Lucky Dog Lessons

by Brandon McMillan

  Both of these training collars are tools that do the work for you when you’re not around to correct your dog, but neither is a substitute for training. When you’re working with your dog directly, I have a simple tool and technique that solves this problem a good percentage of the time. And that tool, my friends, is the penny bottle. When your dog starts barking at the fence, walk toward him, give a firm NO or QUIET, then briskly shake the penny bottle for a few seconds and follow that up by repeating the command again. This works on most dogs because the unexpected sound cuts through their hyper-focused attention. For tough cases, this is an ideal scenario to use the Shake & Break, which makes an even more disruptive sound than that of the penny bottle. Timed correctly, this technique should work to deter most fence-fighting dogs in only a week or so. You just have to put the work in.

  Bottom line: you’re combating instinct here, so know that while this problem can be dealt with, it will still lurk somewhere within your dog. Think of any progress you make with tools and techniques as putting your dog’s fence-fighting tendency into remission. You’ll need to stay vigilantly on top of it to keep it there.

  Pain-Induced Aggression. Pain-induced aggression can be tricky to diagnose and treat, and it’s a common issue with senior dogs, expectant dogs, or dogs with some sort of injury. Pain-induced aggression occurs when a dog is hurting and acts aggressively to protect himself. This type of aggression is something that can crop up even in a dog who’s always had a gentle, mellow temperament. It’s easy to understand how this happens if you think about how you feel when you have an injury. If you have a broken bone or a fresh cut or stitches, you instinctively go to great lengths to protect your wounds from getting bumped or touched. And if it happens anyway? You might recoil or cry out or get angry. You might even act aggressively if someone bumps you hard enough, even if it’s an accident.

  Just like us, dogs have an instinct to protect themselves from pain. But unlike us, dogs are not usually inclined to share the details of how they’re feeling or to warn us to keep our distance when they’re hurting. Another instinct is in play for most dogs—one that tells them to avoid appearing weak. So if your old or possibly injured dog suddenly starts acting aggressively, you might want to schedule a visit with his veterinarian before taking any steps to combat that behavior with training.

  Although pain-induced aggression is really just a form of self-preservation, you still need to proceed with caution if your dog is exhibiting it. A dog who’s guarding is a short hop away from aggression and can easily race through the yellow and orange zones to red if he senses he’s in danger.

  This is a condition that can usually be dealt with. You can’t solve pain-induced aggression with technique, but you can take measures to make your dog feel safe and prevent any incidents.

  If your dog is recovering from surgery or an injury, crate him or keep him isolated until he’s mostly healed. Doing so will not only keep your family, neighbors, and other pets safe but also allow your dog to heal as quickly as possible. The time right after an injury or surgery is a common window for an aggressive act, so short-term isolation is an easy way to avoid a serious problem.

  If your dog is a senior and he’s getting grumpier with age as he deals with aches and pains, that’s a different story. Cases like that call for bigger, possibly longer-term lifestyle adjustments. Dogs in the final stages of their lives deserve to feel loved and secure, and we have to do our best to protect them. What that entails depends on the individual dog. For some, it means you’ll have to proceed with caution when strangers or other dogs approach. For some it may mean creating a safe space—a place your dog can go that everyone in the family respects as his own personal do-not-disturb area.

  This is a phase in which it’s up to you to make decisions that ensure your dog is protected and all other parties are safe. Don’t hesitate to let anyone who gets too close know that your dog’s gotten a little testy in his old age and needs his space. This is a time when your dog will be relying on you to be the leader who can be trusted to keep him (and those around him) safe.

  Bottom line: this kind of aggression is reactive, so if you can pinpoint your dog’s pain, you can avoid cueing it. If you can’t pinpoint the problem, it can be difficult to know when a dog might react aggressively. Avoid unnecessary contact with any injured dog, and take extra care to make sure your achy older dog is able to avoid unwanted contact without having to fight.

  Offensive Aggression

  A dog who instigates aggression is exhibiting offensive aggression. If your dog goes after other dogs or people without being provoked, or if he sometimes seems to be looking for a confrontation, chances are this is the kind of aggression you’re dealing with. Like defensive aggression, it can take a number of different forms.

  Leash Aggression. Leash aggression is one of the most common forms of canine aggression. It’s defined by a situation where a dog is aggressive on-leash but perfectly fine when off. This Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde behavior can be confusing for pet owners. In fact, over the years many people have told me their dogs were aggressive—and then the assessments showed those dogs were only leash aggressive. Since some of those dogs had rarely been outdoors without a leash, nobody knew their problems were isolated. Sometimes when I take these dogs to a dog park and let them go, they’re not just calm, they’re also friendly and excited, playing with every dog in sight.

  Why does this happen? Simple answer: a lot of dogs are conditioned to behave this way. It usually starts when a well-meaning owner pulls a leashed puppy away from every dog who comes near. The best thing you can do to socialize a puppy is allow him to approach every dog he sees (every friendly dog). This gives him the knowledge that there is nothing to protect or get upset about when he sees another dog. But if you pull the same puppy away from every strange dog he sees, he’ll eventually begin to assume there’s a reason for it and he needs to protect himself—and you—when he’s on a leash. Even worse, your dog learns that starting a fight with a strange dog is almost always a win because you pull him to safety before things get serious every time he starts something.

