I can’t write much, I’ve been deep in preparation for the new seminars I’m doing in Arroyo Grande at Gentle Touch Pet Training this Sunday and we’re leaving for the airport in a few hours. Predictably, we are in the usual flurry of last minute packing, house sprucing and training of new house sitter. As much as I hate leaving Lassie and Will (I’m sorry Lassie, I’ll be back soon, I promise), I am truly looking forward to this trip. Both 1/2 day seminars should be great fun. The half day Play Play Play seminar is completely new, and I can’t wait to present it. (And will be available as a DVD sometime soon, I’ll keep you posted!) I am also, admittedly, relieved that I’ve got it finished, at least until I decide to tweak it some more on Saturday. (These things are never finished, are they?!) The seminar has tons of video (it took me 3 hours to burn the videos onto 5 different DVDs. It takes an absurd amount of time to create videos for seminars, although you’d never know it when you see it. On Wednesday I spent 3 hours creating less than 3 minutes of video. Good grief.) and I am looking forward to discussing the ever-burning question to all of us immersed in dogs: what play is appropriate and healthy, and what is over the line? When do you intervene? And how?
I’m also looking forward to the 1/2 day on Dog-Dog Reactivity. I’ll be doing some of what I’ve always done (a la Feisty Fido) and some new things inspired by Karen’s and my revision of the Feisty Fido booklet, Second Edition. (Coming out next week, oh boy! I’ll keep you posted on that too.)
Meanwhile, back at the farm: Here’s the Black Raspberry, Rhubarb and Strawberry Pie I made on Sunday. One of you asked for the recipe: It’s simple, just use the Joy of Cooking’s recipe for Rhubarb/Strawberry Pie but substitute the raspberries for one third of it. The only trick I know is to use Tapioca as a thickener when you’re using rhubarb. I’ve never had any luck at all with corn starch or flour, (although lots of other people seem too, go figure… cooking must be like dog training!)
It rained hard again this morning; I don’t remember a summer when we’ve had so much rain. That’s a good thing for the farm, I don’t have enough pasture for my little flock and rain keeps the grass growing as fast as the sheep can eat it. We are all enjoying the bounty of summer; this is the trail behind the house to the orchard pasture, and it is edged with buckets of black raspberries. (Would that they came in buckets, instead of interspersed with lots of prickers and a bevy of mosquitos!) I’ve been picking like a fool, and so has Jim, and so far we have 6 quarts of berries in the freezer, along with 9 quarts of strawberries and 5 of rhubarb. I just love the idea of making pies in the icy dead of winter, with fruit from the lush of summer.
xx
Alessandro Rosa says
It seems like your colleauges at the University of Wisconsin released a 20 year study on Rhesus monkeys showed that a reduced calorie diet slows the aging process. So it looks like that delicious looking pie may be speeding us into the retirement home! 😉
Kat says
“what play is appropriate and healthy, and what is over the line? When do you intervene? And how?”
Interesting that you should pose this question now. I’ve been pondering it the last several days since I called a group of dogs down at the dog park and had several people assure me that they were just playing. Yes, the group was still just playing but it was three ganging up on one, one of the three has shown some dominance issues and a tendency to get over excited, the play was getting very intense and the dog being chased/tagged/bumped by the others was starting to hunch and the tail to drop. I didn’t think it through at the time I just looked at the energy and it looked like it was getting close to what I call flashpoint where it stops being play and escalates to conflict. Looking at that I called “Easy” in my lowest growliest voice. It was enough to back the dogs off and they went off two and two playing together rather than three on one. I’ve been wondering why what I saw happening prompted an instinctive intervention from me and no need for intervention on the part of the other human companions. I know humans have a tendency to be blind to the faults of their canine companions. The dog with dominance issues is a husky/lab/chow mix and his human companion sees nothing of concern when his dog thrusts his head over another dog’s back, pins another dog against the fence, and continues to try to mount other dogs when they’ve clearly said they won’t tolerate it. To him it’s all play. To me it’s dominance that isn’t always welcomed by the other dogs and isn’t always appropriate.
