Our discussion about how people handle being frustrated by their dogs brought out so many interesting points, and it got me to thinking:
First off, the more we know about dogs, the less frustrated we get. Frustration comes from an inability to affect the world around us, and once we understand who dogs are and how they learn, our ability to influence them increases significantly. As I think about it, the comparison of my frustration levels now and 25 years ago is like night and day.
Right now, there are really only two things that Will or Lassie do that have pushed my buttons in the last six months–Will’s relentless stalking of Sushi, and Lassie’s tendency to get under foot when I’m moving around the kitchen. My frustration with Will was a classic case of an inability to influence the world around me, because so much of what I had been trying wasn’t working, and the behavior was constant and potentially dangerous. When I finally sat down and wrote myself out a treatment plan (plan # 3, fyi), my frustration went away. (Things aren’t perfect by the way, but they are 95 % better, and if I start to feel a twinge of irritation I put him in his crate. Breath huge sigh of relief.) Lassie has an “old lady pass” and no matter what she does I pretty much just take a deep breath and let it go. Granted, poop all over the house at dark-thirty in the morning after 4 hours of sleep is still going to elicit something loud and nasty from my mouth on a bad day, but it wasn’t directed toward any of the dogs. (It was Lassie by the way, she had diarrhea that day too, but she’s fine now. Happy Dance.)
But twenty five, thirty years ago, I remember desperately trying to get my Saint Bernard to do something (or not to do something) with no success, and no good ideas about how to accomplish what I wanted. I know that’s a common situation for many dog lovers. They love their dog, but they can’t get successfully influence their dog to do what they’d like. They get frustrated, then angry, and many of them feel guilty about it. But dog training books and dog training classes don’t often address the reality of dog ownership. No matter how hard you try, and how much you learn, things are not going to go according to plan. If you’re an average person (and even if you’re right out of the radio show Prairie Home Companion and are above average), there are times you’re going to get steamed. Surely we need to give people some coping devices. Here are some ideas, I’d love to hear yours:
1. Do all we can to help people have realistic expectations. The only reason I am lucky enough to have Lassie is because the man who adopted her from a shelter (long story) took her home and brought her back the next day. Seems he’d shut her into his bedroom for her first day home alone at his house, and he came home to find she’d pee’d on the rug and chewed through the belt he left lying on the ground. “Chewed it in HALF!” he kept repeating to me, as if somehow that was a sign of an especially incorrigible dog. I got her the next day, and named her Lassie because she turned in mid-air and came running to me when I called her name, even out of a dead run, while chasing after all my other dogs. That was NOT expected, but a year-old dog chewing on leather while being left home alone all day, her first day in a new house after being in a shelter, is hardly a significant behavioral problem. I’m so lucky her owner-of-one-day didn’t know that, but surely we need to help people know more about what to expect (ie, you WILL lose a pair of good shoes if you get a puppy).
2. Do all we can, obviously I suppose, to help people learn how to influence the behavior of their dog in ways that are effective as well as humane. Just about everything else I’ve ever written is in some way about this, so I’ll leave it at that!
3. Directly address the fact that dogs can be frustrating, and give people coping skills to deal with it. We should add this into Puppy and Beginning Dog Training classes, don’t you think? We can suggest:
>>> Saying one thing and meaning another (I love that so many of you do that too. If you haven’t yet read the comment about the oven, I highly recommend it!) Yes, indeed, not a good strategy around children or those who wouldn’t understand that you truly don’t mean what you are saying, but it can be ever so useful in some circumstances, especially with an adolescent (dog!).
>>> The beauty of a deep breath. Or three. Or ten.
>>> Asking yourself why what happened happened (while you’re deep breathing).
>>> Bursting out laughing. Someone once suggested to me that I try that with someone I was working with who was being so unreasonable as to be border-line abusive. They had a lot of power over me (professionally) and used it in ways that were, uh, crazy-making. I burst out laughing the next time I wanted to poke pencils in my eyes over something she said, and it had an amazing effect (on both of us). I wasn’t laughing at her, just laughing with pure delight at the absurdity of what she said. It wouldn’t have the same effect on a dog, but it sure does lighten things up.
