Of course, the best time to consider how breed impacts a dog’s behavior and needs is before bringing that dog home. I see the tragic results of ill-fated breed choices every day at animal shelters—dogs who are abandoned because they needed too much exercise, were slow to housebreak, barked nonstop, or had a hard time getting along with a family’s other pets.
There’s a genetic component to all those problems, so pet owners have to learn to either live with a DNA-driven problem or commit the serious time and energy it takes to teach a more acceptable behavior. You know which road I take. Part of my role as a rescuer is making absolutely sure each family I place a dog with is ready, willing, and eager to take on the challenges that might come with a particular breed. I take that matchmaking part of my program very seriously because the dogs on Lucky Dog have all been abandoned before, and I won’t let them go through that again.
Why Breed Matters in Training
Whenever I consult with a new client about training, the first thing I do is haul out my old, dog-eared encyclopedia of breed histories and make a copy of the pages that represent his or her dog’s breed or the breeds we believe the dog to be. That’s the starting point for any conversation about what the dog’s been up to, what kind of training will be effective, and how to change unwanted behaviors.
Often, this is an eye-opening conversation because both the behaviors owners love about their dogs and the ones they’re struggling with are right there in black and white. Sometimes the behaviors are obvious, as they are with a rat terrier. That dog’s job is right in its name, and so it shouldn’t come as a surprise when he goes tearing after every chipmunk, squirrel, rabbit (or rat) that crosses his path. But there are several other breeds—like the miniature schnauzer, the German pinscher, and the West Highland terrier—that got their start doing the same kind of work even though their reputations for crittering aren’t as well known.
Do you know what job your dog’s breed was created to do and when? What was the world like back then? And how have conditions and expectations changed since that time? These questions are all key to understanding your pet. Consider a couple of examples.
English bulldog. Although there’s debate about exact dates, the original Old English bulldogs were bred sometime between the 1400s and 1600s, many of them for the sole purpose of being used in the barbaric sport of bull baiting. To bait a bull, a dog needed to be fearless enough to attack an angry beast thirty times its size and tenacious enough to hang on until it either forced the bull off its feet or died trying. The dog needed to be powerfully built, low to the ground, and stubbornly aggressive.
I think it’s fair to say a dog with these personality traits probably would not make an ideal family pet . . . unless you’re trying to get rid of a bull in your backyard.
In 1835, bull baiting was outlawed, but as of this writing—181 years later—many of the Old English bulldog’s personality traits live on. Breeders have made significant changes, like breeding more for protectiveness than aggression. Today’s English bulldog has also been genetically selected for companionship, which makes it a great family pet. But evolution—even the human-made kind—takes a very long time, and today’s version of this once-ferocious fighter still has characteristics that hark back to the old days. English bulldogs are still physically low and broad and powerful. Most are still courageous and often stubborn. And these dogs are well known for tugging on toys, hanging on with a powerful grip, and being prone to excessive chewing. That need for them to grip and pull is hardwired into their DNA—a leftover genetic impulse from their days as champion bull baiters.
Beagle. Excessive barking is the number one reason beagles are abandoned at shelters. I bet there’s not a dog trainer in the country who hasn’t had a beagle owner call to ask, “What is wrong with this dog? He barks all the time.”
From a genetic standpoint, there’s nothing wrong with a barking beagle at all. These dogs, like all hounds, were bred over hundreds of years to chase foxes, rabbits, and other small game, running ahead of their handlers and maintaining a steady stream of barks and bays their owners could follow. Generation after generation, dogs were selected for, among other things, their good, reliable communication skills. So barking and baying—it’s kind of what they’re meant to do.
Maltese. For thousands of years, these little dogs were bred for the job of pampered pet. They were the canine equivalent of a panic alarm—a dog that would stay near, not take up too much space, and make a heck of a lot of noise if a stranger got too close. They sat on very important laps in civilizations from ancient Rome and Egypt to Renaissance England and France, serving as a combination guard dog and companion. They weren’t going to take anyone down, but they’d get very territorial, barking and even biting to protect their owners.
What’s the behavioral legacy of a dog bred to be babied? Maltese make devoted family pets, but they need someone around to keep them company or they can get depressed, anxious, or destructive. And did I mention that these dogs were engineered over centuries to bark? As a result, they’re a very yappy breed, and trying to stop them from barking—loudly, enthusiastically, and often—is about as easy as trying to train them not to eat or sleep or breathe.
So here’s the question: Once you know a little about your pet’s breed, how does this variable factor into training your dog to be a Lucky Dog? There are two things I hope you’ll keep in mind. First, things will go better for everyone if you don’t expect your dog to act like something he’s not. I get a lot of calls from frustrated dog owners dealing with a terrier’s digging, a herder’s nipping, a water dog who won’t stay out of the sprinklers, a husky’s pulling, or a retriever who keeps grabbing at their hands. Each of those behaviors is hardwired into that particular dog.
