6

Your Training Wheels

One secret of deepening any sort of relationship with our dogs is providing them with leadership they can trust.

You, as a dog owner, are the most critical component of a dog’s hierarchy. You are the compassionate authority, the good parent, the benevolent pack leader, even if the pack consists of just you and your dog.

Once you understand how to be your dog’s pack leader, the real relationship with your dog begins. As leader, your job is to decide when, where, and how resources of food, space, and time are given. If you do your job well, your dog will not only behave properly, he’ll also be happy. Then, once you teach your dog to say please and thank you in order to earn the award of your attention, or the toy, or a treat, you’ll eventually be able to pass along most of the responsibility to him. If you exercise your compassionate authority correctly, in time you’ll be able to draw back on the micromanagement and hardly have to manage at all.

In this chapter, we’ll offer examples of benevolent pack leadership in action and explain why it’s so desperately needed.

MARC Recently I met a fourteen-week-old Labrador puppy I nicknamed Piranha. This puppy was a major biter. He had little bite inhibition, as evidenced by the owner’s girlfriend, who was covered in scars and scratches. Piranha was detached from humans in that he neither asked for nor accepted any form of affection. He was not housebroken. His play with other dogs was aggressive.

I had the dog for only ten days, but I did some preliminary training with him that was appropriate for a three-and-a-half-month-old puppy. Those ten days were composed of 240 hours, or 14,400 minutes, or 864,000 seconds. For each of those 864,000 seconds, I managed the dog’s resources, including how he was permitted to use his mouth, when he ate, and where he eliminated.

Piranha’s real name was Frank, and Frank’s biggest problem was the biting. He was young, and of course we expect a certain amount of nipping from puppies, but Frank used his razor-sharp baby teeth not only often but also hard. It was important to take control of how he used his mouth. So I showed Frank a treat, and when he began to bite at me for it, I neither removed the treat nor gave it to him. I just closed my fingers around it and bopped him lightly in the nose with that treat. In this manner, Frank learned that he’d have to focus and stop using his mouth inappropriately to release the treat. Consistently practicing this routine helped Frank learn to lick at my fingers for a treat rather than to bite me—an important step in the right direction—and also gave me the opportunity to use the treats as a teaching tool to lure him into the sit and down positions. In this way, I substantially reduced the biting when treats were involved. But some of the behavior remained at other times, such as when I needed to hold his collar for a moment to put on or take off a leash. At those times, Frank might still bite hard in an overexcited state.

So I used an old dog-trainer trick: lemon juice. I kept a handy plastic lemon filled with lemon juice. When Frank started to bite me, I squirted a few drops in his mouth, and then rubbed some on my hand where he bit me. If he started to bite me there again, usually Frank would smell the lemon juice and, remembering the unpleasant taste, stop himself just in time. Over the course of just a few days, the biting diminished to almost nothing.

All I did for Frank was manage his life and his resources long enough for his true nature to come forward. Frank is a dog. A dog is most comfortable in pack drive, which means his nature is to collaborate with the leader so that he receives his share of resources, including food, water, space, playtime, and love.

The result was a puppy that finally began to solicit affection, did not bite, and played appropriately with the other dogs. We also trained Frank to walk nicely on a leash, not to jump, and to come when called. Those skills took only a couple of hours to teach. Frank is an incredibly smart dog. However, he was a puppy completely devoid of respect for authority and, in fact, ignorant of the entire concept. It was living with us, and the structure provided for each of our dogs, that turned Frank around. The dog training was a small bonus.

If love and knowledge of your dog’s true nature is the soil of your relationship with her, then providing parental authority, becoming the benevolent pack leader, is the water, the sunlight, and the fertilizer. If you take nothing else from reading this book, please know that controlling resources can be the foundation of a wonderful and intentional life with your dog.

One does not need to be an expert for this technique to work. In fact, it’s almost better when it comes naturally.

MARC My friend Evie has five small dogs, each fifteen pounds or less. Though I am very fond of Evie, a recent invitation to her house brought a sense of foreboding. Who wants to be met at the door by an anxiety-ridden pack of jumping, leg-scratching ankle-biters? The dogs had taken control of Evie’s home. On earlier visits, I needed to convince the yapping pack that I really was invited and allowed inside. Once, Evie actually used a broom to sweep the little pack of growling dogs away from me.

