THE OTHER END OF THE LEASH

Eeeps, where’d the day go? I was going to write about the emotion of disgust, but it’ll have to wait til tomorrow. But before the day is over I wanted to remind you that the Early Registration for the Jan 7-8 seminar I’m doing with Kathy Sdao is over tonight at midnight. I’m doing a new day-long seminar on Canine Communication: communication of all kinds between dogs, from dogs to people, and from people to dogs. Lots of it is interactive: you’ll be working like a dog searching for scents (sort of!), interpreting visual signals, and translating dog vocalizations.  I’ll be adding in all the new research that relates to communication, so if you want to up your understanding of all things dog, you definitely want to come. It’s in Orlando, Florida too… not a bad place to be in January, and easy to fly to as well if it’s too far to drive.

Kathy Sdao is presenting on Sunday, and I put her in the same category as Ken Ramirez–great speaker, great trainer and an inspiration. If you missed Ken, then don’t miss Kathy, I never, never leave her talks without being energized and inspired.

I’m also doing a second half-day seminar on using your dog in Animal Assisted Therapy and Activities in Naples, Florida on January 12th in Naples, Florida. (More on that on our website soon.) Katie and I just finished taping a great sequence of evaluating 4 dogs, including Willie and Tootsie, as potential therapy dogs. (Our purpose was to illustrate an evaluation procedure, not actually put either of my dogs in a program right away. But, I can tell you: one would have passed, one would not have. You’ll have to guess which til later!) I’m excited about this seminar too, it’s a great opportunity to help people who want to help others through their dogs.

So here’s the plan: Go to Orlando, come to the seminar there, treat yourself to a few days in Disney World (that’s where I’ll be!), and then drive over to Naples and catch the seminar on using dogs for AAT and AAA. It’s a win/win for everyone. Hope to see you there.

MEANWHILE, back on the farm: I’ve gotta go and feed Sushi, dogs and sheep. They are all waiting. The dogs patiently, the cat impatiently, and the sheep, well, they are beginning to bang on the sides of the barn. More tomorrow! But here’s a photo, not from today, and not from the farm, but it’s one of my favorites that I took in New Zealand, so what the heck!

Couldn’t resist… here is a flock (should I say mob?) of some of my new Kiwi friends. What a great day we had together! (And thanks Karen for that yummy NZ lamb dinner and for all the good company. Looking forward to tomorrow….

Here’s a video I’m going to show in New Zealand of Willie, Hope and friend Mico, from this summer. I’m not going to say much about it, because I am curious what words you would use to describe what you are seeing. Watch it a couple of times, and then if you are so inspired, describe the behavior of the two younger dogs. (Willie is the adult BC, Hope is the medium sized young BC, and the other black and white guy, the smallest dog, is what looks like a BC/Bully breed cross, but his genetics are unknown.) I’m especially curious how you describe a few of the things that Hope does….. Can’t wait to hear your comments!

MEANWHILE, back on the farm: Wheeeee… just a few more days before we go! Lots more to do, but we’ll make it. Can’t wait til the “drive away from the farm with Willie in the window” part is over. Argh, three weeks! Soooooo long to leave him.

While I’m gone I’ll try to post a blog once a week or so. I’ve pre-posted three of them, to come out once a week, and hope to add another each week from down under. I’ll have my cameras with me, so hope to send you photos of NZ. Our first full day there begins with a long walk on a black sand beach with our gracious host and a passle o’ dogs. Oh boy! Then the seminars Saturday and Sunday, which I’m truly looking forward to now that I have them all done and ready to go, and then it’s play play play. Oh my. Stayed tuned, hope to send you some great photos!

Those are the words of Dogen Zenji, a Zen master, quoted in one of my favorite books, Zen Miracles by Brenda Shoshanna. I repeat them here, because I think they have the power to ease life’s journey for all of us. The message is simple, but profound. Of course you, and everyone around you are going to make mistakes. It is inevitable, because, as the saying reminds us, “Life IS one continuous mistake.” Once we accept that, it is much easier to be loving and compassionate, both to ourselves and to others.

When I first became interested in dog training, in the mid-80’s, I was shocked at how hard people were on their dogs. “Disobedience” by dogs was considered to be a direct challenge to a dog’s owner. Any time a dog responded inappropriately it was attributed to the dog being stubborn, or challenging the owner’s dominance, or worse, “having a mind of his own”. (I admit to being unable to repress a smile when I write that last one. Whose mind was the dog supposed to have?) Dogs who didn’t sit fast enough were at best given a quick, mild collar correction, and at worst yelled at or picked up and shaken. Dogs were not allowed to make “mistakes” and if they did, they were punished for it.

Thanks to the efforts of many wonderful people, from Ian Dunbar to Karen Pryor to William Campbell, much of dog training has become less like boot camp for marines, and more like a good elementary school for kids. And yet, as we became kinder to dogs, it seems to me that some of the anger, frustration and negative attributions have been re-directed toward our own species. I read about “they” all the time, the people who don’t treat dogs as they should, who dump them at shelters, who use abusive training methods or who make bad decisions that cause harm to some individual of some species, sometime, somewhere. So many mistakes. Bad people, bad people.