I’m not saying you can’t teach your dog to manage a behavior. You can. I’ve trained thousands of dogs and have seen firsthand that almost anything can be learned. But there’s a big difference between training a dog to do something that’s new or unfamiliar, and training a dog to do something that goes against an innate behavior. A good rule of thumb is that any behavior your dog has learned can be unlearned. But a behavior your dog was born with will be more difficult to manage. For example, most dogs are born with an instinct to bark. I can train a dog to stop barking on command, but training the dog to not bark at all is a whole different kind of challenge—one that is nearly impossible. Going against genetics is always an uphill battle, and Mother Nature tends to put up a heck of a fight.
The second thing to remember about this variable is that the more you understand the specifics of your dog’s breed, the more in tune you’ll be with his thought process, which will make you a better equipped and more effective trainer. You’ll know which practical methods and tactics to use. You’ll be able to find the perfect motivation to keep your dog focused. You’ll be able to anticipate behavior problems and figure out how to correct them. You’ll even be able to help your dog find acceptable outlets for the activities he instinctively loves.
Meet Lulu. My dog’s name is Lulu, and she’s a brat. I tell you this in the interest of full disclosure and because I don’t think a pet has to be a perfect dog to be a great one. I train hundreds of dogs each year to do everything from SIT and STAY to much more complex commands, but my dog barely listens to a word I say. She has a mean streak and (sometimes) a bad attitude, but I love her anyway. I met Lulu at a local animal shelter. Her kennel was right up front, so each time I went, she was the first dog I passed on the way in and the last one I saw on the way out. She was there for months—long enough that I started saying hello to her and asking the shelter staff about her. I was told she didn’t show well, which happens a lot with Chihuahuas. They are one of the breeds most commonly found in shelters, and they’re small and not always eager to win visitors over. Some can be prone to housebreaking issues and barking. For all these reasons, they often go unadopted. But someone on staff had a soft spot for Lulu because they kept her around for months. And then one mornin
g they told me she was scheduled to be euthanized in the afternoon.
I felt like I already knew this dog, and even though I didn’t have an owner in mind for her, I took her home. Lulu was scared and edgy, and she was hard to place. Once she mastered her 7 Common Commands, I placed her with a family. They called the next day and basically said, “Come and get this beast.” Lulu had bitten one of their children. So I made a note: no kids.
I placed her again, this time in a household with no children, but that family called on the second day, too. Lulu had gone after their other dog. I added to my note: no kids, no dogs.
That was pretty much how things went with Lulu for a long time. I’d place her in a home, she’d act like a she-devil, and I’d go back and get her again. After a few months, I looked at this Chihuahua, who’d managed to get rejected by family after family but who had become fiercely devoted to me, and I realized she must be my dog.
Lulu has a unique and challenging combination of all the variables we’ll talk about in this chapter—a combination that might not endear her to some potential owners. But even with all her quirks and attitude, she was able to master the Common Commands and her big behavior problems to become my Lucky Dog. Believe me when I tell you that if Lulu can do it, then your dog can, too.
Special for Mixed Breeds
Many shelter dogs are mixed breeds, but even if your dog appears to be a mutt of untraceable origin, chances are you’ll soon detect the behavioral leanings of a certain breed. Is he chasing your kids and nipping at their heels to keep them in line? That’s classic herding behavior, and he’ll probably show a preference for thinking independently and taking charge. Does your dog come alive at the sight of a tennis ball or throw toy? Maybe tries to turn his water bowl into a swimming hole on hot days? There’s a lot of retriever in a dog who behaves that way, and yours will likely be sensitive to your criticism and eager to bond. He may also have an obsessive mouth—one that can’t seem to resist chewing on forbidden objects.
The good news about mixed breeds is that some common behavioral issues and health problems found in individual breeds are less likely to occur in mixed breeds. One large-scale study found that ten common health woes were more prevalent in purebred dogs than in mixed breeds, whereas only one condition was more common in mixes. A Heinz 57 dog can be just as even-tempered and trainable —or even more so—because of his mixed-breed DNA than his purebred peers.
Variable 2: Age
Age is just a number, but it’s a number that can make a difference in how your dog responds to training. Training a puppy and working with an adolescent dog, for example, require tweaks in your approach to find success. This variable is obviously always changing, but it’s important to acknowledge your dog’s development and maturity level when you’re training.
Puppies
Just like a child’s mind, a puppy’s brain is an efficient, eager learning tool, soaking up a world of information and processing it all the time. You can picture it like a sponge, ready to soak up everything the dog sees, hears, smells, tastes, and feels. If you’re setting out to train a puppy, you have the chance to shape his young mind before anyone else can influence him the wrong way. But that means you have to be extra careful you don’t mess him up, either. You’ll need to know, for instance, how to socialize him, when to house-train, and just what you can expect of him.
The age of your puppy will determine where you start training. Until a pup is about six weeks old, most of his training comes courtesy of his mother and littermates. But after that, it’s time for you to take a serious role. The second and third months of a puppy’s life are a time when you should make every effort to expose him to new people, places, and things, all the while offering encouragement and rewards to make them good experiences. Be sure your pup is up-to-date on his shots, then take your dog to noisy places and quiet places, places with new and different smells, and places full of new people and unfamiliar sights so he can start discovering the world.
