4 posts tagged “dog training”
That's me growling, not my dogs. But I'm growling at my dogs, or rather at the mysteries and ironies of training dogs, living with dogs, trying to figure out dogs.
Last week, when our housekeeper, Vanessa, arrived to help keep household chaos at bay, not only had I made the bed and straightened up the kitchen in advance, but I had the dogs on stay, ready to enact our visitor-greeting ritual (see my November 18 post).
Wolfie and Lexi are wildly fond of Vanessa, so it is especially important to me to keep them in check when she comes. When Vanessa came in, I put her on stand-stay by the door, then released Lexi to say hello. By the time I told Lexi to stop the love-fest and leave the room, Wolfie was whining with excitement. I called him to me, but while I was doing that, Lexi went back to steal more kisses from Vanessa. This made Wolfie upset—I could not blame him—and while I was correcting Lexi, he rushed over to Vanessa, without permission. I scolded Lexi, retrieved Wolfie, and made him walk calmly (this took three tries) and sit in front of Vanessa to be petted.
As the dogs finally left the room Vanessa said, “Gosh, this is so much easier when you aren't here.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“You know, when you're gone, and your husband lets me in.”
“Yes?” I said, my voice rising. “What happens then?”
“He just puts the dogs on stay, and then releases them.”
“And they mob you, right? Smash into your kneecaps, knock you over?”
“Not at all. They just come and say hello and then they go away.”
“On their own? They go away on their own?”
“Sure. It's over in a minute. It's a lot easier than what you're doing.”
I am aghast. I have been training dogs, our dogs, since 1980. Every dog we've had since then I've taken to obedience classes—some of them, like Lexi, for a full two years. I have sat at the feet of eight different trainers. I have read every dog training book, watched every dog training TV program and video I could lay my hands on. I have done everything I could to bond with my dogs: fed them, groomed them, played with them, worked and exercised them. I have dedicated major areas of my brain and my life to them.
And now it turns out that my husband—who tolerates dogs only for my sake, who doesn't feed or exercise or otherwise interact with them unless I specifically ask him to—is more successful in implementing the visitor-greeting ritual than I am.
What's going on? I can't bear the thought that he has some innate gift, some pheromone-related thing that causes dogs to pay attention to him and not to me. There has to be an intelligible reason behind this, something I can grasp, and emulate.
After
days of mulling this over, here is all I can come up with: when
someone comes to the door, my husband's main concern is with who it
is, whereas mine is with how the dogs will behave. The dogs, bless
their hearts, feel this intense focus of mine, and that makes them
excited, and they do the very things I don't want them to.
I guess I just care too much, am too invested in their behavior. I am convinced that people will judge who I am by how my dogs act. Strangely, I never felt this way about my children, and they, in consequence, never let me down. From an early age, I trusted them to do the right thing.
Maybe
it's time for me simply to trust my dogs.
November
18, 2008
When Wolfie was seven months old, one day a bunch of people came to the house for a meeting followed by dinner. I put him and nine-year-old Lexi on down-stays in the living room, and they lay like statues until, at the end of the evening, the guests begged to pay their respects to them. My dogs, they exclaimed, were the best trained they'd ever seen.
Those were the good old days.
Wolfie's second birthday is less than two weeks away, and I'm sorry to say that, in the matter of greeting guests politely, he's acting like a two-month old puppy who happens to weigh 90+ pounds.
Here's how things are supposed to work: somebody knocks on the door. The dogs rush to see who it is, making an impressive noise. Since they're both German Shepherds, the noise is quite impressive, and they know it. I put them on down-stays several yards from the door, then let the person in. I put the person on stand-stay by the door. I go to Lexi (rank hath its privileges) and say, in a calm, almost indifferent tone, “Would you like to say hello?” Lexi walks over with her ears back and her tail wagging and gets petted by the guest. When I say “Enough!” she goes away and takes a nap, or whatever.
Then it's Wolfie's turn. I call him to me and have him walk quietly and serenely by my side until we reach the guest, whereupon Wolfie sits and gets a bit of petting. Again, I say “Enough!” and he goes off to do his thing, leaving us humans alone.
For weeks we practiced this ritual whenever anybody showed up at our door, and had it pretty well in hand. And then last week various people showed up three days in a row and, out of the blue, the dogs' behavior was abysmal.
The trouble started at the point where Wolfie was supposed to walk calmly and serenely towards the guest. Instead, he would plunge forward, mobbing the person and saying, to all effects, Where, oh where have you been all my life? Pet me, touch me, take me away with you forever!
While I was correcting Wolfie and hauling him back so we could start the guest approach again, Lexi, who wasn't born yesterday, would circle back and sneak in some extra petting from the guest, who so far hadn't been released from his stand-stay at the front door. This petting bonus would of course strike Wolfie as grossly unfair, making him all the more determined to reach the guest before the supply of affection ran out. It was chaotic, and, for me, humiliating. My two dogs were out of control. When the last set of people showed up, I shamefully abdicated: I shut the dogs away, and answered the door.
What's with my dogs? German Shepherds are supposed to be one-(wo)man dogs, polite but aloof with strangers. Yet Lexi and Wolfie have never met a person they haven't adored. We used to blame this on Lexi's unknown ancestry (she was a pound puppy), but Wolfie's father came straight from Germany, and there are serious Schutzhund dogs all over Wolfie's pedigree. The only good thing I can say about Wolfie and Lexi on this subject is that they have never jumped up on anyone.