Part of why I wrote The Other End of the Leash is because I like people, and I wanted to help others understand more of “why we do what we do around dogs.” (That’s the subtitle, fyi.). My hope was that increasing our understanding of the behavioral predispositions of both species would make life better for us all, humans and dogs.

And so I bring this around to the topic of the hour on this blog, the issue of re-homing dogs in general, and of placing Hope in another home specifically. Every day I make a mental list of what I am thankful for, and one thing I am thankful for is the thoughtful conversation that this chapter in my life has stimulated. I am thankful for the compassionate words of support, and I am thankful for the criticism, because it forces us to carefully consider our beliefs and our decisions. I knew when I made the decision to place Hope that it would disappoint some people and anger others. I am especially thankful, and impressed, by some of the most insightful comments: that perhaps placing a dog in another home brings up deep-seated, personal issues of belonging and a fear of rejection and of failure—no wonder this is a hot button topic, yes?

I understand that it would have been more satisfying to many if I had kept Hope and worked through all of his and Willie’s issues. It would have been to me as well. I understand that some readers believe that I made mistakes along the way. One interesting aspect of “Life as a Continuous Mistake” is that for any given situation, each person evaluates a stream of decisions differently. A mistake to one person is not to another.

Look at all the choice points involved in my decisions related to Hope:

- Deciding to get a puppy 4 years ago when I had 3 very old dogs because a litter related to my soul mate dog, Luke, became available

- Choosing Willie from the litter

- Keeping Willie after it became clear that he had a myriad of serious problems

- Deciding to get another dog after Lassie died because Willie loves to play with other dogs and I’d like more than one myself.

- Deciding to buy a puppy from a breeder rather than getting a dog from rescue

- Choosing the puppy Mick out of the litter

- Deciding to take Mick back to the breeder after some red flags appeared

- Returning home with the puppy Hope because Willie seemed to adore him

- Deciding to work with Hope after it became clear he was not the puppy that both Willie and I thought he was

- Deciding to let Hope go to another home

- Choosing to write about it in public

I wrote out that list to point out that everyone has their own opinion about what decision or choice might have been a mistake. Some of my colleagues, years ago, counseled me to get rid of Willie, and with benevolence and care for my well being, told me I’d be sorry for a very long time if I didn’t. Many of them think I am raving mad for writing about my own dogs in public. Others think getting a puppy was a mistake, or not getting a dog from rescue, or choosing the pup I did, or taking him back, or not taking him back sooner, or, or …

Here’s the reason that I bring this up. If I could live this summer over again, I might have made some different decisions. I might not have, it’s too soon to say. The one decision in particular that I would revisit was when I had returned Mick to the breeder and was agonizing over whether to choose another from the litter, or drive home without a puppy at all . While I was struggling with the decision, admittedly both physically and emotionally exhausted, Willie met Hope and instantly adored him. Willie took one sniff, and circle-wagged, and then play bowed and the two of them frolicked on the grass like Willie and Lassie used to do. As I stood watching them, it was windy and wet, and brutally cold, and I had to decide right away what to do or lose the chance to take a pup. Willie’s reaction to Hope (very different from his reaction to all the other puppies) had a profound effect on me. I picked up Hope, and he flattened his ears and kissed my face and Willie circle-wagged again and that was that.

A mistake? Could have been. I’m not sure yet.  Was it a mistake to place Hope into a better home than mine could ever be? Nope. Absolutely not. At least, not in my opinion. But perhaps in yours.  And that’s okay, because, after all, Life is One Continuous Mistake. I will always make them, whether we agree on what exactly the mistakes are or not. If someone needs perfection from me, they are benevolently advised to go elsewhere.  I cannot carry that burden for you, and I cannot try to carry it for myself.

And that brings us full circle to the most important point of all. Benevolence. Most people do the best they can. Yes people do things that disappoint us. Yes others will do things that we consider to be mistakes. Yes some people do horrible things to dogs, not to mention to other people. But the more we can feel compassion for other people, as much as we do for our dogs, the better off we will all be. Over the decades that I have been in the dog world, I have seen so much anger about the behavior of others, and so much guilt from wonderful people about decisions they have made with the best of intentions. If only we could gather up all that negative energy we could power the world on it. But in my humble opinion, it’s not what the world needs right now, and it’s not what each individual within it needs. Listen up here: It is not the behavior of others that is hardest to forgive, and if we focus on that we are fooling ourselves. It is our own imperfections that are hardest to forgive. What a challenge it is to feel love and compassion and forgiveness for ourselves, and for all of the mistakes we each make. And yet, we are the only judge of own behavior that really matters. Life is One Continuous Mistake. If we do our best, with the best of intentions, and try to learn from our inevitable mistakes, then all we can do beyond that is to sit back and enjoy the ride.

