Is love enough for your rescue dog?

• You want to rescue a dog from a shelter - fantastic!

• You’ve already rehomed the dog - amazing!

• You have lots of love to give this new dog - brilliant!

BUT … things don’t seem to be working out as you expected.

You wanted a cuddly dog, and this one hates being touched.

You wanted a dog to go on long walks with, but this one goes nuts as soon as he sees another dog.

You wanted a dog … like your last old dog, or like the dogs you see in the movies, and this one just isn’t measuring up.

Love alone is not enough.

What’s going wrong?

The fact is that this dog has been rehomed with you, without so much as a by-your-leave. And you have expectations of what this dog should be - which are not necessarily shared by the furry fellow himself!

You are at least his third home, in perhaps a few months. He’s been through - who knows what?

• Maybe he was just passively neglected so that he ran riot and his previous owners couldn’t be bothered with him any more.

• Maybe he was actively neglected and suffered torment and ill-health.

• Maybe he came from a puppy farm with zero socialisation and lots of fears.

• Maybe … you name it. You’re unlikely ever to know the truth about his past life. Though this is surprisingly unimportant, in fact.

The thing is, he has a history. And that history is not conducive to making him the dog of your dreams … yet!

You have to put a lot of work in to make a new life for your dog and for you. You expect him to adapt - how about you doing some adapting too?

If he can’t bear to be touched, get help on desensitising him to touch and learning to enjoy it.

If he hates walks and is afraid of other dogs - stop walking him where he’ll see other dogs! First build up a solid relationship of trust between you (yes, both ways) and with professional help slowly introduce him to the joyful aspects of the great outdoors.

If he came from a puppy farm with poor nutrition and no normal socialisation, you can improve his food massively, but trying to undo the lack of socialisation is a long road. But with help, you’ll get there.

Here’s a list of things to do with your newly-rehomed dog:

Remember it’s all new to him! Treat him as a puppy - start from scratch.

1. Keep your new pet in one room of the house to begin with, preferably using a crate when you can't supervise so that nothing can get chewed. Gradually give him more freedom and access to more rooms as he proves reliable.

2. Institute a Puppy Housetraining regime to help your dog know where he may relieve himself, and be really pleased with him when he gets it right.

3. Handfeed as many meals as possible instead of putting down a bowl of food, or you can use food toys like kongs.

4. Never leave any dog alone with any child, not even while you answer the phone. If you leave the room, always take either the dog or the child with you.

5. Resist the temptation to take him out for more than brief walks on lead for the first few weeks. Limit the new experiences he has to face - that includes friendly neighbours and visitors, and most especially other dogs. A rescue dog typically takes 1-2 months to settle into a new home - give him plenty of time. You have the rest of his life to take him everywhere with you.

6. In a few weeks' time, start learning with a force-free trainer. Good classes fill fast, so enrol straight away. No suitable local class? We’ve got you covered! Start here. If you have any problem behaviours before then, seek professional advice quickly, before they become a habit. Avoid those who talk of Dominance or Pack Theory.

7. Dogs don't "look guilty" or "know they've done wrong". They do look anxious if they see you are cross with them (though they may have no idea why). If you start telling your dog off for breaking house rules he didn't know existed you are going to have a hard time earning his trust.

8. Good habits are as hard to break as bad habits, so start as you mean to continue from the moment your dog comes through the door.

9. Most of your free time with your dog should be spent teaching him how to play with toys with you!

And you’ll find this free e-course enormously helpful!

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Have you taught your dog any dog tricks?

I well remember a couple who came to puppy class with their pup. They were very controlling and expected far too much of their youngster. When I told them in Week 1 that they’d be learning some tricks later in the course, everyone in the room was excited and enthusiastic - except for this pair.

They looked stony-faced and said, “We do not want our dog to do tricks.”

How sad!

What they completely failed to realise was that it’s all tricks for the dog! All of it!

SIT is a trick. DOWN is a trick. WALK BESIDE ME is a trick.

What we tend to label “tricks” are usually the things that aren’t necessary for daily life with your dog - but hugely enhance your relationship, and are FUN!

So SIT is a trick to your dog. And SIT PRETTY is just an extension of that trick. The big difference is how people respond to the dog. And if your dog can give you a Sit Pretty (Sit up and beg) on cue, this is guaranteed to produce smiles all round - including from your dog!

Hidden benefits

Now there are a lot of hidden benefits to these tricks.

