There are respected, successful, talented, effective trainers at nearly every point along the spectrum of “hardness.” (Personally, I think the very best trainers tend to have superb balance of the various principles along the majority of the spectrum, and can shift themselves as the animal and situation demands, but that is a topic for another day.)
Those nearer the “hard” end tend to espouse messages around strong leadership and boundaries, and not letting your animal become pushy, spoiled, wild—they tend to be big on clarity and firm authority.
Those nearer the “soft” end tend to espouse messages around listening to your animal, helping him find calmness and relaxation, making sure his needs are met and he is comfortable, soft, relaxed—they tend to be big on empowering, motivating, encouraging.
In general, I think owners who are near the soft end of the spectrum would improve the most by spending the majority of their time listening to trainers who are nearer to the hard end, and owners near the hard end would improve the most by primarily listening to trainers nearer the soft end. Not that anyone should feel compelled to go “too far” outside what seems ethical and right to them–quite the opposite, it is important to work with trainers whose techniques make sense and feel good and correct to you, but generally listening to trainers a bit in the direction opposite your leaning will maximize growth and learning and help you to become a more balanced trainer with greater breadth and depth.
What is interesting is that the opposite tends to happen—soft owners are drawn to soft trainers whose messages sound and feel familiar and comfortable to them, and so they reinforce or exacerbate their inherent imbalance; and hard owners seek out hard trainers who tend to reinforce or exacerbate their innate proclivities.
This is also true with politics, metaphysics, media, life: it is important to seek out those whose central ethics and ideals overlap with yours, but if you constantly surround yourself only with like-minded experts who affirm and reinforce your inclinations, growth is slower and less certain than if you also seek out, and genuinely consider, those whose views will push you to question your tendencies and consider alternative perspectives.
There are many trite inspirational sayings and anecdotes about embracing challenge and struggle in life, for it is in these moments that growth occurs. (One of my favorites is the story of how a reporter asked Muhammed Ali how many sit-ups he performed, and he answered that he had no idea, because he did not start counting until they started to really hurt, for those were the only ones that mattered…) Often, these platitudes sound great in theory, but in the moments when they really matter they seem hollow.
One of the great lessons in animal training is, perhaps, that it is precisely the imperfections that ARE the point:
Veillan and I were struggling a bit—he did not understand what I was asking and was getting frustrated, and I was trying to figure out how to communicate more clearly, and we worked through it, and my instinct was to feel proud and happy that we had overcome the bad spot and could now move on to the good, and it suddenly struck me that the moment we had just completed WAS the good. The stuff before and after was pleasant enough, but it was in the little struggle that I grew, that Veillan grew, that our trust, confidence, bond, language, understanding, and affection grew. That moment was the great gift of animal training, the great gift of life. I got out of bed seeking that moment, not seeking to avoid or even overcome it. Recognizing challenging moments in this way perhaps helps us to genuinely release frustration and impatience—these are not failures or negatives—and relax and enjoy the preciousness of the moments that matter most.
This may all sound rather obvious and remedial to many, but for me it was a bit of an epiphany—I have always been good at embracing the suck in the sense that I was good at coming to terms that it was a necessary step towards where I wanted to be; but I am not sure I have previously recognized that perhaps the suck is not a step; but rather the goal…
For most of the last twenty-five years, if you had asked me to define my training style, I probably would have identified myself as a “joy trainer.” My central defining characteristic as a trainer has been to find and develop joy in playing the game; to determine ways to ensure that doing whatever behavior I wanted was the most fun option imaginable, and that the animal was demonstrably, actively engaged and enthused about the process and the outcome. Over the course of training thousands of dogs, cats, antelope, raccoon, skunk, lemur, crows, chickens, lions, tigers, bears, snakes, and nearly everything else to fairly high levels for hundreds of films, commercials, ads, and TV shows, this technique has served me very well, not only in terms of achieving superb results, but also in terms of having extremely happy animals that LOVE to train and that continue working over long lifespans, and also feeling very good about myself and the lives of my animals.
In that vein, I have often written
about the importance, early in training any animal, of determining precisely
what that individual finds genuinely rewarding, and understanding the patterns
and specifics of reinforcement—when should you use which treats, when play
which games, when use which types of praise or petting. What motivations and drives
that animal possesses and how best to utilize them.