MEANWHILE, back on the farm. It is cool and gorgeous and the horrid, hot, humid weather is behind us, at least for now. The country is a canvas of yellows: bright yellow gold finches are everywhere, butter- colored sunflowers line the country roads, and streams of goldenrod wave in the fields.

Willie and I got two glorious lessons with the best herding dog handler in the country (Alisdair McRae) yesterday, and had as much fun as it is possible to have. For those of you in Wisconsin, there is a great herding dog trial going on right now,  Friday through Labor Day, outside of Portage Wisconsin. You can learn more about it by going to WWSDA.

I wanted to get some pictures of Willie and I working with Alisdair, but I got lost in training rapture, and forgot that I had the camera in my pocket. But here’s are some scenes on the way home… no wonder the colors of the state’s football team are green and gold.

Here’s the latest on Hope and Willie: Both Willie and Hope continued to be “spooky” to all number of things. This occurred both on and off the farm, and to all sorts of sights and sounds. Willie began high-arousal barking and lunging to other dogs when on leash, and off leash he growled and tooth displayed at familiar dogs he’s been fine with for years. He backed away, ears flat and commissure retracted, to men he’s known and loved for years. Hope growled, barked and lunged at dogs, strange shapes and heaven only knows what else. Out of the blue, at least to us, one of the dogs would run charging toward the window that overlooks the driveway, making low, growly barks, hackles up, and set the other off to do the same.

It was simple, in a way. Both dogs were insecure in their current environment, and were setting each other off. It’s all fine to say that we humans need our dogs to look to us for direction and security, but no one talks ‘dog’ more clearly than another dog, and Willie and Hope were both increasing each other’s insecurities. The irony was painful, because their relationship was improving in many ways. They played “tooth fencing/wrestle play” beautifully in the house, and Willie was just, finally, beginning to stop being such a victim when Hope bullied him in the house. Hope still would growl, lunge and bite at Willie’s shoulders as they moved to the door, for example, and Willie often responded by tongue flicking and dropping  his head, but in other contexts Willie would discipline Hope for some perceived rudeness with an inhibited muzzle bite.

As I would with a client’s dog, I sat down and considered the options:

I. Do nothing and hope that the dogs would come out of it.  In Hope’s case, it is true that some dogs seem to come out of what I call Juvenile Onset Shyness by themselves, but lots of dogs don’t, and in my experience, it is crucial with most dogs to actively help them through this stage with environmental management and behavior modification. As a four year old, Willie’s background level of being an inherently anxious dog meant he would most likely regress to his previous behaviors of serious aggression to unfamiliar dogs, and further degrade into being at least fearful, if not problematic, around unfamiliar people.

Probability of success: Small to Zero.

II. Actively treat both dogs with environmental management and behavior modification. That would include:

1) Full health checks, although a medical cause of this behavior was highly unlikely, it is still always good to check.

2) Physical support from Chinese Medicine, Vet Acupuncture, possible inclusion of pheromones (DAP for example) and scents (lavender for example) and homeopathic medicines (Willie is already on Shen  Calmer, possibly add that to Hope’s diet as well?). Also included is diet, specifically the amount of grain and the protein source. In addition, Hope could not drink the well water from the farm without developing crystals in his urine, so he drank distilled water that we had to purchase. No chance of any improvement there.

3. Stimulus Management: Take dogs off the farm separately, so they don’t set each off and I could work with each of them by one on one. This is no problem when leaving the farm, but doesn’t solve their behavior at home.

4. Behavior modification: Use Operant and Classical Conditioning to condition the dogs to have a different emotional (classical) and behavioral (operant) reaction to the stimuli that are setting them off.  For Willie I would continue going back to what worked in the past around unfamiliar dogs: Start by saying “Watch” which he knows means to look at me, whenever another dog appeared. When he turned to face me, he got to play a rousing game of tug. That reinforced him for looking away from the other dog in many ways–he got to play a favorite game and the tug game allowed him to release pent up tension. The goal was to get him to “AutoWatch,” or look at me automatically when he saw another dog, and then he’d get a game of tug. That not only taught him a behavior incompatible with barking and lunging, it classically conditioned him to feel good when another dog approached. For unfamiliar men, I’d have them toss toys or balls for him (can’t train other dogs to do that or I’d use it with other dogs!), conditioning him to love it when men approach.

For Hope, who spooked mostly at strange shapes (but that included a woman carrying a small bag while walking a small dog), I have been teaching “What’s That?” The meaning of that cue is to look at something, turn and get a treat or a toy. (Treats seemed to work better with Hope than play, so I began using them more often–every dog is different.). This works well if you can anticipate what stimulus sets off the dog, but is harder if you don’t know what the dog is responding to.

5. Lots more training… of course, always more training! Willie was taught to bow on cue, and it’s a great way to help  him relax when he is nervous. (He does it himself often now, I suspect he uses it as way of relieving stress himself.) All dogs profit, as do their owners, by having lots of behaviors that they can perform that relax them, that are incompatible with the ‘problem’ behavior. Play bows are one of my favorites, because they not only relax the dog they often act to relax other dogs (people too.) The list of behaviors that are helpful to put on cue goes on, but you get the idea.

