How to Raise the Perfect Dog (27 page)

MEETING NEW PEOPLE

From the time he was three months of age, I was taking Junior out with me, Daddy, and the crew on
Dog Whisperer
cases. Since I wanted Junior to follow in Daddy’s footsteps, it was important to me that he become comfortable with as many new types of dogs—as well as people—as possible. During his most formative months, Junior met various dogs with aggressive, fearful, obsessive, and overexcited energies, and learned to stay calm in spite of them. He also met a few people whose issues were as challenging as those of their dogs. But he always had me to supervise both his behavior and the reactions of the various humans that wandered in and out of his life.

If a human got too excited over Junior’s cuteness and started invading his space, I’d remind them of the no touch, no talk, no eye contact rule I enforce whenever one of my dogs meets a new person. If the new person had an all too common “Oh my God, is that a pit bull?” reaction, I’d counsel them on how to relax and share a better energy. Then I’d let Junior do the sniffing himself, and signal to me that he was comfortable with the person, before I’d allow their relationship to progress.
Our puppies are counting on us to keep them safe and to listen to them when they tell us that they need a new human to back off a little during a first encounter
. Of course, Junior always had Daddy’s behavior to emulate. And Daddy is so confident, he’s comfortable with just about anyone.

DANGEROUSLY ADORABLE

“One thing about Angel—his cuteness is definitely a liability,” Melissa Peltier said to me, reporting back from her overnight visit with my blue-blooded miniature schnauzer. She and her husband, John Gray, had taken Angel with them to dinner at a busy outdoor café—his first extended experience in such a hectic public setting. The little guy did fantastically, drinking water from a dish under the table and sitting back—alert but still relaxed—to watch all the interesting goings-on around him. The problem was, Angel is such a good-looking dog, every other passerby seemed insistent upon petting him. Melissa explained,

We couldn’t eat our dinner in peace, because people were just going gaga over him. “Oh my God, that is the cutest puppy!” “Can I pet him?” With the adults, they would talk to me first. And he would get a chance to observe them and their energy and smell them while we were conversing. If I said it was okay to approach him, if they did it gently, he was fine, and even a little curious about them. But one guy came by with two kids, about eight and ten years old, and while the dad was talking to me, the kids just charged in and reached toward Angel to pet him. And I could see him getting overwhelmed. There was a complete change in his whole body language—he tensed up and started to shrink into himself. So I said, “He’s still a little shy; he’s just a puppy. I think that’s enough for him.” I was beating myself up afterward because I thought I should’ve known that ahead of time and warned the kids not to approach him like that. Because they invaded his space. And I could just see how, if an owner let that happen to a sensitive puppy like Angel too many times and didn’t pay attention to his communication, that dog might grow up to become fearful or even a fear biter. That is definitely a danger when a puppy is as cute as Angel.

READ YOUR PUPPY’S ENERGY

Melissa and her husband learned firsthand another lesson about how adults as well as children need to learn to read a puppy’s energy and body language before they attempt a more personal relationship with him. Melissa’s husband, John, is a kind, gentle man, but he’s also a fairly well-built guy who exudes the natural leadership energy that comes from being a successful writer-director of movies and television. Angel seemed comfortable with John right away; in fact, he responded to John as a calm-assertive leader much more quickly than he did to Melissa. But once they got back to their apartment for the evening, John wanted to roughhouse with Angel the way he had played with his late, much-beloved terrier mix, Bob. John got down on the floor in the canine play-bow posture, inviting Angel to mix it up with him. Angel stiffened and backed away a little. While John’s body language was playful, Angel was reading his very dominant, male energy and didn’t know whether or not to interpret the invitation as purely recreational or as a challenge.