But over the past few years, Veillan,
an energetic Lusitano x Arab colt, has helped me to realize that my thinking
about joy, drive, and reinforcement was too narrow. When I started training
Veillan, I found myself struggling a bit to figure out how to incorporate play
and joy into his training. Sure, he had periods of exuberant play, but they
tended to be brief and difficult for me to instigate, and trying to play with
him while also being safe and not allowing him to rehearse behaviors that would
be dangerous and undesirable later in life was challenging.
(It is worth pointing out that my horse experience has been comparatively limited: I rode camp horses as a kid, and briefly participated in an equestrian program in eighth grade, but really had not ridden much. Over the years when we needed to work horses, I always demurred to Lauren who is a lifelong equestrienne. Of course, I started out reading many books, watching, hundreds of DVDs, attending countless clinics, seminars, and lectures, and the vast majority of the principles of training are sufficiently parallel to all other animals that in relatively short order I felt reasonably competent—I knew how and when to release pressure to reinforce a desired behavior, I understood about waiting for relaxation, I was getting pretty good results, my horses were calm and happy and working pretty well, but I had not really figured out how to bring “joy training” to my horses, and none of the horse training experts I consulted seemed particularly focused on joy or exuberance in their horses.)
One day I found myself thinking about something well-known by everyone, and absurdly obvious—that horses are paradigmatically prey animals, and that most of the animals I have trained are predators. In predators, excitation is a powerful positive. Chasing, fighting, killing, eating—good! In prey animals, excitation is generally less positive—being chased, fighting, being killed, being eaten—bad! A central goal for any prey animal is to avoid unnecessarily expending calories or risking injury, so exuberant play is problematic. If you watch young predators, they spend huge amounts of time joyfully playing and rehearsing excitation. If you watch young prey animals, they do play and evince joy, but FAR less. In contemplating this, I realized that I was overlaying onto my animals my assumption that “joy” represented the highest ideal. Perhaps, I suddenly realized, different individuals perceived different emotional states as having more or less value than I assumed…
Most of the horses I have known crave above nearly everything else what I will—imprecisely—call “tranquility.” Tranquility is a complex notion. It includes relaxation, calmness, contentedness, safety, harmony, peace, clarity, certainty, confidence, comfort, balance, and connectedness to friends, self, and environment,. A horse is happiest when all these things come together, although different horses may weight the individual components differently, and to a large degree spends its entire life trying to return to tranquility, to remove whatever factors are interfering with that return. Certainly, play and fun can be used, to great effect, in horse training, but they must be used in service of helping the animal achieve its emotional holy grail.
I started thinking about different dogs who had worked primarily in different drives, and realizing that not only were their drives different, their ideal energy states were different. Loki was happiest in a very relaxed state, Slate finds relaxation almost unpleasant and wants to be vibrating, Flint enjoyed an almost violent tension. Even though they each had play drive and retrieve drive, the emotional tone of their play was very different. As I contemplated each of the animals I have trained, I found myself more and more recognizing that each of them had an ideal energy state, and that training them worked best when I could match my energy, intentions, and actions to that tone, and mindfully help them achieve that state.
One of the central tasks for any animal trainer is to find ways to help each animal recognize that performing the desired behavior is the path to maximizing whatever energetic and emotional state brings that individual the most bliss.
I have written many times about how and why education is critical to the life of an animal. How it builds confidence, develops intelligence, strengthens bonds, etc.. How learning begets more learning, and understanding begets comfort, relaxation, and joy. I go on and on about this from the animals’ perspective because it is one of my deepest passions and areas of expertise.
Recently, however, I have had a series of experiences that made me want to share one distinct reason for teaching your pets a wide variety of skills that may not seem essential in the moment: things change.
