This book isn’t a “how-to” manual. As I mentioned in the introduction, I’m not here to teach you how to get your dog to recognize voice commands or hand signals; I’m not here to teach you how to properly make your dog “heel” or do tricks. There are plenty of guides and books related to dog training, and many qualified specialists out there who can do that. But although my primary mission is simply to help you understand your dog’s psychology better, I also have some practical advice to offer you. This advice applies to all dogs, no matter the breed, no matter the age or size, no matter the temperament, or whether the dog is dominant or submissive. This is my three-part formula for fulfilling your dog’s life. Be reminded—this isn’t a one-time fix for a troubled dog. Dogs aren’t appliances; you can’t simply send them out to be repaired once and that’s it. If you expect this formula to work, you have to practice it every day of your dog’s life.
The formula is simple: in order to have a balanced dog, you must provide three things:
exercise
discipline
affection
…in that order!
Why is the order important? Because it’s the natural order of your dog’s inborn needs. The problem in the United States is that most dogs receive only part of the formula from their owners—affection, affection, affection. Some people do better, giving their dogs half affection, half exercise. Others practice all three, but put affection first. As I’ve stressed again and again in this book, that is a recipe for an unbalanced dog. Yes, our dogs crave our affection. But they need exercise and leadership first. Especially exercise, as you’ll soon see.
1. Exercise
This is the first part of your dog’s formula for happiness and it is absolutely the one thing you cannot skip. Ironically, it’s the first thing most owners in the United States fail at doing. Perhaps it’s because Americans in general seem to have problems with getting enough exercise for themselves, and don’t recognize that all animals, even humans, have an inborn need to be active. Just getting out and being physical, moving our bodies, seems to have taken a backseat to everything else in our society these days. Our modern lives are so busy that it seems overwhelming to have to add in daily walks with our dogs on top of everything else. But if you are going to take on the responsibility of living with a dog, this is the contract you sign. You need to walk with your dog. Every day. Preferably at least twice a day. And for a minimum of thirty minutes at a time.
Walking with your dog is a primal activity. It is hardwired into her brain to migrate with her pack. Dogs don’t simply enjoy walks because they get to pee and poop and get some fresh air—although shockingly, this seems to be the perception of many owners. To some dog owners, “walking the dog” means letting her out in the yard to do her business, then letting her back in the house. This is torture for a dog. Every cell in your dog’s body is crying out for a walk. In nature, dogs will spend up to twelve hours migrating for food. Wolves—dogs’ living ancestors—have been known to range over hundreds of miles and hunt for ten hours in their natural habitat. Dogs naturally have different energy levels, and some dogs need to walk more often than others. Some breeds have genes that tell them to walk longer, or faster, or farther. But all dogs walk. All animals travel. Fish need to swim, birds need to fly…and dogs need to walk!
Walking with your dog is the single most powerful tool I can offer you to help you connect with all the aspects of your dog’s mind—animal, dog, breed, and name—all at the same time. By mastering the walk, you have the ability to truly bond with your dog as her pack leader. The walk is the foundation of your relationship. It is also where a dog learns to be a dog. She learns about her environment, about the other animals and humans in it; about dangers such as cars and things to be avoided such as bikes and skateboards. She gets to pee on trees and really get to know her territory.
Animals need to connect with the world and be out in it. It’s not natural for them to spend all their time indoors or behind walls. Another part of the “powerbroker paradox” that I spoke of—the tendency for very powerful people to have very messed-up dogs—is that these people often have huge, luxurious homes with enormous backyards. They think letting their dog roam in their estate’s backyard is enough exercise for her. Never think you can substitute having a big backyard for going on a primal walk with your dog! Sure, it could be several acres of property, but to your dog it’s a just very big kennel behind walls. Also, allowing your dog simply to roam around all day by herself isn’t providing her with the structure she gets when she migrates with her pack leader. A structured, regular walking schedule is vital, especially for dogs with behavior problems and issues.