I explained to Melissa that John’s behavior, though good-natured, made him claim a lot of space. His invitation became like a tsunami instead of just a little wave. Angel has been taught by the adult dogs around him—especially his adolescent “big brother,” Junior—that he is always to be respectful of his superiors. He is to keep his head low and go under, not over, until he knows he has been accepted. Not being familiar with John, Angel’s first response was the correct one based on what he had learned in his pack—to be polite and respectful with older, more dominant dogs. John seemed a little let down that Angel didn’t take him up on his offer right away, and Angel picked up on that disappointment, becoming even more tentative because of it—remember, puppies only want to please pack leaders! Melissa instructed her husband to lie on his back and let Angel come to him. John complied, but when Angel got closer and started to relax, John reached over and grabbed him, eager to begin the game. Once again, Angel backed away.

“John was trying to do too much too soon with Angel,” I explained to Melissa, after she related her tale of the visit. “He should have waited and let Angel come and gently lie on top of him and become familiar with him in that way. If John had waited in that position, instead of going into the playful position—which is almost like pouncing—he would have allowed Angel to explore him, head to foot.” What Angel was trying to say to John was, “I mean you no harm,” “I respect your space.” If Angel had sensed that John got his message and was also respecting Angel’s space back, he would have felt free to engage in play with him.

The irony, of course, was that Angel was all too eager to play with Melissa, jumping on her leg and trying to “play-dominate” her; so much so that she had to keep turning around and disagreeing with him by asking him to sit back and relax. I see this dynamic all the time in families where the male is very male and the female is very female. The puppy just gravitates to the female, which the female may interpret as “he likes me more” when, really, he is seeing her more as a peer than a pack leader. Then the puppy grows up to push the limits around the female but always behaves obediently around the male. This occurs with kids, too. In families like the Barneses, the genders are reversed. Blizzard takes advantage of eleven-year-old Christian’s softer energy, while he gives space and respect to fourteen-year-old Sabrina’s more assertive demeanor. If Melissa and John were to spend more time with Angel, the solution would be for the two of them to try to meet in the middle. John would hold back a little, and Melissa would be a little more assertive. That way, Angel would see them both as pack leaders; he would be a little less threatened by John’s unintentionally dominating presence and wouldn’t feel he could take advantage of Melissa.

“Angel doesn’t care how many books about dogs you’ve helped me write,” I reminded Melissa. “He only cares about the energy you share with him in that very moment.”

SOCIALIZING WITH OTHER DOGS

The puppies in this book—Angel, Mr. President, Blizzard, and Junior—have all had great advantages in life. They’ve not only been cared for by a human who understands dogs, they’ve been raised by and around other balanced dogs, in an environment that’s as close to a dog’s natural style of life as possible. Angel was the shyest of his littermates, but in spending time in the pack, he automatically gained confidence every single day. In fact, he grew to be so confident that sometimes he’d act too cocky around more dominant pack members. Then Junior and whatever adult dog happened to be around at the time would discipline him quickly, reminding him not to get too big for his britches. In the case of Mr. President, if he hadn’t been raised among dogs, he might have turned out to be an overconfident, blustery bulldog—perhaps a magnet for conflicts or even fights.

Visitors to my house often comment on how intelligent all the puppies seem and how quickly they seem to learn things. I tell them it’s because the pack and I have raised them in such a way that their natural method of social learning has been nurtured, not damaged. Too many times, when puppies grow up without the contact of other dogs, they lose their inborn common sense; they become rusty at speaking their natural language. Imagine moving to a foreign country where you never really learn the language—and then returning to your homeland having forgotten most of your native tongue. You would certainly be very uncomfortable in social situations on either shore. When we raise puppies without other dogs around, it’s vital that we take extra steps to socialize them early so they will always be able to read the signals and understand the important etiquette of their own species.

SOCIALIZATION AND IMMUNITY

Once again, owners’ worries about a puppy’s immunity can thwart the dog’s social education. Some paranoid owners actually choose to keep their puppy away from other dogs until he is six months old! By isolating a puppy during those crucial eight to sixteen weeks, when his immunity is still developing but his brain is rapidly growing, we run the risk of creating a puppy that will be antisocial with his own kind. This is certainly not the time to bring your puppy to a dog park, but there are several ways you can support the socialization process while still keeping your puppy safe.

• Invite a friend’s healthy, vaccinated,
balanced
older dog to interact with your puppy at your house. If you are still concerned about immunity, make sure the dog hasn’t just come from the dog park and that it has clean feet and a clean face when it plays with your puppy.