Several people I have known have recently undergone huge life events that changed most of the details of their existence. They got old, injured, evicted, fired, whatever, and suddenly they had to pivot and build a new life, and their less-skilled pets became a huge impediment. If your pet is adaptable, flexible, and able to survive in a wide variety of circumstances, they will thrive, and be happy, no matter where you may end up. Even if you end up dead, or having to rehome your pet, the likelihood of an educated pet finding a good home and having a great life is far greater than if your pet is stressed, noisy, destructive, contentious, aggressive, has very specific needs, etc. Do not get me wrong—there are some pets that will never be “easy” no matter how much effort you put in, and I am not saying that owners of difficult pets are in any way “less” than owners of easy pets! I am merely saying that the more you can do to actualize any animal’s potential to be a good citizen and a delight, the more you will have increased that animal’s ability to find success and happiness in this dynamic world…
I hear often from people whose pets “hate” baths, or having their nails done, or some other activity, and when I ask them to show me or tell me more, it is immediately obvious that the animal is not objecting to the activity per se, but to being restrained. So I wanted to discuss restraint…
Please take a few minutes to genuinely consider restraint from the animal’s perspective: for millennia restraint has meant injury or death. An animal’s ability to fight or flee is one of its most basic instincts, and restraint means the loss of these defense mechanisms. Most animals naturally fear this loss of control, often to the point of near hysteria, and they do not understand what is coming next. You may know that no harm is going to come to them, but they do not—they do not know if you are about to kill them or maim them, and they are literally afraid for their lives. Imagine someone dangling you off the roof of the Empire State Building… So if you are restraining your animal, and telling them to hold still, or that it is going to be okay, and they are resisting, they are not being bad, they are being remarkably good in that they are not biting you when really it would be well within their behavioral rights to do so!
Once you authentically understand what an animal is feeling
when being restrained, it becomes fairly easy to empathize and address their
fear. Restraint needs to be worked on without any secondary component—no bath,
no nails, no shots, nothing else. And no frustration, impatience, or anger on
your part. It needs to be trained and conditioned. Restraint is all about trust—and the more you
work on building your animal’s ability to handle restraint, the more you will
build trust; however, the reverse is also true—you want to avoid having to
force the issue of restraint if at all possible, as doing so fundamentally
violates his trust in you and sets the process back.
There are many exercises you can perform to work on restraint, but they are all somewhat similar. Essentially, you start gradually and build up, and you stop and release the restraint only when they are relaxed and accepting. Your goal is to start with essentially no restraint but in a position that mimics restraint, and then gradually begin restraining them and letting go before they fight against you. Timing is everything in this pursuit—go a moment too far and a struggle begins which you cannot really win. Patience is key—you do not need to get there in one session, or in twenty. If they are doing well, stop, do not try to go one step further, take your time!
I generally avoid using commands when working on restraint—sit,
down, stand, and especially stay. I do
not want to create a scenario in which their nervousness makes it impossible to
succeed. I may use a command to get them
into position, but then I release them before I begin restraining so that they
are not conflicted and stressed while trying to do what I asked.
Once they can remain relaxed during easy restraint, you can
start making it more demanding, and you can begin to push a tiny bit too far—the
new goal becomes letting them bump into the fact that they are restrained,
react just a bit, and then relax again. You want them to learn how to soothe
themselves when they feel restraint. The key here is always the timing of the
release—you want them to learn that relaxing is the path to release, so you
always release when they find that relaxation.
It is important not to push too far—if an animal shuts down and gives up, it may seem to solve the problem in the short term, but the anxiety has just been tamped down where it will cause physical, emotional, and behavioral issues, and will in all likelihood resurface explosively at a later date. Perhaps even more importantly, you will have decreased your animal’s trust in you instead of building it. Expect to spend on average 10-20 hours working on this, over the course of a month or two, and you will have an animal that can completely relax when being restrained, and then you can begin very gently adding other elements like nail trimming or bathing or whatever, always being mindful not to panic or injure.
Always be mindful that it is a very big deal for an animal to relinquish control of its body, and go slowly with maximal empathy, and you will do great…
Note: this post is about teaching an animal to be comfortable with restraint, which is a worthwhile lesson. It is not intended to imply that restraint is always the best solution. In many circumstances, you are better off training your animal to hold still without needing restraint–to place its foot where you want for nail trimming, or rest its chin statically while you perform many grooming or veterinary procedures. By doing this you can also teach your animal to move when not comfortable, so that he become an active and willing participant, but that is an entirely different process which is also worthwhile and I will discuss in a subsequent post…
This is somewhat embarrassing to share, but I thought it might be worthwhile:
A little over a year ago, my father suffered a severe stroke, and I spent several months with him in hospitals and rehab, and then drove him across the country to live with me and Lauren. He is a wonderful man whom we both love dearly, but at this point he suffers from severe apraxia, aphasia, and anosognosia, and taking care of him is very challenging, he needs nearly constant assistance and monitoring, and is somewhat moody and bored and understandably angry. None of which I say for sympathy; but rather, to explain that my mood has been somewhat “off” recently. I have been a bit less resilient, tolerant, and beneficent than usual.