But on this visit, when Evie opened the door, I found an assortment of five adorable little monkeys all waiting by the threshold. They greeted me with only a bark or two. Rather than charging right for my ankles, they assembled without crowding in front of Evie. As I walked deeper into the house, they parted like the Red Sea and then followed us without so much as a yap or a nip. We went to the back porch, where Evie produced a bag of frozen green beans.

“Treat time,” she said. Without a further word from Evie, all five of those dogs lined up in front of her and sat. Evie bent over to give each dog a frozen green bean and each ate his without getting up or bothering the next dog. You would have thought those green beans were pieces of filet mignon being fed to highly trained show dogs.

Though I suspected what had happened, I asked Evie how she accomplished such a miracle.

“They just learned it.” She shrugged. “I didn’t even have to train them.”

The reality is that Evie didn’t have to think a lot about training her dogs to behave at the door, to respect guests, and to line up and sit for treats. Evie has a big personality and, by nature, is a take-charge type of person. When she first got the dogs, she tempered much of her strong personality in the hope that they’d like her. Not surprisingly, that personality pivot didn’t work for her or for the dogs.

When she reverted back to being “large and in charge” in her own home, a position that comes naturally to Evie, the relationship with her dogs changed for the better. Evie didn’t even have to set aside specific training time in any formal way. She administered her lessons organically and on the fly. Now, if we break down specifically what she did, we can highlight several things: She began to use her voice and body language more naturally and effectively, deepening the tone of her voice in situations that demanded more control and focus. When the dogs crowded guests aggressively, Evie began to insert herself between the dog pack and the people, walking into them, blocking them as she moved into the dogs’ space. That caused them to yield to their owner because she was claiming their space as her own. Evie became consistent in this. Next, she had the dogs respond to commands they already knew to replace undesirable behavior. Further, she was also able to communicate a sense of confident presence with her body, something she had initially been afraid to do because she thought the dogs wouldn’t like her. Actually, the reverse proved to be the case: The dogs already liked her but now they began to respect her right to invite guests into the home. Finally, Evie used the dogs’ favorite treat—frozen green beans—to tactical advantage by having them line up in a row and then offering warm praise. This wasn’t training in any formal sense—it happened naturally. Without even knowing it—just by being herself—Evie assumed the role of pack leader, and her five little dogs were happy to cede leadership to her.

They weren’t perfect. When I sat down, the dogs coiled as if they were going to jump into my lap before I invited them. But Evie just put her hand up, and after a small yet visible battle of wills, they waited and calmed down. But perfection isn’t the point. Having dogs who are happy to follow some basic rules is entirely the point. Evie kept the emotion to a minimum as I walked in the house. She doled out those green beans like they were gold nuggets, but required the dogs to relax and sit for the treat. Lap time and emotion with petting and talking was given, but only after an invitation. This controlled approach to sharing resources with her dogs is exactly what makes Evie a terrific dog owner. Even if she doesn’t realize it, this is the reason that she enjoys a fulfilling and harmonious relationship with a large number of little dogs in one house.

Some people are afraid that assuming the role as pack leader is going to spoil their relationship with their dog: that the dog is going to resent being subordinate. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Dogs are hardwired for this kind of relationship, and they thrive when given the opportunity to find their rightful place in the pack.

We have a client named Rita whose black Labrador, Scotty, was literally attacking the inside of the front door of her home, leaving claw marks all over the door and frame. It was almost as though Scotty were trying to break free from the house. In a way he was. It wasn’t as though Rita mistreated Scotty—at least not from the standpoint of discipline. In fact, Rita was so soft on Scotty that she was reluctant to have him trained. She didn’t want to make Scotty do things he didn’t want to do.

Now, harsh punishment is not only ignorant but also counterproductive from a training perspective. A smack across the snoot with a rolled-up newspaper might have been an old-time way to respond to your dog’s bad behavior, but it has no place in a modern relationship with your dog. Today’s inclination toward coddling or ignoring your dog’s bad behavior is only a little better and a surefire pathway to more bad behavior and ultimately an unhappy dog. This is especially true when your dog is young. A six-month-old Labradoodle who’s pampered and cuddled to the exclusion of learning her place in the pack becomes a sixteen-month-old Labradoodle who barks in your face, claws, and perhaps even growls at you.