Sit Pretty requires some body conditioning to achieve, and is particularly useful to teach correctly to long dogs and heavy dogs. It strengthens their back muscles and their balance, thus helping to avoid injuries.

Don’t forget that catching and retrieving is a useful and enjoyable trick to exercise your dog - and yourself!

And if your dog is focussing on waving his paws in the air for you, he can’t be stealing the cake, barking at the other dog, or losing interest in you and running off.

Add to this the fact that you can adapt the trick to the dog’s body shape and ability. So one dog will hold the paws up over her head, while another will dangle them prettily in front of her. It’s all a question of what works for you and your particular dog.

Here Rollo demonstrates he can even do it when sitting in a pond!

And you can make a start teaching your dog some tricks in the Brilliant Family Dog Academy! You’ll find the program introduced in this free Workshop.

Have a look at Trick Dog Champion Coco enjoying his performance here. And yes - look at that waving tail! He loves his tricks. And we use a lot of them daily.

Useful tricks!

Add to this the fact that many “tricks” are Assistance Dogs’ bread and butter. It’s not just for amusement, but is genuinely helpful.

Changing a duvet cover is hugely eased with a dog gently hanging on to the cover while you pull out the duvet.

And dragging the bedclothes off a teenager then jumping on them for a game is a great way to dig them out of their beds!

Picking up socks, pulling socks of your feet, fetching your shoes or jumper, loading and unloading the washing machine, collecting up the food bowls, tidying up their toys, handing you a tea-towel or the oven gloves when you need them - all very useful tricks.

How sad that that little dog at class was going to be denied this fun!

“My dog is JUST stubborn!”

Now those of you who know me, will know that this statement is a bit of a red rag to me!

Dogs - and people - are not stubborn … unless they’re pushed into a corner and you try to make them do something they’re unhappy about.

Anyone who manages a team, a family, a group of co-workers, knows that to get people to do what you want, you have to make it worth their while.

And ideally that it should be their idea!

That’s the fastest way of all to get enthusiastic compliance.

So, you canny people, why do you expect your dog to be any different?

The dictionary tells us that

Stubborn is “having or showing determination not to change one's attitude or position on something, especially in spite of good arguments or reasons to do so.”

Shooting oneself in the foot, as it were.

And if someone is in this position, you have to ask yourself how they got there? What benefit is it for them?

Because there has to be a benefit, or they wouldn’t do it!

Facts? 

“I’ve made up my mind. Don’t confuse me with the facts.”

 All this is to say that it’s not the dog that’s being stubborn.

Wha’???

It’s up to us - who have the care and responsibility of an animal from another species - to ensure their wellbeing.

And that means

◆   not letting them race into the road to get run over

◆    not injuring themselves (and you) by trying to haul you along like a train

◆    not ingesting dangerous substances that could cost them their life, and you a fortune at the vet’s.

This is all at our door.

So we have to find a way to encourage our dog to comply with this basic training that is ultimately for their benefit (as well as ours).

And the way to do that is to give them a choice!

(You can see Red here making an excellent choice with regard to the sausage sandwiches on the table!)

Just as you do with your team, your family, your co-workers - you give them options and let them choose. Let’s box clever here: you decide the options.

And once they choose, they’ll stick with their decision and follow through - because they chose it!

Running a business like a boot camp is bound to fail. Running a family like that will engender rebellion and resentment and a rapidly-emptying nest.

So take the easy route!

Give your dog - who up to now you’ve labelled as “stubborn” - a choice in his management and daily life.

If you haven’t yet tried this, you will be astonished at the difference it makes!

You will have a dog who wants to please you, who looks for opportunities to please you, who takes the load off your shoulders by anticipating your requests.

No shouting! No yelling! No frustration!

And no “stubborn” dog!

If you don’t believe me - well, perhaps you don’t want to be confused by the facts …

Check out our free Workshop on Getting your Dog to LISTEN! first of all, and do comment below on how quickly this works for you!

New rescue dog? Start here!

I get plenty of emails that begin, “We’ve just adopted an adult dog and he’s a nightmare to walk. He barks and lunges at everything and has damaged my shoulder …”

My first suggestion?

Don’t take your brand-new dog out for walks!

Shock! Horror! But don’t dogs have to be walked every day?

Nope. They don’t. As long as they get exercise - and that can be from playing games in your home and garden - they’re ok.

And if the walks are upsetting them that much, they definitely don’t need to be walked!