>>> Quietly, and with no fuss, putting your dog in the crate or another room. Away. From you. I honestly think this is one of the skills that professionals have that they don’t hesitate to use… much more so than the general public. It’s okay to recognize that something is steaming you up, and that you can’t or shouldn’t act on that feeling at the moment.
Of course, there are lots of things to do later when you’re feeling differently, thinking through how to prevent the problem in the first place, but I’m talking about that moment when you first discover that the world is totally and truly not your oyster. I describe situations like that as “This is NOT the video tape I rented!”
Meanwhile, back on the farm: It’s spring. Honest. The Black-capped Chickadees started singing their spring, territorial song yesterday (“Wooooo Heeee”), and I’ve decided that spring comes when the Chickadees start singing. Besides, it’s over 32 degrees today, and it feels absolutely balmy. I actually don’t want it to get too warm, I want the snow still on the ground so that I can snow shoe and Willie can play fetch (the snow seems to insulate the impact of his landing or short stopping, so he and I have been in heaven lately). There’s still quite a bit left, as you can see from this photo I took on the way to my office:
Heather says
I recently read your books (The Other End of the Leash and For the Love of the Dog) and found your blog. I must tell you your information has been a tremendous help for me and my fiance. Together we have three dogs, he has an American Pit Bull Terrier and I have a Beagle/Basset Hound mix and a Bloodhound/Basset Hound mix. Luckily, they all get along. My favorite chapter in The Other End of the Leash is the one about Personalities. Our three dogs are as different as night and day. Ernie(the beagle) and Olivia(the Pit Bull) are always by our sides waiting to see what we want them to do next. However, you hit the nail on the head when you said “your dog is smart? what a shame.” because that is Copper. He is a very smart dog who gets bored easily. There was one time that I couldn’t figure out how he was escaping from the backyard and I finally found the hole. I took a piece of plywood, drilled four holes in it and connected it to the fence with zip ties. A little later I was watching Copper from the window and he was chewing through the zip ties!! That might be normal for other dogs, I am not sure, but I have never thought he would figure it out. (He first pawed at it and then tried to dig under it before chewing on the zip ties) He does things like that all the time. Needless to say I have become very frustrated with him on an occasion or two but what keeps me from losing my cool in front of him is laughing in amazement, giving him a huge hug (bad, I know) and locking him up until I have calmed down.
Alexandra says
I have never been able to do the say nasty things in a sweet voice thing. My words always come out sounding snarky and frustrated anyway, so I just don’t try that trick anymore. I do like to call one dog-owning friend of mine and vent, jokingly ask her when she’d like me to bring my two over because I’m giving them away, and then we have a good laugh. I will have to remember that line about the dog being in the oven; that was quite funny.
Stacy Braslau-Schneck says
“Quietly, and with no fuss, putting your dog in the crate or another room. Away. From you.”
I think this is the #1 reason that parents use “time outs” with their kids – so that we can separate ourselves in the our state of frustration (and/or fury) from our dear but infuriating children. Sometimes you just need to give yourSELF breathing room so that you can deal with a situation. Fortunately, dogs (who have been crate trained) deal with this much better than small children, who seem to get extra clingy when they’re upset, even if they’re upset with you. I’ve told my daughter, “I’m putting myself on a time-out for a few minute so I can calm down and then we can deal with this”!
Kim says
I have 2 standard poodles, whose energy level, prey drive, and ability to read me like an easy book have made them a constant (albeit, very entertaining) challenge to live with. It has been a great blessing in my life to arrive at the realization that “they are just being poodles” and to be able to move forward from there. The crate games, the hidden stuffed Kongs, and the Nothing in Life is Free policy has kept us sane. I do like to remind them (in a sweet voice) occasionally that they are fortunate because a less heroic human would have surrendered them to the humane society long ago.
Trisha says
I love Stacy’s comment that “I’m putting myself on a time out….”. Burst out laughing when I read it. It’s so true that’s what we’re doing when we put our dog in a crate –giving ourselves time to collect ourselves; I love that you are being honest about it with your child. Lucky kids!
And I hear you Alexandra that sometimes it is hard to use a kind tone when you’re truly angry or frustrated. When I feel that agitated I just stay silent, but I have to admit that training myself to laugh out loud has been truly helpful. Even if I don’t feel like laughing when I start, the act of doing it seems to cheer me up, something like lifting your chin and your shoulders to energize yourself.
