How to Raise the Perfect Dog (25 page)

Tug-of-war seems to be a game that all puppies like to play, so what’s the harm in it, right? Personally, I never play tug-of-war with my dogs. Whether it be a Chihuahua or a mastiff, I don’t want any dog to think that she can engage in a contest of strength with me, even if I know I can win every time. If you have a bulldog or a powerful-breed dog, I strongly urge you not to get into this habit, no matter how cute your puppy looks as she tries to tear your favorite sock from your grasp. Dogs love these games, but they can often bring out a predatory drive in them, and this can create obsessive behavior that you may find hard to tone down in the future. Sure, you can easily win a tug-of-war with a small puppy, but by the time that dog is six months old, each time he prevails, he will grow to realize that he is able to control you. This nurtures dominant and obsessive behavior in the puppy, which is exactly the opposite of the calm-submissive dog you want to create.

You also never want a dog that thinks it can “own” something that belongs to you. In your puppy’s world,
you
own everything and you give him
permission
to play with certain things. If your dog is holding an object and you want it, he has to know that he must drop it the moment you ask for it. This is the rule of law you should set down at an early age, so it will continue throughout your dog’s life.

In their natural pack, however, puppies will frequently engage in this kind of game with their littermates. If you have more than one dog, supervised tug-of-war games between puppies can fulfill your puppy’s desire to engage in this kind of sport without teaching him any bad habits that will come back to haunt you later. Dogs love challenges, and competition is always challenging. Anyone who has spent any time among a group of dogs (or preschool kids, for that matter) knows that no matter how many toys are on the floor, all the dogs (or kids) will be interested in the one toy that another has in his possession.

At five, six, and seven months of age, I allowed Blizzard the Labrador to play supervised games of tug-of-war with Junior, to the benefit of both of them. For Blizzard, the benefits were enjoying the game, the sense of excitement and competition, the challenges to his mind and reflexes, the sensation of the rope toy in his mouth, and the ability to “lose gracefully”—in human terms, knowing when to “cry uncle.” For Junior, the benefits were learning how to play gently like a Lab and not at the full intensity of a pit bull—though at one and a half years of age, Junior was already far more “dog” than “pit bull.” Junior also gained the wisdom that comes from teaching rules, boundaries, and limitations to a younger member of the pack. I always intercede in any dog-dog tug-of-war games, making sure everyone knows that the minute I arrive, the toy is surrendered to me. That way I always have the ability to stop or start a play session in a split second if I sense it is getting out of hand.

CONDITIONING
Training and Commands

The connection and communication skills we develop with our puppies through structured walks, setting boundaries, and playing games lay a solid foundation for what is called conditioning, or dog training. In this book I am more concerned with your puppy’s overall psychological balance, with preventing her from developing issues, and with her understanding of rules, boundaries, and limits than I am with her ability to answer to the words
come, heel, sit
, or
stay
. I have raised all my dogs by using energy, body language, touch, or very simple sounds, in that order. One advantage to the “less sound is more” approach that I apply is that it automatically limits overexcitement. Many people confuse a dog’s “excitement” with her “happiness,” but the truth is, if a puppy is in a hyperactive, overstimulated state to begin with, she will have a much harder time retaining anything you are trying to teach her. That’s why too much excited “Good boy, that’s a good boy!” praise from a trainer can actually be a less effective reward than the quiet reinforcement of happiness and approval. The other advantage of being quiet is that I am communicating with my dogs in a way that is much closer to the way they communicate with one another. I am always able to recognize the subtle signals they are sending me, and I respond by telling them with energy and body language, “I hear what you are saying” and either “I agree” or “I don’t agree” with it. When we humanize our dogs, we tend to miss these important signals they are sending us every minute of every day. They are trying to communicate with us all the time, but too often we are not listening. When a dog feels you are not listening to her, she is not going to listen to you. By being aware of and responding to all the tiny, seemingly insignificant cues your puppy is sending you, you are opening up the door to a great possibility—the possibility of having a really intimate relationship with her.