What is interesting is not that that my training has not
been as good for the past year as it was before, which seems pretty obvious,
but my sense of why:
I am not doing anything different. My techniques are the same, my timing is the same, I am not snapping at my animals or correcting them more. My training is fine, but my energy is not as good.
Renowned horseman Tom Dorrance once said,
“First you go with the horse, then the horse goes with you, then you go together.”
This can be understood on many levels, but the one I have been contemplating lately is energetic—we must be able to control our energies and emotions enough that we can bring ourselves into resonance with our animals before we can begin to ask them to modulate their energies with us. Sure, we can “hide” our feelings and muddle through, but animals are masters at discerning underlying feelings, and so we are far more effective when our intentions, emotions, and energies are aligned with our outward communications.
One of the great gifts of working with animals, if we look for and embrace it, is that we learn to be present. We learn to be profoundly mindful and to listen with all of our being to all of another. We learn to have a plan, but to release our expectations of how we shall implement that plan. We learn to be patient, and to let frustration pass over us without taking root. We learn that tiny little changes add up to everything, and that effort and attitude mean far more than performance. We learn to play and smile. We learn that pride and ego and rigidity interfere with effective communication. We learn to breathe and meditate, and to prepare ourselves. We learn to be aware of the sacredness that exists when we ask another to be completely with us, to share our lives, our dreams, and our adventures; to risk with us… We may set out to teach something to our animal, but if we are willing and available, we will likely learn at least as much as they.
One truth that amazes me daily is how deeply cooperative most animals are. If we can effectively explain what we want, and can get ourselves out of the way, most of the time our animals are happy to comply, even when it makes no real sense. But in order for this magic to happen, we must create a space in which they are not afraid, not stressed, not confused; a moment in which they want to be with us, present, engaged, relaxed, focused, enthused, happy. We create this space by being all those things ourselves first, and then inviting them to join us.
Several times recently parents have proudly told me—usually while their child was mauling an animal—that “any animal that survives” their child will be supremely tame. I find this assertion problematic on several levels, most significantly that it mischaracterizes in disturbing ways the process of building trust in an animal. It implies that flooding, through lack of awareness, leads to very tame animals; which, sometimes, can be true, but in most cases those were nice animals that would have been very tame anyway and have gotten through “despite” course handling, not because of it. And often animals handled this way do not become genuinely tame, confident, and trusting; but rather shut down, stressed, and a bit helpless.
I have very little experience with human children, so I will not focus on that side of the equation except to suggest that as a parent I might want to work on my child not overwhelming animals or dragging on leashes or ignoring animal language and emotion—not only can it be quite dangerous for the children and detrimental for the animals, but also I would think one of the best things about having animals around a child would be the opportunity to work on sensitivity, empathy, and thoughtful awareness.
I do have considerable experience working with a huge range of animals, so I can meaningfully share that to me, building trust and rapport with an animal is almost always a supremely subtle process that requires considerable gentleness and incredible awareness. It is about teaching them that they are safe, that they can control their world, that they can play and communicate and set boundaries. There are moments to retreat, moments to reward, moments to soothe, moments to push forward… There are times to make eye contact, times to look away, times to act indifferent, times to be solicitous, times to leave them alone. There are times to model enthusiasm and raise your own energy, and times to create a calm and safe space for the animals. There is body language and tone of voice and precise observation.
I imagine some children are naturally more gifted than others, but virtually all children will need extensive help learning how to safely and effectively interact with animals. Please, do not justify or excuse your child’s heavy-handed behavior by pretending that it is beneficial, but rather talk to them about how to listen and observe and be gentle and kind…
Great animal training requires substantial knowledge and mechanical proficiency. But perhaps even more, great training requires artistry.