Karen says
I liked your comment about “bursting out laughing.” I can so relate to this! Over Christmas I was dog sitting my sister’s 3 dogs. I have 3 dogs of my own so I had a houseful. I work from home and one day I was talking to my boss on the phone when all 6 dogs started barking at once. What a racket! Instead of getting upset and yelling “Shut UP!”, I started laughing so hard I had to hand the phone to my 80-year old mother to tell my boss I would call him back! My boss was very understanding What can I say…I live with dogs and love it!!!!
Jane says
Along with dripping sarcasm, I find verbal threats work well to break my mental attitude. My example is a horse one but the one that sticks out in my mind was yesterday when I informed a yearling, “if you dump that wheelbarrow over, you’re going to be the one to clean it up”. It was obviously mom-talk which meant absolutely nothing to the young horse but the image of him pouting away as he struggled to clean up the pile with a pitchfork between his teeth was enough to a) make me laugh and b) realize it was nobody’s fault but my own to leave it where he could get at it. A full wheelbarrow is just Begging to be dumped over.
And yes, education is the best way to prevent so much frustration. Thank you for adding so much to what is available!
S says
I would add one thing that I myself often don’t heed – this too shall pass, this is just a moment in time. We adopted our first rescue in March and as I’ve commented in other posts, this dog has tried our patience and changed our lives in ways I could not have imagined. I often think to myself if I had known then what a ride we were in for, I would not have even considered adding a dog to our already full of kids and chaos and life household. This guy unknown to us suffered from severe SA – and we’ve been working through it since. He’s come so far, but there were so many days of frustration, days when I sat in one of my children’s DESTROYED rooms (looked like a tornado had hit it bc the dog had gotten into the room and shut the door behind him – talk about complete panic, you could smell the fear in the room after he’d been out of it for 30 minutes) and cried and thought about giving him back to the rescue agency. I would wake up at night and just be in a panic of what I would do during basketball practice or baseball practice knowing I’d come home to a dog drooling like crazy and a house destroyed. I would enter our driveway fully expecting him to be on the other side of our bay window, glass shattered. Thankfully that didn’t happen and 10 months later, I feel comfortable it won’t due to many measures we’ve taken. But that sheer panic and frustration still resonates with me and it took all my power to work through it as I knew that my frustration and fear was just feeding into the problem. So looking back, I wish I could tell my heart pounding self at 3 am to relax, this too shall pass, take baby steps and slowly slowly things will improve. They have, they will continue to, and I know moments of frustration will continue to occur and I’ll just take 10 million deep breaths (and maybe hide in the bathroom with some m*m’s if I need a moment to cool down). Thanks so much for all your advice – I love this topic and think it should be mentioned in puppy classes FOR sure as well as for those of us adopting older dogs!
Trisha says
To S: What a lucky dog you have!
Cindy says
This is a wonderful post. Like Kim, I have a standard poodle and I’m always astonished by how smart this adolescent dog is. It’s helped a lot to learn positive, reward-based training techniques for the dog and the horses. For one thing, the more I concentrate on rewarding the behavior I want, the less time I spend getting annoyed at the dog or horses because I just haven’t figured out how to communicate what I want yet.
But here’s a question: how do I as a non-professional dog owner make tactful suggestions to another dog owner who’s rewarding bad behavior or, worse, punishing in an ineffective way, and is clearly reaching that frustration point? This Christmas, we were joined for dinner by a young woman who recently got her first dog. After dinner, she asked me how to get her dog to stop pooping in the house other than by rubbing the dog’s nose in it. I was surprised that she didn’t know that that wouldn’t work–she was finding it out the hard way–and I gave her a positive training book with specific tips. She left the book behind and has told me recently that the dog is still going in the house. Any ideas how to approach a situation like this short of direct intervention or slowly modeling what I’m doing with my dog? I can see the situation with this dog deteriorating, even though she is well-meaning and loves the dog. This is just an example of a situation I’ve run into many times lately.
Liz F. says
I think so many people could benefit from this post, or from this info being shared at classes as suggested. But like Cindy, I wish I (as a non-professional) could reach people who really, really need to hear this, people who probably don’t read about dogs or go to classes. So how do you tactfully intervene? Seems like a million dollar question that I greatly admire professionals for attempting to answer.