Probability of success? 70/30? 60/40? 50/50? Given the seriousness of Willie’s insecurities, it’s hard to say. Probably couldn’t make a good judgment about prognosis until about 4 to 6 months into treatment and Hope is older.

III. Re-home one of the dogs. Given that the insecurities of both dogs appear to be feeding off of each other, the last reasonable option is to re-home one of the dogs. I’ve re-homed 2 dogs in the past 25 years, always because I felt it was in the best interest of the dog. Every time it was brutally hard on me for a while, and every time the dog was better off for it. Here’s my criteria for doing so that I shared with clients for over 22 years: the new home has to be better than the home the dog is in now. Period. Pure and simple. (Of course, if one dog is putting others, either people or dogs, at risk, the criteria must be considered differently.) In each case, you have to carefully consider which dog would be better off in a new home; in some cases the answer is simple, in multi-dog households it can be more difficult. In the case of Willie and Hope, which dog to re-home would be  simple.  Willie is over 4 years old, I have moved heaven and earth to keep him alive and happy, I am bound to him as if he were a part of me, and my first commitment is to him. Hope is not even 6 months old, is a much sounder dog than Willie will ever be, and would be a much easier dog to place than Willie for a gazillion reasons.

Probability of success? 95 to 100 % if it was the perfect home, but where would one find that? How could you know what’s “perfect?” My heart goes out to those of you who commented that you have a dog you think is in the wrong place, but can’t imagine where the dog would go. It’s not always easy, I know. Because I have had Hope long enough now to know him well, in his case it would have to be a home in which he 1) lived in a settled group of dogs in which he could play with the young ones, learn boundaries from the elders and feel secure in a home with trustworthy people and dogs, 2) live in the house with people who are kind, clear, patient, humane and who would give him the kind of health care that, frankly, few dogs get and 3) once he is ready, work sheep on a daily basis with people who know what they are doing, who use humane versions of training and take learning how to do it well seriously.

I’ve been working on Option 2 diligently, wrapping my life around it, and then, like a karmic piece of toast, the perfect home for Hope popped into our lives. A  home with a settled pack of 6 dogs–a puppy his age to play with, elder males and females to provide boundaries and security. A kind, loving home, in which the dogs sleep on the couch, get home cooked food and cutting edge health care. A farm in the country with sheep and people who devote their lives to working dogs, going to clinics, herding dog trials, taking private herding lessons from the best in the country. The dogs get far more work on sheep than one of my dogs ever would, at least until I can afford to retire, which isn’t going to be for awhile.

That’s where Hope is now. He’s been there awhile, long enough to know he’s thriving there. Willie not only went back to his old self in 24 hours, he has never been happier. Recently we were out walking on leash at a public park, he saw another dog, did a loose body wag, turned and looked at me, mouth open and relaxed, and turned back to the other dog as if he’d love to say hi. He is back to loving everyone, unfamiliar men included. Never once did he look for Hope, or act in any visible way that he wondered where he was or wanted him back. (But of course, who knows what he was thinking? Did he wonder where Hope went? If he did, he certainly showed no signs of it.) He has been happy and playful and relaxed at home and everywhere else. He is no longer licking his paws, alarm barking at the slightest noise or tongue flicking.

By all accounts, Hope is happier than he’s ever been. He plays with a five-month old female pup much of the day, has been corrected for rudeness a few times by his elders and is now on his best behavior. He is behaving beautifully around all people and all dogs, has never yet had a house training “accident” in the house (he did relatively often at our house and I suspect now it was as much about anxiety  as anything else). He has “spooked” at one thing, one time, and nothing else. He fit in the day he moved in, and it sounds like he has never been happier. His new humans adore him, are eternally grateful for all of his training and socializing, and say he acts like he’s been there all of his life.

And so, the dogs are doing great. I don’t need to tell you who this has been hard on. I won’t belabor it, but what’s called “Separation Distress” in animals is the same thing we call grieving, and it’s recorded in a primitive part of your brain as if it were a serious, painful injury. (That’s why we talk about “healing” from the death of a loved one.) Willie and Hope have shown no signs of it; they appear to be happier than before. It’s the humans who are suffering. The first three days after Hope left were brutal, even though I knew it was better for both him and Willie. I gave up trying to do any work at all one day, just let myself give in to the sadness and the feeling of loss. It’s better now, but I look forward to the day when it still doesn’t feel quite so raw. One of my few regrets is knowing that, to a lesser extent, this news will be a bit hard on some of you who have followed Hope’s story with me throughout the summer. I wish I could wave a magic wand and make this change as easy for the humans as it has been for the dogs, but I can’t.

I knew it would be hard personally, and I knew it would be made even harder because of the public nature of this decision, and because some people will criticize me for it.  But here was my choice: send Hope to a better home with the highest of all probabilities that it would be better for him and Willie both, or keep Hope because I loved him too much to let him go, or because I didn’t want to lose professional credibility with the people who believe that if I was good enough I would have ‘fixed it,’ or that it is never acceptable to re-home a dog, no matter what the circumstances. I can be a real coward sometimes, but I couldn’t live with myself if I passed up the best solution for two wonderful dogs because I was afraid of what people would say. This is a good place, however, to thank all of you who have been supportive during this process; there have been a lot of you, and I am forever  grateful to you. Truly. Thank you.

