because the modern version of the breed was created by those darned non-English speakers, we must grow a collective spine and learn the proper way to say the name instead of attempting to Anglicize it to the nth degree. The dog was named appropriately for which it was bred, that being Dachs, or "Badger," and Hund, "Dog." With English being a Germanic language, perhaps we can all take this to heart and keep good relations with our fellow planet-dwellers by keeping with the breed's history and proper name. There's a reason I didn't go into cars, people...let's try to remember that.
Coton de Tulear (mispronounced "cotton-day-too-lee-air," correct "coh-TAHN-de-too-lee-air") Sounds French and probably is, but this breed is actually from the city of Tulear (now Toliara), Madagascar where it is actually the island's national dog. In short, it appears as a Bichon Frisé with a softer, more cottony textured coat, hence the name. It has a rather fuzzy history, from being companion dogs to ratters on ships...the former seeming more plausible than the latter because Cotons have little prey drive and the ones I have met have one sole purpose in life, that being to be with people.
What kind of excuse is this? Is this some kind of blanket statement for dogs that really do have issues, or is it more the problem of the owners? Let's take a look at both.
I've been hearing this a lot lately, mostly from people who got rid of one dog and want to immediately replace it. And sure, while wanting to have another dog isn't a sin in and of itself, but few people take the time to really investigate why the event occurred and what could have come of it.
However, there's also another perfectly likely situation that most people aren't willing to consider: their dog wasn't trained.
Back in December, a county-run shelter was outed for some pretty bad practices, such as altering medical/behavior records, adopting out vicious dogs, severe overcrowding and poor management overall. The independent firm hired to take care of the management problems did the job quite well, but during the investigation, an article appeared in the local paper regarding the vicious dogs issue that opened my eyes to what was really going on, and I figure it's good enough to let you all read the main part [hold on, this actually does having something to do with the topic at hand...I'm not just being random!]:
Vicious dogs get adopted, some say
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
Workers at the Franklin County animal shelter don't knowingly let vicious dogs out the door, its director says. But bitten or blindsided owners tell a different tale.
"There was blood all over my family room," said Julie Thompson of Hilliard.
She and her husband, Arlie, had fallen in love with Rel, a husky who tested fine at the shelter with a family dog before adoption on Sept. 2, Mrs. Thompson said.
But within four hours of bringing him home, Rel was back at the shelter: He had attacked the Thompsons' other husky and bloodied one of their two beagles.
"My dogs are my children," Mrs. Thompson said, adding that all were rescued animals.
Rel's search for a family didn't end there. The shelter put the 36-pound, year-old dog up for adoption two more times.
And twice more, he was returned.
Shelter Director Lisa Wahoff said Rel was held for observation and training after the Thompsons brought him back to make sure he'd be a good pet. Such training has succeeded with other dogs. Randy, a 43-pound mixed breed, bit a shelter volunteer. After seven months of rehab, new owner Phyllis Sage was carefully screened and warned. She wrote Wahoff recently to say that Randy is a sweet dog: "We feel truly blessed."
Rel did well in training, but it didn't stick. "He did well in a large play group; no aggression was seen," a shelter card says.
Rel's second owner returned him Oct. 30, one day after adoption. Her dog was "initiating attacks" with Rel, she wrote.
He lasted two days with his third owner. On Nov. 12, she noted that Rel was "sweet, smart, affectionate." He also "attacked my sheltie and drew blood."
The shelter euthanized Rel the next day.
The number of dogs returned for biting people is statistically small, about 0.7 percent -- or 24 dogs -- a year, Wahoff said. Overall, people have returned 285 of the 3,234 dogs adopted through November.
"Most say, 'It was too much dog' or 'We're moving,' " Wahoff said. "We do a good job of trying to match up people and dogs. Dogs are dogs, and you can't predict."...
OK OK, I know there are SO many problems with a LOT of things in this article, but let's stick to the topic. Below is my response, the stereotypical "letter to the editor" that never really got sent in, but in case you couldn't figure out the main problem in the article, let me outline it for you here:
I read with interest the article about vicious dogs being adopted out from the Franklin County Shelter, but as I reached the end, my interest turned to astonishment. Should I be appalled that dogs with behavioral issues are adopted out? Of course, however, my concern is more for what we are doing with these dogs.
