Dog Behavior | Ruffly Speaking: Railing against idiocy since 2004

These last two posts will hopefully finish up the “Adopting a Dog” series; the rest of the posts are here.

Some of the dogs that I think are great candidates for low-risk adoption (in other words, the breed tends to be easy to get along with and friendly with people and cats and other dogs and doesn’t need a ton of exercise) are either brachycephalic (short-nosed) or achondroplastic (short-legged).

The short-legged dogs get extra adoptability points from me because they tend to give you more bang for your buck, exercise wise. Most were bred specifically because they could do the same job as their taller compatriots but at half or a quarter of the speed; think about Bassets and Bloodhounds, Cardigans and Shepherds or Collies, Sussex Spaniels versus Springers. They have every bit as much ability and talent as the taller dogs, but a lot of generations of breeding went into making them a slower, less driven version. So they tend to be able to be mentally and physically satisfied with less exercise.

The short-faced dogs make up a large proportion of the bred-since-forever-to-be-loving-companions breeds, like Pugs and Tibetan Spaniels and Pekes and Shih Tzu and Boston Terriers et al.  They’ve been bred in great abundance by bad breeders and puppy mills, so they tend to show up in rescue reasonably often. Again, these are breeds that are designed to be undemanding (except in upkeep and grooming) and loving, so they can be great dogs to rescue.

However, since both qualities (short legs, short faces) are a) mutations and b) very visually striking, when a dog is poorly bred these aspects of their bodies can go very wrong. Bad breeders know that buyers want cute, short legs. So they’ll breed anything with cute, short legs, regardless of the potential for great harm. They know that people want short faces and big eyes, so if it has a supershort face and big eyes, it’s a prize, even if the dog is horribly impaired.

So unless you want to take on far more than just the normal (huge) responsibility associated with a dog, you’ll do yourself a big favor if you start with a structurally sound dog.

Let’s start with faces.

(I’m going to be filling these in with pictures over the next day or so, because it’s difficult to find pictures that I’m not infringing on copyrights to use. And if I can’t find pics that are royalty-free, I’ll give you links instead.)

Poorly bred brachycephalic dogs have issues with eyes, skin, nose, palate, and teeth. You can quickly assess these and know whether you’re dealing with minor or major problems.

EYES: The eyes should have CORNERS, and the body of the eye should not be bulging out of the socket. You should not see a white when the dog is relaxed. I’ve seen this the very worst in rescue Pekes and Pugs, probably because people think the goggly eyes are cute when the dogs are puppies. Many of these dogs have nothing holding the eyes in except skin; the eye is not at all seated in its socket and it actually looks like the dog is looking out of the sides of its eyes. This shallow seating of the eye means that ANY stress of the skin or ANY blow to the eye area can cause the eye to proptose, or come out of its socket. A proptosed eye can be saved if you are VERY fast and don’t panic, but even if the eye is cosmetically saved it often loses function because the muscles and nerves are stretched and damaged when they eye comes out.

UNHEALTHY

MORE NORMAL

.

Next, if this is a long-haired dog (Shih Tzu, some Lhasas, Affenpinscher or Brussels Griffon, etc.), look carefully at the eyes and the coat surrounding them. Many dogs that come into rescue have been neglected in terms of grooming, and when hair is constantly rubbing the eyes it can make the dog blind. The eye should look clear, not even a tiny bit foggy, and there should be very little tear production. That red-brown stain below the eyes is OK, though anyone who tells you it’s “normal” for these breeds is actually incorrect (the color is from a type of yeast, so changing the diet and grooming carefully will almost totally fix it). Even a tiny bit of green discharge would be normal for a rescue. But if the dog’s eyes are structurally normal, you will not see streaming from the eyes; the hair will not be wet.

NORMAL AMOUNT OF STAINING FOR A RESCUE

Blind from neglect: http://photos.petfinder.com/fotos/VA117/VA117.8331694-1-x.jpg

So, again: Eyes that do not bulge; little or no white; coat around the eyes should be dry; eyes should be bright and not foggy.

SKIN: The big issue are the wrinkles. It’s entirely possible to keep a short-faced dog’s skin clean; this is another case where people will try to tell you that it’s normal for the wrinkles to be dirty. In a rescue, especially one that has not been groomed yet, DIRT is to be expected. Major inflammation, especially if the skin smells bad or the dog is scratching elsewhere on its body or has very red paws and chest (indicating lots of licking), is a sign of allergies. People rescue these dogs thinking that it’s just that the dog hasn’t been groomed and they end up with thousands of dollars in vet bills because the dog is systemically allergic. Now I feed a raw diet and I am at the vet every other week, so for ME allergies would not be a deal breaker. I am pretty sure I could fix them.  But it’s something you need to think about if you are not as dog-obsessed as I am.

(Allergies are not because the dog is short-faced – they’re because short-faced dogs are so often exploited by bad breeders, and bad breeders don’t care about the immune system and they’ll bred whatever has its bits and pieces. So allergies are a huge problem in all popular breeds. But whereas a Lab with discharge all over the place and red staining everywhere looks obviously ill, a Shih Tzu with the same condition just looks horribly neglected. Learning to tell the difference will help you, even if you decide to take the dog home, because you’ll be mentally and emotionally prepared for what may be a lifetime of special effort for this dog.)

Staining from constant licking: http://photos22.flickr.com/25199407_b26442e2ab.jpg (this is AFTER a groom–the dog is normally very, very red in those areas)

Irritation/infection in face wrinkles: http://blogs.mysanantonio.com/weblogs/pethealth/dogblog3new.jpg

Good clean wrinkles:

OK, NOSE: The bad thing that happens when these breeds are not carefully bred is something called Stenotic Nares. It can also show up in well-bred dogs, but good breeders know what it is and will make sure the dog gets it fixed before there’s long-term damage.