As you can imagine, there was a lot of talking and soul searching before this decision was made. I talked to numerous other behaviorists and shelter/rescue experts–the list of people I consulted would drive a seminar host mad with envy. The consensus was clear: it ranged from “Of course that is the right thing to do” to “Why didn’t you do it sooner?” Most of our discussions ended up asking what we could do to help people understand that sometimes the kindest thing you can do for a dog is to get him out of one situation and help to find a place in which he will thrive.

A word of caution: Please don’t try to generalize this situation too much to  any other. It concerns me that someone might read about the solution I have chosen and decide then that they should do the same. Every situation is different. If the perfect home hadn’t arisen for Hope, I never would have made that choice. What I will say to those of you who are struggling with this, based on 22 + years of working with clients, is that IF you have a situation in your home that is truly untenable, don’t assume that there isn’t either 1) help from someone to improve the problem or 2) another good home out there somewhere for one of your dogs. I have had clients work with trainers and behaviorists and end up resolving problems that they initially thought were unsolvable. I have had other clients who choose to re-home dogs with a variety of serious behavioral problems, and in many cases, the problems either went away, or the new owners managed the issues without any disruption to their lives.

Bottom line? There will always be Hope… sometimes it just lives in unexpected places.

MEANWHILE, back on the farm: The sheep still need feeding, the water tanks filled. Willie has just brought the flock out of the main pasture, through the woods, for their afternoon snack. The ewes get a little bit of alfalfa hay, and the lambs luxuriate with their noses deep in a mixture of corn, oats and a protein balance pellet. The lambs stopped growing for awhile when it was so hot, but they are doing well now.

Here’s a photo showing how big some of them are now. Hard to tell a few of the biggest from their mommas.

Here’s Snickers and one of her lambs, looking through a window in the barn. Is dinner ready yet?

It is very quiet here, but Willie is very, very happy, and that is a good thing.

We’re still all about toys at the office, given the boxes and boxes of them that arrived last week. And there’s nothing like having a new puppy in the house to get you back to thinking about toys!

A great happy surprise has been that the toy we were afraid would live on our shelves forever, Sherman the (Big) Sheep, has been a big hit. It’s sold more than any of the other toys, and we are still smiling about it. (And so is Will, he adores it.)  There are a few left, but we don’t expect them to hang around for long. Just fyi, the loser of the new toy choices is the hapless Scorpion, undoubtedly an image most people don’t want to see, and to make matters worse, it’s covered in “nature’s warning colors–red and black–just to make it more off putting. Poor little scorpions, I suspect they’ll be hanging around for awhile. All our dogs are fine with that, the Scorps are one of their all time favorite toys and we’ll be forced to take them home if they never sell. Picture Border Collies, Goldens, Beagles and Heeler mixes crossing their paws.

But I thought I’d mostly write today about two toys that we discovered during our research that are, well, weird. I don’t know any other way to describe them. Weird toy number one is the Doggie Lover Doll, manufactured in Brazil for dogs to have something to hump.  Seriously. Here’s what the manufacturers said in their release: “Human beings have their hands to masturbate themselves, now the domestic animals…. can alleviate themselves with a toy designed specifically for them.” Yup, you read it right, the doggy equivalent of a plastic doll. Oh my. (And no, we won’t be adding it to our collection of toys available on our website! I tried to find the website for it, but I got a “website down” message. Should I not be surprised? Was this all a big joke?)

Weird toy number two is . . ., wait for it:  Mr. Poops! Yes, indeedy, even you can buy a toy that looks exactly like dog feces. Imagine the fun you’ll have picking it up and tossing it around your living room floor. It’s made by the same people that make some of our favorite toys, My Dog Toy, but geeez, guys, who thought that up?

I remember one speech I gave at a fund raising dinner at which the hotel staff had decided it would be soooo funny to provide the chocolate desert in the form of dog poop. Apparently they all laughed like loons, but imagine a room of very quiet people when the desert plates came out. No one ate the desert, they had to throw it all away and the laugh turned out to be on them. You just gotta love our species sometimes. (Does anyone remember this and where it happened? Surely it could  have only happened in one place!)

Anyone else know of more toys to go into the “what were they thinking” category?

MEANWHILE, back on the farm: Will had oral surgery on Tuesday and Hope went to a friends for a few days so that Will could come home and recuperate.  (And yup, that was the tooth that I had a root canal done on, after which I was told that the tooth would forever be brittle and he could never chew on anything harder than a rotten tomato. Okay, I exaggerate, but if I had been told an hour before what was told an hour afterward, I would have elected to have the tooth extracted then. Before the root canal the dental specialist told me that it would give Will a “fully functional” tooth. That means a tooth that can chew on something harder than a sock  to me . . . But I won’t elaborate here lest I sound churlish; see an earlier post for a discussion and great comments about teeth, chewing, bones and dental procedures.) After thinking long and hard about the issues, I had decided to allow Will to chew on some objects, while avoiding hard ones like the long bones of cows, extra hard chew bones, etc. I just don’t think a dog can be a dog if he is not allowed to chew on anything. So I figured the broken tooth was inevitable, but the timing was unfortunate, to say the least. But I still will allow Will to chew on soft bones and some toys harder than dish rags. Everything in moderation.

