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Oh, those pups (though a few of these are other funny pets!) with their wanting to be fed and walked and and played with and such when we’re just trying to get some sleep! 😉
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When Carrie Fisher passed away this past December, her family initially decided … Read More
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Dogs in the wild grow up in packs and they are socialized almost from birth. A dog becomes socialized by interacting with other canines and learning their verbal cues and body language. The boundaries in the pack are very clear and each pup learns to understand their elders or get thrown out. Domestic dogs also begin socialization in their litter and when they come into a human family, socialization with humans begin. The initial socialization period of a dog is four to 12 weeks. It is during this time that social skills are imprinted on them and their interaction with other dogs and humans is, hopefully, positive. The socialization then should continue into adulthood. But many dog owners choose to adopt older dogs who sometimes were not socialized during this time. So, how do you go about socializing adult dogs? Do you need dog training classes to socialize them, or is it a combination of different factors?
When a dog owner brings an adult dog into their home, it’s important to find out early on how socialized he is. His initial interaction with you will be telling – is he fearful or aggressive? Does he back away when you approach or send warning signals such as raised hackles? When you take him on walks, is he nervous around different sounds and sights? Does he shy away from people or other dogs? If you see any of these signs, it’s likely he was not socialized well in his early days. But there are several things you can do about socializing adult dogs with other dogs and humans.
A senior dog. Photography by Shutterstock.
When out walking and another dog comes into view, resist jerking on the lead and yelling at your dog. This reinforces seeing other dogs as a negative experience. Instead, distract your dog with a treat or toy, use the command “Watch me!” and praise him when he pays attention to you.
Dog obedience class is a great way to help socialize an adult dog before attempting going into dog parks or having playdates. Because your dog is learning commands, he is distracted most of the time. Speak to your trainer about the issue and she can help you introduce your dog slowly to other dogs in the class. This is also a safe place for your dog to learn to interact with other humans.
The first step is to socialize your dog with your family. This is best done slowly and patience is a virtue here. Dogs and humans speak a different language so you’ll both be learning how to communicate.
When your dog runs to hide from you, don’t go after him and pull him from under the bed. Ignore him and do something that will persuade him to come out like playing with his toys or frying up some bacon. Dogs are curious and social creatures and they’ll eventually become bored and lonely by themselves. Reward him with a bit of that bacon when he comes out.
It’s sort of like when your teenager comes down the stairs with an enormous pimple on her forehead. You don’t mention it and act as if there’s nothing wrong. By acting as if your dog’s behavior is no big deal, you’re creating a calmer environment and, thus, a calmer dog. So when he streaks under your legs because the postman is at the door, go on about your business as usual.
Only add one person a week at the most into your dog’s life. When they meet your dog, have them offer a treat and speak in a happy, low, encouraging voice. You don’t want to use a high pitch which could excite him. Keep your dog on a leash at first but do not force him to go near the person. Let him take his time.
The main thing to remember when socializing older or adult dogs is to be positive and to make each new experience a good one with praise and treats. Corrections do not work well here and will likely will create a more nervous dog. In time, your new companion will become at ease at home and in public and will truly be a member of the family.
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When Willie starting working sheep as a youngster, he didn’t want to quit. This is a high quality problem with a young sheepdog, but it’s still a problem. At some point you just have to end the session. It’s a common problem too–I’ve seen scores of adolescent Border Collies zoom around and around the flock while the owner attempts to call them back and snap on a leash before the dog over heats. Or the sun sets.
This isn’t a challenge restricted to sheepdog owners. Who doesn’t need a dog to stop what it’s doing and come when called? When I asked blog readers what they’d like to talk about, this was one of the topics that came up regularly. I think that’s great, given my belief that all dogs need some freedom in their lives in order to be healthy and happy. Granted, that freedom might be inside a fenced area, but surely all dogs need a little autonomy. However, you still need to be able to call an off-leash dog to you eventually. I’ve seen plenty of client’s dogs who couldn’t be caught, much less asked to come, even inside a small area, so a solid recall is critical no matter how “freedom” is defined.
I’ve written about this before, but never laid out a list of the steps that I think are critical to developing a kick ass recall. I’ll get it started, but I’m counting on all you readers to add your expertise and experience to the mix.