Where I personally struggle is figuring out when mounting is a problem and when it is acceptable. I have a dominant dog–using your definition that dominance is about who ends up with the bone not about how they get it. He’s calm, responsible, smart and he believes he’s in charge in the dog park. I’ve watched him use mounting in a variety of ways. With some of his particular friends he’ll use it to initiate or reestablish play. With dogs that come into the park like crazy things under no control by their human companions and so excited they don’t know what to do with themselves sometimes he’ll chase them up and down the park until they’re calmer sometimes mount them (I’ve never been able to see how he decides which is the right method). Dogs that show dominance he will mount. When they stop he stops. For some humans it’s a big issue if their dog is mounted for others no big deal. I try to use common sense and if it’s a problem for the human companion I try to stop it or if I see the dog being mounted showing signs of stress or displeasure I’ll call my dog off. As long as he seems to have a clear to me reason for doing what he’s doing and everyone seems OK with it I don’t interfere. This is a behavior that I’ve found very little about in the literature and I’ve wondered why that is.
Ellen Pepin says
Dr. McConnell,
I have the booklet “Feisty Fido”, but I would love to have you write an article about dog-dog aggression. Our older Shepherd-Rottweiler mix has attacked our new Collie girl. Most of the time it’s about food, so we feed them separately. However, when a behaviorist came to the house for Tess, the collie, (car chasing) he went after her for just walking by, something that he never did before. It would be good to know a few warning signs for this aggression. Dakota, the aggressor, is usually the most mild mannered dog. He gets along with people and other dogs, and has never tried to bite dogs or people. The behaviorist was quite concerned about their relationship, and gave us some management ideas. They have not fought since then, but I’m not sure it will last.
Ellen
Marie says
I intervene when one or more of the dogs seems to be getting overstimulated or frenzied. I can usually tell by the change in the pitch of their vocalizations or by their body language. I will step in and split them up to let them calm down for a few minutes (redirect to something else) before I let them play together again. For some dogs the play session may just need to end with that dog for the rest of the day.
Sometimes play styles just don’t mesh well either. My sisters bulldog puppy is a tackler and not all dogs like that. (or can escape from it, he’s heavy!) So I hold him back on leash so he can play but not launch on top of those that aren’t willing to let him.
Have fun at the seminar. They are SO appreciated!
Joanna says
The play seminar sounds very interesting. I work at a doggie daycare, so I think about dog play all the time. The biggest issues I have to deal with are mounting and demand barking. Mounting is an interesting behavior. I find that dogs will do it mostly when they’re stressed or when they’re trying to initiate play. Often one dog will continually try to mount another dog, and finally the second one will give in and start playing with the first, who now has a blast playing. We always discourage mounting by using time outs. Some dogs get really pissed about being mounted, but a lot of times even a strong correction will not stop the mounter. Other times the mountee look stressed but do nothing. It doesn’t seem to me to have much to do with dominance. It seems to be a stressy displacement behavior or a pushy demanding behavior, both showing lack of social graces.
As for demand barking… it’s just really obnoxious! And gets the dogs riled up, and often annoys the dog getting barked at. We also use time outs for it, though it’s hard to modify, especially in aussies!
I intervene a lot to try to keep the energy level of the group down and discourage troublesome behaviors. A lot of times I see situations where, if I were at a big open park with my own well-socialized dog, I would just let the dogs work things out on their own. But with a large group of dogs (10-15) in a small enclosed space and lots of energy, I over-manage to make sure that a fight doesn’t break out. It’s a lot of work.
Alessandro Rosa says
Like you have said in much of your writing, dogs are masters of reading body language, react much faster than humans, and for the most part look to avoid conflict.
Having observed the behavior in the dog park and trying to be sensitive to what is going on, what I often see is that if two individuals get into a row, other dogs will usually descend in and attempt to split the combatants. The problem is that the humans usually intervene too late with the combatants and too soon with the other dogs and try to stop the peacemakers from doing their jobs, and in extreme cases will punish them for what we humans see as “joining in” on the rumble instead of actually trying to stop it. I saw an owner actually alpha roll his dog when it started jumping at one of the instigators of a fight that its owner had picked up. I wanted to shout out and say “NO! Your dog was just trying to correct that dog for disturbing the peace, he didn’t do anything to desereve that punishment.”
I think another issue, probably worse than when their dog is being a tad too aggressive is owners missing the signs that their dog is being severely harassed and stressed out and is no longer enjoying itself. My pup and his friends started playing with a new dog in the park and like Kat said I started to see that the new dogs wasn’t enjoying it. Her back end started to slink down, tail between its legs and mouth in a wide open panting grin and she kept trying to get away. Even though she outweighed her pursuers by 10 to 20 pounds, some even more, she wasn’t able to get them to stop. My puppy, being indominably playful, almost to a fault, sometimes doesn’t know when to say when so I walked over and took him by the collar and said gently, “Come on Darwin, she isn’t enjoying this, lets go.” The other dog’s owner said, “Oh this is fine, she loves playing like this.” I don’t think that this owner recognized just how miserable her dog was at that moment. And what was even worse is that the dog was a staffie, and if she had lashed out, which I think that in a few more minutes of allowing this to go on without intervening she would have been justified to do, it would have been seen as her being a dangerous pit bull instead of an overly harassed, very scared dog who had been backed into a corner. I removed my dog from the situation because I wanted him to stop stressing this dog out and I didn’t want to contribute to causing this dog to get into trouble unnecessarily.