MASTER THE WALK
Every once in a while, after I’ve visited new clients and worked with their dogs, the clients will say to me, “We paid three hundred and fifty dollars for this consultation, and all you’re going to tell us is to walk our dog more?” In some cases, yes, it is that simple. However, it’s all about what I call “mastering the walk.” There is one right way to walk with your dog and a million wrong ways to do it. I’d say that 90 percent of Americans do it the wrong way. Think I’m exaggerating? Here’s an exercise for you: Go to a big-city park, such as Central Park in New York or Griffith Park in Los Angeles, and watch all the dog owners walking their pets. Observe ten of them. Count how many of them have their dogs out in front of them, on a long leash or a flexi leash. Note how many of them are being pulled by their dogs. Add up the numbers of walkers who are standing by waiting patiently while their dogs sniff the ground, the trees, everything around them, completely oblivious to their owners’ presence. None of these dog owners has correctly mastered the walk.
Now, out of the ten dog and owner groupings you saw, how many had their dogs obediently walking next to them or behind them? Not many? Now check out the other side of the tracks—the part of town where the homeless live. See any difference in the body language of both the person and the dog? Ironically, the homeless seem to have the art of walking with a dog down pat. They aren’t being dragged behind by their dogs; their dogs don’t set the agenda of where they’re going or what they’re going to do. Why? Number one, because they travel together for so many miles a day, every day. And second, because the dogs see the homeless owners as their pack leaders. The homeless owners aren’t pampering their dogs, giving them treats, or petting them all day—although the dogs can sense that their homeless owners are happy about having them around. The owners are providing leadership—someone to follow, who’ll eventually lead the dogs to food and water and a place to rest. Their lives are simple but structured. A proper walk should be just that—simple, but structured.
THE LEASH
First of all, I usually recommend a very simple, short leash. The leashes that I use are nothing more than fifteen-cent cords of nylon that I loop into collars myself. Of course, if you are concerned about fashion, you don’t have to go as down and dirty as I do, but I recommend—especially for problem dogs—that you fasten the collar over the top part of the dog’s head, not around her neck (see photographs on below). Most collars rest on the strongest part of a dog’s neck, which allows her to have full control over her head and sometimes, if she’s a strong-breed dog, full control over you, too! If you want to see an example of how my style of leash looks, take a look at an American Kennel Club dog show. This is how handlers of show dogs leash their animals. You’ll see handler and dog running around the ring together, with the handler lightly holding the leash and using it to gently lift the dog’s head up. Dogs in dog shows look so proud of themselves with their heads up, and considering the relationship between energy and body language, that’s probably how they feel. No, they’re not proud of their haircut or their blue ribbon. They don’t care about those things. In the dog world, a head held high is positive body language, a sign of healthy self-esteem. By holding the leash in this position, you also have maximum control over your dog—she can go only where you want her to go.
Many people in the United States seem to like flexi leashes because they believe their dog needs “freedom” during a walk. There will be a time to share freedom later in the walk, but it will be the kind of freedom that you control. I’m not a fan of flexi leashes except for the mellowest, most happy-go-lucky dogs. Still, ultimately the choice of leash is up to you. Whatever you choose, don’t let your dog’s excitement over seeing you get the leash and put it on her control the whole experience. I had one client from Dog Whisperer, Liz, whose Dalmatian, Lola, would go wild and jump all over her the moment Liz took the flexi leash off the coatrack. Then Lola would charge out the door, pulling the flexi leash to its maximum length—and sometimes right out of Liz’s hands. Needless to say, this is entirely the wrong way to leave the house with your dog.
LEAVING THE HOUSE
Yes, believe it or not, there is a right way and a wrong way of going out the door. First of all, never let your dog control the activity, the way Liz did with Lola. Your leadership must start before the walk. Don’t allow your dog to wear the leash until she is in a calm-submissive state. Once your dog is calm, put the leash on and proceed toward the door. Don’t let your dog get overexcited again while you’re standing at the door or in the doorway. Even if you have to wait, once again make sure your dog is in a calm-submissive state. Then open the door. You go out the door first. This really does matter. By going out the door first, you are saying to your dog, “I am the pack leader, inside and outside of the home.”