Has our instant-gratification mindset taken us to the point where we "special order" our dogs to fit a mold we create for them? Have our ideals and expectations sunk to where we expect housetraining to be the only "training" a dog receives in its lifetime, and obedience training to be optional? Columbus has a wonderful training club located in close proximity to the shelter that can help people with behavioral difficulties and obedience training. Instead of facing these problems and working to solve them, either with the Columbus All-Breed Training Club or with a private trainer, people choose to abdicate their responsibility and return the dog to the shelter. I applaud the shelter staff for putting in the time to train dogs while they are there, but ultimately it is not their responsibility to deliver to us a perfect dog. We must continue that training once the dog is adopted, and this is where many well-intentioned rescuers are lacking. A dog is a responsibility as well as a pet, a service animal, or even a furry "child," and it amazes me how many owners give up on their pet simply because they didn't think to train it or didn't know how.
The unfortunately husky, Rel, didn't have to meet his fate at the tip of a needle. All he needed was someone who was willing to invest the time and dedication into teaching him the appropriate rules of our world in a way he could understand. Dogs will not always act as themselves in such as strange and stressful environment as a shelter, and they also might not adapt to a new home those first few days. I'm sure every child who is the "new kid" on that first day of school is no different.
In the end, I cannot fathom the hypocrisy: Shelters and pet lovers everywhere are attempting to educate how no animal is disposable, yet here we are throwing them away and dumping their problems on someone else because they do not fit our ideals of a "perfect pet." It is our job to teach them how to live in human society and not to otherwise abandon or euthanize them before putting forth that effort to the best of our abilities.
That last line is a bit vague though, because "to the best of our abilities" seems to be defined by a lot of pure positive humaniacs as "Tsk, guess he's just not trainable." Sounds pretty "positive," right? But I digress&
To get a bit personal, my dog had bitten me not a month after we brought him home from the shelter. He had otherwise been very sweet and loving, a typical Lab/golden personality, but apparently I was the lucky one who stumbled upon the dark side of the moon instead of my parents. It was a very deliberate bite, but also very quick and to the point: I wasn't mauled and no flesh was consumed. Did we consider sending him back? If you read the eulogy a few posts down, you would know that we did, and while I was the one who gave the ultimatum, my parents were also right to say the same thing. While I wasn't a baby at the time, I was still young and I can only imagine the turmoil they must've felt at that time: their perfect dog just turned on me, their daughter, and sent me to the hospital for stitches. Is this the kind of dog we really want for a 4th child?
I think the important thing here is that we didn't give up on Zeke. We knew there was a way to fix his aggression, but we didn't know how and if we couldn't find the appropriate person to teach us, then he would have to go back. We were lucky to find the trainer we had, and this is what we here at DogProblems are for. Unless the dog you have is truly a bad match, unless it really is hardwired wrong in the head, unless you really don't have the motivation to fix the problem and just pass it along to someone else, your dog can be retrained.
Will it be easy? Most likely, no! The hardest part about searching for a dog trainer is admitting that maybe the dog behaves the way he does not because there's something wrong with him&it might be something you're doing too! (The easiest part of searching for a trainer is thinking you're going to get a cheap quick fix from a magic bullet, FYI.) It takes maturity to admit that part of the reason your dog bit someone, chewed the furniture, peed on the bed, ran off or killed small animals might have something to do with a lack of a proper relationship with your dog. It's not a process in which we lay blame to the owner and/or the dog, but in reading through the Secrets book, during a training session or even on the forum, we want you to see what might have went wrong and how you can fix it. But here's the thing, and here we come full-circle: any trainer can start the learning process in a dog, but we can't finish it for you. If you are to fix a dog problem, be it aggression, chewing, or even pulling, there will come a time when you have to be on the other end of the leash and not me.
(By the way...just in case you think a dog can't be retrained from aggression, consider this: Zeke became a therapy dog and lived 10 all-too-quick years with a family that loved him enough to give him a second chance. Can't beat that happy ending! Anyone think he might've achieved that had we returned him?)
EDIT: My Problem has been pulled to a rescue organization and placed in a foster home. He'll hopefully have no trouble at all finding a permanent home, so now I can focus on more pressing Problems.