For myself, I have paraphrased the suggestions and jotted it down on a business card-sized notecard. I can keep it on me all the time, knowing, as a philosopher remarked “…moods assail us” all (moods are greatly dependent on the environment, and rationalizing helps but can sometimes only go so far). I feel better having this info close at hand so that I can quickly give myself the brain power needed to better control my emotions.
Maybe, if I see an uncomfortable situation with another owner, I can get him/her to read six sentences on a card instead of suggesting books or classes that are unlikely to be pursued. Ah, a woman can dream…
cassie says
My short and to the point info I give people that I know will never read a book or go to a class:
You get the dog you pay attention to. If the only time you talk to your dog is to tell him what not to do- that is most likely what you will get. It is absolutely necessary to reward him for what you would like him to do. Supervise him well enough that you set him up to do what you would like, and then interrupt him if he’s doing something you don’t like. It’s nothing personal, they just will do what’s most rewarding to them.
That was a big deal for me to learn when I had my first dog. Poor girl had to go through me learning how to teach her, and it wasn’t easy on either of us. I wish someone had been there to tell me how important supervision and encouraging good behavior were. It breaks my heart to remember the way I was taught to teach her (harsh corrections, staring her in the eyes (!!?!) and even alpha rolls). Thank goodness I had the most docile, not easily phased girl ever, and that I realized quite quickly it just seemed so wrong. The problem is, when you are taught to blame the dog and respond in physical ways, the emotion is too closely tied to the physical. It’s really hard not to respond emotionally and reactively instead of logically.
I’m so glad that good training and education is so much more accessable than it was a decade ago. It took a lot of work for me to find all of this information, and when I did it was like there was suddenly light in a dark room. All of that frustration lifted.
(I lost that first dog , Grace, a year ago to splenic cancer and I’m missing her so much right now.)
Lynn says
I loved this post, the previous post, and all the comments for both. And particularly, in this post, you have a little throwaway line about “especially adolescent (dogs)” that made me sigh with recognition. That would be my dog. Oh yes.
We brought home a 7 month old ACD mix from the shelter last June, and it’s only recently that I think I can say with confidence that we are all pulling through okay…sanity more or less intact. Maya is our first dog, and has a whole set of challenges, but the part that surprised and disappointed me the most was how difficult I found controlling my own emotions to be. For me, the triggering behavior Maya offers is to crowd me. Crowd crowd crowd, push push push. It’s attention-seeking, more than anything, and one of those things that feeds on the negative emotions it creates in both of us. Teaching her self control has been a real test of mine, and I’m afraid I’ve failed more than a few times. Thank goodness for the crate and the knowledge to use it!
While I love the above suggestions, I have one to add (one without which I would not have any sanity at all!). For me, it has been critical to create situations in which I can guarantee a positive experience for me and Maya. If we’re locked in positions of mutual frustration, a time-out is essential. But eventually we have to get back together, and I’ve found that the best way to start is with an activity that rebuilds our connection. Anything low-pressure that leaves us both smiling works — a game, a run around the yard, a round of fetch. One of my best tools is to clicker train a new trick, something like “shake” or “spin” that is active but mentally engaging as well. It makes Maya’s brain switch into a receptive, happy, learning mode, and it makes me feel like the fog of frustration-induced confusion is lifting. It doesn’t just help prevent an immediate relapse into the same problematic behavior, it makes us feel like friends again.
nancy says
I’m just grateful I have a job and can afford to replace my slippers every couple of months. Both dogs are older (no really) but at age six they STILL chew and snoop and get into things, and even if I shut my closet door all the way somebody, somehow, figures out how to push at it with his nose (I’m sure it’s my “him” doing this) and slide in to grab a slipper. Not all the time, but often enough. I use a baby gate but sometimes I forget to shut it up perfectly. So, we can go weeks without a slipper incident and then one day I walk in and there it is.
And I can only blame myself, really. (Generally I blame myself because I really like slippers when being barefoot and liking it seems like the obvious path for me to be on.)
At this point, I’m glad it’s $15 slippers and not my Keens. Still, argh! [small edit after the fact]
DeAnna says
I love the “empty threats” idea. Laughed out loud at the picture of your young horse filling the wheelbarrow back up.