If you have a dog and want them to interact with other dogs off-leash in a dog park then you have a responsibility to learn their signals, learn about the other dogs and their levels of tolerance on an individual basis. Breed stereotypes aren’t helpful; like any good parent, you need to know who their friends are and how they get along with each other. You also need to know your dog well. Do they take corrections from other dogs well or do they ignore? What are the situations that stress them and what is their flash point? Maybe they are fine with some dogs and not others. We also need to know what just sounds and looks scary and what is dangerous. When my dog wrestles with this one particular friend, he has this high pitched yelp. As Darwin is smaller and younger that she is, we automatically assumed that she was hurting him or had him pinned, but there he was standing on top of her and tugging gently on her cheek. Now when just tell him to shoosh and tell her to beat him up. 😉
Sarah says
I too would like to see some information regarding mounting – what’s normal, when to intervene. My dog does sometimes mount and has been mounted. His backend, although you wouldn’t notice it from casual observance, appear to me to be weak as he will be stiff after a super long walk (over 1 hr) or a long playsession or very active day at doggie daycare, so I do try to avoid having him mounted. Months ago a very overweight, large lab mounted him repeatedly, and my dog was very very sore that night from the added weight. So I’m not convinced that a dog showing a lack of stress means its ok to allow your dog to mount other dogs. But, when to intervene? Is it play or not?
I am very interested in the human/dog play aspect as my rescue dog doesn’t really enjoy toys. I’d love to initiate more play with him so that he gets more stimulation besides our walks, his stints at doggie daycare a few times a month, or ball fetching sessions.
Ignacio says
What is a good website to search for a qualified behaviorist in my area? I’m waiting dearly for the latest edition of Feisty Fido but I don’t think that alone will cut it.
I’m getting extremely frustrated with my 1-1/2 year-old lab issues of lunging at other dogs (playfully, but still unacceptable) and getting so excited and revv’d up that two blocks away he starts jumping and nipping my arms. I thought it was under control and today he did it again. I’ve tried everything I’ve heard and read and been utterly unsuccessful… 🙁
Alessandro Rosa says
I think that my question would be along the lines of Ignacio’s, When, if ever, is it acceptable for your dog to show his exuberance on leash when he sees another dog? I am trying to control this habit in my puppy, but I am not sure how hardcore of a problem he has with this. He is coming up on six months and just loves other dogs. I don’t have any problems with him and humans unless they startle him in which case his flight response kicks in.
Even when he lunges on lead it is so that he can greet, sniff and try to initiate play. He has never snapped at the other dogs, at least until serious play has begun, and if anything has been on the receiving end of corrections for his exuberant greeting. I actually try to let the other owner know that I appreciate their dog’s correction if their dog snaps at mine as I think it is probably the best way for him to learn manners with other dogs; in his own language. When he is on the receiving end of the lunge, he is usually very calm and collected, doing a look away if he isn’t too interested or sniffing or play bowing if he is.
Another concern I have is that the problem is a result of off leash playtime, when he can meet and greet whoever he wants, without restriction. Are we sending a mixed message to our dogs that we want them to be super social when they are off leash and reserved when they are on? And can the dog learn the specific distinction? (My thought on the last question is they can, as a guide dog with a harness on versus off can attest to)
I am also somewhat confused by the concept of Frustration Intolerance. Does there have to be agression associated with the behavior in order for it to be diagnosed as Frustration Intolerance? If, for example, I put my puppy on our bed, which is too high for him to jump down from, with toys and chews, and then walk out of the room and he sits quietly at the edge watching for my return and ignoring the toys and the chews, is this Frustration Intolerance, as he isn’t barking, carrying on or behaving inappropriately, or is it something else?
Ignacio says
In the case of my dog, I don’t think the problem is strictly linked to having other dogs around. It also happened, when, for example, some neighbors walked by and petted him, he gets all happy, excited, wound-up, and then one block away starts with the exuberant jumping and playing tough. The very last time I just started jogging, to “release” all that excess energy for a few blocks and that got him back to normal.
Cody says
I usually don’t comment on blogs, but this recipe changed my opinion. I just write to say thank you!