Still, most people want to be sure that their puppy can answer to some commands, or at least to sounds. After all, your dog is not always looking at you. As she grows, she may range far away from you, to the other side of the yard or the dog park. She can’t sense your energy or read your body language if you aren’t nearby, so you will have to use sound in order to communicate what you want. I like to begin with two simple sounds—one to signify a behavior I like (for me, it’s usually a “kissing” sound), and the other to call attention to a behavior I don’t agree with (my trademark “Tssst!”). I add the puppy’s name as a “come” command later on. Some people use a clap or a whistle as a “come” command. Others prefer to use human language.

As Florida dog trainer Martin Deeley says,

To dogs, words are noises. The words do not have to be specific words. If you choose to get your dog to sit to the word
Christmas
, then “Christmas” becomes the cue for the dog to sit. Any words we use with dogs must come easily to the tongue and we must be consistent in their use for specific actions required. Also it is better to use one word rather than a sentence or even two words because often the dog will hear only the last word. That is why if we wish to use his name, we say, “Ben,” to catch his attention. Then a second later, “Sit.” Not “Sit, Ben.” If we put the name last with every command, all he hears is his name and really that means nothing.

How early should you begin conditioning your puppy to commands? The Grogans were offered some questionable advice by friends who watched the couple’s still small but rapidly growing Labrador puppy, Marley, drag them up and down the pedestrian path of Florida’s Intercoastal Waterway. “Our friends who were veteran dog owners told us not to rush the obedience regimen. ‘It’s too early,’ one of them advised. ‘Enjoy his puppyhood while you can. It’ll be gone soon enough, and then you can get serious about training him.’”

If you have read this far into this book, you will immediately recognize the illogic of that statement. Can you imagine saying of a six-to ten-year-old child, “Let him enjoy his childhood; don’t worry about teaching him to read and write until after he’s a teenager”? Puppyhood—birth to eight months—is the most intense, compressed period of growth your dog will experience, both physically and mentally. Between eight and sixteen weeks, your dog’s brain is at its peak rate of growth. The results of many behavior studies and EEG measurements demonstrate that eight-week-old puppies function at nearly an adult level in terms of learning ability. However, as puppies mature—in fact, by about sixteen weeks
¹
—the ease with which they learn noticeably begins to decline. That’s why, when you start early by conditioning your puppy to respect limits, take on new challenges in the form of games or tasks, as well as to respond to signals or verbal commands, you are actually helping the puppy’s brain develop to its fullest potential.

“Training is not repressing,” says my colleague and veteran Hollywood animal trainer Clint Rowe. “It’s developing and shaping an animal’s awareness and access to its brain. I think it develops an animal’s
self-awareness
because, to learn willingly, they have to be aware of their thoughts and associations and then focus their awareness. The most important thing when training is to be consistent and have a goal in mind. If you don’t have a goal for your training, then the animal won’t either.”

If you have first developed a connection with your puppy, then she will automatically want to please you. Martin Deeley lists enjoyment of the training session as the number one motivator for a pup.

Having fun and being helped clearly and concisely to do what is expected, rewarded with a smile and a happy face. A puppy does not come into this life wanting to be a leader. She looks for leadership and guidance, she looks for a kind yet firm hand that shows her the right ways to do things and rewards her with a nice touch, a smile, an acceptance into the pack. She even expects reprimand—firm but not harsh—and learns from it. Motivation to do an action or behavior is not always prompted by a potential reward but may also come about by a wish to avoid danger, conflict, and what we may call a nonreward.

Even learning her limitations is actually satisfying to a puppy, because it’s in her program to internalize rules within a social structure. A peaceful life in a wild canid pack depends upon every member’s learning and respecting the group’s restrictions and boundaries. A happy puppy is a puppy who clearly understands what behaviors will best ensure approval by the rest of the pack.