1. Prevention Prevention Prevention. Granted, it’s not always possible, but the more the better. It’s hard to compete once a dog has learned that ignoring you means he gets to chase a deer or snarf down a McBurger wrapper. It’s not necessarily impossible, but it depends on the dog. My Border Collie Pippy Tay, seemingly the sweetest most obedient dog that ever lived, began ignoring me on country walks when she became an adolescent. I’m quite sure she was chasing an animal a few of those times. I went back to basics, including the prevention of more inadvertent reinforcements, some time on a long line, and in addition I introduced competition into the mix. I’d call all the dogs to come, and give high quality treats to all but the last dog who arrived. Three or four times food-loving Pippy arrived last, and watched the other dogs gleefully snarf down their pieces of chicken. Guess who began winning the recall race after just a few sessions?
Prevention means different things for different dogs in different contexts. A working sheepdog in training has to be off leash, but can be started in an area small enough that you have some control. Every dog, and every context is different. But in general, do all you can to work with a dog until you are truly confident you can call her back in Context A before moving to the more challenging Context B.
2. Winning is Everything. Start teaching a recall when you can’t lose. No distractions. Your dog practically beside you. The perfect reinforcement. (I like to vary the reinforcement, so that the dog learns that “If I come when called, I’ll be happy,” not “If I come when called, I get X”. What if she doesn’t want X right now?) Whatever you use, be sure that it truly is a reinforcement for your dog. Slappy pats on the head, we all need to remember, are punishments, not reinforcements. I almost always use food–great food–to start, then quickly add in play, chase, belly rubs, cooing praise, releasing on a walk, working sheep, or whatever the dog wants.
If you’re not sure which reinforcement to use, use the Premack principle. Simply stated, one uses a “high probability behavior” to reinforce a “low probability behavior”. This is just another way of saying that if your dog does it a lot (by choice), then he must like to do it. An clear example comes again from working with sheepdogs. Willie, for example, didn’t want to stop working sheep. If I let him loose around sheep, he’d begin working them–a high probability behavior. So high, as a matter of fact, that that was the problem. He wouldn’t stop. Perfect! All I had to do was get him to stop momentarily by blocking his access to the sheep with my body, and reinforce that by letting him work the sheep again. That evolved into stopping for longer periods, then coming toward me when called, then leaving the sheep even if a hundred yards to me and running like Lassie to me at twenty miles an hour, his face shining with happiness. That’s all because he learned that stopping and running to me meant he got to work the sheep some more.
This is relatively easy to generalize to any dog. Does your dog like to chase? Then make chasing the reinforcement for, well, not chasing. Sounds ridiculous when I put it that way, but that’s the bottom line. Does she like to chase balls? Then teach her if she is ahead of you and starting to move away, she’ll get to run after a ball that you threw behind you. I begin early recall sessions by running away from the dog and letting her chase me as a reinforcement. I usually add in food or play when they catch up, but dogs who love to run after things love to run after you too. Just be sure they don’t get nippy when they arrive.
In my DVD, Lassie Come! I illustrate teaching the early stages of recall training. I will caution you that it’s for getting a dog started, not for “advanced recalls,” but it is great for new dog owners and puppy buyers to get things off on the right paw.
Setting up success relies on understanding how to gradually increase the difficulty level of the recall. Distance, Distraction Level and Pace of the dog are all factors that need to be considered separately. Once you’ve done it enough it becomes automatic, but it does take experience to learn to consider each of the factors. Pay attention to those three things, and you’ll learn quickly not to ask for a recall when the dog is in a distracting environment, already running away and a good twenty feet from the owner. You’re always better to simply not ask if you think the chance the dog will come flying back to you is small.
Your mantra must be to increase the difficulty level one factor at a time: Low distraction level, dog close by but beginning to run forward away from you. Dog close by, only walking, but several distractions. You get the drift.
3. Reinforce the turn toward you. If your dog was focused on a chipmunk, but turns his head to you when you call, you’ve won half the battle. After all, a “recall” isn’t just running to you. The first step is taking his attention off what he was focused on to begin with, so don’t wait until the dog gets to you to provide reinforcement. The second your dog’s head turns toward you and takes even a half of a step forward, reinforce her verbally. Use Good! or Woo Hoo! or Yay! or Click with your clicker, but let your dog know that shifting his attention from the chipmunk and onto to you means good things are going to come. (Be sure to “load” up any verbal praise, or secondary reinforcer, with food or play, whatever is a primary reinforcer for the dog.)