  Basically, this behavior is a lot like that of a school bully: He’s always tough with his friends around, but when you take the other guys out of the picture, he’s just another vulnerable kid. The same thing is happening with a leash-aggressive dog. You’re the group of friends your dog knows will back him up if needed. That leash is connected to you, and you’ll pull him away like you’ve done hundreds of times in the past if things get heated, so he lunges and snaps at everything that gets close—a four-legged bully counting on his crew (you) to back him up.

  This is generally a problem that can be fixed. One way to go about it is by redirecting your dog’s attention toward you with food or a toy—showing him the reward before he begins to go into fighting mode. Remember, you want to keep your dog in that yellow zone, so you need to anticipate his behavior before it reaches orange. This only works if your dog has a strong prey drive or food drive, so it’s not a fix for every dog.

  My favorite technique to deal with this problem once again involves that miraculous tool, the penny bottle—or the even more attention-getting Shake & Break. In this case, when your dog zeroes in on another dog and starts pulling, give him a firm NO followed by a swift and vigorous shake of the bottle, and followed by another NO. With enough practice, this technique conditions your dog to the NO in the context of fighting on-leash. This works on a large percentage of dogs because it refocuses their senses away from the potential fight and back to you.

  Bottom line: although you can’t make your dog like other dogs when you walk by, you can definitely control him in the moment. Managing this aggressive bad habit makes you a good dog owner—and it may ultimately prevent the kind of fight that gets too out of hand to stop with just another tug of the leash.

  Unsocialized Aggression. This is a very common type of aggression and one of the main reasons dogfights break out. What it boils down to is that a dog with aggressive
tendencies who has not learned that his world is a safe, nonthreatening place spends a lot of his time looking for a fight. Unsocialized dogs who exhibit this kind of behavior can be very dangerous, but if the root of the problem is a lack of socialization, than this type of aggression can sometimes be solved or improved through socializing the dog. How do you know if your dog’s aggression comes from a lack of socialization? Look at the circumstances that set him off. If your dog has a sweet disposition but is prone to aggression when confronted with something unfamiliar, a lack of experience and understanding of his environment may be a factor.

  The good news is if your dog’s aggression has more to do with socialization than with his genetic tendencies, you may be able to get his behavior under control. The bad news is you’re likely to need the input of a trainer with a depth of knowledge and experience in this area to help you determine if your dog’s aggression is rooted in a lack of socialization or not. I do not condone any plan for socializing a dog known to be aggressive around other dogs, kids, or other people unless an expert trainer is involved. Otherwise, it’s just too much of a risk to take.

  Genetic-Based Aggression. Unfortunately, many people are under the impression that if you socialize any dog at a young age, that dog will grow up to be a friendly, well-adjusted dog. I wish it were that simple, but it’s not. The fact is there’s a firm limit to how much say or control you have over how your dog turns out as an adult. Many dogs are born with aggression issues that stem from their breeding. I talked extensively about the role of breed in temperament and behavior in Chapter 1, and this may be the most difficult fact of genetics for dog owners to accept. If your dog comes from a long line (or even a short one) of fighters bred for aggression, there’s a chance he will be aggressive as well. I often tell clients not to blame the breed. Blame the breeder. Genetically driven behaviors aren’t any dog’s fault; they’re wired into the animal’s DNA. The fact is there are some breeds out there that were originally bred for fighting sports. Although these sports have been banned, the personality traits that made the dogs so good at what they were bred for over hundreds of years remain.

  If your dog has been offensively aggressive in both familiar and unknown situations all his life (or as long as you’ve had him), then all the socializing in the world may not cure his problem. If this is the case with your dog, the only thing that will really make a difference is being a strong handler who knows how to make the dog behave in the moment. Just as you can teach a dog to stop the instinctive behavior of barking on command, it is possible to interrupt a dog’s aggression cycle in its early phases, even though it’s likely not possible to erase his inclination to fight.

  The following steps are only suggestions and should not be considered a guaranteed fix for any dog with aggression issues.

  Know Your Dog’s Warning Signs. The first step in becoming the handler who can manage your aggressive dog is learning his warning signs so you can defuse any potentially dangerous situations before they escalate. One of the most beautiful things about dogs is that they don’t lie. Their body language tells us exactly what they’re thinking. Consider any of these body language cues a tip-off that your dog needs to be contained or redirected ASAP. They’re all yellow-zone warnings that can quickly give way to orange- or red-level aggression:

  •When your dog’s hackles—the hairs along his backbone from his neck to his tail—go up. People often joke that this is their dog’s Mohawk, but this is a warning sign that needs to be taken seriously.

  •When your dog stiffens his body.

  •When your dog gives a low growl.

  •When your dog curls his lip.

  •When your dog gets big—with his chest out and head up high.

  •When your dog is holding his tail all the way up in the air and stiff. This is a cautionary sign that’s frequently misread. It does not indicate a friendly wag; it’s a warning.