Recent decades have been a golden era for the science of animal training. Our understanding of behavior has grown and evolved, our techniques for utilizing that knowledge have advanced, and core principles have become widely understood by a great many trainers. Hallelujah!
But knowing, and mastering, techniques is only the first half of becoming a good trainer. I have known several trainers who possessed extensive book knowledge but whose training outcomes were dismal. And I have observed others who had very little knowledge but who achieved incredible results. Why?
For teaching almost any behavior, numerous techniques can be utilized; and the well-versed trainer knows many. But selecting the right technique for an individual animal at a particular moment demands acute perception and judgement: when to push; when to ease pressure; when to encourage, to coddle, to take a break; when to reward with food or toy or praise or play; when to correct, to lure, to raise or lower criteria; when to cheerily accept effort, to add energy, to be calm; when to wait, to rest the dog for more energy or exercise them for less; when to capture or back-chain; when and how to proof; when more training is needed, or less …. .
For some trainers, this feel – this ability to read an animal and a situation and respond with just the right tool – comes easily. For others it seems almost impossible. As with so many talents, there is an innate component, but there is one process that can maximize whatever talent a person may possess as a trainer: mindful experience.
Not to be confused with mere repetition (some people can “train” for thousands of hours without really hearing or learning), the single most powerful means to develop training artistry is to carefully, critically, thoughtfully observe and listen as one trains. During each moment you are training, your dog is reacting, responding, showing you what is working and what is not. You must listen. Science and technique must be so honed that they require little attention and recede into the background as you focus everything on feeling your dog. You must attune yourself to the dog’s reactions, not only the obvious changes in behavior, but the tiniest and most-subtle changes in body language – eyes, ears, tail, energy, enthusiasm, engagement.
You must constantly adjust and file away each moment as information that will help you to develop and refine your training intuition. Videotaping yourself can be useful, as can asking other trainers to observe and critique your sessions. But ultimately you must listen to your partner and refine your partnership so that you instantly and seamlessly accommodate your partner’s needs at each moment.
This is not to disparage science. By all means read and study and listen and learn everything you can. It will all help you improve. And absolutely spend many, many hours learning and practicing various techniques. But ultimately the training excellence you achieve depends upon how willing and able you are to listen to the animals with whom you practice.
The Fourth of July signifies American independence, barbeques, celebration, fireworks, and unfortunately many frightened dogs. In addition to the obvious refrains about keeping your pets safe and secure, let’s talk a little about what you can do to help minimize your pets’ distress.
First, let me point out that each individual is different, and you need to figure out what is best for yours. For some there may be little choice other than heading out of town, for some pharmaceuticals may be effective, for others a Thundershirt may be useful. There is no single right answer, so you need to try a few options and find a combination that is most effective for your pet. And if you have a great technique, by all means share it in the comments below!
That said, here is the technique I have found to be most effective with many dogs:
A couple of nights a week, for the next several weeks, go into whichever room in your home is most soundproof, and turn up a stereo as loud as you can without causing your dog any stress, introduce a strong scent (peppermint perhaps), and then play a rip-roaring game of fetch, tug, race, wrestle, rollover, etc. Play to all of the dog’s strongest drives and make the game fun. Try to make it the most upbeat, engaging romp possible, although not so over the top that it becomes frenetic or stressful. Have a very high rate of reinforcement—lots of treats, praise, cheering, throwing, tugging… If possible, have a colleague set of a few small noisemaking fireworks outside a distance away, or have someone in another room play a recording of fireworks. Have a container of super-treats sitting nearby, and periodically make a show of running to the treats and giving one, or more, to your dog, so that the act of running over to the treats becomes reinforcing as well. You should be laughing, dancing, sweating, and generally all having a blast.
On the Fourth, and in some places a few days earlier, before the fireworks start, go into the same room, crank the stereo, introduce the scent, and repeat the same exercise. Your dog will be somewhat trained to the desired behaviors, but even more he will be conditioned to a state of exuberance. Whenever you hear a boom over the loud music, do not react, but make sure a fun action occurs and run for a reward, so the booms start to seem like a precursor to the fun stuff.