For now my challenge will be preventing Hope and Will from playing tug games until next Tuesday (so that Will’s gum can heal). It is their absolute favorite game, so life will be interesting to say the least. Thank heavens for crates! Hope just came back and charmed me with his sweet, enthusiastic greeting and adorable ears. I’m sooooo curious to see how Willie responds to his return. Thrilled to see him? Or not?  I’ll let you know next week.

At the farm the birds and flowers continue to be a delight. It’s green and lush and about as pretty as it can get here. The barn is full of swooping barn swallow youngsters, the wrens are busy on their second nests of the season, and the Cedar Waxwings are gobbling up the berries from the Service Berry tree. They are such elegant birds! Here’s a photo of one that a friend just sent me from his summer home in upper Michigan.

I took him back. It was one of the  hardest decisions I’ve ever made, because I adored so much about him (see last post). Mick, as I named him, is extremely responsive (came EVERY time I called and clapped), very happy to investigate new things, is not sound sensitive, was already fetching, and was starting to play with Will. He is going to be a great dog for some lucky person.

[FYI, I changed the title to this post. It was originally "One Pup, Next Pup", and on reflection it sounds a bit cavalier, and believe me, this decision was anything but that!]

But the primary reason I got a puppy was for Will. He needs a playmate, and he needs to not have exclusive access to everything in the house, me and Jim included, for too much longer. I need a dog who is going to get along beautifully with Willie, and who, unlike Will, is totally comfortable around unfamiliar dogs. I want a dog who is bomb proof with people and children, a dog who loves other dogs and will be a great friend to Will. Will’s best friends have been small, submissive males, and I wanted either a small, sweet female or small male who loves other dogs and would never bully Will. I also don’t want to get stuck without a good working dog, and my absolute favorite activity with a dog (besides cuddling on the living room floor) is herding sheep. Needless to say, I know that I am asking a lot: a solid disposition, a working dog with great instincts and sheep sense who is strong enough to face down a defensive ewe but biddable enough to listen to me without a battle. Throw in physically sound, great with people and dogs, and oh yeah, Santa Claus, could you also make him cute as can be?

What worried me, nagged me relentlessly, about Mick was that 1) rather than running right up to Will when I brought him home he ran away, looking frightened. In some ways it was good, because he wasn’t all over Willie and didn’t overwhelm him, but the puppies I’ve seen who inherently love other dogs run right up to dogs with a “Oh oh oh! You’re a dog! I’m a dog too!  Hewwwwwwwwwoooooo, can we be friends?” That in itself wouldn’t have been a deal breaker, but add in Mick’s vigorous scratching after defecating and adult-like mounting of Will, and the flags began to fly. I think nothing of puppies mounting each other at this age, it seems relatively common, but this guy looked like an adult stud dog breeding a bitch. He did a complete foreleg clasp (I had to pry his legs off of Will), eyes shut, hard thrusting, tongue flicking. Honestly, at one point I actually thought “Good grief, did he ejaculate?” And this was just  hours after coming to a new place, and to an adult 50 pound male dog.

So what did that portend, really? Oh heck, no one can say for sure, but it raised the odds that this might not be a dog who is totally mellow and bomb-proof around other dogs. And, most importantly, who wouldn’t bully Will when he gets older. Miserably indecisive, I reached out to dear friends–how lucky I am to have some  who are brilliant behaviorists and trainers, and asked what they thought. The responses were consistent: “Well, might be fine, but seeing such adult-like behavior in a 9 week old pup is a bit of a red flag in a dog that young. If you want the odds on your side, you might want to consider taking him back.” (That’s an average of the responses… they varied from BAIL NOW! to “Can’t you wait a week and see?” But most people had the same concerns I did given what I wanted.)

After a lousy night, I bit the bullet, (heart sick, cuz I LOVED so much about this puppy), and asked a dear friend to drive up with me to return him, with the idea that I’d consider another male who also tested well. I was prepared to take that one back or drive back with no puppy at all. This time I took Will with me (the first time I picked out a pup I thought I wouldn’t be able to tell much from Will’s reaction. He’s had so little experience with puppies and I wanted to ease him into it).  I let out the other male of interest, and this time let him meet Willie.  Will did a full piloerection, hair straight up half way down his back. No growl, but tense body. The pup however, looked very comfortable, which I loved. I was primarily focused on the pup, less on Will because I assumed Will would be a bit nervous, so I was happy with that response on the part of the pup. Then I brought out a sweet little female who I had discounted because she was a bit shy. Same response to me this time, too fearful to even come over to me, so I put her right back. I think she’ll be just fine, but not the best pick for someone whose dogs go everywhere. There was one other male there who I had quickly discounted when I did the first tests because 1) He was quite soft, so much so that I didn’t do the startle response test because I thought it would be too much for him. He was very sweet, settled instantly when I rolled him over, brought back the paper the 2nd time I threw it, but clearly much more cautious about the world than Mick. And oh yeah, okay, full disclosure: he just didn’t catch my eye. Okay, that’s not honest enough. I just thought he was sort of plain looking. Okay, still fudging the truth here. I said to Jim “That puppy is just too darn ugly to take home.” May I someday be forgiven.