4. Teach Stop on Cue. It only took me a couple of years of working with dogs to realize that, as mentioned above, a recall includes several behaviors. 1) Stop what you are doing. 2) Change your focus onto me. 3) Turn around toward me. 4) Come toward me. 5) All the way.
Teaching a dog to stop when asked–first things first–is one of the keys to getting a dog to stop running after something and come back to you. My method is relatively simple: Decide on your ‘stop’ cue, have treats that your dog adores, start walking forward with your dog beside you or one step ahead, say the cue quickly and emphatically, reinforce the slightest pause or look in your direction. Repeat a few times, but don’t over do it so it becomes boring. Gradually, over time, gradually and SLOWLY (I am sort of yelling because this seems to be the hard part) increase the difficulty. Only change one of the factors mentioned above at a time–Distance, Distraction, Pace–and again, set the dog up to win.
If your guess is wrong about your dog’s response, perhaps he continues trotting down the path when you thought he’d stop, either clap like crazy to get his attention on you and run the other way, or say “Okay!” if you think he’s on a mission and won’t respond at all. I honestly have no idea if this actually helps to build a reliable recall, but it feels good, and surely that counts for something. Then evaluate the factors, and go back a few steps.
Choose your cue carefully. Make sure it can come out of your mouth fast and furious, because that’s what will happen if your dog flushes a deer while walking in the woods. My Border Collies have to lie down on cue while working sheep, so I’ll often use a lie down cue to get them to stop in other contexts. It’s just something my brain is programmed to do and a cue they are used to hearing when they are moving fast in any direction. If you ride horses, “whoa” might be a good cue, but whatever it is, it needs to be short and carry well over distance.
You can tell I think a trained stop is important, because I’ve written about it twice before. See Safe Off Leash? from 2013 and The Importance of an Emergency Stop from 2009.
5. Repeat repeat repeat. Reinforce reinforce reinforce. Never stop reinforcing this behavior. Not every time, and not necessarily for responses when all the stars were aligned, but running and chasing is such a natural behavior for a dog that stopping a chase and coming back to you is basically a circus trick. When I walk my dogs off the farm, about every third trip or so I will practice an emergency recall when the dogs are a good 40+ yards ahead. When they get to my feet the food flies out of my pockets, and I know that next time they flush a deer or are about to dash toward an algae-filled stream I know I can count on them to respond when I call.
6. Be realistic. Adolescent dogs are famous for forgetting everything they’ve learned as a puppy, so don’t hesitate to go back to prevention for a few months, even if your dog was a star pupil as a youngster. Some breeds are designed to respond to you, no matter what. Others, not so much. There’s nothing like being the owner of Border Collies and Great Pyrenees to be reminded of the influence of genes on behavior. I never would have taken either of our Great Pyr’s on an off-leash walk in the woods away from the farm, while I could walk the BC’s off leash in a city if I had to. (Argh, but I wouldn’t. Just the thought of it makes me nervous.)
7. Use all the resources available. There are lots of good books and videos out there to help you create a dog who is reliable off leash. I love Leslie Nelson’s work on recalls: Check out her Really Reliable Recall DVD. Kickopup has a great video on teaching a dog to come through distractions. If your dog loves to chase livestock or wild animals, a great resource is a book by Clarissa von Reinhardt in her book Chase! Along with a section in my Learning Center, there are so many other great resources out there. Don’t hesitate to use them–no need to reinvent the wheel here.
8. Ask the village. Now I turn it over to you. What’s your experience been with teaching dogs to come when called? Every time? Or not? What works and what doesn’t, with which dog(s)? What resources have you found most helpful?
MEANWHILE, back on the farm: Ah, so sorry if I am talking too much about working my sheepdogs, but I am compelled to describe a wonderful moment with Maggie this morning. Friend Donna and I were in at Cedar Stone Farm, exercising a flock of sheep to help get them ready for an upcoming trial. (Seriously, sheep need to be in shape for this event too.)
When we arrived the sheep were doing what sheep naturally do–disperse themselves around a huge pasture, some still grazing, some lolling on the ground chewing their cud. We needed to start by gathering them together before dividing them into groups. Today was Maggie’s turn to do the big gather, and so I sent her out to my right for the longest, biggest outrun she’s ever done. She disappeared in a dip about 200 yards away from me, and I wondered… will she stop short? Will she keep going all the way back to the very back of the field which was 500+ yards away. (Or more? I honestly don’t know.) I waited and waited, seemingly forever, as I write about in The Education of Will, and then, a tiny black speck of a dog appeared. There was my little dog, running so far away I could barely see her. She circled to the back of the flock (who had grouped together as sheep do when they see a dog coming) and brought them all the way down the field to me.