The underlying notion here is that wild exuberance is a more immersive state than calm. Calmness tends to be fairly passive and fragile and easily interrupted by the first loud noise. Conversely, energetic play has great inertia and is difficult to interrupt. Exuberance also utilizes more similar chemical and neural pathways to fear, and so is more feasible when faced with frightening stimuli. And of course, the aural, visual, and olfactory cues that you have conditioned will all serve the secondary role of dampening the frightening stimuli.
Do not stress about the Fourth. Your dog will detect your anxiety which will compound his. Come up with a plan, ameliorate the noise as much as possible, and do everything you can to keep them safe and happy! Oh, and Happy Independence Day!
Note: before you panic about the image at the top, two things: one, do not try this at home, and two, it was shot in pieces and was very safe–there was one firework behind me when I was working the dog, and we were a safe distance and he was well acclimated. The angle makes it look closer, and then the others I photographed separately and composited in afterwards!
One puppy behavior that cannot be taught without help is how to meet new people. Each of us needs interactions with novel people so that our puppies can practice appropriate greetings and learn that people are fun and not frightening. I have wrestled quite a bit with whether or not to blog about this: I do not want to seem condescending or strident, and this is information most readers of this blog will likely be very certain they already know! However, for the past few months I have been taking a puppy around to socialize and meet lots of people, and I have been reminded over and over again how many people out there—even people with extensive dog experience and great intentions—interact with puppies in ways that are problematic.
So please do not take this as scolding, but as an opportunity for us all to pause and think about how we can help one another… And do not interpret any of this to mean you should not interact with puppies—it is very much appreciated when you take a few minutes to help us socialize! But puppies learn very quickly, and it does not take many bad encounters to have a significantly negative impact. So give a little thought to how you can be a positive influence.
Here are a few thoughts:
Things to do:
Have a conversation—the single best step you can take to making your interaction beneficial for the puppy is to have a conversation with the owner before you do anything with the puppy. Ask them about how they want the interaction to go, what things to avoid, what to encourage. No two puppies are identical, and what would be super helpful with one puppy might be quite harmful with another. You do not know their goals, their issues, you must ask!
Listen to the owner—no matter how knowledgeable you may be, you do not know what this owner and dog want. You must carefully listen to what they tell you.
Listen to the dog—observe the dog closely while interacting. If it is intimidated by what you are doing, back off. If it is pulling back or trying to avoid you, stop. If it is getting too excited and frenetic, slow your actions and reduce your energy. This is not a contest to get the dog to love you the most, it is a long process to get the dog to react to new people the way the owner wants.
Start easy, get harder—you can always increase the intensity and difficulty, but if you come on too strong it is very difficult to undo.
Be calm but friendly—almost nobody wants a dog that goes crazy and gets frantic when it meets new people.
When in doubt, ignore—if you are not sure; if a puppy seems nervous or hyper or whatever, and you are not sure what the owner would like, the safest path is to ignore the puppy while you ask the owner.
You are not entitled—this is not your puppy. Sometimes the owner way not want the puppy to meet you at all. Or may want you to ignore the puppy. You do not know what that they may be working on at any given moment, so do not take it personally if it does not involve you…
Things to avoid:
Too much energy—many dog lovers coming rushing in and start frenetically playing. This is overwhelming to some puppies, but to many it simply creates an expectation that greetings are supposed to be super-high-energy, which is almost never what an owner wants. Calm, friendly, thoughtful greetings are far more desired by most owners. After the initial greeting is over, many owners will appreciate your having a good play session with their puppies, but initially calm is much better than too energetic.
Telling them to sit, sit, sit—this is a very well-intended recent trend. Lots of pet owners and Petco trainers, learned the idea that a great way to avoid jumping up is to reinforce an incompatible behavior, and so they ask every puppy to sit. And in truth, this might be a fine trend, except that most people do it poorly. Their timing is awful.
Approaching too directly—when you see a puppy and immediately rush straight towards it, think about how this looks to the puppy.
Petting them on the top of the head—some dogs love this, some owners want to work on this, but in general, most dogs would prefer if you do not start out petting them on their heads.
Grabbing them or pulling them towards you—most dogs have a natural opposition reflex, especially to being pulled towards a stranger.