One of the saddest things I encounter when I rescue shelter dogs are animals who’ve never been socialized. I’ve met dogs who’ve never worn a collar, never been around cars or bicycles, never put their feet in the water, or never learned to tolerate other dogs or loud noises or even being touched by human hands. For a dog who misses out on socialization at an early age, every one of these things can become a fear factor, and some fears take a long time to get over later in life.
You can begin house-training your puppy as early as ten weeks. You’ll find an entire chapter on how to go about this process later in the book.
As you begin to introduce basic obedience lessons into your puppy’s life, you may find getting and keeping his focus is a challenge. In Chapter 3, we’ll talk about strategies for holding a dog’s attention. As you work your way through my 7 Common Commands with your puppy, remember that his spongy little brain is taking in a lot of information at once, and he may take a little more time and regular repetition to become reliable with his responses than a mature dog.
Adolescent Dogs
Did you know that nearly half of all dogs coming into animal shelters are between the ages of five months and three years? It’s no coincidence that those ages bracket a dog’s adolescence. Typically, large dogs hit this phase of development first (at around nine to twelve months), then medium-size dogs (around ten to fourteen months), and finally small dogs (around twelve to sixteen months). The difference in the onset of adolescence is related to the wide range of canine life spans, with large dogs expected to live the fewest years and small dogs the most.
If you’ve ever raised a dog through this period, you might be able to appreciate why this age group is overrepresented among dogs who’ve been given up by their owners. Just like human teenagers tend to be a handful as they move past childhood and try to find their places in the adult world, teenaged dogs are often a little wild, a little naughty, and prone to testing their limits.
But that doesn’t mean you should give up on them! The adolescent period is tricky—especially with bigger breeds—because these dogs are at about 90 percent of their mature size, but their minds are still very puppylike. Picture a twelve- or thirteen-year-old kid in your life—preferably one with great big feet, long and skinny legs, and a smart mouth. This kid gets tangled up in his own limbs when he walks, forgets he’s too old for the free cookies at the grocery store, is sure he’s already learned everything he needs to know in this life, and seems to be deaf to parents, teachers, and other authority figures. Your adolescent dog is basically that kid with four legs and fur. And like all adolescents, he’s constantly pushing the limits to see what he might be able to get away with. If you say SIT, this dog may shake it off. If you tell him to STAY, he may run the other way. He’s an energetic upstart, and most people who lose the obedience battle lose it during this time.
But it doesn’t have to be that way. An oversize puppy who’s full of himself needs firm and frequent reminders of what the rules are and what’s expected. That means extra training sessions and overtime when it comes to conditioning. He also needs plenty of exercise—just like that spooled-up teenager, he can’t think straight when he’s full of pent-up energy. This might be the main reason why adolescence is the most common age for dogs who are turned in to shelters.
Everyone wants a puppy, but when that puppy hits this short but sometimes troublesome age, far too many pet owners give up rather than step up training and digging deep for a little more patience and consistency. As you meet some of the dogs I’ve rescued over the years in the coming pages, note how many fall into this critical age range. They all turned out to be amazing pets, but they needed love, training, security, consistency—and sometimes a dose of discipline—to reach their potential.
Mature Adults
Adulthood is the longest stage of your dog’s life, comprising about 80 percent of his years. At this point, your dog is most likely calming down from the destructive, high-energy puppy and adolescent stages. At one-and-a-half years, you have a
full-size animal with a puppylike brain, but by two to three years, his body stops growing and the brain finally catches up, bringing everything into sync. This stage—especially in the early years—is the easiest time to fix any bad habits your dog might have acquired while growing up. His brain is still relatively spongy and his behaviors aren’t set in stone yet. With each passing year, those behaviors get a little more rooted and become a little tougher to change.
During the adult years, your dog has a fully formed personality that should remain pretty consistent until the slowing down of old age begins to set in. This is an opportune time to train.
Courtesy of Litton Syndications, Inc.
Meet Randy. Randy was a medium-size white poodle mix found roaming the streets of Los Angeles, starving and covered in grease. He must have had an owner once, but nobody claimed him. He was a mature six-year-old dog with a heartbreaking response to being touched: if you tried to put your hands on him, he’d squeal. It was no surprise he wasn’t getting adopted—no one is looking for a dog with issues that run that deep.
When I first saw Randy, he was minutes away from being put down. Even when he was being saved, he was afraid to be touched. At first, I thought it might be a medical issue. I occasionally meet dogs in a shelter who have old, painful injuries or neglected conditions. Randy checked out okay at his veterinary visit, but each time I reached out to him or put a leash on him, he started yelping again. It didn’t take long to figure out that at some point Randy had been hit with a leash. It was the object of his greatest fear, and when I held it above him, he’d recoil and try to get away. If Randy was ever going to let an owner give him any form of physical affection, first he’d have to learn to trust. There was no point in my starting a training program with him until I could help him get comfortable with human contact. To accomplish this, I used a gradual program of contact conditioning to get him used to being touched without fear of being abused.
Lucky Dog Lessons Page 2