Stenotic nares basically means that the nostrils are too narrow. When you look straight-on at a dog’s nose, each nostril looks like a comma. In a healthy dog, the comma is wide and the dog breathes easily and silently through its nose. In a dog with stenotic nares, the comma is very thin and the passage for air is very tiny. When the dog is forced to breathe through its nose it whistles or snorts.

Stenotic nares requires a simple fix – a vet actually bores a larger hole through the nostril.It needs only a few sutures and some vets do it with none. The reason you want to avoid a stenotic dog, especially an older one, is because when a dog cannot breathe through its nose, it breathes through its mouth. But the dog’s body is not designed to breathe like that constantly. Dogs pant, but most of the time when they’re relaxed their mouths are closed. It’s extra effort to keep the mouth open, and the heaving can be complicated by (or may even cause) the last and perhaps most major issue.

A spectacularly severe stenosis below (most are not this bad):

Immediately after surgery (that’s why it’s all red and you can still see the suture to the left of the nostril – this will heal and look like a normal dog nose:

PALATE: The soft palate on some (SOME, not all) short-faced dogs extends too far into the back of the mouth and the beginning of the airway. Sometimes it’s normal when the dog is born but becomes inflamed; sometimes the dog is born with it. I strongly suspect, though I am a layperson and don’t have good data on this to show you, that the mouth-breathing that dogs with stenotic nares are forced to do contributes to their palate problems. However it happens, the result is the same.

The dog can breathe, but it’s breathing past a flap of tissue. Every breath requires more effort to move the flap and let air in.

Everybody “knows” that Pugs and Pekes sound like asthmatic old men, right? WRONG. That sound, the grating or hoarse intake of each breath, is the palate. Healthy short-faced dogs do make more noise when they breathe IF THEY’RE EXCITED, but the breaths should be easy. They should NOT make noise when they’re relaxed and they should NOT have heaving sides when they breathe.

Not only is a problematic palate uncomfortable for the dog, the vastly increased effort each breath requires tires out the heart. Dogs with palate issues tend to also have heart problems, especially if the condition has gone untreated for years.

Like stenotic nares, palates can be treated fairly easily. It’s not a risky or complicated surgery. But it IS expensive and if the dog is older the damage may already be done. This is another case where I’m not telling you not to adopt the dog – just do so with expectations of substantial intervention as soon as possible. It’s not something you can let go for months after you bring the dog home; imagine what it would be like to feel like there was a piece of Saran Wrap in your throat.

So nose and breathing recap: The dog should breathe easily and silently through its nose. If the dog is excited to see you and won’t stop panting, feed him a tiny treat. That usually makes them close their mouths for a few seconds and you can hear the breathing. When the dog is excited, a little noise is OK. When the dog is just sitting around, the breathing should be quiet even if the mouth is open.

OK, last but not least: TEETH. Bad breeders don’t care if their dogs have teeth coming up in the dogs’ ears as long as the dog has a functional reproductive system and makes cute puppies. For that reason, many of the poorly bred ones have SERIOUSLY bad teeth, both in bite (how the teeth meet in the mouth) and in health. I will do bite checks myself, but if you’re not experienced with dogs you should ask the foster home or animal control officer or shelter volunteer to show you this. You can make it very non-threatening if you ask them to show you how to brush the dog’s teeth once you get him home.

The teeth should be reasonably white in front, though they are often stained in back. Brown or tan staining is normal for a dog over three or four years old but is not normal for a puppy and would indicate something is going wrong. The teeth should be ivory/tan at worst; NOT grey. The gums surrounding the back teeth should not be red or puffy. When the dog eats a soft treat, he shouldn’t drop it or act like chewing hurts. The front teeth should be somewhere close to each other – an overbite or underbite of a quarter-inch never hurt anyone, but an overbite of a full inch makes the mouth very subfunctional. That, by the way, is what Ginny (our “designer dog” who probably cost someone a few thousand bucks) has; her lower jaw is so much smaller than her upper that it fits both behind and inside her upper jaw and her teeth do not meet anywhere except at the final molars. Similarly, a very exaggerated underbite (where the bottom teeth are in front of the top ones) makes it more difficult for the dog to eat and leads to malpositioning of the teeth and the potential for more decay.

Chloe obviously gets some traffic related to her overbite:

http://frauchloe.blogspot.com/2007/07/for-all-folks-googling-dog-overbite.html

Pretty severe underbite:

http://cbr.homestead.com/files/hayley/haley_underbite.jpg

Tomorrow: The achondroplastic dog.

Why, it’s Cinnamon! Everyone’s favorite super-geriatric AQHA! And what you can’t see is that about a foot behind her tail is my kids’ swingset.

The story is long, humiliating, and involves chasing and inappropriate displays of pajama-ed (and not so pajama-ed) bottoms, but the short version is MFM (major fence malfunction) and NSIODP (now she’s in our dog pen). Friday is the first opportunity we’ll have to fix her fence (we think deer got tangled in the electrical tapes and tore half the thing down, and the charger was iffy to begin with), so until that point I get to yell at barking dogs who are pretty sure that she is Something Major.

Actually, the dogs are VERY funny about her. It has totally woken the instinctive responses to somewhat hilarious effect.

The corgis go “OK, large, smells like hay. Must be Cow. Hold it still. DO NOT AT ALL COSTS LET IT LEAVE. Send Cow back to hay pile! Send Cow back again! BAD COW!”

The terriers go “OK, large, smells like hay. Definitely Giant Rat. KILL AND EAT GIANT RAT!” They are so sure that it must be a huge rat that they’ll come running over, barking, and then dive into her hay and tunnel around, convinced that they’ll find her under there and be able to eat her. And then they pop back up again, see her, freak out barking, dive back into the hay again.