When you walk your dog, make sure she is beside you or behind you. When someone’s dog is way out in front of them or pulling them, the dog is walking the human, the dog is leading the pack. You’re probably used to your dog wanting to sniff every bush, tree, plant, and patch of grass she sees. That’s normal for a dog, but when you are in “migrating” mode, the dog should not stop until you tell her to stop. Imagine if a wolf pack needed to migrate ten miles and every dog was doing its own thing, sniffing trees and grass instead of moving forward? The pack would never get to the food. The walk is first to bond the two of you and show your leadership, second, for exercise, and third, for your dog to explore. You should hold the leash firmly but with a relaxed arm, as if you were carrying a briefcase. And most important, remember your calm-assertive energy. Think Oprah! Think Cleopatra! Think John Wayne! Think about an experience where you felt strong and in control. Straighten your posture. Lift your shoulders high and stick your chest forward. Do whatever it takes to really own that calm-assertive energy and project it through the leash and to your dog, who picks up on every signal you send. Many of my clients have been amazed at how simply increasing their calm-assertive energy and projecting it on a walk has calmed their dogs down. It’s not magic. It’s nature at work. Dogs naturally want to follow a calm-assertive leader. Once you claim that role, they naturally fall in line.
Now that you’ve established a rhythm and you’ve been walking uninterrupted for a few minutes, now is the time to let your dog go ahead of you—a little bit. Release the tension on your leash and let your dog pee, sniff the grass, whatever she wants to do. Remember, she’s doing it when you say so. That’s the key. Ironically, when you give a dog permission to do this, she’ll probably spend less time on it than if she were allowed to do it on her own from the beginning. When I walk my pack of forty to fifty dogs off-leash in the mountains, we’ll go for thirty, forty minutes with them behind me, and then the pack is allowed to be in front of me for five minutes. That’s the kind of “freedom” your dogs need—but with rules, boundaries, and limitations. I allow them to go only thirty, forty feet away from me. If they cross the line, a quick sound from me will remind them to fall back.
Personally, my favorite exercise to do with my pack, one that really gets their energy drained, is to go Rollerblading with them. I put on my in-line skates and skate with as many as ten dogs at a time down the streets of South Los Angeles—on leash, of course. Sometimes I get funny looks; people can’t believe their eyes. But the dogs love this. Sometimes I pull them, sometimes they pull me, but I am always in charge. By the end of a three-hour session, everybody’s tired and more than happy to be calm-submissive for the rest of the day!
TREADMILLS
If you’re not able to walk your dog as much as her level of energy requires, then a treadmill is a viable option. The treadmill should not be the only walking your dog does—remember, she needs to walk with you. But it’s a great way to give added stress relief to a dog that has a lot of energy to burn. It becomes both a physical and a psychological challenge for her. Dogs are like men in the human world—we both can concentrate on only one thing at a time! And when a dog’s on a treadmill, she’s going to have to concentrate. She’s going to get “in the zone.”
Many of my clients are skeptical about putting a dog on a treadmill. They think the dog will hurt herself, especially if she’s on a leash. Proper supervision is required at first, but any dog has the ability to do this. Dogs using treadmills are nothing new. This isn’t something I invented. Back in 1576, Doctor Johannes Caius of Cambridge University described a mongrel breed of dog he called a “turnspit.” These dogs were specifically trained to walk on treadmills that mechanically turned the spits on which people roasted their meat. This breed of dog is now extinct—since the popularity of the oven took off, no doubt!—but if dogs could be trained to walk on the manual treadmills of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, how much more difficult could it be for them to be trained to walk on the electric ones of the twenty-first century?