  If your dog shows you any of these signs, it’s his way of telling you, loud and clear, to intervene now, before it’s too late. From there, the body language only gets more obvious and more difficult to deal with. By the time a dog starts showing his teeth, he’s crossing into the orange zone. Once he’s moving toward a fight, he’s in the red, and your options to keep things from getting out of control are nearly gone.

  Keep Your Distance. Many genetically aggressive dogs feel threatened by every dog they see. It’s not possible for you to physically remove someone else’s dog from a potentially tough situation, but you can remove your own dog from it. If you can’t get away completely, create some space. The farther away you are from that other dog, the lower your dog’s aggression level will be. Look at it like an algorithm; the closer your dog gets to any other dog (or other target of his aggression), the greater the danger. The strike zone is within the length of the leash, and you should take pains to keep every possible target out of that point-blank range.

  Bottom line: consult with a professional trainer who specializes in anti-aggression. An experienced trainer needs to make the call as to how much training and what techniques are safe to use with your dog. You may be able to learn to be the handler your aggressive dog needs—someone who knows all his triggers and is able to make the right decision at the moment it’s needed to maintain control. But for the safety of your dog and everyone around him, you’ll need professional guidance to get there.

  The Last Word

  More than anything, being a good owner to a dog with an aggressive streak is about being prepared and being careful. Most of the time, your aggressive dog may be a loving pet, but you can never lose sight that at his worst, he may be a danger—and you would be accountable. The biggest mistake I see people make is investing way too much emotion and reasoning behind their dogs’ aggression—in essence, making excuses for their dogs. This causes them to be fuzzy or even blinded to the fact their dog can inflict serious damage to an animal or a person. The fact is that just like people, dogs have bad days. On a bad day, one dog might retreat to the corner and give you the stink eye. Another might be pushed as far as a growl. But if your dog is capable of reaching the point of lashing out or biting, that possibility needs to be taken seriously—not just until you train it out of him, but for the rest of his life.

  CONCLUSION: 7 LAST LESSONS

  In the house where I grew up, there were always all kinds of animals around. Somewhere I have a picture of me sitting in the crook of my mother’s arm. In her other arm she’s cradling a baby tiger. That’s what our lives were like. Even our family dog, a German shepherd named Zeke, was in on the tiger act. He helped raise them from cubs, and when they became adults, they’d still look at him and respect him like he was their big brother (even though they’d long surpassed his size). That made it easier for him to help teach them to sit on their pedestals and mind their manners for my dad, who was one of the top tiger trainers in the world.

  The point is, for as long as I’ve been able to walk and talk, I’ve been an animal trainer. I actually got my first paying job when I was just six or seven. I wanted to earn a little pocket money, so I put up flyers on the telephone poles near where we lived. They had the catchy pitch: “Dog Trainer Availabel” (spelling was not one of my early talents) with our phone number scrawled at the bottom. When I got my first call, I hopped on my bike and hustled to the address the man had provided. You should have seen his face when he opened the door and found me—a waist-high boy carrying a dog leash. Knowing I had a small window to make an impression, I said, “Hello, sir,” and barged right in, straight to the golden retriever who was running toward the door. I snapped the leash on her and launched into teaching her a DOWN and a STAY while the man stared openmouthed, not sure whether to laugh or clap or kick me out.

  Once the dog had a general idea of the technique, I turned to the owner and gave him a quick lesson in how to get the same results and a lecture on how important it was to do it every day. Then in my squeaky little voice I said, “That’ll be five dollars, please. Just call me if you need
me again.” The guy was quick to pay. He’d gone from confused to impressed to just plain happy my services were only going to cost him five bucks.

  By even the most conservative math, I’ve worked with between eight thousand and ten thousand dogs since then. Along the way, I learned from other trainers who approached their animals with every philosophy and method under the sun. Some of them showed me what to do, and others—sometimes inadvertently—showed me what not to do. You might say I’ve learned from the best and also from the worst. But I always learned something, whether it was a technique I still use in my arsenal, a rule to follow, or a method to avoid. The goal is always to learn and make myself a better trainer.

  I think I could write a thousand pages about training dogs and still have a little more to say, but I hope this book is a good start. To wrap things up, I’ve put together a list of seven final Lucky Dog lessons. I hope you’ll keep them in mind as you embark on training your own dog.

  1. Seven Days Is a Great Start. Since I’ve been working on this book, there’s one question I hear all the time: Is it really possible to train a dog in just a week?

  Yes. It is. I’m positive because I train between five and seven dogs each week myself. Most of the shelter dogs who end up on Lucky Dog are with me for just seven days to get their basic training—and we almost always get it done.

  But that almost is important, because lots of dogs for lots of reasons need extra time. If your dog is very young, very old, unsocialized, traumatized, a little on the slow side, or too smart for his own good, it may take you a little longer to teach him his 7 Common Commands and curb his behavior problems. A rule to remember is it can be done. In the long run, spending two weeks or even three to teach your dog these basic lessons is a time investment that will pay you back in years of peaceful companionship. It’s a great trade-off.