The Little Bear Dog Blog

Last Spring, Other Half and I took Little Bear into town one Saturday afternoon. It was a gloriously warm day and we thought it would be nice to sit outside a cafe and enjoy a coffee as we watched the world go by.

The reality however was nothing like the reverie. Little Bear was a complete nightmare. He barked incessantly – at everyone and everything. Heads down to avoid the disgruntled looks from passers-by, we beat a hasty retreat to the car and had our coffee at home.

Like other memories that we’d much rather forget, I’d obviously buried this one deep, but it surfaced again today. Happily, to provide a fantastic benchmark of just how far we’ve come.

On a whim I decided to take Little Bear with me to the pet shop. He was pretty well-behaved for a veritable ‘kid in a candy store’ and as we left, I decided, on yet another whim, to attempt a training session in town on the way home. My dream is to have a ‘take anywhere’ dog, but of course that’s pretty hard to achieve if you don’t take them anywhere except the park.

Armed with treats and the newly acquired squeaky rugby ball we found in the bargain bin at the pet shop, we headed off to brave the hoards of Saturday morning shoppers.  Stiffening my resolve, I mentally upped by skin to ‘rhino hide’, took a deep breath and decided that whatever happened, we’d cope with it – even if that was another hasty retreat.

Narrow pavements meant we frequently had to stop to let people, push-chairs, wheelchairs and at one point, a motorised mobility scooter pass. When we did, I asked for a sit and a watch me – both of which he gave instantly in return for a bucket of praise and a teeny bit of cheese.

We did a complete lap of the busy town centre  with just one bark and a half-hearted ‘oof’ at a passing pigeon. The rest of the time he trotted calmly at my side, stuck his head in a few shop doorways just to get a sniff and wagged his tail at the anyone who cooed in his direction (which many did).

We practically floated back to the car. Little Bear had his ‘I’m a clever boy’ swagger and I was so proud I didn’t know who to call first. We may not be quite ready for cafe culture, but I’m sure that with regular practice we might just be able to sneak in a sneaky Cappuccino before the year is out.

Blogging has taken a reluctant back seat of late behind the day job, training with Little Bear, Annie’s operation (more on that later) and of course my dog behaviour course.  It’s very much at the baby pool end of behaviour but for me it’s the best kind of study because I love every minute of it. As I’m doing it just for fun I’m free from any expectations, self-imposed or otherwise so I can just enjoy it for the sheer hell of it. The only downside is not having the time to do as much studying as I’d like.

Neglecting my blog is of course another drawback, so I decided tonight to post one of my pieces of course work. Hey presto, I get to study and blog at the same time, yey me Ms multi-tasker!

So the task was simply to write about how I see life for your average family dog.

I see everyday life for an average dog as a mixture of confusion, frustration and boredom punctuated with rewarding activities like eating, playing and socialising.

Confusion

There must be hundreds of objects in our homes that our dogs have learned, through trial and error, to classify as ‘safe’ or ‘not safe’.

Pick up a teddy and you might get a game but pick up one the toddler dropped and you’ll get it taken off you and possibly told off. Lay on one comfy thing (the couch) without a problem, try and lay on the other one that smells even nicer (the bed) and you’ll be made to get off.

Even if they learn the rules, humans can suddenly change them without telling the dog e.g. dog gets rewarded with a cuddle for jumping up but shouted at when his owners is wearing his best suit.

When it comes to training, formal or otherwise, poor timing and/or lack of consistency with reinforcements (or punishments) can also create confusion and in the latter case, fear. “Huh? I got a treat for that yesterday but today I get told off?”

Frustration

The expectations we have for dogs also mean that they don’t always get to follow their natural drives.  Most people would be horrified if their pet dog caught and killed a rat but if they owned e.g. a Jack Russell then this type of motor pattern wouldn’t be surprising.

Although I’m not advocating that our dogs be allowed to do as they please, not being able to express natural urges (including reproduction) must be a source of huge frustration.

Other sources include, not being allowed enough time for socialising or play.  Having to resign yourself to a bowl of dried dog biscuits while your nose drinks in the myriad of food smells from your humans’ plate might well be another.