Since the dogs are so friendly, why not, you ask, just let them have their way with guests? That might work if they were, say, Pugs. But two big specimens of what Cesar Millan calls a“powerful breed” bounding forward with the chummiest intentions can be alarming, even to dog lovers. I've got to get the guest-greeting ritual under control.
As a good (former) Catholic, before considering the situation I did an examination of conscience. And all became clear. Over the last several months, Wolfie, once a callow adolescent, has become unbelievably charming. He's big, he's sweet, he (finally!) clearly loves me. He minds beautifully inside the house, and pretty much outdoors. He lays his big head on my knee and looks into my eyes. He sighs, and throws himself at my feet. Who could resist? He's so tall that I can, without bending, pet him whenever he's at my side, which means that he gets a lot of “unearned” petting. Which, according to some schools of thought, makes him think that he can get away with anything. That he is, heaven help us, the boss.
I recall reading something about a last spurt of rebelliousness as a dog reaches the age of two. But that's just an average, and German Shepherds don't reach true maturity until they're at least three. Is there no end to this? Can't I just relax and “Let go, let Dog”? Is eternal vigilance the price of dog ownership?
I'm afraid it is. Otherwise, it wouldn't be so interesting.
November
9, 2008
A
working couple with two daughters, a new job and a major relocation
has decided to get a dog. What were they thinking? But promises are
promises, so to ease the integration of the First Dog into the First
Family, I offer the following:
--Appoint a Dog Nanny. You can't just entrust the puppy to some aide who's running around putting out fires and calculating her next step up the political ladder. Dogs love routine, and life in the White House is anything but (that's probably what finally got to Barney). The girls will give the pup fun and affection, but it is a rare child under voting age who can be relied on to fulfill a dog's needs on a daily basis. A Dog Nanny is the answer.
--Move the residence to the first floor. This might make the Secret Service nervous, but with a puppy, you have to have quick access to the outdoors. When he gets that worried look in his face and starts walking in circles, you should be able to sweep it up in your arms, run to the back door and deposit it on the grass in a matter of seconds. Not only does this avoid a spot on your rug, it gives the pup a chance to succeed and get some well deserved praise—an important component of training. You don't want to be rushing down the corridors of power with a leaking puppy at 2 a.m.
--Get a smallish dog. Big dogs are murder on floors. No matter how disciplined you are about trimming their nails, they still manage to score the floors, giving them that rustic, distressed look. A small dog doesn't weigh enough to do any damage, even if you occasionally forget to cut his nails. Also a large, young, enthusiastic dog is bound to jump up on an occasional guest before it is fully trained. You don't want your Rottweiler jumping up on Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Little dogs jump up too, of course, but they are not likely to create an international incident in the process.
--If you get one of those hypoallergenic breeds—a poodle or poodle-mix—make sure that the dog can see you. These dogs have adorable curly fringes hanging down over their eyes, but remember, if you can't see the dog's eyes, the dog can't see you. A good dog learns to read her people like an open book, mostly by interpreting their body language, but she can't do this if her vision is obscured by a curtain of hair.
--Get a really good trainer (this may or may not be the same person as the dog nanny) and have him or her work with the dog AND the President every day. Impossible, you say? Not if you want to avoid the spectacle of the President running after a dog who would rather chase a squirrel than obey the Commander in Chief. If the First Dog does not acknowledge the President as alpha, the opposition leaders may start getting ideas. So don't skimp on the training: the entire planet is watching, and so are its dogs.
November 1, 2008
I can “hear” Wolfie and Lexi saying it all day long. But I'm starting to grow inured to their pleas. I'm feeding them four and a half pounds of food every day, for crying out loud. How can they still be hungry?
This afternoon I took them out, one at a time, to work and exercise them, but first I let them watch me fill the treat pouch with pieces of mozzarella and tie it around my waist. Wolfie did some nice stays and recalls and was delighted with the cheese rewards. Then I brought out the ball thrower, which he is addicted to, and made him stay while I waved the thrower around. He was o.k. with that. I ratcheted up the challenge by actually throwing the ball past him, and he held his stay. But when I tried to reward his self control with a bit of cheese, all he cared about was the BALL! He wanted to CHASE THE BALL!!! That's why he'd done all that silly stuff I'd asked of him, so he COULD CHASE THE BALL!!!! It was clear that even the ripest Camembert would not have distracted him, so I put the cheese away and let him have a rip-roaring session of chasing THE BALL!!
(As I threw balls for him with all my might, I remembered, two years ago, with the snow deep outside, locking myself in our guest room with eight-week-old Wolfie and a little ball. I would throw the ball and he would toddle after it, but would get distracted by the fringe on the rug. Eventually he'd remember the ball, start to bring it to me, drop it, go after the fringe again, find the ball, chew on it a while...tempus fugit.)
Then it was Lexi's turn to work. This is a dog who's been through years of obedience training, and has all her commands down pat. But she was so focused on cheese, the presence of cheese, the possibility of cheese, that when I put her on sit/stay and walked away in order to do a recall, she kept getting up and following me. It was as if there were a string from her nose to the cheese, and she couldn't not follow it. It took a few tries, but eventually she recalled what recalls were all about, and ran to me to snatch her reward, almost taking off my fingers as she did so.
The dogs have just had their dinner, and are lying down, momentarily sated. In half an hour, though, they'll be thinking about food again, like this:
