Sir, yes Sir!

I received a call from a very nice lady who runs a local dog adoption agency asking me to evaluate one of their dogs. Baron is a Katrina dog and he is a Rottweiler. Sherry (All names changed to protect the innocent!) told me that her partner Darlene had noticed that Baron seemed aggressive with other dogs, a bit food aggressive and unruly at the kennel . Would I come out there and take a look at him to see if I thought they would be able to adopt him out? I've evaluated and helped this organization with quite a few dogs and so I said, "Not a problem. But before I come out there I need to talk with someone at the kennel who works with him." She promised me that she would get one of the kennel workers to call me.

Barb called me and after a bit of phone tag, we talked. She told me that she had seen no food aggression with Baron, but she had seen him be a bit aggressive with other dogs. That's pretty normal for Rottweilers. It's actually in the AKC Standard that aggression with other dogs is not to be penalized when judging Rottweilers in dog shows. That's another way of saying, "Don't get too bent out of shape if your Rottie wants to jump on another dog!"

Barb assured me that she was aware of this. Her main concern was that he was a sweet dog and needed a good qualified home with people who understood Rotties. She thought Baron was going crazy cooped up in the kennel and wondered out loud if it might not be better to put him down rather than keeping him kenneled.

I called Sherry back. "Barb says that Baron is sweet. He just needs to get to a good home."

"Well that's not what Darlene says."

Darlene is the person who runs the kennel where the agency keeps their dogs. Apparently Baron had pinned Darlene against the wall in one of the kennels. Darlene is also a known "spoiler" of dogs. Giving lots and lots of unworked for attention to her dogs. Lots of "unconditional love." To make the dog feel better. And she has been known to correct a dog.

Now some Rotties have been known to be dominant with people. (By the way there is no correlation between dog aggression and dominance with people. Two completely different behaviors and unrelated). But imagine this scenario. You've shown a dog over time that he is Alpha to you by showering him with unworked for attention (www.dogadoptiontips.com). Then at some point you correct him for bad behavior like unruliness or food aggression. In other words you now try to become Alpha.

What had happened as a result was that Baron, a dog with some dominance, had used his 100lbs to pin Darlene against the kennel wall. He had also growled at her. He informed her in no uncertain terms that he was still Alpha. Typical Rottie dominant behavior. Especially after a correction. And especially since there is a good chance that Darlene had shown Baron over time that he was Alpha to her with all that "affection."

Barb had given me these details, so I asked her to help me put Baron on a training program to see if he was the "beast" Darlene made him out to be or just a typical male dog that needs to know who's running the show. Barb was game.

Now here was the program I put Baron on. Sit down because this will be earth shattering! Barb was to teach Baron how to sit with a food treat (www.dogadoptiontips.com) and each time before he came out of his kennel he had to sit. If he didn't sit, there was NO correction. He just didn't get the treat and he didn't get to come out of the kennel! Whew, amazing isn't it?

Secondly, Baron had to sit before he got to eat his food. If he didn't sit, no food! I asked Barb to call me after instituting the program, which she did.

"Baron is doing great. He's settled down and he picked up the sit very quickly!"

I asked if he had been unruly anymore and the answer was no. I called Sherry back and told her that unless there were more problems I didn't think I needed to look at him, BUT whoever adopted Baron needed to meet with me first before they took him. After all this dog training stuff is pretty complex!

Adopted Dog Training, Continued!

Ok, so you might say rewards based training for adopted dogs sounds cool, but I've got a dog that wants to bite people! How would you deal with that "trainer boy"!

A lady called me one day and said she had a "street dog". She had rescued her dog not from a shelter, but right off the street. This lady knew nothing of the dog's background except that she was found wandering on the streets. The dog would let only my client get near her. The woman told me that the female dog acted like she wanted to bite anyone who tried to approach her. Could I help? I asked her what generally happened when others approached her dog.

"She growls and curls her lip and acts like she wants to bite. Most of my friends are scared of her."

I mentioned that I could see why a sane person would be a little concerned about getting near such a dog. I then asked the lady what her friends' normal reactions were when the dog growled at them.

"Most of the time they give her some space."

"So does that mean they back off or just stand there?"

"Oh, they back off. They don't want to get bitten!"

I then asked the lady what SHE did when her dog acted like this.

"Oh, well I try to settle her down."

"And how do you do that?"

"Well, I try to soothe her by talking nice to her and then I'll slowly pet her to calm her down."

Anyone who's read this blog can see a mistake this well meaning owner was making right off the bat. I mentioned to her that by talking in a soothing manner and petting her dog while she was acting up, the lady was actually reinforcing the bad behavior. She thought about it and said it made sense to her now. At the time, however, she thought she was doing the right thing.

As well meaning as she was, she made the classic mistake. She thought she could change the dog's mind once the dog was already in the behavior. And more importantly, she dealt with the dog as if it were a human. Once she realized her mistake, we began to formulate a training plan to change her adopted dog's bad behavior.

A correction based training system would advocate providing the dog with a negative response to her growling. Maybe a leash correction. Or even a shock collar. The problem with this is that dogs learn by associating. So if the dog saw a stranger and began to growl and as a result got a correction, something painful, she could associate the pain of the correction with the sight of the person. Which could make her growl even more! "Whenever I see you I get pain! I hate you, it's your fault!" Now obviously adopted dogs don't "think" like that. Actually no dog thinks like that, but you see my point, I hope.

I suggested that we eliminate the rewards that were already built into the process. I asked my client to stop petting and soothing the dog when she growled. Instead, ignore it! Now to do this and keep everyone safe, she would have to set up an exercise where she could keep her dog on a loose leash so she wouldn't get free and actually bite someone. This way she could ignore the dog's growling without worrying about the general public!

The next step was to make sure the intended "victim" didn't provide the ultimate reward, walking away. When the dog growled at a person and that person stepped back or went away then the dog "won." That only reinforced the growling. Since the exercise would take place with the dog on a leash we could have the "victim" (me) stand and not move while the dog growled.

I stood sideways to the dog (less threatening) and didn't look at her as she growled away. About a minute into it she looked up at her owner: "You must not have heard me. I'm growling my head off!" The owner continued to ignore and I continued to stand sideways and not look at the dog. It took 5-7 minutes for the growling to stop. When she stopped, I tossed her a food treat and I walked away. Notice the dog got the ultimate reward when she was polite.

I then had the lady let her dog walk towards me and I tossed her food treats as she walked my way, as long as she didn't growl. If at any time she had started growling again I would have stopped backing away and stopped with the food treats until the dog got polite again. But she didn't growl again and so after four or five food treats I stopped backing up and let her take one from my hand. I was taking a chance, but she took it politely from me and let me lightly pet her. Then it was a matter of giving her more food and light petting as long as she was acting politely. Before I left she was letting me pet her without food and she seemed to enjoy it!


If you have a similar situation, get a behaviorist in your area to help you with this. DON'T take the chance that you could be bitten!

Will she ever be the "social dog", craving the affection of strangers? No, but she stopped with the threatening behavior. I suggested to her owner that she be careful and not allow strangers to pet and play with her unless she was supervised. In short, her owner had a responsibility to make sure her dog was NEVER put in a position where she could make a mistake again. Her adopted dog, however was much more polite as a result of the rewards based training program we put her on.

Remember, it's all about the reward!

Rewards!

You know we've talked about the fact that when training your adopted dog it helps if you remember one thing. Your dog's past may not have been the most pleasant.

There could have been abuse or abandonment on the part of the owner. There could have also been behavior issues on your dog's part. Adopted dogs usually have "issues"! Training your adopted dog as a result needs to be a carefully thought out process. What I like to call rewards based training seems to work best for adopted dogs. If you want me to be accurate, rewards based training seems to work best for ALL dogs!

When thinking about how to train your adopted dog remember this: All dogs are "experts" in learning how to get what they want. Dogs are also the ultimate association machines. The way your dogs learns is through association. If he gets a piece of food each time he sits then sitting is associated with a strong reward and therefore sitting is reinforced. He has learned to sit. If he barks and screams when he's in a crate and as a result gets let out of the crate then he associates obnoxious behavior with the reward of coming out of the crate. The barking and screaming has been reinforced by the reward of getting out of the crate!

You're always training your dog, whether you know it or not. How often do you "reward" bad behavior on the part of your dog? After having dealt with the behavior problems and training issues of hundreds of dogs and their owners, I can tell you that most behavior problems are created by unknowing owners reinforcing bad behavior on the part of their dogs. This is a huge issue with adopted dogs because adopted dogs tend to start out with behavior problems! That's why they are available to be adopted in the first place!

Training your adopted dog (www.dogadoptiontips.com) is easier if you learn to ask yourself often, "Do I want to reward this behavior?"

Rewards based training is also easier on your dog, which is key when dealing with an adopted dog, who could have been abused. Even corrections are easier: If your dog doesn't give you what you want, then he or she doesn't get a reward!

Rewards based training takes longer, but it is also longer lasting because your dog wants to work for you. Which boss would you rather work for? The one that always tells you what you do wrong? Or the one that helps you do your job better and easier and praises you along the way? I think we all know the answer to that one.

When training your adopted dog, remember several things. First of all don't reward ANY behavior you don't want to continue! Second, since your dog learns any behavior he associates with a reward, make sure that you only reward the behavior you want to see more of!

Adopted Dog Training

Ok, so you want to adopt a dog. That's an honorable thing to do, but there are some things that you need to consider. First, most adopted dogs have "issues". That's why they are available for adoption in the first place! Most owners give up their dogs to a shelter or the pound because of behavior problems. Or maybe the owners are moving and can't keep a dog in the new place. But in any case the reason the previous owner gave up the dog is something you will never know.

The second thing you need to keep in mind is that because there is a good chance your new dog was given up because of behavior problems, you need to be careful how you train your new friend.

Dog behavior problems sometimes cause abusive behavior on the part of owners. We've all experienced frustration with our dogs at one time or another. Many owners use that frustration as motivation to find a training solutions to their dog's behavior problem(s). But many owners react to their dog's behavior problem by heaping abuse on the dog. These owners sometimes give their dogs up for adoption when their frustration reaches a high level. Because you typically don't know the background of your adopted dog it's much safer to assume that there are behavior problems and then train accordingly.

If there has been abuse in your new friend's previous life then the "old school" correction based training can actually make behavior problems worse. You need to use a training method that relies on positive reinforcement. A more positive method of training (www.dogadoptiontips.com) may take longer to achieve results, but the results will be longer lasting and create a better environment for your new friend. And that's what dog adoption is all about isn't it? Creating a new and lasting home for a deserving dog, your new best friend!

Victory!

What is victory for a dog? Well, victory is a big reward that's for sure.

I'm a cyclist and along with about 200 hundred other cyclists I ride the country roads outside of my town almost every weekend. On one long straightaway this summer there was a small terrier that chased every, single blessed cyclist, every single Saturday morning without fail. After three or four of these episodes I determined that he wouldn't bite me. He would make a lot of noise and get close to my moving feet but he never attempted to bite. So I decided I would change the definition of victory for him. As I rode towards the yard he guarded I slowed down and when he came streaking across the grass I actually stopped. He ran into the road and barked his fool head off and ran back and forth. I said nothing and did nothing. I merely stood over my bike in the road.

After a minute or two of his display the barking was reduced to grumbling and then he stopped altogether and dropped on his chest in the grass, thoroughly bored. Then I rode off.

The next day I rode back down the road. The quiet morning was suddenly disturbed by the sound of a barking terrier, hellbent on chasing yet another cyclist off his property. He was like lightning coming across the yard, when all of a sudden it was like he recognized me, got my scent or something. He suddenly stopped dead in his tracks, grumbled a bit and turned and laid down in the grass. I then rode off. He got rid of me the polite way. Victory!

Help!

I get quite a few dog training questions by phone. That's mainly because I no longer go to anyone's home for training. Now I used to make "housecalls" but no more. It was just so boring! It's not that hard to change dog behavior, you just need to know what you're looking at and you need to be creative in your solution, but even so it ain't that hard! You've got to learn to shape the behavior that you want, NOT correct behavior that you don't want! Once you learn that, once you look at it from that point of view, dog training becomes easy and therefore somewhat boring. Of all the hundreds of homes I've visited only a handful of dog problems were a challenge. Not because I'm some kind of genius, but because, as I mentioned before, once you know how to do it, it ain't that hard! But I've got to admit the voicemail left me intrigued just a bit.

I got the call on a Saturday morning. Now when I see a number on my Caller ID that I don't recognize I'm not answering. You see I solve dog training problems for people right over the phone. Most of the time they don't need me in their home and most of the time I don't want to go. They tell me the problem, I tell them what they need to do, they do it and it's all better. I swear to you that's how it goes. I believe I've heard them all. If everyone with a dog problem knew my phone number then I'd never get off the phone, so if I don't recognize the number I'm not answering! Needless to say I didn't answer the call. Four rings and right to voicemail. I waited for the beep that signifies the voice message is complete and then I picked up the phone.

"This is Karen (fictional name)from XYZ Adoption Agency (Once again a fictional name). I need a dog psychologist. I am fostering a dog that has confounded four vets and no one has been able to solve the problem. Can you call me and suggest someone who can help me? Thanks."

"Ok," I thought, "there's the hook. She wants me to give her the name of someone who can solve her problem. She's appealing to my ego because they know I don't go out to homes anymore and if she asks me to suggest someone then I'm going to want to tackle the problem to prove I can do better than anyone else." Well she was partly right. At that point I wanted to know what the problem was and I wanted to solve it. So I called her. But I wasn't going to anyone's house!

I work with mostly adopted dogs and most of the agencies know of me. Adopted dog training is sometimes a bit different in that adopted dogs usually have issues. That's why they're out there in shelters being adopted in the first place. Because they didn't "cut it" at home. Ok, I'll be blunt. Most adopted dogs have behavior problems and since that's my specialty, dog adoption agencies will often call me. Or the members of the dog adoption agencies that foster and safe house dogs until they're adopted will call me with problems. That was this woman named Karen, but she didn't return my call. So I forgot about her.

The next Saturday I got another message from her. I don't know her and had never met her, but she sounded irritated and made some vague allusion to the fact that I hadn't called her. Well, I'm rarely accused of being patient, but I thought I'd try once more, so I called her back. Once again she didn't answer her phone and over the next several days didn't return the call. I vowed once again to forget about Karen and her adopted dog's behavior problems.

One week later, on a Saturday I got a call while at home. I looked at the Caller ID while it was ringing and the number looked familiar, so I answered it.

"This is Karen from XYZ Adoption Agency. Did you get my calls?"

I reacted to her accusatory tone because it irritated me. "Yeah, I did. Did you get my messages?"

"Oh, uh, well I can't get messages off my cell phone. Something's wrong with it."

Not wanting the technical explanation I encouraged her to get to the point. "So what's going on?"

"Well I am safe housing a female pit bull until we can adopt her out. She was chasing her tail. Constantly. I took her to four vets. We got some medication for her. She looked so miserable. One vet docked her tail so she couldn't get to it so easy because she had chewed it raw. She was in a lot of emotional pain."

This story encapsulates the problems of adopted dog training. Most adopted dogs or shelter dogs have issues. Many have been in abuse situations, but you NEVER know the full story so you have to be careful in approaching behavior problems. Most of the time corrections make the problem worse. Actually corrections are not the best for any dog, but with adopted dogs you can really make a bad situation much worse.

A second problem in the adopted dog story is the safe housers, the people who provide foster homes until the dogs can be adopted to their new owners. These are usually good-hearted, well-meaning people. Without them many more shelter dogs would be put down because there's not enough room in most shelters for all the dogs. Every now and then you get a safe houser like Karen who thinks she knows something about training dogs in general and adopted dogs in particular. Usually they know just enough to be dangerous. Listen to the rest of the story.

After she described the problem I asked the question I always ask. "So what did you do to try and stop this behavior?"

"Well the only way I could stop her was to pick her up. Oh and of course we would take a food treat and put it in front of her nose and she would stop then. But when I would put her down or she would finish the treat she would start all over again."

If I hadn't heard insane things like that so many times in dealing with adopted dog scenarios I would have been amazed. But I'm used to it. What I heard next I never get used to.

"She was just so miserable. She looked at me like she wished she could just stop doing this! The look on her face was so sad. So we put her down."

I was stunned and I don't mind telling you a little upset. "You did what?"

"We put her down."

She sounded pretty confident in her abilities as she was telling me what she did to "stop" the little pit bull from chasing her tail. That confident tone was now starting to break up a bit.

"Could you have stopped this? What would you have done?"

"Well I don't think you want me to tell you since it's a pretty easy problem to solve. I've done it before and it's easy."

She started to cry and at that point I didn't want to make it worse. I asked another question.

"Was there ever a time when you first adopted the dog, or excuse me, starting safe housing her that she didn't chase her tail?"

"Well, yeah. Actually she didn't do it when we first got her."

I'm not a cruel man. I was nice to her. She seemed to feel bad after all. But here's where she went wrong. First of all she should have returned my phone calls! Fifteen minutes on the phone and we could have solved the problem. Secondly putting a piece of food in front of the dog while she was spinning rewarded the spinning. Gee, I wonder why she started again after she finished the treat? Picking her up while she was spinning to stop the spinning rewarded the spinning. Once again, I wonder why she started again when she was put back down on the floor?

Like I said, I was polite to her, but I was very irritated with her. She put a dog down, a good dog that could have been adopted, because she couldn't return a phone call! And she continually rewarded and therefore reinforced a behavior that probably started out as a mild reaction to the stress of being in a strange home. Because of those rewards the behavior increased in intensity. This was one time I would have gladly gone to someone's home. What a waste...

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