Boredom

Most pet dogs must be bored out of their brains for much of their lives. Breed, temperament and age will have a bearing on the dogs boredom threshold and their reaction to it, but I feel that on the whole we grossly underestimate the amount of physical exercise and mental stimulation that dogs need to thrive.

Even a relatively well looked-after dog has a pretty dull daily routine e.g: wake up; go on the same walk they went on yesterday & probably meet the same dogs (if you’re lucky); come home eat the same food out of the same bowl; sleep in the same bed all day; out for an evening walk; back home; cuddle on the sofa; eat dinner and back to sleep again.

If we had a routine like that we’d most probably find great excitement at the thought of barking at the postman or chasing after a squirrel too.

Conclusion

Despite dogs’ incredible ability to read our body language, I think they must still consider us very strange beings on times! I think even a well looked after family dog still leads a life way below their potential and one that on a daily basis is subject to confusion, frustration and boredom.

Human values probably remain a mystery and I doubt that they classify things in the way we do: Human: walk time, training, playtime, feeding, grooming. Dog: Fun stuff  / not fun stuff.

‘Think dog’ is probably the most useful piece of advice any dog lover can be given. In trying to see the world through their eyes we take the first step towards understanding what motivates them and what part we can play in enriching their lives and our own in the process.

The thing about studying anything new is that it gives rise to the odd reverie. The whole reason for doing the dog behaviour course and volunteering as a puppy class assistant was to help me understand how to help Little Bear. But on a bad day in the corporate jungle, I have succumbed to the fleeting idea that I’d love to ‘give it all up’ and work with dogs. I could open a day care centre; study full time and get a degree in behaviour or be a dog walker. Fun and fulfilment in fury bundles, what could better?

Well, after my dog walking attempt last week went hilariously wrong, I think I may need to rethink my escape plan. This is what happened.

The walk

Last week our very dear friend had a health scare which put her in hospital. Once back home and under doctors orders to rest, we volunteered to walk her lovely Labrador X Grace while she convalesced.  So, Other Half, Little Bear and I set off one lunch-time last week to collect her.

Grace is the sweetest dog you’d ever want to meet. Looking at her today, with her broad grin and ever wagging tail, it’s hard to believe that she was an ex farm dog who just under a year ago was a shivering wreck afraid of everything and everyone. Her new mum has worked wonders building up her confidence which really showed when we took her out as she trotted after us excitedly without even a backward glance.

Now walking someone else’s dog is a big deal. Walking someone else’s rescue dog in the field where six months ago you lost your foster dog five minutes after getting her is an even bigger deal. Add to that the fact that Grace now wears an identical collar to the one that broke and set Annie loose on her incredible journey and you can maybe begin to understand why my buttons were being pressed.

Believing in the belt and braces approach to risk management we took Grace out in Annie’s harness and I popped a lead on both her collar and harness just to be on the safe side.  Despite reassurances that her recall was perfect and that she’d not venture more than a few feet from us and her beloved football, I wasn’t willing to have history repeat itself, so once in the field, I popped on a long line.

When I say ‘popped on’ I actually mean, I faffed about getting ridiculously tangled while the super bouncy Grace pogoed up and down trying to get to the ball.  In trying to get the lead off her collar mid-bounce, I dropped my gloves, which Little Bear, seriously unimpressed with this sudden display of uselessness from his mum, promptly ran off with.

Chasing Bear to retrieve my gloves, I dropped the leads. Grace was still bouncing expectantly and Little Bear of course enjoying the impromptu game of tag.

Leads and gloves finally retrieved and holding tightly to the long line, OH decides to reward the ever patient Grace with a game of chase the football. Nothing wrong with that EXCEPT, he didn’t warn me that he’d do his best Ronaldo impression and hoof the thing 30ft across the field. And therein lies the rub – because the long line is only 20ft long…

The events that followed were a bit of a blur, but went something like this:

• Grace explodes after the ball with an impressive turn of speed
• Long line fails to be quite long enough
• I sail unexpectedly through the air (sideways), land with the thud and get dragged ten feet across the muddy field

Now if this wasn’t bad enough, I soon discover that I have an audience of sniggering by-standers. Terrific. But to add insult to injury, my plight was about to get even worse.