Also, I love the advice here in the comments about what to do *after* you get the dog back out of the crate. I’m a one-track mind sort of person, so I’m always putting myself in this place of a power struggle before I realize what I’m doing. So my tendency is to take the time out (for both of us) and then when we’ve cooled off, to try the frustrating thing again and see if it goes better. Sometimes this works, but I think Lynn’s idea is better. Better to intersperse those adrenaline moments with oxytocin moments whenever you can. 🙂
I share all the frustrations about being a non-professional and trying to share info with other dog owners. It seems that the other person has to be in the space to hear what you have to say, or it doesn’t matter at all what you say or how you say it. It’s like witnessing an uncomfortable situation between someone and their kid. There’s not really any good way to offer advice in that moment. However, there are times when I speak up about behavior (towards kids or dogs or any powerless being) that I think is inappropriate. Those times are when there are other people around. If I see someone alpha roll their dog (or scream at their kid), and no one else is around, well…I get really sad, but I don’t see that anything I can do will change that person’s behavior. However, if it’s the same scenario but we are in a public place, like in front of the grocery store, I’ll say something because I don’t think that behavior should be normalized. I still don’t have any intention of changing the offender’s behavior, but I want to create an awareness in observers that this behavior is outside the norm.
Lindsay says
I have a short temper, so dogs are the best thing for me. They teach me to take a step back and to chill out. I find myself getting the most upset with my food-obsessive, vocal cat because I have a harder time “controlling” him and therefore I get frustrated. Like you said, it’s easy to get frustrated when you feel like you have no control of the situation. He is a very vocal cat who meows and meows and meows when he wants to eat, and sometimes the best thing I can do is put him in the laundry room until we both calm down. Then I feed him.
Kerry L. says
At the same time I got Alice, I purchased a book that suggested teaching long down/stays. That has been a wonderful tool for me. Realizing that it’s up to me to insure their success was life changing for me and my dogs. Limiting their access to places and items is easier than having these places and items destroyed, and realizing that their training needs to be continually reinforced was eye-opening. Just because they ‘know’ something today doesn’t mean they’ll ‘know’ it tomorrow unless I reinforce that ‘knowing’ constantly. When I got Walter he was hell-bent on elevating his status and he had no hesitation about hurting, the then aged, Alice if he thought she was in his way. Rather than punish, I learned to watch diligently and re-direct him to activities which I could reward. Maybe our obedience instructors thought it would be disheartening to talk to us about how frustrated we, as owners, could get with our dogs, but talking to us about those realities and giving us some pointers for dealing with that frustration would have been very helpful.
Ed says
There really isn’t much you can do with people who won’t take a dog to class. And of course it’s hard to know what’s going on with people’s dogs unless you have a chance to spend time with them at home. The only thing I’ve got is waiting until they ask me why my dog does this or that.
And of course there’s the problem with people watching TV shows – 30-minute shows – and thinking they’ve learned something.
There’s a frustration I can’t deal with!
This is a great topic – and it really highlights how much of frustration with dogs is frustration with things we can’t control or could have prevented had we been more thoughtful. With my own history, I’m having a hard time thinking of anything that both really made me crazy and was also something that needed to be “fixed.” It’s always something the dog couldn’t be expected to control, or something I should have been managing. And very often, something that I was embarrassed about not managing!
Mary Tompkins says
I was looking at the photo in The Other End of the Leash of you illustrating “Come” when my dog started trotting slowly away from me looking over her shoulder. I had already moved several feet before I realized that she has been very successful in training me to “Come”.
We adopted Suzie several months ago and she turned out to be fearful of everyone and everything. I thought I was teaching her to trust me and bonding with her. Instead, she was carefully training me to do her bidding.
Mary
rheather says
Cassie-your saying ‘You get the dog you pay attention to’ has just made my head go BING! In a totally good way.
Now after I’ve made the sweetest threats(mailing them to the bears really cracks me up!) I have something quick to say to myself.
Denise says
As far as helping others who are frustrated with their dogs but won’t read even one book or consider a class, I’ve found that being a sympathetic listener as well as setting an example just by doing my own thing have helped the most. Lecturing is clearly a bad idea but sometimes even just making suggestions – even if they were solicited – may not get you anywhere. On the other hand, people (a) need to be heard and (b) do notice when things are going right with your dog – especially when they know your dog is no angel…. They may not own up to it but when when a friend tells me (as if it were his or her idea! I guess it is in a way :-)) that they are taking a kinder approach and it’s helping, it makes me happy.