You know what is coming next. After deciding to leave without a pup, I walked by the puppy pen one more time and the cautious little male just happened to catch my eye. His ears have started to go up, and his face looked plain but super sweet, so I picked him up and introduced him to Will. The pup ran straight to Will, Will play bowed, and they began to race around the yard together. My heart did that thing in which it seems to double in size in your chest, my eyes got extra wet, and I picked up the pup and drove him home. Decision made.

Thanks Will, I needed that. Nothing like a dog to know about another one, hey? Here he is, getting cuter to me by the minute. He is indeed a bit cautious of the world, more sound sensitive than I like, but he adores people, runs right up to them, recovers well from his fears. So far (all 15 hours worth of time!) he seems like a pup who could come out just wonderfully with the right start.  I’ll write more next time about the correlation between the tests and the pup’s behavior at home, but the pup (no name yet) is sleeping now, and I’ve got to grab the time to get other work done! And I’ll also add in the same caution that I tell all puppy buyers: You simply CAN NOT know what you have until they are much much older…. so we’ll see what we’ve got when he’s a year or so. I am clear that this dog is literally auditioning for a job. (Are you listening, the emotional center of Trisha’s brain? Your frontal cortex is talking!)

But for now, here he is, my new, sweet-sweet little boy. Pretty is and as pretty does, and I’ve decided he is slam-dunk adorable.

I’ve loved your comments about play styles after the last post. Keep them coming. One of the points that was made by many of you, that I think bears repeating, is that many dogs can adapt and learn new play styles from others. This is especially true of stable, well-adjusted dogs who aren’t overly reactive to something new or challenging.

Along with chase games and wrestling, several of you mentioned hounds (and English Shepherds!) who like to play “catch the prey” by chasing, play biting and then mock attacks at the throat. Another mentioned a play style that I’ve also seen, that I consider truly problematic. In this case, the dog chases another dog until he catches up, and then bites the chasee, often in the back leg, and brings him or her down. Eeeps. I’ve seen this quite often, and it often appears to me that the dog in question has not learned about the importance of “self-handicapping.”  Some of them even seem to have switched from playing to predation. Of course, that’s one of the tricky things about play–it’s actually hard to define because most of the actions of play are seen in the context of fighting or predation.

However, in healthy play, the participants exhibit “self handicapping” so that they don’t injure or scare their play partner. (See my post on September 10th, 2009 for a discussion and video of self-handicapping). When I see it happen I intervene without question. I’ll first try a loud, abrupt yelp, as if there had been an injury. That will often interrupt play, and I’ve seen some dogs adjust their enthusiasm as if it was their play partner who had been injured. However, I’ve also seen plenty of dogs who did not respond to a yelp. In that case I’ve tried, sometimes successfully, intervening by moving as quickly as possible between the two and body blocking the transgressor. I’ll look directly at them, use a low voice, say absurd things that the dog couldn’t possibly understand but that feel good to say (“You are one total loser dog and are going to be in big trouble in a minute…”) and back them up a good ten feet or so (depending on the dog).  That has helped with several dogs, in that I can then use a verbal warning (“AH!”) when they open their mouths to bite.

I can’t tell you exactly how many dogs that has helped, but many dogs do learn to adjust their play styles, and I’ve had good luck with it with lots of dogs. It doesn’t work on all dogs with this particular behavioral problem, but it’s worth a try.

There’s so much to say about role reversals, play styles and social status, (and yes, I do want to address the issue of ‘status’ soon), but here’s one point I’d like to bring up now: I talk more about role reversals in my Play Seminar DVD, but the research of Ward and Smuts found role reversals common in what they called “pushes, tackles, and chases.” They found almost no role reversals for “mounts, giving muzzle licks and receiving muzzle bites.”  There was (in keeping with some of your comments and with my observations over the years) no sex effect on type of play or on role reversals.  (However, female dogs did prefer to play with other females  within their own litters… interesting, hey?) They also found it common for one dog of a dyad to always be the one “on top” (in wrestling, for example), countering the hypothesis of some researchers that play always had to follow the “50/50 rule,” in which each player role reversed during each play session.