For obvious reasons, we’re letting them out only to do their business. Which means that my house has become a House of Destroyed Objects.

At least I’ve got better things to do than obsess over the election–right now the only reason I want to get past Tuesday is to get closer to Friday!

I’ve been meaning to highlight this report, which is a summary of lectures given at the Canine Health Foundation’s Parent Club Conference (“parent club” means the big-mama clubs that make decisions for an entire breed, as opposed to the local clubs–so my local club is the Yankee Cardigan Welsh Corgi Club, but my parent club is the Cardigan Welsh Corgi Club of America–and each parent club was encouraged to send delegates to this conference).

The Canine Health Foundation is the research-supporting arm of the AKC. It donates millions of dollars a year to fund studies and research on canine health, and it relates directly to breeders via the Canine Health Information Center (CHIC). CHIC was set up to have a centralized repository of health-testing information; each participating breed designates the health tests that they consider best practice for that paricular breed. If you get all those tests done on your dog, the dog recieves a CHIC number.

The upshoot for breeders and owners is that the CHF is a little different from the larger vet organizations in that its main audience is a body of educated and dedicated breeders, not pet owners. For that reason they, I think, sometimes feel freer to make recommendations that other bodies feel are too dangerous because of the “unwashed masses” assumption (that all pet owners are stupid and won’t show up for vet appointments, and that they’re stupid and won’t keep dogs safe or fenced, and again that they’re stupid and if left to their own devices will prove to be the downfall of dogdom, so we say or do whatever we have to to get them in to our offices and get their dogs taken care of and sterilized).

So, here are some highlights:

- While spaying is still considered beneficial, health-wise, because of the risk of pyometra and mammary tumors, the best studies show that neutering actually has a deleterious effect on dogs. This report is the first time I’ve seen it put this baldly–as recently as a year ago I was hearing that the risks and benefits were basically balanced, but this is an excellent retrospective analysis of evidence that neutering gives a several-times-higher risk of several cancers, of obesity, of ACL tears, and even of some behavioral disorders. The implications of this finding for breeders are staggering–neuter contracts are now called into question, as are recommendations that performance dogs (agility, obedience, and so on) be neutered, training facilities refusing to accept unneutered dogs, etc.

- As breeders have been yelping about for years, there is no evidence that mixed-breed dogs are in any way healthier than purebreds, and in fact mixed-breed dogs are more likely to have some of the genetic disorders that breeders routinely test for (hip dysplasia is one, thyroid is another). However, this effect, which should lead to a longer lifespan, is ruined in some breeds by the concentration of extremely bad genes (such as cancer in Boxers). So owners, ask your potential breeder, if you are puppy-hunting, what bad genes exist in the breed and what they are doing to minimize your puppy’s chance of getting them. And breeders, you now have good studies to point to to disprove the idea that cross-breeds are healthier.

- The “chicken and egg” scenario of ACL tears has been reversed (this is actually quite dramatic). It used to be assumed that the arthritis vets were seeing in post-ACL-tear joints was because of the ACL tear; this research shows that in fact the ACL tears are due to arthritis and bacteria/inflammation in the joint. So the current therapy, which is surgery, can provide physical stability to the joint again, but has not cured or even addressed the root cause.

- (This one is WONDERFUL) Core vaccines are defined to be rabies, distemper, parvovirus. After the puppy series, distemper and parvo vaccines are to be given NO MORE OFTEN than every three years, and seven- to ten-year intervals should be seen as absolutely normal. Rabies is still mandated to be given every three years, but longer-term challenge studies are being done. Titers are to be seen as very useful, but the levels of the antibodies are immaterial. Any positive titer should be seen as a sign that the dog has an adequate antibody response and does not need to be vaccinated. Bordatella vaccine is largely unneeded except for “lap dogs” who never leave a house or yard and are never exposed to other dogs and are then kenneled in a kennel-cough hotbed. Leptospirosis vaccine should be given only where lepto is a current problem, and never at the same time as other vaccines. Lepto has a very high reaction rate, especially in small dogs. Lepto vaccine is ineffective after nine to twelve months.

Nutritional
– Probiotics have been shown to be effective in many ways, including strengthening overall immune response, and should be considered for every dog.
– High-fat, high-protein diets are dramatically better than high-carb diets (to this I give a resounding “No DUH!” but I suppose it’s good to have it finally ratified by a governing body). In particular, high glutamine levels are very protective.

The full report, which is an absolute must-read for breeders and serious owners and has lots more than I’ve summarized in this post, is here.

Just getting my ducks in a row .

Part 1: The Decision

Part 2: The Right Dog

Part 3: The First Month at Home: Support Systems

Part 4: The First Month at Home: Behavior

I was prepping a series on play (and non-play) fighting behaviors when I saw this one.

I think this dog spends more time above the ground than on it.

There are only a very few books that study canine body language in-depth with narrative pictures, and sadly just about all of them use black and whites, often blurry. I know this is because of production costs (very few people would buy a $ 75 glossy full-color coffee table book parsing the fine points of canine mouth postures during play fighting), but I think it’s a huge pity. So where I can, when I’ve caught it, I will post pictures of behaviors. Each picture below is clickable and will open bigger if you want to see more detail.

My daughter is offering the dogs a toy to get them to run around after her. This is a favorite game and they will play it for hours if you let them. The players in this particular group are Clue and Bronte (the corgis), Bramble, and Bastoche (also called Elvis and That Cursed Dog, but for simplicity’s sake I’m going to use just “B”). Bramble and B are Jack Russell cross puppies, four months old. You can see Bramble’s little black head over Bronte’s back. You can see how strongly B is alerting on that toy. He is VERY toy-driven with a lot of prey behaviors; a good terrier.