While Grace was completely oblivious to the havoc that had been unleashed (literally!) Little Bear was beside himself and doing his best ‘anxious pants’ impression. As I lay in a heap trying to prise myself out of the mud, all he could think to do was take the ends of my scarf and start an enthusiastic game of tug-of-war.

So I’ve been hauled through a field by a Labrador and now I’m laying face down in the mud being strangled by a Mini Schnauzer.

Other Half of course was in complete hysterics and thankfully I quickly saw the funny side.

So on the days when the day job is really getting to me, I’m going to re-read this post and remind myself why dog walking is most definitely NOT on the career change list.

I’m not one for making resolutions at New Year, primarily because of the collective air of expected failure accompanying the tradition. We’re bombarded with the oh so hackneyed, ‘New Year, New You’ messages from a straight-faced media without a hint of the Schadenfreude, but the same people peddling the ‘New You’ messages of hope will be sharpening their pencils to report on how 80% of resolutions will be broken and abandoned within weeks.

January is not the best time to live off lettuce or give up the delights of chocolate. As mammals we’re still in semi-hibernation, crazing warming foods and (alas) storing fat to stave off the cold.

And yet we all get caught up in the collective need to make the most of the new year – the clean slate on which to rewrite our stories in better than ever technicolour.

I love the start of a new year and succumb to the need to join in with the clean slate brigade, but instead of setting a series of resolutions, a ‘to-do’ list of the most torturous kind if ever I saw one, I prefer to set a vision for what I’d like. So, in the spirit of sharing, here’s my dog training vision for 2011…for those viewing in black and white, in my head it’s in glorious, technicolour 4D…

Other Half and I are walking Little Bear and Annie through a busy town on a summer’s day. As we stroll along in the warm sunshine, we pass runners, cyclists, screaming children and lots of other dogs. Annie and Bear are calm and relaxed – they say nice hellos to a couple of dogs who come within sniffing distance and then settle happily under our table at a pavement cafe for a snooze as we enjoy a coffee.

After our pit stop we wander over to the park where they tear around the field playing with some new canine buddies until their tongues loll happily and we see the smile in their eyes.

For anyone with an unreactive dog this will read like a very small dream indeed – but for me it’s huge.

Come on 2011 – I have a feeling you’re going to be a great year!

Badly behaved pooch? It’s always the owner’s fault you know.

How many times have I heard that? Or worse, seen it on the faces of fellow dog owners as Little Bear throws a fit in the park at the mere sight of an approaching dog.

On a good day it’s just embarrassing, but throw in a few hormones and a to-do list that reads like War & Peace and its darn near soul-destroying. Well at least, it used to be…before I became the Kevlar coated Mary Poppins of the dog world.

Okay, I’m talking myself into this somewhat, but the point, (once I get to it) is a serious one.  Our reactions are incredibly important when it comes to controlling the behaviour of our dogs. As Alexandra Horowitz points out in the truly excellent ‘Inside of a dog’, dogs are amazing readers of human body language and probably also pick up on subtle chemical signals that we’re totally unaware of throwing out there.

They most probably, read us like books, but as owners, we don’t much like hearing that we’re the cause of our dogs bad behaviour.  To be fair I don’t think it is ‘always the owners fault’.  Many factors will influence the behaviour and disposition of a dog so we don’t have to take it all on the chin. We can’t control genetics, or early socialisation issues or indeed breed tendencies, but there is a lot we can do to help our dogs learn how to cope and behave.

The big challenge of course is controlling our own behaviour and emotions. We all know how important it is to remain calm and stay consistent, but that can be a tall order on a good day let alone a bad one. Which is where everyone’s favourite nanny comes in.

Years ago I had some professional coaching for public speaking at work and the tutor suggested I overcome my nerves by pretending to be someone else when behind the podium. I can’t remember who I picked to ‘play’ now, but it certainly seemed to work when I had to deliver my first speech to a conference of 400 people a few weeks later <gulp!>.