This dog has just arrived with you. His world is totally upside down - and may have been for months if he’s previously had a hard time, been booted out, and spent time in a shelter.

He needs time.

He needs time to learn to trust you.

And he needs time to build his confidence so that he can cope with the outside world - a world he may have had no experience of at all!

He may never have been out on walks in his first home, and in the shelter he probably never went off the premises.

So the outside world is a very scary place for him! And his only recourse is to try to put on an aggressive display to keep it away from him.

Familiarity does not bring peace, necessarily

So the best thing is to keep him home, in his new safe place. Keep working with him to build up his confidence in you and everything else. 

This will take time!

It can take at least eight weeks for a dog to settle into a new home. And in this time he’ll start to exhibit new things. Maybe he was always very quiet and biddable, and now he’s become rambunctious and “naughty”?

This is a good thing! It shows he’s settling in with you and able to act naturally.

And now you’ve got something you can really work with. It’s the ideal time to embark on a program of force-free training and fun, if you haven’t already done that.

Learning together is a wonderful way to bond with your new dog, to build that companionship you’ll both enjoy for the rest of his life.

Get a helping hand

But starting out with a new dog - possibly as a first-time dog-owner - is not always easy. And this is where working with someone who knows what’s what will really help.

You can start with our free Workshop and in just a few weeks you’ll be at a level where you can teach your dog some fun tricks!

And if your dog is the one at the top of this post, who is terrified of everything outside - then the free Masterclass is where you need to be, right now.

Both these webinars are packed with tips and strategies to get you off on the right foot with your dog - whether brand-new or comfortably ensconced in your home.

“IT’S OK – MY DOG IS FRIENDLY!” THAT’S NOT HOW IT SEEMS TO ME!

First published on positively.com and reprinted with permission

Picture this: You are walking with your little girl. A family appear up ahead, and the fairly large boy whoops with joy at the sight of you two, races towards you, jumps on your child - who is now screaming - and rolls her over, grinning inanely. While you frantically try to extricate your precious little one without actually harming the boy, you hear a distant cry from the boy’s mother: “It’s ok! He’s friendly!”

Your response is probably unprintable.

And if you were the mother of the rowdy boy, would you really think it ok to let him bounce all over other children, on the grounds that he’s friendly?

So let’s turn this around now, and substitute pet dogs for children.

You have a super-friendly, waggy dog. He lurves other dogs. You know that he doesn’t want to start a fight. And if you try and keep him on the lead when he sees another dog you’ll get singing and dancing  - as he pulls your arm out of its socket. So you let him do his own thing on walks: diving on dogs, body-slamming them, chasing them, trying to roll them over in play.

And dogs all love to play, don’t they?

Because you’re not afraid of him, you expect his victims to be equally unafraid.

Really?

At the Other Extreme

On the other hand, perhaps you are blessed with a dog who is afraid of other dogs, who barks and growls, lunges and prances, when he sees them approach. You’re probably anxious because you fear that if he ever gets to the other dog he’ll rip its throat out. So you make sure you keep him on lead, and avoid other dogs as much as possible.

His way of carrying on is baffling to you, because you know that your dog is a perfect peach at home, brilliant with the kids, and a pleasure to have around. You may be pleased to learn that your dog is most probably not at all aggressive - just afraid of strange dogs, and doing his best to keep them at a distance.

Both these extremes are normal, just at either end of the bell-curve - instead of the middle where we automatically expect our dogs to fit.

But just like with children - you get the dog you’re given, not the one you wanted!

Your dog’s character is part of him and is why you love him. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t influence how he feels and help him to tone down his responses.

Whether over-friendly or under-friendly, your dog needs a little help to interact with the rest of the world and lead a less stressed life. (If your own friendly approaches always resulted in tears and screaming, that would be pretty stressful for you too.)

But What Can I Do?

Strange as it may seem, both problems can be treated the same way.

Distance is very important to dogs. Both these dogs can see a dog at a great distance and not react. It’s when they trip a certain proximity that you are going to get the undesired noise and kerfuffle.

What you need to do is reward the state that you like when you see it, and just before the calmness changes into vocalising and leaping, encourage your dog to turn back with you and get a little more distance. Your own calmness is essential to the success of this game, so relax your hands on the lead, smile, say “Let’s go!” cheerily, and slow down.

Your reward could be a tiny piece of tasty cheese or hot dog. All the time your dog is calm and not shouting, keep posting these delicious morsels into his mouth until he stops paying attention to the other dog and starts paying attention to the source of these goodies instead. Success!