I think what’s most important is that play is a profoundly complex behavior, and that so much can be going on within it, depending on a dog’s breed predispositions, personality and experience. My favorite video of a play sequence, by the way, is from Pia Silvani, of two Terv’s meeting for the first time, and adjusting their play styles as they become more familiar. It’s truly a gorgeous example of healthy, appropriate play. It’s on the Dog Play DVD for those of you who haven’t seen it. I am ever grateful to Pia for letting me use it. (And it makes me all oxytocin-y too, it makes me want to get out some candles and a white table cloth for the 2 of them . . .)

Meanwhile, back on the farm: White white white. Snow snow snow. I’m about to take up luging. See that red sled by the barn . . . think I could make it down the hill behind the barn in record time in it?

In this next photo, Willie heard a truck on the road behind him. Interesting, I didn’t see his face as looking worried when I took the shot, but I do now. Humm, am I reading something into it?

A short post today, but with a pithy question generated from the last post on play. We all agree that different breeds of dogs tend to have different play styles, with herding dogs, for example, more likely to engage in run/chase games and bully breeds more likely to wrestle and body slam. Wrestling can include many behaviors, but a common goal of wrestling in any species is to pin another individual to the ground.

A lot of the wrestling/body slamming play in canines also includes chin over, leg over, vertical play and other movements that replicate the postures and gestures associated with high dogs seeking high social status.

So here’s the question: Do the dogs (in general of course) who engage in body slam/wrestle play tend to be individuals who care more about social status? I’ll add more to this discussion next week, but tease you with research that shows that you see a lot of role reversals in chase games (one dog in front, then the other) but very few role reversals in other actions more related to mounting and vertical play.

Meanwhile, back at the farm: I admit it, I’m an Olympic junkie. I’m getting sleep deprived staying up at night for heaven’s sake. Luckily, Will has had lots of entertainment during the day–we’ve been working the sheep a lot because all 3 groups are overweight (me, Will and sheep) and slogging up the hill in the deep snow is a great work out plan; we’re working on new tricks, he’s had lots of dog friends come visit and we’re doing lots of cuddling while I obsess in front of the television. We also went into town to do an applied ethoogy demonstration for my UW class, a good experience for Willie and although I’m sure not especially enjoyable for sheep, safe and relatively stress free.

I am also hereby declaring I am sick of winter. Not the snow, not the cold, I’m just starved for color and some change to what’s going on outside. I’d never make it in Antarctica! But there is still beauty: here are some trees covered in frost one morning, not long ago. I love the contrast of the dark trunks and the crystal white ice:

Here’s a video of Willie playing with a Lily, a 4 month old female Dogo Argentino. He has just met her, and after a brief greeting by the farm house, we walked up the hill to the Orchard Pasture.

I love watching videos of dogs playing; it seems that you can see so much if you watch them repeatedly. Here are the two main events I find most notable about this episode of play (along with the fact that Willie is playing so well with her! Yeah Mr. Will, what a journey we’ve been on together!)

One, notice how Lily’s play is so often on a vertical plane. Even as a young pup, she spends a lot of energy moving upward, and trying to get on top of Will. You’ll see that especially at seconds 17, 23 and 34. There are other examples, but those are the first three that I noticed.

Secondly, notice how Willie always backs away when she gets a leg on top of him, and dashes off, trying to elicit chase/race games with her. Watch carefully at second 59, how he approaches, gets her attention and then runs away. Willie loves to play race/chase games, and it looks to me like he is trying to initiate them with her. It appears to me that Willie is specifically trying to teach her to chase. Of course, she’s small and the snow is deep for her, so there is no way she could keep up with Will, nor is that a play style that she may ever enjoy.

In addition, I suspect that his reaction to her attempts to mount is more than just trying to elicit a chase game. Willie is very uncomfortable when other dogs try to chin over, stand over or mount him. As a matter of fact, when we stopped playing up the hill and went into the house, Lily began not only to rough house with Will, but began to try even harder to get her front legs and head on top of him. Will couldn’t dash away anymore in the close quarters of the house, and his ears flattened, his eyes rounded, his commissure retracted, and he began an offensive pucker at the distal end of his lips. I immediately stepped between the two of them and asked Will if he wanted to crate up. He sped away from Lily, ran to the study and lept into his crate. Poor Will, such angst. He gets so nervous about other dogs when he can’t maintain control. He is a classic “Alpha Wanna-Bee.” He wants to be in control of everything, but is an insecure nervous wreck about doing so with an individual bigger and braver than he is.

Yesterday he played chase/race with his Doberman girlfriend Mishka, and was totally relaxed even in the house until she lept onto the couch and loomed over him. He tensed up and then ran to the study and hid behind the door. He only came out when Jim came out too, and hid behind Jim’s legs. Then we walked behind a big rocking chair, and stayed behind it until I called him to come to me. Oh Willie. He is trying to hard now to stay out of trouble, but it is so hard for him. I am so proud of him, though. (For those of you who haven’t followed the story, Willie was pathologically afraid of other dogs as a puppy, and went through a very aggressive period until we could get it turned around. He will never be a ‘dog park’ dog, but he’s done so well given who he is and what he started with.

Here’s the video: I’d love to hear what you see in it. I’ve only watched it a few times, and focused on the things I mentioned, who knows what else is going on!