SILENT TRAINING
Angel Learns the “Down”

Angel’s blue blood—his lineage as the scion of prize-winning show dogs—has already given him a genetic head start in the obedience process. Miniature schnauzers are often regarded as among the most “trainable” of dog breeds. I easily taught Angel how to sit by using a one-finger hand signal almost as soon as he returned home with me. Sitting down is an automatic response for a puppy when he is undecided about what to do, so it took me only a few days of consistently rewarding (giving a treat at first, then just praising) Angel’s correct response to my raised finger before he understood it completely. This is exactly how I have conditioned Daddy, Junior, and all the other dogs I have raised to sit on command. By four months of age, his overnight visit with Melissa proved that he had internalized this behavior, as she was easily able to ask him with her finger to sit, and was instantly able to set spatial boundaries using one hand. This is another advantage of early “silent” command training—it is easily transferable to another human who might be caring for your dog.

The “down” is a little more complicated response for puppies to learn, because lying down can feel unnatural to them if they aren’t tired. When Angel was just under four months of age, I brought him to the Dog Psychology Center to begin conditioning him to lie down on command. The gesture I wanted him to learn was a finger raised in the air, then lowered, meaning he was to do the same movement with his body.

My only tools were some training treats and three long folding tables, set up end to end. Setting up a “runway” of tables is a wonderful way to work with a puppy, because you can maintain eye contact with a small dog without having to bend over and strain your back. It also forces the puppy to stay focused on you, because you are his only way back to the ground and because he can’t wander off the tables if he becomes bored or distracted. It’s important that you use the “teamwork” approach to getting the puppy up on the table; use either a ramp or steps and lead him forward with scent or a treat (palmed behind your hand so he won’t grab at it but must sniff or lick) or, as I did with Angel, lift him by the scruff of his neck, putting only his front legs on the table so that he can figure out how to get his back legs up by himself. This keeps your puppy an active, willing participant in the exercise.

To begin the session, I chose one end of the table and engaged Angel’s nose with a treat in my hand. I let him smell the treat but not have it, then I squatted down, holding it in my hand just below the table surface. I made eye contact with him, and slowly moved my finger from a high to a low position. Then I waited for him to figure it out. I could easily have pushed his rear down to create a lying position, then given him the reward, as a way to illustrate what I wanted. This is the “rush” method that some training facilities promising “instant” results for your dog will use, and there’s no saying that it doesn’t work. But it is my belief that if the dog comes up with the strategy on his own, it imprints on his mind in a deeper way and he remembers it more profoundly. It also raises his self-esteem because I have given him a challenge and he has come up with a solution by himself. This will empower him to try and solve any other problems I give him.

Once again, I made eye contact with Angel and then asked him to watch my hand as I mimed the motion of lying down. He sat and yawned—as I’ve mentioned, a yawn is often a sign that a puppy is frustrated, mentally taxed, or working something out. I let him lick my hand but did not give the treat. I was silent and patient. Finally, Angel’s lightbulb moment arrived—he lay down and I gave him the treat. To me it felt like forever, but when I looked at my watch, it had taken only just over four minutes for him to get it!

Next, I walked to the far end of the table to repeat the same routine. This time, it took him just a little over forty seconds to lie down and earn the treat! I decided to push the envelope and put him through the exercise a third time, but after about a minute, he began to get distracted and wandered to the other end of the table. This is typical for puppies—ten minutes of focused training is a very long time for them. “In the beginning,” says Clint Rowe, “keep training sessions from one minute to five minutes long. Puppies get mentally tired. They need to rest afterward. In my thirty years of training experience—and there’s no empirical data I can come up with for this—but during resting, I swear, connections between the brain cells are actually growing and new connections are being built.” I could recognize Angel’s mental exhaustion in his more frequent yawning. What he was communicating that day was “Right now, I can only give you this behavior twice.” This told me I could work with him on it again twice the next day, then add one more time the day after that, and so on and so on, but at that moment, I couldn’t end the exercise by letting him fail, because that would be the lesson he would remember. We have to overcome our own impatience and always wait for our puppies to finish with success.