Jessica says
What a timely post. We adopted a 10 week old lab/pit??? mix from our local humane society 10 days ago. He’s already brought such joy to our home. Our last dog was brought into our family at nearly 1o years of age, so this is the first time I’m training a puppy. I feel fortunate to have books and websites to use (I’m primarily using “Family Friendly Dog Training” – and am looking for my copy of “The Other End of the Leash” that I may have lent out to a friend). In time that we’ve had our pup, Franklin, he’s made tremendous progress in house training, sleeping in his crate at night, learning to sit, come, and getting used to having a leash attached. He’s playful, attentive, and affectionate. And “mouthy”. At first, it worked to ignore him when he mouthed one of us, and as soon as he stopped, to give him something he could chew on. That’s not working anymore, and it’s frustrating (and getting painful!). It’s nice to see others admit to being frustrated by their beloved dogs at times. Right now, I end up telling him it’s a good thing he’s so darn cute, or else we might not keep him around (a very idle threat). It also helps to remember that both he and I are on a steep learning curve right now.
Rusty says
Asking yourself why what happened happened
That’s huge. Look for the reason behind the behavior. Then you can address the problem and not the symptom. This works with both animals and humans. Don’t get mad, get answers.
Lacey H says
Looking for the reason behind the behavior is great – when you can find it. I was recently very frustrated by several days of poor behavior, including the loss of perfect long-term housetraining, with my current terrier foster. Then I discovered that a rat had moved into a sub-floor storage area. When that rat was trapped and removed, my foster was suddenly perfectly housetrained and back to her normal behavior.
Michelle says
My dog is a problem child. And for the last year and a half I have read books, watched seminar videos, observed dogs and tried to learn as much as I could. Every one of that has helped me understand him better. He had dog-dog on-leash aggression, he doesn’t play well with other dogs, he is going through adolescence unneutered(and you know how painful that can be). I have banged my head on the wall and cried out of frustration many times when he behaves in a way that will get me “get your mad/evil/crazy/aggressive mutt away from me” looks, but with every little nugget of dog knowledge I got, I stopped feeling frustrated. I understood the WHYs, the HOWs and I could then work on a plan to help him. I think understanding why the dog behaves in a particular way and how it learns really helps keep frustration levels down, even during training when there are always days where it’s 1 step forward 3 steps back. I always try to train when I’m happy anyway else it defeats the whole purpose of training – to have fun!
Donna says
This is especially helpful to read after coming downstairs to find that our old (rescued also) Brittany had eaten just one of my $75.00 shoes. Now this didn’t happen recently, but at the time, I quietly picked up the other shoe and took Jessie and made her lie down on her dog bed and left the room. I was FURIOUS, but I also know that, since we got her ay 7 years old, she has been neurotic about being left even for a short time (outside feeding the animals, hanging the wash, etc) but couldn’t be trusted in the yard either! MY FAULT! PUT THE DARN SHOES AWAY! I thought that maybe I should have better addreessed this, but she was old, neurotic and needed love…..she left us, last week, to go to a place where she is free of her fears and anxieties. I guess I read your sentence about Lassie having an “old lady pass” and felt that way with Jessie. I probably handled it all wrong….it doesn’t matter to me as much as having her know that she was safe with us and loved. Now….on the other hand…our Border pup at 8 months is doing wonderful! Our Pyr is a love and couldn’t be sweeter and I am actually thinking of a Pyr pup for this Spring…..let the games begin!!!
Alexandra says
I think that giving unsolicited advice about dog training is rather like commenting to a parent on how they are rearing their child. You have to be very careful. I walk every day for at least an hour with my dogs, so we encounter a lot of people and are known in town. I have found it best to model good behavior and let my dogs’ manners speak for themselves. Smile, say hi, be accessible, and the people who actually care will come to you. I have referred a number of folks to professional trainers, and I always make sure to tell them how nuts Izzy used to be – that surprises a lot of people and, I think, gives then hope for their dog’s situation.
I have also had some success by occasionally asking, as kindly and non-judgingly as possible, “Would you like some help?” I saw a wonderful woman say this years ago to a complete stranger in a store who had just lost it and slapped one of her children. I was so impressed by this stranger’s gentle way of intervening in a bad situation without escalating it, that I have always wished to emulate her in such cases.