Petting them roughly—many puppies do not want to be whacked, tousled, slapped, etc.
Correcting them—unless we have discussed it, you do not know the rules I have taught my puppy. So if he paws at you that may be exactly what I trained him to do. If he jumps up on you, or mouths your hand, or lies down, or stands, whatever he does, you should not correct unless you know it is something he is not supposed to do…
Pushing them too far—I was at a seminar recently with my puppy, and he was having a great time meeting new people in a new place with lots of dogs and commotion. And a lady came over, sat down, and started harassing him. Grabbing his feet, lifting him up, grasping his testicles… And she kept it up until he was trying to get away from her and she would not let him get away. All the while she was explaining to me how much people appreciate her playing with their puppies, how she desensitizes them to lots of strange things, how she is beloved as a molester of puppies. It is not your job to torment my puppy. If I want or need my puppy to have that experience, I will ask someone I know and trust. I might even ask you, but it is not your place to decide to push my puppy.
Your adult dog correcting them—unless we have discussed it in advance, I do not want my puppy to have negative experiences with other dogs. If you are not 100% sure that your dog is great with puppies, please stay away. Many people bring their dogs over to meet my puppy and when I ask if their dog is good with puppies, they tell me they do not know. @#$^$%&#&!! Do not experiment with my puppy. A bad experience can cause issues that will take years to resolve or may never be undone. Oh, and noise counts. I have had several people tell me their dogs are good with puppies, then their dog reacts negatively and growls, barks or otherwise tells off my puppy, and they say, “See, she doesn’t ever make contact…” Contact is not the issue—I am far more concerned about psychological trauma then physical trauma, so if your dog is not welcoming and benevolent tell me so I can keep my puppy away!
Your dog being too forward—If your dog loves puppies and people and comes rushing up into my puppy’s space, there is a good likelihood that my puppy will be frightened. MAny puppies are sensitive to pressure, particularly from adult dogs. Keep your dog under control and a bit away, and let me bring the puppy over. This way the puppy can approach at his pace and not get overwhelmed.
Your dog being too interested in me—many puppies are a little insecure and even jealous about their owner. If your dog comes running in and greets me super enthusiastically, it may be negative for my puppy.
Your dog making things negative—I was practicing tunnels with my puppy when someone else came in and let their puppy say hello. Which was great. But every time my puppy tried to go into a tunnel, theirs would blast in after him, sometimes same direction, sometimes opposing, and would either knock my puppy over or just startle him. Later I was working my puppy on a table, and she encouraged her dog to jump up and essentially knock him off the table. These actions made my puppy far less confident about tunnels and tables—he is not sure another dog will not come knock him down…
Playing keep away—I am a little flabbergasted when people come up and take my puppy’s toy and don’t give it back. What is this game supposed to be? It is just obnoxious. Sure, you can tease the puppy, move the toy quickly, but the goal is to get the puppy to try harder and when they do try hard, they should win! If you want a toy, go get one, but that toy is my puppies, so if you are going to play with it make sure you do it in a way that is pleasing to my puppy.
Pretending to throw something—much like keep away, I am not really sure what people think they are doing. Yes, if you try you can fool the puppy. Bravo for you. But you are diminishing the puppy’s desire to fetch and decreasing his inclination to trust humans.
Tugging on their toy too hard—although it may not always feel like it, puppies have small teeth and weak jaws, and we do not want tug to be unpleasant.
Intruding on training—if I am not looking at you, and am clearly working on something with my puppy, do not talk to me. Do not talk to my puppy. Do not call my puppy. Leave us alone, or wait until we are done and approach you.
Following—if you are approaching and I head the other way, don’t chase me down. It likely means that my puppy is not in the mood to meet you, or that your dog is frightening my puppy, or that for some other reason I do not want to interact with you right now.
Picking them up—I cannot believe how many people think it is ok to run in and pick up a puppy that they hardly know. How would you like it if someone did this to you? Being held is an act of trust. Do not pick up a puppy until you have cleared it with both the owner and the puppy.
Making lots of baby noises—a surprising number of people squeal and grunt and goo-goo and screech when they see a puppy. This is probably not a huge deal to the puppy either way, but it is really annoying to me, so please stop it.