He's an underweight (probably should be 90 lbs, right now at about 75-80 lbs), intact marshmallow of a Rottweiler who's biggest problem is that he thinks anyone around is fair game to give him love and pats. Yeah, he hikes his leg and will use his weight when on the leash sometimes, but we can work past that. His head is probably slightly less than the size of a basketball and his paw is as big as the palm of my hand. I can barely wrap my entire hand around his muzzle. I don't think I've heard a single Woof come out of him the times I've been around him, even when all the other dogs are going crackhead in the kennels.
His mate (the female with whom he was picked up) would have been my first choice but she was adopted first. She was just like him, except more feminine and slightly more forward with the concept of "If there's an empty lap, I will soon be in it." The first time I worked with her, I had to clip her nails. She didn't say a word to me...obviously didn't like it, but didn't struggle too badly either. The one time she barely put her teeth on me was when I clipped slightly close to the quick, and even then she put her ears back, squinted and then tried to pull the leash out of my hand. "Sorry, I know I wasn't supposed to do that; can I do this instead?"
But now that she's gone and no longer considered a problem, I've focused on the male, whom I've been affectionately calling Big Brother. Just teaching him how to walk nice(r), maybe starting on a redimentary Come, all the usual things in order to make a dog into a good family member who will hopefully be kept inside the house instead of chained to a tree or left in a kennel as an outside-only dog.
See, he's become something of a Problem, yes with the capital "P" included. Because I want him to be with me in a forever home. I'm glad adoption fees have gone up, otherwise when I move back home for a little bit, he'd be coming with me and no matter what, you wouldn't hear me complain at all...
Mom told me that she had to bribe me to go shopping with her that day, back in June 1998. She had to promise that if I went with her, we would stop by the humane society to "take a look." Unfortunately, when we turned the corner and found you in room C pen 7, we knew we found The One. You looked so sad sitting there in that pen, but the moment we knelt down and offered you our hands, your eyes brightened and you said "There you are! I've been waiting for you this whole time!" Your tag read "Name: Tre, Age: 7 months, Reason for leaving: Owners were moving and could not take him with them." Your adoption fee was $72, complete with shots, neutering and lisence.
When we took you for the recommended "test drive," you showed us something of your previous owners: even at 7 months, no matter the excuse they gave when they dropped you off, they loved you and put so much time into you that you didn't pull on the leash once. You also dropped that sad, "poor me" face and suddenly came to life outside those kennels. We had our name card on your cage and you knew we would come back for you once we convinced Dad to come with us. When we returned, someone else had their name card on you and had moved ours onto another dog. No dice, we got to you first.
You were so happy on that ride home. Sure, you knew to lay down and ride quietly, but you were so excited...that poor old Peugeot quickly learned the meaning of dog hair inside and out, even before it learned to put up with frat boys and the things that accompanied them. We debated for hours what to name you. Mom wanted you to be an Oscar, but a niggling memory of a guinea pig from fifth grade made me adamant that you were a Zeke.
I remember when we were both young and stupid; you didn't know that I meant it when I said "drop the ball," and I didn't know that you were just as determined to not let go. You gave me two good punctures on my hand that appeared so fast I didn't even have time to cry! (Of course, there was plenty of time for that while I was being stitched up...even with local anesthetic, I could still feel the thread being pulled through my skin.) What you didn't know was that we gave you an ultimatum: you shape up or go back to C7. How the "shaping up" would work, we didn't know...but it had to happen.
Well, we know Craig wasn't your favorite person, especially when he made it plain that he expected to be listened to, even more so when he wanted that darn ball back. You even tried to bite him, but he knew better. Sometimes humans CAN be smarter than dogs.
You learned a lot of things about us those first few months, just as we did about you. You loved your red rubber ball, and even though you couldn't quite catch it all the time, your Frisbee was also a favorite. You seemed to find any item that was textured to pick up and carry, especially when someone came through the door. You also grew to love the farm and the rich cornucopia of scents out there, plus there was a LOT more room to chase that red ball than the back yard. You showed us that you weren't scared of guns, and you quickly learned the rules of the target range to the point where we didn't even need to say anything: we'd just point to your spot to lay down while we were shooting, and when we took off our earmuffs and walked forward to check our targets, you knew it was time to play.