Look at B’s ears, head, and tail, and the foot coming off the ground as he prepares to attack. He’s extremely fixated on the toy, which he’s going to quickly find out is a mistake when you’re a puppy in a pack situation.

In the amount of time it took the camera to take the next frame (it takes 2.5 a second, so about a third of a second) B is leaping up to get the toy. His HUGE mistake here is that he is leaping up and over Clue, who is the oldest and most dominant female in the pack. This is the rough equivalent of shoving your aunt out of the way to grab the scrambled eggs at breakfast. It’s a major breach of etiquette. Bronte immediately moves to punch him with her nose or hit him with her teeth (the angle makes it hard to tell); her focus is completely off the toy but he’s still ignoring her. Mid-abdomen is the place where dogs often touch to try to stop bad behavior–you’ll see dogs do this when an impolite dog jumps on a person, too.

B is still totally focused on that toy, and he’s up and away, leaping over Clue.

Oops.

Look how Clue has jerked her head around to stare at him. A stare is a warning; dogs do not make eye contact unless they are making a serious “watch it, punk” statement. B is totally oblivious.

He’s landed on the other side of her and is coming up from the ground at a run.

And here you see why corgis have short legs. In a flat race, B can beat the corgis without even trying. He’s a 12-lb dog on a 6-inch leg; they’re 25 and 30 lb dogs on 3-inch legs. But the genius of this body structure, why they were bred as herders, is apparent in situations like this.

It’s going to take him a stride or two to recover. And meanwhile, she’s tucked those short legs under her and has cornered on one front and one back leg.

He’s still recovering, and she’s at full speed. He doesn’t stand a chance. He’s still thinking he’s going after the toy, by the way. She has an entirely different motive.

In two strides, she’s up on his front and swings her head down to bite him where his leg joins his body. This is a herding move; many breeds do not instinctively choose that position as the first one to bite. The Danes, for example, would usually go for the shoulder or the top of the neck; those are the places you grab a large animal to drag it down and kill it. Different jobs (herder versus hunting hound), different instinctive behaviors.

You can tell he really feels this one; his whole body is going “OWW!” and his head finally swings her way. The toy is forgotten.

The bite on his body slows his progress, and she leaps in front of him to follow through and drive him back. Again, this is a classic herding move.

He is literally trying to run backwards right now, but he’s not going to make it. Look and see how again she can make those incredibly fast turns because her front legs form short solid pivots under her body.

Notice that Bramble is quite interested in what’s going on.

I love this view of her face and mouth as she approaches him. He is going to get spanked pretty hard for being so rude.

Look also at how long it’s taken Bramble to be able to turn around. He’s a couple feet further than he was in the last frame, and he’s finally gotten his body going the right direction. He has short legs, but they’re much longer than the corgis’ and they are set wide on his body, not under his body. He can’t use them to turn within one stride like Clue can.

Smack! Clue hits B hard enough to knock him sideways. I can’t see her face here, but I am almost sure that she’s actually contacting him with a set and partly open mouth, so he gets a bit of a canine tooth against his neck. This will do him no harm; she will not bite down.

You can see that she’s spun him almost completely around.

He apologizes. The tongue flick says a worried “please; I don’t want to fight. Let’s all relax.” He shows white in the corner of his eye; he’s anxious. He got the message.

Bramble finally arrives to check out the action.

Clue is done with her discipline. She’s relaxed again, mouth long, tail up and relaxed, but very definitely dominant. If she were human, she’d be dusting off her hands with a satisfied smile on her face. B has tucked his head and is looking at the corner of her mouth. He probably either just touched it with his nose or is just about to. Puppies poke the corner of adults’ mouths to say “I am just a tiny baby puppy; please tolerate and nourish me.” He’s saying, in effect, that he remembers his place in the pack and he hopes she will be tolerant of him and not punish him any more.

All is forgiven. Clue takes off in a play chase, B close behind. Because he behaved appropriately, she is willing to interact with him again and has invited him to a run.

This week we’ve had the entire crazy pack here, because my sisters have been on vacation or away on business. And since I have such a boring life that I’m eternally stuck at home love the cozy satisfaction of home, and because there’s always room for another crate or two, their dogs come to stay with us.

So right now, everywhere I look, there’s an incredible roving tangle of feet and ears and tails and hair, occasionally infolding so deeply that I literally can’t tell who is who.

Here are the stunning other members of the Yukon team:

This is Sparky, often called (with heavy irony) Tiny Princess Sparkle Puff. Sparky is, as far as we know, a close to purebred Catahoula who somehow ended up at the Hartford, CT, pound. Sparky was sprung from the pound on his last day, when he was about five months old. It quickly became apparent that he had never been on leash, never been in a house, never been around other dogs.

He started off with an almost total inability to communicate with dogs. He was the most inappropriate dog I’ve ever seen, especially since he was a puppy and should have been a little more cautious. The first time he saw my corgis, he just ran around wildly, snapping his jaw open and shut frantically.

Sparky is just a year old now, and the difference between then and now is amazing. My sister has done an astounding job with him and the dog pack has done the rest. He’s still a little awkward, needs to work on not scaring the littlest dogs, but he can play for hours without causing conflict. He is especially good friends with Bronte. At home, he’s adored. My sister’s husband carries him around and sings to him.

Not bad for a dog on his last day.

This is Wilson. Wilson is not ironically called anything–he’s a dog who takes himself very seriously. He’s also gay, and Milanese. He told me so.

When we went to see Sparky at the shelter, there was a horribly matted ugly dog, old and horrid and terribly insulted, in the next kennel. It was one day past his death date. My sister’s husband said “Don’t you dare bring that mop of a dog home.” And she ignored him, and took him for a walk. And within his heart, and within hers, bloomed a fiery and all-consuming love, and even when he bit her (hard; she still has the scar) he did it while looking into her eyes.

