My Life as A “But” Fixer

The past few months have been some of the busiest in my career (The main reason for my lapse in blog posts lately) and I have been receiving dozens of emails and calls each week from people asking for help with their dog's behavior issues. Many of these emails start in the same way, with the person telling me that they have a wonderful dog, "but"…

"We have a great dog who is good with kids, loves people, is a joy to be around, is loving and a great companion, but…. He's aggressive towards other dogs."

"…but, she has terrible separation anxiety."

"…but, despite having gone through training, I can't teach him to stop pulling on the leash."

"…but he has selective hearing and won't listen if he has something better to do."

"…very well socialized and friendly, but he's extremely territorial in the house."

It goes on and on. The last comment was from the family of a dog I recently started working with named Bix. Bix is a very large (115 pounds) mixed breed dog who belongs to a couple who are expecting twins in a few months. As with many of my clients, he had received a lot of "professional" training, and, after his aggression issues began to surface, even had a consultation with one of my favorite dog behavior "gurus" who offered some management tips, but no solutions on how to correct his behavior. This "behaviorist" met Bix at her office and had to rely on his family's description of his territorial behavior, despite the fact that the behavior only occurs at home. Am I the only person that thinks this doesn't make sense?

Bix's family is EXTREMELY well-intended and love him as much as any family I've seen loves their dog, but this was one situation where, after meeting them, I became quite upset at the current culture in the dog training world that tries to fit all the pegs, square, round, etc, into the same holes regardless of the situation. They were given reactionary techniques such as, "when he does this, do that..." In other words, let Bix engage in the inappropriate behavior, then when he does, do "X", but no matter what, never do "Y".

It seems unfair to me that when we know that a dog is going to do something wrong, to let him do it, then when he does react in some way to that behavior. Doesn't it make more sense to take away Bix's opportunity to engage in his territorial behavior, while teaching him new skills so that the next time he's in that situation, he has the option of a new behavior? It's my experience that it's nearly impossible to teach a dog who is engaging in a bad behavior anything while he's in the midst of that behavior. At best, you might teach your dog that when he does something wrong, "X" will happen, but this typically doesn't make him decide not to engage in the behavior the next time he has the opportunity.

I think that a big reason for the success of my training is that in addition to teaching my clients calm, reward-based handling skills, I give them a step-by-step process to follow to take them from where they are when we start, to where they want to be when we finish. In cases where there are behavior issues, we do our best to teach their dog new behaviors away from the situations that trigger the behavior problem before reintroducing him to those circumstances.

This was the case with Bix and he began to respond better to the training than he ever has to any other training he's had in the past. He had been trained using food and treats in the past, but we were able to get him to focus on his people and for the first time he began to happily do what they asked him to without food. (Treats tend to be tremendous motivators in dog training, but it's very difficult to be consistent with them. To me, treats are just that… treats, and while I personally spoil my dog and think that it's okay to do so, I think that in the vast majority of cases, your dog's behavior should be calm and consistent without the use of food as a motivator. My dog Mojo never has to sing for his supper!)

On a scale from 1-10, Bix's territorial behavior was an 8, and as I write this we are early in our training, however I would say that this has dropped to a 3. This doesn't mean that we're done, and we have a ways to go before we achieve the goals that we've set for him, however I think that we're on our way, and Bix's family now feels they understand his behavior, why he engages in it, and they have a plan and process to follow to help him learn new, acceptable behaviors that will be safe for his growing family and their guests.