But then, you decided (oh wait, that was me who suggested it!) to star in my 8th grade play as Nana, the dog in Peter Pan. You did awesome with everything, until the performance night, when you didn't listen to the off-stage call to "Come" and instead decided to wander over where Dad and I were playing in the orchestral pit. So sure, you weren't stage material then, but everyone still loved you and the fact that you were such a sweet boy and listened off-leash.
Throughout the training, you earned your Canine Good Citizenship. This wasn't so much of a stretch as it was actually trying to help you get along with other dogs, just so you wouldn't cower when they so much as sniffed you. I don't think Cera helped with that, though...of course, you DID come into her house first without letting her know, so sure, she was technically right to charge you and give you the what-for.
We heard your true calling when we had you certified as a therapy dog. The one organization didn't want you, just because we were both young and stupid...apparently that one little mistake put you on some doggy-FBI blacklist. Thank goodness you never flew anywhere, or else they'd detain you! TDI decided you were worth a shot, though. They signed you up to go to a local hospital, and every Tuesday became your work day. You wore that red collar and yellow tag with pride, but when it came time to work, you became serious. Maybe someone needed to play and de-stress a bit, and you romped with them. But then there would be someone who was crying because a loved one was dying, or a patient would be depressed because of a diagnosis or extended hospital stay...and you knew just who they were and what to do. The hospital staff came to know you, and they'd also know which rooms you visited even after you left!
The years flew by, and I had to leave for college. I'm sure you wondered what all the fuss was about, seeing everything out and being packed up...wondered why there wasn't room in the car. I was also told about how you became depressed after I didn't come back home. Turned out that whenever I moved anywhere, you needed to see where I was staying, see that I was OK, and only then would you stop chewing your feet raw. Sure, seeing the other students in the dorm was a plus (I'm sure the long hall with doors reminded you of the hospital hallways, so naturally you went into Visit mode), but you always brightened up a bit more when you skipped those last few rooms to come into mine.
I took a year off school and moved into another apartment where I was only 5 minutes from the house, but working all the time so I couldn't see you much. I was horrified the one time I went over and was told that you were in surgery, because you had a tendon in your shoulder that had gone wonky. Your arthritis was also a factor in that, but that was our fault really...we should've known better than to play Frisbee with you on our concrete driveway.
Throughout all this, we put up with you. We kept asking why you put dog hairs on our floors and clogged up the air filter. I'd pull entire mats of hair out of the filter vent when I swept it out. You really were like a small child, leaving your multitudes of toys all over the house. Sure, we tried to teach you to put them away, but we gave up...not that you couldn't have learned, but we enjoyed the reminders that you were around, you were always there...plus, whenever you needed one of them to carry around, one was always handy. You never knew when someone was going to come inside the house, and of course you, as the primary greeting party, would give us all you had until you realized "Oh no, I don't have anything to give them! Where's the closest toy?!" You learned most of them by name, no matter how silly the name was, just so you knew to bring whatever we asked. You gave Dad company whenever he went out to the farm, and I know you gave his arm a workout throwing that red ball or Frisbee around.
We became aware of your age when we started seeing the gray around your eyes. You tried to act young still, but we knew better, and you reached your limits a little sooner than usual. You still had your puppy moments, especially when we'd play mouth games: who knew that such a sweet, gentle therapy dog had such large teeth that made such a loud snap when they were playing! Those moments just didn't come as often as they used to.
We noticed you'd slip and slide a little more than normal, and we knew with your bad hips and shoulders, we'd need to take things a little easier when it came to activity. You also started showing a little bit of hearing loss, even though you still claimed you could still hear Mom crunching the lettuce for salad and Dad peeling his after-dinner banana. But when you finally started stumbling a little bit and walking in circles (well, we all do that sometimes, if not for the same reason as you!), the vet told us that you had some spine problems. The prognosis was guarded, but that was the first time we realized that we might lose you. You pulled through that and gave us reason to hope you would be with us forever.