I kept him for about a month, washing the black out of his coat and hacking the mats off, while she moped around at home with Sparky. Every time Sparky knocked over and drank out of her coffee cup, she pined, because she knew that Wilson would rather die than waste a lovely Ethiopian Korate.

And so finally, after weeks of her metaphorically wearing a t-shirt that said “My depression, let me show you it,” her husband gave in. And all the angels in heaven sang. He turned out to be no older than four, by the way.

And, finally, of course, there is Bastoche Elvis Farnsworth Montague III.

We brought him from Tennessee as part of an absolutely stunningly wonderful effort to find homes for an entire litter of Jack Russell-cross puppies. He and my sister Eden get along like bananas and peanut butter. Eden calls him Bastoche, which is French for “biscuit”; my kids call him Elvis; Doug and I call him Farnsworth or “That cursed dog.”

You will see a lot of that cursed dog on this site, because he’s here three days a week so his energy level can be drained and he doesn’t rise up and destroy the earth. Also because I have never taken a bad picture of this dog. He is like a little supernova racing around the yard; even still pictures look like he’s only stopped leaping for a bare second (which is usually true).

The Yukon team (which is actually what we call them) is a heck of a lot more fun than a vice presidential debate. Which is why I’m going to go out there and watch them for a little while longer, until we all drag ourselves inside and fall asleep in a big heap on the couch.

For about five seconds, whereupon Bastoche will jump on Sparky’s face and it all begins again.

Thanks so much for the blog recommendations, and please keep them coming!

This morning I went looking for a good description of the “trade game,” which is a simple method to lessen food issues and object possession issues in dogs, and couldn’t find one that I was really happy with, so this is what you’re gonna get today.

PICTURES AT THE BOTTOM OF THE POST.

“Trade” is a simple but extremely powerful way to change your dog’s mind about hands.

Why is this important? While there are a few dogs that are making dominance statements when they guard food or objects or locations, in my experience most (again, not all) snapping/growling/biting behaviors that dogs make when you try to take food or toys away from them, or when you try to move them off a couch or pick them up from their beds, are actually about fear and natural defensiveness.

In other words, a dog can be perfectly aware of its natural (submissive) position in your family and still bite you when you try to take a toy away. In fact, this seems to be even MORE common in those dogs that are excessively submissive or shy.

I see this in my own pack–Clue, who is the dominant bitch, very rarely does any kind of food guarding or resource guarding. She simply owns the food, and rarely gets into any squabbles. Ditto with locations and toys. You may therefore be tempted to think that she’s not dominant, but not so. It’s just that if she has something, nobody approaches her to take it. Clue has an extremely healthy dominance, one that rarely requires any kind of action and is basically very happy and calm.

Bronte, who is naturally much more submissive and worried about stuff and who is a major food hound, gets into many more food-related conflicts and warns off with a growl or an air-snap. She never guards locations or toys, to my knowledge; she likes to play and will sometimes fake-guard an object to encourage the others to come over and take it so they’ll all get going in a big game of chase.

Ginny, who is obsessed with objects and who sees herself as the enforcer of all rules, spends a good portion of her day gathering things and defending them from the others. This is not because she’s in charge of the others; she’s definitely the #2 in the pack and often drops even lower if friend dogs come over. Guarding, for her, is a very important behavior and she will often stop eating to guard something, or stop playing in order to run from one object to the next and guard them from the others. Ginny is very aware of her own size and she is convinced that she’s fragile; she worries quite a lot about being hurt.

Bramble, the baby, is very small (and is aware of his vulnerability) and is completely in love with food (as puppies should be). He’s a terrier/dachshund, which means that he is wired to use his teeth to communicate, and will do so much more quickly (has a lower threshold) than the other dogs.

As you can imagine, the issues I have with defensive biting are with Ginny and with Bramble, NOT with the biggest and most dominant dog. I want you to understand this so you don’t make the mistake of trying to address defensive or guard-oriented biting by dominating or punishing a dog.

Being consistently dominant/pack-leaderish around a resource-guarding dog DOES help the behavior, because it makes the dog feel more secure and safe. Secure and safe dogs are willing to give up food or beds, because they are happy and calm.

But that’s not the same as showing a guarding dog who’s boss, or (the very worst) being a weak pushover owner in most areas of your life, so the dog is rudderless, fearful, and neurotic (and therefore tries to comfort itself by gathering and guarding food or toys or resources), and then trying to alpha-roll or scruff a dog who growls at you over food. That’s an excellent way to get your face bitten–and then, tragically, most people conclude that the dog is “dominant aggressive” and either get rid of it (a phrase I hate, but is appropriate in this context) or put it down.

Instead, assume that any dog who is snapping at you over food, or over a toy, or who tenses up and growls if you try to push him off the couch, is more afraid than he is dominant. He is pretty sure that your hands are coming at him to take away a thing that is making him feel good, and in fact your hands are quite possibly going to make him feel BAD–going to bring discomfort (being pushed off the couch) or bring isolation (putting him in his crate) or bring hunger (taking away food). Those are VERY POWERFUL messages, and we should never be astonished that a dog objects to them.

So what we need to do is change his mind about what hands mean. You DO need to get your way (he should not be allowed to eat whatever he wants, or chew on a prescription bottle, or guard the couch), but you need to make giving things up to you a positive experience (notice that he is GIVING them to you) not a negative “taking” experience. This is the way dogs do it themselves–when Clue walks up to a dog who has a toy she wants, and she’s actually serious about it (as opposed to inviting them to a game of tug or chase), the dog immediately drops it and backs up. She requests a “give”; she does not ever “take.”

So–a long introduction to WHY we play this game, and why this game is a legitimate way to interact with your dog. It’s not a reward for bad behavior, even though I call it a game.

