When Pigs Fly_ Training Success With Impossible Dogs - Jane Killion [79]
All of the foregoing pertains to ensuring that your dog reinforces himself as often as possible by eliminating outside. You also have to make sure that he does not have the opportunity to reinforce himself by going in the house. If your dog or puppy is not housetrained, you should be watching him every second they are loose in the house. If you can’t watch him, put him in a crate. If he is a young puppy or unhousetrained adult dog, keep him in an exercise pen with a designated potty area. Be extra careful not to close your puppy or dog in his crate for longer than he can hold it. If you have taken note of your dog’s antecedents to needing to potty, you know about how long he can stay in there. Don’t push the envelope too far and make him soil his crate.
At night, put your un-housebroken dog or puppy in an exercise pen with a crate attached to it. Put some papers or wee-wee pads in one corner. When your dog sleeps through the night for four or five nights without using the paper, you can start closing him in the crate at bedtime. If you try to push it and close him in for the night before he can hold it, you run the risk of forcing him to soil his crate.
Another tip that will help you with housetraining your dog is to put elimination on cue. As soon as you see the signs that your dog is about to go, say “Go Potty” and then praise him profusely and give him a treat after he is done. You could mark the behavior with the clicker, but that will cause your dog to interrupt his activity and I think it is better to let him get on with it.
You can use your puppy’s crate or exercise pen as part of your housetraining efforts.
It’s Nothing Personal
Aggression
Aggression is such a natural part of a dog’s existence that it is virtually impossible for you to go through life with a dog and never see any displays of it, so you do need to take the time to learn about it. How you respond to your dog’s aggression can determine the difference between a happy family pet and a dog that needs to be euthanized.
Aggressive displays are a natural and necessary part of a dog’s vocabulary. Here, the dog on the right has invaded the other dog’s space. The dog on the left is saying, quite approprietly, “Buddy, back off!” A growl and a lifted lip are information—the dog who does these things is not comfortable.
Go to the AKC’s Complete Dog Book and take a look at the standard for your dog’s breed. Does it mention “guardian” or “aloof with strangers” or the like? That means your dog has been selectively bred for centuries, if not millennia, to be mistrustful of and protective against “outsiders.” That is his job and he is doing it very nicely. How horrible for him if you “correct” him for behaving so fabulously! It is not his fault if the world has changed and there is no longer a job market for his skills. Likewise, if you read your dog’s breed standard and it includes any kind of killing of other animals or fighting with other dogs, (that would be the entire Terrier group and much of the Hound group) don’t be flummoxed and ticked off when these traits surface. What you need to do is put these dogs on the unemployment line temporarily and teach them a new set of skills for making a living.
If you are dealing with an aggressive dog, I suggest that you pick up a copy of Pamela S. Dennison’s How to Right a Dog Gone Wrong and Jean Donaldson’s Mine (see Resources). Resource guarding is a sub-set of aggression that almost every dog owner has experienced to one degree or another. Examples of resource guarding are a dog who does not like you to put your hand in his food dish, a dog that will not let other people or dogs near you, a dog who growls when you try to move him while he is on the bed, etc. Resource guarding is such an inevitable part of