• If the puppy or the adult dog seems reticent at first, pick up your puppy by his scruff and present him to the dog, rear first, the way I introduced Blizzard to the pack at the Dog Psychology Center (see Chapter 1). Let the adult dog sniff the puppy until he becomes relaxed and comfortable around him.

• Set a play date with a healthy puppy of the same age, with the same level of immunity. If this goes well, add another puppy and an adult dog or two to the mix. This way, you create your own “minipack” or dog park, in your home or yard. The adult dogs will serve as “monitors” and role models for the puppy’s social behavior, although you must still retain your own calm-assertive energy and supervise the visit.

• Sign your puppy up for a
real
puppy class, such as the one offered by Diana Foster at the Thinschmidt kennels. Such classes are not free-for-alls, but rather are supervised and taught by experienced professionals, and all animals are prescreened for health problems.

Of course, the owner’s energy and response at the time of the socialization encounter will have a huge impact on how the puppy reacts to the other dogs. Socialization presented
Dog Whisperer
cameraman Chris Komives with his first real stumbling block in raising Eliza.

The first dogs she met were two golden retriever puppies that my neighbor brought home around the same time as Eliza. They were all at the same place in their inoculations, so we introduced them to each other. Eliza was hesitant at first, so I encouraged her to meet them. In my desire to help her overcome her anxiety, I encouraged her to play too excitedly with these puppies. As Eliza got older, she started to dominate them and became territorial about their yard—more so than our house! So I had let her go too far in the other direction. I had to claim the yard and supervise their play. With the help of my neighbor, I’d make them stop playing and be calm together before resuming play. They play together successfully to this day.

After Eliza’s last set of shots, I invited Chris to bring Eliza with him to the center on a shoot day, so I could supervise her introduction to the pack. I handled the introduction. At first Eliza was very anxious and fled to a corner. Chris wanted to step in, but I ordered him to ignore his puppy; I didn’t want him enabling her insecurity. Eventually a member of the pack sauntered over, sniffed her, and invited her in. By the end of the day, Eliza was running with the pack and playing with Junior.

“Encouraged by how well she did with the pack,” Chris told me later, “I took her to the dog park the very next day. Unfortunately, the dogs there were not balanced, and sensing her weakness, they rushed her. She ran away, scared, to the first human she could find. After that, she overcompensated by becoming much more forward in approaching dogs.” The next time Eliza came to the center, I could see that she had become much too excited around other dogs. Chris, in his desire to encourage Eliza’s sociability and to help her get over her shyness, had let other dogs represent too much excitement to her. I showed Chris how to wait for her to be calm first before I allowed her to enter the yard. By taking the time to balance her energy before she greeted the pack, Eliza was able to be her naturally exuberant self, and she played contentedly with the pack for the rest of the day.

INTRODUCING PUPPY TO THE DOG PARK

Just because your puppy has great social skills within his own pack of humans or dogs doesn’t necessarily mean he knows how to interact with strange dogs. It’s important that puppies learn how their social skills will translate to dogs outside their home pack. As soon as their vaccination protocol was finished, I brought Angel and Mr. President to Central Park in Santa Clarita, to supervise each of them in their first official dog park experience. I decided to begin with Angel this time. There was still dew on the grass, but the spring sun already blazed down on us as we approached the fenced off-leash area. There were only a handful of dogs and their owners in the park—perfect for a nonthreatening introduction.

I unlatched the gate to the area of the park designated for smaller dogs, happy that Central Park blocks off separate spaces for smaller and larger breeds. If you bring a puppy into an area where there are too many large dogs playing, he may feel intimidated right away. We don’t want our puppies to get a negative first impression of anything during this crucial stage of their lives. I could feel Angel’s tiny heart beating faster as I gently set him down inside the outer gate and unfastened his leash. He was feeling safe with me but starting to be a little unsure around the smell of strange dogs. It’s important to recognize these physical symptoms in our puppies—they give us our first clues as to what to watch out for in their behavior.