Chapter 10
DONT WALK THE DOG
Like some other trainers specializing in canine behavior, I teach a popular class for reactive/aggressive dogs called the Growly Dog class. Even though it might seem risky to put five dogs exhibiting fear or aggression in a tight space, I hold this popular class year in and year out. I never worry about the dogs progress. Its the humans on the other end of the leash who prove harder and take longer to reach. If we could move past our fears and worries as quickly as dogs do, our lives would be so much easier.
The dogs in this class can be any age. The youngest weve had was twelve weeks old and the oldest was fourteen years old. We often have dogs in this class that have been in serious altercations or that have bite histories. Some have been mistreated or never socialized by former owners.
The dogs enter the room one by one and stay behind a visual barrier for the first two classes. Depending on the make-up of the class, some dogs stay behind the barrier for all four weeks, although thats rare. Even though each dog is a few feet away from another dog or new person, and even though every dog knows that there are other dogs present, we hardly ever hear barking or see lunging. This always shocks the owners, but it doesnt surprise my assistant trainers or me. Weve seen this marvelous turn of events in every class.
How is this possible? Weve prepped the owners on what to expect. Being able to predict what will happen soothes humans and canines alike. Having some sense of control of the environment does the same.
We ask the owners for loose leash walking when they and their dogs enter the room and go to their stations. A tight leash ruins the calm atmosphere and can create a tense dog. We ask the humans to remember to breathe. The trainers are relaxed and smiling, with loose body postures. We are playing music that was created just to soothe dogs ( Through a Dogs Ear ). We remind the owners: Whats the worst that can happen in this classroom? So your dog barks or growls? Thats the experience that the other owners will use to help their dogs through hearing that commotion in a safe environment.
Annie was told that this shelter dog was too old to save, but she rescued him anyway and he made a remarkable recovery.
All the dogs are leashed twice for safety, once by a flat collar and again on a harness. In the classroom, they are attached to secure tethers, and the owners continue to loosely hold onto the double leashes. We use the tethers for safety but also to free the owners from clamping down on leashes. Weve never had a dog fight, not even a close call.
We move through the weeks slowly, desensitizing the dogs and owners to having other dogs so close by. We teach the dogs to take a breath, part of the Relaxation Protocol created by Dr. Karen Overall (see more later in this chapter). I love teaching dogs to take a deep breath because it is awfully hard to be anxious while breathing deeply. Its also impossible to bark or growl while doing this. It helps relax the dog from the inside out and importantlyit teaches the owners to focus like lasers on their dogs. So many problems happen with dogs when their owners stop focusing on them.
We spend a lot of time working classical counterconditioning, first with my handy fake Rottweiler and eventually with other dogs in the class or one of my own dogs. The owners tend to relax by the fourth class, while the dogs are way ahead of them and are usually quite calm by the second class. These classes are the trainers favorites to teach because of the enormous emotional progress we see in the dogs and their humans. We often take advantage of all of those boxes of Kleenex that I keep handy.
There comes a sticking point in every class, however. I know that its coming. I ask the owners to please refrain from walking their dogs for at least ten days or, preferably, for the duration of the entire Growly Dog session, which is four classes over a four-week period. Then, the outcries from the humans begin! I hear things such as:
- My dog is so hyper and will destroy my house without two long walks a day!
- My dog will be bored!
- Its cruel to not walk the dog!
- But my dog gets so excited to go on walks!
- But thats how I get my own daily exercise!
Why do I make such a heretical suggestion? I swear that Im not trying to frustrate the class participants. Of course, dogs need proper and productive exercise. There is an old expression in dog training that goes: A tired dog is a good dog. There is a big difference between a tired dog and an overwhelmed, flooded dog, and that difference is critical. Most often, I am on the other side of the coin as a trainer, begging owners to please get their dogs outside more. Not the dogs in my Growly Dog class. Not any dog that is showing fear or aggression.
This is one of the stuffed dogs that Annie uses in the Growly Dog class and for assessments.
If I could enforce a signed pledge that the owners wont expose their dogs to the outside while theyre enrolled in the Growly Dog class, I would surely do it. I cant make owners do anything, though; I can only coach, encourage, and keep on reaching out to them through what I write and teach. I ask for no walks during this time because it is critical to keep the dog under threshold (dont put him a position where he barks, lunges, growls, etc.) while we are reframing what an oncoming dog or person means to your dog. We are rebuilding trust and communication between owner and dog as well. Its a whole lot like a bank account built of trust. We spend four weeks building up that all-important account, and one scary incident can wipe out your savings, particularly in these beginning stages.
Building Trust
The more positive experiences your dog has around his triggers, the less charge those triggers hold for the dog. Additionally, remember that a dogs cortisol levels can stay elevated for weeks after an episode that frightens him. If a dog experiences several scary triggers/incidents back-to-back in a short time frame, that dog is capable of exploding quickly and with more emotion. This is called trigger stacking. If a dog is concerned by certain stimuli, such as a bad thunderstorm, a stranger at the door, a crying human baby, and dogs scaring him on his afternoon walk, those things can add up and can increase the dogs anxiety and, thus, his reactions. When owners call me, distraught, after a bite incident, I will have them give me a full report of what happened in the dogs environment over the previous three to four days, and, quite often, a multitude of triggers happened one after the other (or at the same time), and the dog snapped.
Lets go back to my fear of black widow spiders. After a month of your presenting the black widow to mefirst from a faraway distance and then getting closer little by littleand after a month of your depositing $1 million every time I gather my courage and simply look at that spider, my bank account is quite full, thank you very much! I have moved toward the idea of getting a little bit happy inside whenever I see a black widow because they bring me $1 million. Then you decide that enough time has passed, and I should be over my fear of black widows. Besides, you are going broke! You take me outside, and, right there on the front steps, a black widow zooms down from its web, lands on me, and crawls on me. In a millisecond, I return to my previous fear of them, and, furthermore, my faith in you is gone. I will keep all of the money that you previously gave me, but I will return to my hypervigilant scanning and fear of that spider. The threat of death by spider outranks your money. What good is your money to me if I am dead?
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