So, when it comes to Little Bear, I regularly don my metaphorical Mary Poppins hat. I actually caught myself saying ‘Spit-spot’ the other day too which I’m slightly embarrassed to admit, but hey, whatever works!

Silly as it may sound, I’ve found that mentally stepping into a part on the bad days really helps me to control my emotions and reactions which in turn make for a calmer, happier Little Bear. It also gives me an emotional distance which is helpful as it allows me to focus on the behaviour at hand without wrapping myself up in my own, or indeed Little Bear’s emotional state.

You won’t find me singing Chim Chim Cheree at the Park anytime soon and I’ve drawn the line at looking the part to boot, but at least I have another tool in the toolbox.

A very Merry Christmas from Little Bear…

and Annie

xxx

Oh dear. What was that about good intentions?

I’m off work today having succumbed to a really rotten cold. I can’t remember the last sick day I had, probably a combination of a constitution of a pit pony and the feeling that being a home worker, illness shouldn’t stop me working even from my sick bed!

But today I drew a line and decided that I was going to follow doctors orders in the hope that proper rest would give my cold it’s marching orders and see me well for Christmas.

Having spent all day in bed and with my cabin fever hitting the roof I decided to spend 10 minutes doing some training with Little Bear and Annie.  They LOVE training and against the prevailing advice which says always train separately, at the moment I’m training them together. This is mainly for LB’s benefit as he has quite a low frustration threshold and I found (completely by accident) that the concept of ‘taking turns’ in training increased his focus and responsiveness while also teaching him to calm his pants.  Annie also seems to pick things up more quickly if LB can already do them.

Now, although LB has a fairly impressive repertoire of tricks, Annie only learned to sit a few months ago when she came to live with us so we’re still working on the basics with her. Down is one of the new ones and so being thoughtful (or overly fussy!) I pulled out a throw so that they wouldn’t have to lay on the hard wooden floor.

It was all going beautifully. They were both waiting patiently between turns; LB proved that he is now master of the targeting game; paws were proffered, waved and high-fived on request. Annie did a couple of lovely downs and a perfect down-sit transition. Then, a new one for her, she did a lovely ‘paw touch’ on the target, ‘Good girl!’ I cooed in my really embarrassing dog training voice while holding out her treat and ZAP! One super static electric shock from my fingers straight into her poor unsuspecting nose. Poor Annie and damn the stupid flaming (probably part nylon) throw we were all sitting on.

After seeking refuge on the ‘non-electrifying’ couch and hoovering up a few treats for good measure she got her nerve up and took one gingerly out of my fingers…but only using the side of her mouth and her tongue for fear that her nose would no doubt get another zapping.

Sigh, I was wondering if I should have stayed in bed – and I bet Annie’s wishing I had!

Little Bear hates dog coats. I can’t say I’m particularly fond of them either. In my view if you want something to dress up in outfits buy a Barbie doll or have kids, but don’t make a fool of your poor dog. But, even I have to admit that when the weather is really bad, a coat to keep your best friend warm and dry feels like the kind thing to do.

Struggling with a cruciate injury that seems to be worse in cold weather, Annie needs a coat and always seems delighted to have it put on. She’s such a poppet I’m sure she’d stand happily and let you wrap her in tin foil if you wanted to. Little Bear however runs a mile at the mere sight of his coat. Not a problem, except that he hates the rain and shivers in the cold.

I’ve coaxed, I’ve bribed, I’ve ignored and he’s won paws down every time.  Once wrapped in the offending coat, he turns into statue Bear. I timed him the other day – he didn’t move an inch for over 35 minutes!

His first coat is a little on the chunky side so I even resorted to hand sewing him a lightweight fleece in the hopes that he’d at least get some benefit on the coldest days and we’d at least get out the door in the rain.

Its first outing was not so much of a walk as it was a drag and he eventually showed his utter contempt for it by throwing himself onto someones front lawn sideways, sticking his bum in the air and basically looking like he’d slipped a disc in a yoga class!

Admitting defeat the padded coat was destined for the rescue centre and the hand made thing I kept for posterity – that is until we hit -6 and saw him shivering BEFORE we set off for a walk!