Her “fetch” wasn’t perfect, she let the flock drift to my right a little bit, but not too much. (We have to work on this…) But what made my heart swell was watching her do what she truly was bred for–gathering sheep on the hills of Scotland, and seeing that she was more than up to the task. Trialing is fun, and forces you to learn and improve, but I have to say that if I could watch my dog gather a hillside that big every day of the week I’d be a contended woman. I am so lucky to live on the farm, but our biggest outrun is 150 yards here, and it’s simply nothing like watching a dog gather a big group of sheep out of a massive, green field.
Here is the Divine Miss M, collapsed on my lap after a long working session:
The weather here, finally, has been lovely. Cooler. Less humid most days. Whew. Beautiful clouds–here are some I took yesterday with my phone.
I hope your weather has been friendly too–sounds like the Northwest is frying…
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Years back, we told you all about Duncan Lou Who, the two-legged boxer whose deformity didn’t stand in the way of his spirit or his loving nature. Born with rear legs that were fused together, the vet gave his owners two options: euthanization or amputation. They went with the latter and neither they, nor Duncan, ever looked back.
“We let him heal and strapped him to a wheelchair but he looked at us like we were crazy,” Walters told the East Idaho News. “He tried to lift it and walk so we ended up taking the wheelchair off and letting him do his thing.”
Duncan has been doing his thing ever since.
He’s appeared on TODAY, Queen Latifah, has over 122,000 Instagram followers and his first trip to the beach was viewed nearly 7 million times on YouTube.
But what happened last week was a whole new level of crazy.
Walters, Giese, their two children and three dogs were traveling south on U.S. Highway 20 from Yellowstone National Park to a cabin in Island Park. Their teenage son was driving and at the Montana-Idaho border, tragedy struck — a bison on the road surprised them and the impact was intense, spinning their truck, which then hit two poles and flipped several times.
Miraculously, nobody was seriously injured. But the dogs were all missing.
One was found immediately. Another was discovered unharmed an hour later wedged underneath the truck. But there was no sign of Duncan.
“I thought Duncan was dead,” Walters says. “I thought he was in the bushes either dead or hurt with a broken leg, broken back, something.”
Duncan, safe in the arms of his dad, Gary Walters. Photo: Nate Eaton, East Idaho News
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Emergency and power crews arrived and once they said the scene was safe, the search for the beloved dog began.
“All the EMTs, all the officers and people who had stopped were all helping me look through all the brush,” Walters says. “We had flashlights and we were looking everywhere. We just couldn’t find him.”
Giese and Walters are the founders of Panda Raws Rescue, a nonprofit organization that helps special-needs animals. They shared a post on their Facebook page and word quickly spread that the Duncan was missing.
“By about 10:30 a.m. (Saturday), we had 30 or 40 people show up to help look,” Walters says. “A guy who had done search and put us all into groups and we started looking.”
The group searched for hours, and when they were unable to find any sign of the dog, Walters says they realized he had likely survived the crash and ran off. Then, later that afternoon, Giese got a call. A man at a quarry three miles away had spotted a two-legged dog. They raced to the scene.
After a 90-minute search, they found him. Giese’s daughter, Jade, cajoled him to come with a cookie.
“That’s when he came running,” Walters laughed.
The rescue crew! Walters and family are so grateful to all the people who helped in the search. Photo: Nate Eaton, East Idaho News
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After 17 hours of searching and worrying, the family was reunited.
“I can’t even explain what it was like because I didn’t think I was ever going to see him again,” Walters says. “We would have stayed a month or two months until we found him dead or alive beause he deserves that.”
Despite a few bumps and bruises, Duncan is doing OK. He’s a little timid, but Walters believes he’ll be back to normal before long.
“After Duncan was thrown from a car, ran three miles and survived bear and wolf and whatever else could have eaten him, he is absolutely fine,” Walters says with a smile.
The family plans to finish their vacation and hopes to return to Yellowstone and east Idaho again one day.
“The gratitude is immense,” Walters says. “I literally wish I could go to every single person and hug them and thank them. Social media gets such a bad rap, but in this case it helped save his life. He’s a special dog, this is a special community and we are very thankful.”
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