You were such a puppy on your last Christmas. We panicked when we couldn't find your stocking, but you stayed calm and knew it would show itself. Indeed, when it did, you picked it up and carried it so proudly to everyone. "Look what I have! It's that time of the year!" It was the one time of the year you were allowed in the "dog-free" zone, and the worst damage we'd have to worry about was your tail sweeping off ornaments and icicles in its excitement. Every year, you searched--rooted?--through your stocking, looking for that new toy that you could smell through everything else. You broke your puppy stocking hanger more than once trying to get your stocking onto the floor, but he was always fixable. We never did find that one front leg, though.
And then you went downhill, at just enough speed to let us realize that you couldn't be with us forever. First, you were a little bit stiff and couldn't sit or lay down. We didn't realize that you were holding some gas and your bowel was horribly swollen, nor did we notice that weird curvature on your spleen until the vet Xrayed you. She gave you some medication and prescription food, and within a week you bounced back, just like your red rubber ball. I got the call about that at a friend's house while preparing dinner. I told Mom that no matter what, no matter what the time was, no matter what class or work I'd have to miss, if anything bad happened to you, I'd drive the hour and 20 minutes and make it just to be with you.
I did have to make that drive today. You woke up this morning and couldn't stand. You couldn't even go outside to potty and your gums were pale. Even though you were a puppy the night before, sometime during the night, something decided to let loose and bleed horribly inside you. I got the call at 9:20 this morning, called off from work, and was on the road soon after that. I cried the whole way home, all for you. You were my boy, my dog, my best friend...you weren't invincible though. We knew you were in pain, you were about to die, but you waited. You waited that long hour in that exam room just so you could see me walk through the door, when you could finally wag your tail and close your eyes, knowing that everyone you knew was together. Your feet were going cold and your eyes didn't quite want to focus, but you still looked at each of us and we knew what you were saying. We knew it was time.
It hurt to bury you. Ashes are something we can keep with us, but we knew you always wanted to be at the farm. We gave you your red ball and your blankets, and also a banana to snack on...Dad felt guilty eating one earlier and not saving you a piece, even though you weren't there, ready to help him with it, so we had to give you a whole one. We'd never have done it without the help of friends who've gone through this loss before...plus having a backhoe helps when the temps are in the teens and twenties and the ground is otherwise frozen.
I don't think I've cried this much, and I know there's a lot left in there, all for you. People say you were spoiled to be with us, and you were...but the truth is, you spoiled us right back. You didn't pee in the house, you didn't jump up on anyone, you didn't chew anything, you didn't even want to be up on the couch or the bed. Sure, you never turned down an invitation to share a lap on the couch, but you didn't push the issue and assume you could get up without one. You rarely turned down offers for walks, and a lot of neighborhood children will be sad to learn that you are gone. Your best dog-friend Rufus knew what had happened, even before we opened the car door to show him your body. How we're going to tell Tasha and Clancy, we don't know yet.
It's empty here in the house without you. It's almost cold now, almost echoes a little bit. No one stood and watched Mom make her salads, and there was no familiar gold-furred blockade at my feet during dinner. The door will open and there's no one to greet them. No one brings toys anymore, and there's not any click-click-jingle as you walk around the house. Your familiar flag of a tail that announces your soon-to-be presence in the family room isn't there. Your toys are still scattered around the house; where will we put them all now? Square Ball is still by your dishes, Green Bone is under the counter with the hair you'd recently shed, Tasha Toy is at my feet, Bump Ball is still in the basement...what to do with them all now?
There are still many tears left to cry over you, I know. I don't mind so much the fact that you're not in pain anymore, you're a healthy puppy again, it's your presence I miss. You may have made me sneeze and my nose run (OK, more than once), but I didn't care. I know we made your life miserable, making you listen to everything we made you do. I mean, when it comes down to it, all that "down," "sit," "COME HERE DAMMIT" stuff really was all obedience...you did great at it, but what mattered more was the relationship we were honored to share with you and the boundless love you gave us. We always did joke about how that bump on your head held your brain, all two of them gray cells...but indeed your heart held it all and then some. If only we can be half as good.
Here's to you, Zeke old buddy. Go chase that red ball in the sky.
Adopted June 17, 1998; euthanized January 31, 2009. Never a dull moment in between.
Adopting A Dog