Rita not only coddled Scotty but also did little in the way of exercising him or keeping him entertained. Rita rarely walked Scotty because he pulled, and he would destroy the toys she bought for him. Though she lavished him with love and attention, Rita’s idea of exercising Scotty amounted to opening the back door to let him out into the fenced-in backyard. It was like dropping her child off at the Little League field when there wasn’t any practice. The child might find something to keep busy, but he would be far better off, and would have much more fun, with a coach teaching him the fundamentals of the game and other kids to play with.

Rita is a mother and grandmother. She’s raised a raft of children—there are photographs all over the house. She knew all about Little League practices for her kids. But when she talked about Scotty, she seemed confused and timid. When we asked if her children ever were bored growing up, however, Rita sat bolt upright, her jaw set, her eyes focused. “My children were never bored,” she said with conviction. At length she went on to describe a household run with a structured mix of affection, play, and education—all in the right proportion. She would assign each child a chore before he was allowed to go out and play, and she made each chore into something of a game, with play coming as the reward at the end. The result was a family of happy and successful adolescents, teens, and young adults.

Even so-called difficult breeds can happily get along in the presence of a strong pack leader such as trainer Rich Simmons, who works in Pennsylvania.

When we assured Rita that building a healthy relationship with Scotty wasn’t all that different from raising a child, she began to understand. She knew when to administer compassionate authority, when to reward, and when to pull back. She began bringing her parenting skills to Scotty, and their relationship changed dramatically.

By definition, the pack is a family, with a pack leader acting as blood or de facto parent. Studies have revealed that dogs have not only the intellect but also the emotions of a small child.^* So why wouldn’t dogs respond to parenting? The answer is they would. It’s really that simple.

One of our clients is a psychiatrist who had an extremely ill-behaved dog. During our usual post-training discussion, we outlined her responsibilities, structure, and rules for her dog—and we talked about how to reinforce those rules. Near the end of the chat, the psychiatrist told us that everything we had just told her was nearly identical to what she tells the parents of her pediatric patients.

When children aren’t taught to brush their teeth or to do their homework without continuous prompting from their parents, those same children will try to get away with bad behavior in other areas of life. They do this, the psychiatrist told us, because subconsciously children know they need guidance and rules in their life to be safe. But those rules are invisible, and therefore, kids must test them in order to be sure they’re really in place. They are looking for someone to place limits on their behavior so they will feel safe. Do dogs think of it quite the same way? Perhaps not, but the end result of failing to set behavioral limits might just be very similar for kids and dogs.

Try to look at it this way: What would you do if your two-year-old wanted to grab every candy bar off the shelf at Walmart? If you were a good parent, you probably wouldn’t permit her to do so. If your four-year-old tried to run into the street, obviously you’d stop him and prevent him from doing it again. If your ten-year-old refused to do his homework, you might take his video game privileges away for the night or dock his allowance. Then you’d help him do his work.

The same restraint should be applied in your relationship with your dog. Said another way, a well-behaved dog realizes that his owner is in charge of his food, space, and time. It has been our experience that even dogs that have been written off time and again can be taught good behavior and can earn their way into our hearts and homes when their resources are properly managed.

MARC Not too long ago, I took in a dog that was described to me as a “complete maniac.” The dog’s name was Lucky. He was anything but lucky. Mine was the sixth foster home in which Lucky had been placed. The first five couldn’t cope with him. Most foster families are accustomed to dogs with behavioral challenges, which gives you some idea of how bad Lucky’s behavior was. The first thing I did was change Lucky’s name to Laddie. One of my favorite authors of dog literature is Albert Payson Terhune. In 1919, Terhune wrote Lad: A Dog—a compilation of stories about a rough collie that was a precursor to Lassie. Terhune’s book was perhaps the first dog book bestseller.