The game itself is very simple.

In one hand, you have a medium-value object like a toy or a rawhide bone. Don’t start with a super-high-value object like a raw bone or the dog’s favorite chew toy.

In the other hand you have a whole bunch of tiny treats–I like Zukes treats for this, though I cut them in fourths so they’re even tinier. Or you can use bits of cheese, tiny scraps of chicken, etc. Whatever it is should be no larger than your littlest fingernail.

For this first session, make sure the treats are a better reward than the first object. So, for example, a rawhide bone and a handful of cut-up steak.

You sit down, and show the dog the first thing. Squeak it, shake it, whatever. The dog should come over and put his mouth on it. If she’s not all that interested, go get a higher-value object, because you do want the dog to think of it as a good thing.

When the dog is happily interacting with the object or chew (keep it in your hand while she is doing this) you cheerfully say “Trade!” and bring your other hand over and shove a Tiny But Incredibly Awesome Treat in her nose.

She will, unless she’s really unusual, immediately let go of the first object and go for the TBIAT. And you pull the first object slightly back, give her the TBIAT, and say “Good girl! Yay! Goooood trade!”

And then repeat. Offer the object, let her put her mouth on it, then say “Trade!” happily and offer the TBIAT.

Most dogs “get” this very quickly. By the end of twenty repetitions they are rather vociferously spitting the first object out as soon as they hear you start the “T” sound.

And now you just repeat this, several times a day (each time should involve a handful of treats, so maybe 20 reps per session). Begin with the mid-value objects and move up to raw bones, favorite toys, pieces of leather, etc.

Once the dog is totally solid when you’re sitting and holding the object, move to trading when the dog is actually the owner of the object (when she’s lying on the floor chewing a bone, for example). Once that’s solid, move to trading for the food bowl (in other words, feed the dog, stand there, say “Trade!” and the dog should pop its head up and eagerly come over for a TBIAT).

Trade for the couch (the dog has to get off the couch to come over to you; you go sit where the dog was sitting), trade for a stick, trade trade trade.

For a few weeks, you’ll do this a LOT. Then, in the same way that you don’t necessarily ask the dog to sit a zillion times a day for its whole life, you can reduce the frequency. I probably do this with Clue once or twice a month, since she’s known it for two years and has no guarding issues. I need to be doing it with Bramble about ten or twenty times a day. I did it with Ginny a lot when she first came, not as frequently now that she rarely feels worried about hands anymore.

So go! Trade!

VERY IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: “Trade” is PART of training, not the whole thing. I think it’s awesome to re-orient a dog who has hands issues, but you should also be in a training class (I will try to talk more about why this is important later) and you should also be implementing good, calm, happy pack-leader skills in the other areas of the dog’s life. And I should add that just about every dog I know who has guarding issues also has exercise issues. Guarding becomes a way to work off energy. A good two-mile run in the morning may make the “problem” disappear faster than anything else.

PICTURES!

The first object–small squeaky.

The TBIAT: hot dog pieces

Here–chew on this!

TRADE!

Again, first object.

TRADE!

One last time

Trade!

Bramble is happy. Happy, happy Bramble.

THE END.

(Just FYI, this is a “Sesame Street” post. Some slightly recycled/rewritten material from other writing I’ve done, some new.)

This is a scary photo.

And not just because Zuzu is wearing two different socks (dang, I am such a bad mom!).

I get the heebs, honestly, seeing MOST pictures of dogs too close to babies, even just sitting there.

People don’t realize that, to a dog, proximity equals ownership. Every mom dog understand this, and won’t let other dogs anywhere near her little babies. No other dogs are allowed near puppies until the puppies are old enough to be integrated into pack life–the mom letting the puppies have contact with other dogs is a statement that the puppies are now allowed to be dominated and corrected. Every dog on earth knows this instinctively. When you smile indulgently as your one-year-old is licked and pawed by the dog, it should be zero shock when that same one-year-old is hit hard with an open mouth and gets teeth marks and a bloody nose when he pinches the same dog on the belly. (But of course no one DOES expect it, and they call the dog aggressive, and put it down, when the dog was doing exactly what you had given it permission to do.)

If you want to act in a way that your dog understands, raising a baby in a way that makes sense to the dog and communicates that he is not allowed to punish or dominate her, the baby should exist in an invisible bubble. No dogs within two feet at least. Sharp correction for the dog if he EVER “forgets” that the baby is there and brushes by or jumps up on the couch too close. Let me be very clear on this: You do not punish the dog for licking the baby or something–you don’t want to associate the baby with negative things. You correct the dog for thinking about coming near the baby. If licking is a 10, you should have re-directed the dog back at level 1 or 2.

And it continues–no “pushing” contact or boistrous behavior near a toddler or young child. This makes sense in the dog’s brain. It’s the way they expect a good mom to behave. Allowing the kind of contact that so many do, then freaking out when the baby gets jumped on or the toddler gets knocked over, seems to the dog to be capricious and chaotic and leads to worse behavior, not better.

So how can you prepare your dog for a baby when there’s no baby there–when you are pregnant, or when you are expecting visitors who have a baby?

First, move the dogs out of the bedroom now, if they sleep on the bed, or institute crates in the bedroom. If you’re going to eventually move the crates to another part of the house to put a co-sleeper or whatever in the room, don’t wait. Do it now. Set up the nursery objects soon, so they get used to the smell and feel of them.

Make sure they are desensitized to having feet, tails, and ears touched. If you are not ONE THOUSAND PERCENT sure that anybody could fall on them, pinch them, hit them, or take food away from them without them getting angry, get them to a behaviorist NOW and start implementing his or her suggestions.

Get them rock-solid on “wait” and “go ahead,” since you’ll be walking them with the added burden of a stroller or sling.