Kristy says
Thank you for these posts! They help me keep perspective.
Our second rescue dog, and ACD/Pit mix, suffers from SA, food gaurding, and anxiety induced OCD type stereotypies, and while we have been making headway using 5-HTTP and behavioral modification at the moment, he can lose it at the drop of a hat putting us back at square one in treatment. It also hasn’t helped that we’ve since found his anxiety is made worse by the mere presence of other dogs (We have one other dog) even though he interacts in an ok manner with them. (He has begun to mark other dog’s sleeping areas with feces.)
Otter is 2yo and we have had him for 1.5 years. After the brief honeymoon phase in our adoption he began to soil his crate, or ANY area if we left his sight. (No destructive behavior-just soiling) This added up to smeared dried in urine and feces that we came home to usually 2x a day. Let me say, there is no way that I can hide the frustration in my happy voice anymore. Otter is soooo sensative to any distress and will begin a anxiety spiral that will set us back for weeks if he even gets the hint we are upset. Thank God he is not upset by being in his crate! I need to create a bit of distance from him and take 10-15 minutes before going back and beginning the cleaning proccess once again.
The rescue won’t repond to our correspondence. (I told them a flat “No!” when the only recommendations to Otter’s food guarding was to “spray him in the mouth/face with bitter apple spray” if he so much as lifted a lip at us.) Blogs like this and books like your Trisha are most of what I have to go on for help and perspective on the problems our dogs can present us with.
Christine says
When time goes by and looking back, everything will be in another light. Lucky, one of our former dogs, then 9 months old, had to stay home alone for a couple of hours during the wedding of our daughter. We had organized a dog sitter to look in each hour. When we came home, a tail-wagging dog was awaiting us. In our bedroom we saw that Lucky had mistaken our bed frame for a juicy bone. First angry, then laughing when we saw his proud bold look, knowing that for a puppy even one hour is a long time. Now 18 years later we love to look at those little tooth marks on our bed frame, what a wounderful souvenir!
Trisha says
I’m supposed to be editing the final version of the completely rewritten Puppy Primer, but I simply could not go back to it without adding my story to Christine’s: Short version = 10 week old St. Bernard puppy (purchased with a monetary wedding gift from my aunt to buy silver with) climbed up on a table and ate the huge, elaborate wedding cake while the groom and I were outside getting hitched. Cake was chocolate. Chocolate was everywhere. Dog was brown and very gooey. So was the carpet. Mother was a tad distraught. (But we didn’t know then, in 1968, that chocolate was bad for dogs… so never worried about that!)
Patti says
Trisha thanks for the “bursting out laughing” advice (along with all the rest!!). I will try this on *my* dissertation advisor ;^) It somehow just read that way to me.
Liz F. says
I realized a frustration tool that
Electric Landlady says
Boy, do I ever need to remember this advice. Thank you!
Completely off-topic, but I saw this article about stray dogs in Moscow and thought of you: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/628a8500-ff1c-11de-a677-00144feab49a.html
Lenore says
I’m working on writing, for the first time in years, and thinking about people being frustrated with their dogs, brings up a point I’m trying to make… perhaps dog trainers and behavior consultants are not attending enough – sometimes – to the physical skill level of the owner. Perhaps they feel very uncoordinated and trying to “time rewards correctly” while they have a dog doing whatever… is expecting a bit much. There does seem to be a bit of coordination required when you have a dog, a leash, a treat, and something else going on. Just a thought.
Wild Dingo says
Alice Fisher says
My first beardie ate the inside of my Volvo in a” five minutes left in the car” moment. I went into the convenience store to buy
milk and I opened the door to find those nice sharp puppy teeth and the rest of the dog hanging onto the passenger door.
Leather does shred when a nine week old puppy is really enjoying herself.
It looked like Christmas in the car…all the stuffing and “wrapping” shredded everywhere.
I just kept repeating the mantra – “I am an idiot”.
Then I made myself look in the mirror and repeat it over and over until I laughed. Only an idiot would leave A PUPPY loose in
the car. I went home and looked at my house and the chaos that I had made and thought that the dog must have learned it from
me! Although my housekeeping has improved marginally, my dog husbandry has increased exponentially.