If yours is the friendly dog, you can now ask the other dog’s owner if their dog would welcome a game. Maybe they will, then your bouncy dog’s reward for being calm will be the opportunity to interact with a strange dog. Maybe they won’t, in which case you can reward your dog with a toy-game or more food while you head away.

If yours is the fearful dog, you can congratulate him on his bravery, and his reward will be increased distance from the object of his fears. So you turn and head away.

Repeating this time and again will gradually elicit the calm response in your dog as the default. This process will be greatly accelerated if you can get the help of a professional force-free trainer. Be sure not to go to someone who wants to reprimand your dog: punishment of any kind will heap fear and anxiety on the existing fear and anxiety and make the situation worse!

As you know all too well, the skill of parenting is to work with the child in front of you, rather than the one you wish you had in front of you!

So it is with your family dog.

For more help with this ever more common problem, watch our free Masterclass for Growly Dogs

I’d love to hear how you resolve this issue on your dog walks - just write a comment below. I’ll appreciate every one!

Dog Reactivity after Lockdowns

I get frequent requests for help from folk who got a pandemic puppy without understanding the significance of the puppy socialisation period - which is from 3 to about 15 weeks.

It’s in this time that the dog’s brain forms its ideas about the world around it.

And it’s why a proper understanding of this is critical to your future life together with your dog.

See our post with a free Socialisation Guide at https://www.brilliantfamilydog.com/blog/our-familys-always-had-dogs-why-is-this-one-so-difficult

You see, what your very young puppy experiences in those critical first weeks will set the tone for how he sees the world for ever. If he enjoys children in this period for example, he’ll carry on enjoying them. If he gets to meet other (carefully chosen) dogs and the meeting goes well, he’ll adjust much better to meeting strange dogs of all shapes and sizes in the future.

It doesn’t mean he’ll breeze through the world with never a care - but it does ensure he’s getting the best start possible.

Same goes for noisy kitchen pans, car rides, train journeys, sheep, visits to the shops, wobbly or uneven surfaces, strange objects, loud noises, sparkly or shiny things … and so on.

Everything your puppy is likely to meet in his life he should be exposed to in a gentle manner at whatever distance is appropriate not to evoke a fear response - in those first few weeks.

So you can see that when you get a puppy, you have your work cut out to beat that deadline of 14-16 weeks of age!

And it’s why the best age to get a puppy is 8 weeks, as by then he’s experienced a couple of weeks in the litter with his littermates once the dam loses interest, and still has plenty of time to do his learning.

What if that time was missed?

It’s not your fault if you didn’t know this and the breeder didn’t know enough to tell you how to handle your new dog! (This underlines the importance of sourcing your puppy carefully - see Choosing your Puppy 1, 2, and 3

So if that time of getting out and about was missed because of lockdown restrictions you are now stuck with a dog who may be fearful or reactive to many things he should be able to take in his stride.

(Actually, socialisation in lockdown was possible within the law - if you’re determined enough anything is possible!)

But here you are, with a dog who is fearful. So what do you do?

First off, understand that you can never replicate that period in a puppy’s brain development. That’s closed. Over.

But you can do lots to help your dog adjust!

Your first consideration is to ensure you don’t overload your dog, overface him with what he is confronted with.

Fewer walks which are comfortable and enjoyable are hugely preferable to daily walks through fire and brimstone!

Work out exactly what upsets him, and make sure you don’t encounter those things at all for now, if humanly possible. This may mean driving to quiet places for walks.

Whether it’s chasing bikes that is the problem, or lunging at people or dogs, then you need to embark on a desensitisation and counterconditioning program (that just means changing his emotional response so he no longer needs to try and defend himself against them).

How to do this? We can show you, step by step, in the Brilliant Family Dog Academy.

This may be absolutely enough for you to see how you can manage walks and improve life for both of you.

Need more specific help?

Your dog is losing his mind when he encounters these things, appearing aggressive and dangerous? Check out From Growly Dog to Confident Dog where I and my experienced team of trainers will guide you through the changes you will make so you can both enjoy your time together - in the company of those who have succeeded and will cheer you on!

And for some starter lessons and an introduction to these programs, here’s where you go: 

You can check out the lessons and talk to us in the chat. We’d love to help you change all this!

As I said, in the strange and heady times of the pandemic it may not have been your fault that you were unprepared how to handle your new dog.

But getting things put right now is down to you . . .

Your dog can’t do it alone.