Any rules that you expect to enforce after the baby comes (like no heads in your lap, or no dog bodies on the bed) should be put in place NOW, months before the expected arrival, and should be enforced steadily.

Some people send home a blanket with the scent of the baby on it to get the dogs ready for the new arrival–I am not as convinced of that, since well-trained dogs should be very used to new people coming and going and not be thrown off by a new creature. But it can’t hurt; it’s probably more like packing would get them used to the idea that you’re moving–i.e., the humans are all acting freaky, so something is probably going to happen. Once the new baby is home, just make boundaries VERY clear. No touching, no licking, only sniffing from afar.

The most dangerous time for babies is when they are alone and start crying. That can trigger dogs to do very strange things, because the crying is an odd high pitch that seems to turn on either prey instincts or protective gotta-pick-the-baby-up instincts. So NEVER leave a baby alone in a room with the dogs, no matter what, even if the dogs have never shown the slightest interest in the baby.

How about older infants and toddlers? My dog just loves being crawled on–why should I separate them now?

You MUST understand what is going on here. In a healthy dog pack, very young puppies are given what is called “puppy license.” They’re allowed to be rude and silly and do things that are never permitted in the older puppies. If your kids are crawling on your dog or dogs, your dog isn’t “loving” what your kids are doing–they’re behaving in a very rude way. He’s allowing them to behave like under-age puppies.

The catch here is that the puppy license is always, inevitably, revoked. At some point, as young as two months and pretty much always before four months (in my watching a lot of puppies grow up–this depends very much on the adult, with the dominant adults tolerating crap a lot longer than the middle-rankers), the adults stop smiling indulgently as the puppy bites their ears and they start whipping around and whacking the puppy to the ground with their teeth. The middle-rankers see it as their duty to give the puppy absolute heck until the puppy learns immediate appeasement signals and will drop and roll as soon as an adult enters his or her frame of vision.

Right now in my pack we have two adults, an adolescent, and a baby puppy. Clue, as ranking adult, lets the puppy do all kinds of crazy things to her and in fact “dumbs down” her own play to interact with him. She very gently rolls him and bumps him and then reverses, rolling on her own back to let him pretend to dominate her, and she’s got a relaxed open mouth and smile the whole time. Ginny, second-in-command outside and an agitator for ranking adult inside (most of her time inside is spent trying to dominate Clue) has virtually no play interactions with the puppy. She watches him and leaps to punish him if he makes so much as a feint in her direction. She never puts a mark on him, of course, but she does the doggy equivalent of hand-slapping every time he acts like a big dog (for example, if she sees him walk by with head/tail up). Bronte, who is an adolescent/lower-ranking/the scout and alarm dog, basically ignores the puppy. Her job is patrol and the only ones she plays with are Clue and Sparky (an adolescent visitor, my sister’s dog, who comes over a few times a week; Bronte and Sparky are similar in rank and in role, so they play together well).

So, in my group, Clue still grants puppy license. Ginny has revoked it.

If this were applied to kids, Clue would tolerate them rolling on her, Ginny quite definitely would NOT (and this is in fact true) and Bronte would look at whatever dominant person or dog was around for a signal of what to do.

None of these dogs are unsound or unstable or poorly trained or “bad with kids.” They are acting in ways that make sense in a pack and neither choice is worse or better. In the same way, some dogs grant kids a license that is quite broad, but that does not mean that the license stays there forever. It is NEVER a good idea to let kids interact with a dog unsupervised; all it takes is one action (adding a nose poke to the body pressure, or kicking, or whatever) for the adult dog to decide that this rude little puppy needs some license removed. I would also say that it’s important to teach kids that crawling all over a dog is exactly like crawling all over a human–it’s actually rude, an invasion of personal space and an inappropriate contact, and there are better and more polite ways of interacting with the dog.

My Danes were always extremely tolerant of pressure too, and of course I smiled as they would roll over and let whoever the baby was at the time put her head on them. But I knew I was pushing it, and now, years later, I am not sure I’d tolerate it.

So what’s up with the photo, then? I brought Zuzu, who was then maybe four or five months old, upstairs to my older girls’ room to ask them to watch her while I went downstairs to make coffee. Ginny (again, social climber, disciplinarian, very intolerant of puppies), who sleeps with them, was up there. She saw me put the baby down on one of our low bed/futons. She immediately jumped off her bed, trotted over, jumped up on the futon, crept on her belly to about six inches away from the baby, carefully rolled over to expose her belly to the baby, and squeezed her eyes shut. I let the baby touch her chest and foot, snapped a couple of pictures, and then said “good girl, Ginny.” Ginny immediately rolled back over, stood up, jumped off that bed, and ran back to her own bed.

If you’re not careful, you could interpret that as “Oh, Ginny loves the baby!” Ginny is actually constantly worried that a kid will hurt her, because she’s so tiny, and does NOT love the baby. It was a very ritualistic contact that showed something about Ginny’s relationship with ME, not her relationship with the baby. I am big bad leader bitch; I proudly show off my unweaned milk-smelling puppy, everyone in the pack must show obeisance to me and their tolerance of my unweaned puppy.

When she’s weaned, though, or if I relaxed my leader-bitch stance, fuggetit. Ginny does not tolerate rough kids; she yelps and tries to run and if prevented from doing so she will whack with her teeth. After MONTHS of consistent training she will tolerate Tabitha, who is four, doing just about anything, but make no mistake. She is tolerating it because she knows that I expect it of her, not because she enjoys it. I still never, ever leave them alone together.

The most common thing people say to me when I describe what I do with dogs and babies is say “But that’s so mean!” It is far less mean, trust me, than putting a dog down because it bit a baby. And in the dog’s mind is it not mean at all. It is exactly what they expect and understand, and will make them feel MORE secure in your pack, not less.