Out came the fleece coat and we set off for our nightly walk. Sick of ‘statue Bear’ I gave up after 15 minutes and took it off him. He sprang to life was suddenly hopping around like a Spring lamb. Annie on the other hand, unable to join him in the bouncing about stakes looked freezing, so I took the little fleece and tucked it around her shoulders – a feeble act really as she’s three times his size but she wagged happily and it saved me from carrying it.

Suddenly interested in the offending garment, Little Bear spent the rest of the walk nuzzling at Annie’s shoulders. She of course completely ignored him and trotted home happily in her new shoulder throw.

Coats? I love them!

Annie got a coat of her own the next day when it became clear that the weather wasn’t going to improve any time soon. As the mercury hit a new low, I decided to try Little Bear ‘one last time’ and guess what? He wore the fleece for the whole walk without stopping once! I was utterly amazed.

So today, as we prepared to venture out into the fresh snow that descended overnight, I put on his heavier weight coat and guess what? Not only does he now seem perfectly able to walk in it (without stopping) but he can run around the field like a mad thing and catch tennis balls wearing it!

I’m at a loss to explain the change of heart. We’ve had bitterly cold weather and deeper snow in the past few years and nothing has persuaded him to even walk in his coat – let alone charge about like he did today.  We’ve kicked around a few theories; maybe he saw Annie in hers and thought ‘what the heck’; maybe he’s not been really cold before; but whatever it is, I’m just glad that my shivering, ‘I don’t walk in the rain mamma’ dog are perhaps over for good.

I read a lovely book the other day ‘Give a dog a home’ by Graeme Sims. In it he talks about his 14 (yes, 14!) collies and how one, despite being adopted many years ago, still on occasion throws him a look that says ‘I knew it was too good to last.’ Now, I’m as soft as they come when it comes to animals, but do they really think like that? Don’t we envy dogs for their wonderful ability to live in the now?

I might have dismissed his interpretation, had it not been for Annie’s reaction yesterday. Still under vets orders for her cruciate ligament, she’s confined to lead walks only in the hope that the rest will avoid the need for surgery. The cold seems to aggravate it too and as temperatures hit the ‘seriously past funny’ point yesterday I popped her in the car during my lunch hour and drove her to the pet shop to buy her a coat.

Annie’s a wonderfully happy-go-lucky looking dog but she wears her anxiety as clearly as her delight and getting into the car without Little Bear was the first thing to furrow her brow. No Bear usually means she’s not going somewhere fun and if she could have placed a bet I suppose her money would have been on a trip to the vet.

Normally sprawled on the back seat, her worried little face filled my rear view mirror for the whole trip. Now we’re in the very lucky position of having three great pet shops within about a 2 mile radius, two of them independents too. Being a dog addict I already knew that they didn’t have the type of coat I wanted in the two we visit most often and so we headed to the third, which also happens to be a boarding and quarantine kennels.

Her face as I opened the car door was everything that Sims had described. Maybe it was the barking from the kennels all around us, the strange surroundings or the cacophony of stress hormones and smells I can only imagine were wafting through the air, but Annie was suddenly frozen to the back seat. Most tellingly, as I fiddled with her harness clip, a job normally made all the more fiddly by her enthusiasm to get wherever we’re going, there was no thumping tail no eagerness to get out. She crossed the car park low and slow – poor darling, despite my chipperness she obviously didn’t have a good vibe about this.

On opening the door to the pet shop it was as if a rather large Labrador sized penny suddenly dropped! Instantly transformed, she bounced like it was an Olympic sport (not great for her cruciate!) wagged up a storm and mouthed my hand excitedly. This was one relieved looking dog!

Our need to feel like ‘rescuers’ often makes us see things that maybe just aren’t there. How many owners of rescue dogs just can’t help but share their dogs sad story with all and sundry?  I’m sure if their dogs could talk a few would say something along with ‘Jeez, dad, will you let it go? I’ve so moved on now!’

We project emotions onto our dogs and imagine them entertaining feelings that in all honesty, I hope they don’t have the capacity to feel.  But it’s also easy to forget that it’s probably going to take months if not years for Annie to feel fully settled and relax in the knowledge that this is her forever home now and that we are people that she can trust.