I might have taken the name from Terhune’s collie, but that’s the only thing the two dogs had in common. The former Lucky was far from a literary hero. To give you an example of Laddie’s behavior, Collie Rescue of Greater Illinois, an organization that helps rescue and place collies in good homes, brought Laddie to a local pet store. They make such trips often to showcase dogs for adoption. But Laddie caused a mini catastrophe that ended when he tried to break the ferrets out of their cage. When he wasn’t trying to eat the ferrets, he spun in circles and barked furiously at the other dogs. Not surprisingly, management asked that he be removed.

In his first five foster homes, Laddie was little better. Because he was neutered late in life, his marking instinct was out of control. He would sprinkle all over the house, a dozen times every day. He also tried to fight just about every male dog he met. But none of Laddie’s previous owners knew how to be a pack leader. None of them took a leadership role. With me, Laddie’s behavior began to change quickly because I immediately showed him what good behavior was and how to earn his resources.

The first thing I needed to get a handle on was Laddie’s nose. That nose was trying to sniff all over my house to find the perfect locations for him to lift his leg. The nose, of course, is mobile because the same brain that makes it work also drives four legs. So I put Laddie on a leash right away, and that leash was not to come off for two months unless Laddie was in his crate, where he couldn’t get into any trouble. But stopping him from wandering the house willy-nilly was only one piece of the puzzle, because, while it prevented Laddie from finding spots to sprinkle, it didn’t stop him from wanting to do it.

The next step was to teach Laddie what I like to call leash manners: Walk at my side; I set the pace and determine what direction we take; and—critically—I decide when and where we stop to sniff. Of course, Laddie wanted to stop every ten seconds and pee on every bush. Plus, he was very used to doing so. Leash manners being a foreign concept to him, the collie would constantly put on the brakes to sniff. However, I never stopped or even broke stride. This meant that every time Laddie tried for an unauthorized lunge at a bush, he received a mild leash correction from my simple forward motion, an unwavering forward motion, leash well gripped in my hand.

At the beginning of the first walk, Laddie treated me much like a post to which he was tied. He gave me little eye contact, remaining preoccupied with his obsessive desire to sniff and mark every few yards. But the lesson quickly started to sink in: “Marc is not stopping. I better not stop, either.” As soon as Laddie began to check in with me, looking right at me, acknowledging that I was in control of the walk, I began to offer him an occasional reward. That reward took two forms. First, I praised him. Second, I led him right to a choice bush at the beginning and end of every walk so he could satisfy himself with a healthy outdoor marking post.

New Skete monks walking dogs at the monastery. Note how the dogs not only aren’t pulling but are also psychologically connected to their handlers.

In the house, I prevented Laddie from doing the wrong thing by keeping him tethered to me with a progressively longer leash. But I remained vigilant, and once or twice I caught sight of him just as he was about to hike up his leg. That was certainly a behavior that I wished to interrupt, and I did so with a solid tug on the leash, not hard enough to hurt Laddie but certainly enough to spoil the moment. Eventually, I gained confidence in this dog as his outside walks became ever politer. Laddie came to understand that at the end of the walk he’d have the opportunity to eliminate and also have one or two shots at those special bushes. In the house, Laddie quit obsessively sniffing, so I began to let him drag his fifteen-foot leash around, keeping him within my line of sight. Yes, a few times I had to pick up that leash and pull it, but not a lot and eventually not at all. That’s when the leash came off.

The turnaround was remarkable. Laddie became a foster fail, which in dog rescue vernacular is a very good thing. It means I kept Laddie and became his forever home.

For those of you who are still worried that you’ll never acquire Evie’s natural ability, or Rita’s dormant one, or Marc’s extensive training knowledge, don’t despair. This book is expressly for you. At first, living intentionally with your dog as the pack leader might seem like a challenge. But in short order you can be an expert and make it look easy.

Good parents don’t apologize for accepting that role in the lives of their young children. They understand that it is their responsibility to provide guidance and structure, and they are not intimidated by occasional outbursts of resistance and complaining. They know they have the best interest of the child in mind, and with this resolve they grow more relaxed and confident in their role. To use a well-worn analogy, it’s just like learning to ride a bike. Before it is easy to pedal on your own it is quite difficult. Then it becomes easier and easier as you build the muscle memory and understanding of how it should feel and how you should react to the circumstances around you.

Consider this book your training wheels.