“Could you talk about how to find a good trainer and/or behaviorist?

It seems that everyone who’s watched a few episodes of “The Dog Whisperer” or “It’s Me or the Dog” is now an expert on training. It would be nice to have a list of criteria to look for/avoid.

Thanks!”

My huge disclaimer here is that I am a training CONSUMER, not a trainer. I enjoy training my dogs and attending classes; I have no plans to become a trainer. If I did it would be in something like show handling classes, because my drive to have a perfect front and finish is just not high enough to go through the competitive obedience process.

The fact that I’m not good enough to be a trainer is basically my foundation for how I tell if someone IS. There’s no certifying body for trainers, so anybody can decide to call themselves a trainer or a behaviorist. So I would always want to see that a trainer has in fact succeeded at the training he or she claims to provide. If a typical obedience class, someone who has put titles on multiple dogs. If an agility class, agility titles. And so on.

Once you’ve weeded out the totally unqualified (and there are shocking numbers of these), you need to find someone who is a good mesh with you, methods-wise. There are many, many flavors of training and I personally think that all of them work. It’s worth your while to figure out where you lie and where you’ll feel comfortable so you can participate willingly in class. Your decision will also be influenced by the personality of your dog–if you have a terrier or a classic stubborn and reactive dog (not a bad thing, just a definition), a trainer who uses more physical methods is a BAD IDEA. On the other hand, if your dog is the kind that goes absolutely nuts over food, so nuts that he or she loses any sense of control (and I have owned one of these), going to a trainer who always uses treats is going to be very frustrating.

I personally feel most comfortable in a class that uses a combination of methods; I strongly believe in encouraging behaviors using food or another motivator, but I also find that for most normal owners and average dogs positive-only training methods don’t adequately address self-rewarding bad behaviors like food stealing or pulling on leash. Where I would give a quick leash correction and be done with it, Positive-only trainers will try to replace these activities (instead of jumping up on people, go sit there on your mat) or semi-frantically reward any time the dog makes a different decision. If that’s what you can get behind, that’s absolutely fine with me.

Oh, one thing: agility is virtually always taught using positive methods, often clicker or similar. Agility is a skill built on a foundation of basic obedience; i.e., you should not be solving basic obedience problems in that class. For that reason I’d be pretty wary of anyone using more than a tiny amount of positive punishment (a fancy way of saying leash corrections) in an agility setting. It’s supposed to be reward-based and lots of fun.

Finding a behaviorist is, I think, a little more fraught with risk. If you need a behaviorist, it’s probably because the dog has a serious issue, most often biting dogs or people. That means that the stakes are very high; this is a person who is quite possibly handing your dog a life or death decision.

I personally want a behaviorist who has very rarely resorted to putting a dog down. If they’ve NEVER had to, that would be its own red flag, but if they’re solving a sizeable proportion of problems by euthanizing the dog I would not be comfortable. You want a behaviorist who understands dogs, the differences between breeds, and who is sympathetic to what it is to be a dog. For example, if I brought in a Borzoi who was biting other dogs, I want someone to say “Yes, that’s something we see a lot; the large sighthounds are major snobs and they tend to not like other dogs who are not Borzoi in their faces. Let’s work on giving you the tools to anticipate a conflict, you’re going to stop ever letting her off-leash where there could be other dogs, and we’ll also try a few things like a citronella collar (which sprays as the dog begins that big roaring build-up, and can often distract them from a conflict). Last, let’s work on an incredibly solid recall.”

Anybody who starts bleating about how this must be dominance aggression (without seeing the dog in person and seeing the dog interact with a variety of other dogs), who immediately talks about how you’re going to have to really pull this out of the fire or the dog needs to be put down, etc. would be someone I’d run away from.

Similarly, you want someone who understands that using teeth on a human has many possible causes and there’s always a long way to go before anybody brings up the subject of the needle.

My cardinal example of being careful about a behaviorist has to do with a dog I bred and sold. She was a very, very cute, SUPER smart, very sensitive little girl. Her family had never had a dog as large as she was going to get, and they had a couple of young kids. When she was about five months old, they called me and told me that they were going to have to put her down. Their “behaviorist” had told them that she was incredibly aggressive and needed to be euthanized. I said don’t you DARE, got in the car that moment, drove down to get her. I opened their door and this adorable baby Dane went NUTS, barking and freaking out. I grabbed her by the cheeks and said “SHUT THE HECK UP!” (by the way, don’t do this unless you are stupid or you really know your dog–I would never do this for a dog that I didn’t know very well). She instantly quieted down and started kissing me. The owners were even at that moment trying to insist that she be put down, that they had to take her right to the vet, that she was completely untrustworthy, etc. I ran as fast as I could to the car, threw her in, drove home shaking and crying.

Half-way home I got out of the car and took her for a run in a field. I discovered that she had no idea what a collar was, had no clue how to walk on a leash, cowered if I moved fast, and was generally just totally freaked out and terrified.

I took her to my vet and my behaviorist the next day. Physical causes were ruled out. When we arrived at the behaviorist’s facility, she spent an hour and a half with me; about ten minutes into it she said, “Yeah, this dog is no more a candidate for euthanasia than I am.” Most of the time we spent was figuring out tools and methods to help the puppy understand that people were good things, that other dogs were good things, and so on. Five weeks later, I placed the puppy in a wonderful new home (for nothing but the cost of her spay, of course; I never sell dogs twice). That hour and a half cost me $ 200, but it was more than worth it.

So–take-home message: Find a trainer who puts her money where her mouth is (has titled and trained dogs). Find a behaviorist who is on the dog’s side, who doesn’t overreact, and who offers you useful and creative methods to help your dog change its mind about the kinds of behaviors that are causing the problem.