One of my clients was the CEO of a sixty-billion-dollar company, and a household name. His dog, a powerful male German shepherd, was out of control, attacking and biting people, but the owner was in total denial about it. It was his wife who called me in. I worked with her husband for several hours, and could see that he was completely defensive: It wasn’t his fault. It was his wife and kid’s fault. He was a busy guy. He didn’t have time to walk the dog. I said, “Well, since you insist you can’t walk your dog, can you put him on a treadmill?” And he said, “No. No way. This dog would never in a million years go on a treadmill.” I just stayed quiet. When he had finished, I asked him, “Are you ready to see him on the treadmill?” He started getting angry with me. “I’m telling you, this dog will never, ever be on a treadmill.” It took me five seconds to put that dog on the treadmill, and he took to it right away. The dog was right at home in a matter of seconds. My client was speechless. He’s not the kind of guy many people prove wrong—or dare to tell he’s wrong. But I was there for the good of the dog, not his owner’s ego. I’m afraid this powerful man may not put in the energy to follow through on my advice—until he’s slapped with a lawsuit. Unfortunately, that’s the only thing that will get some of my clients to take their dog’s behavior seriously.
I recommend that you first hire a professional to teach you the safety basics about putting a dog on a treadmill. For a dog, the first two weeks on a treadmill are a mental challenge, because the floor is moving, and the dog’s instinct tells her to run away when the floor is moving! After two weeks, you’ll see your dog scratching at the treadmill, begging you to turn it on. Dogs become addicted to it—a healthy kind of addiction. If you start at a very low speed and you supervise your dog closely until you’re sure she’s completely comfortable, you should be able to put her on the treadmill and go about your business, as long as you’re not too far away. Never leave her there too long without checking on her, of course. But treadmill walking at a reasonable speed—while not a substitute for a walk outdoors—can be a safe and healthy contribution to your active dog’s exercise regimen. It’s especially important for powerful breed dogs that need extra workouts to help control their dominance or aggression.
DOGGIE BACKPACKS
Another technique I use for high-energy dogs that need more of a workout is a doggie backpack. Adding weight to a dog during her walk—or even during her treadmill walk—makes her work harder. It also gives her something to focus on, a job to do. Dogs love having jobs, and as I’ve already mentioned, they can’t do more than one thing at a time. If they’re focused on walking and carrying, they are much less likely to be thinking about chasing after every cat that walks by, or yelping at bicyclists. Have you ever watched a Boy Scout troop on a hike? No matter how hyperactive they may be back at camp, they are always calm and submissive when they’re hiking with backpacks on! Wearing a backpack almost always calms a dog down; it’s like Prozac—without the side effects. The backpacks are made in various sizes and styles; look up “dog backpack” on the Internet to find one that’s right for your pet. The ballast you put inside the pack should weigh between 10 and 20 percent of your dog’s body weight, depending on her energy level and needs.
Backpacks have helped work miracles in many of the dogs I’ve rehabilitated. Coach, an aggressive and overly protective boxer, exhibited behavior that was so out of control that he was scheduled to be put to sleep the very day I came to work with him. Although he had been to obedience classes, his family had not been walking him, at all. With regular walks and new rules, boundaries, and limitations from the entire family, Coach is so well behaved now that he walks to school with his eight-year-old owner and carries the boy’s books in his doggie backpack. There’s nothing more therapeutic for a dog than giving him a job to do, and carrying a backpack is a job. Coach is a dog who went from death row to being a companion dog worthy of The Little Rascals—in a matter of weeks.
DOG WALKERS
Finally, if you absolutely cannot walk your dog—if you are injured or ill or incapacitated in some way—I suggest you hire a professional dog walker. It’s not an ideal situation for forming that pack leader–pack follower bond that you want with your dog, but it does help her get used to having a human leader. Some committed dog owners I know walk their dogs in the mornings and evenings, and hire a walker to make sure their dog is properly exercised at noon. Not everyone can afford such a luxury, but for those who can, I’ll bet it’s a lot less expensive than the legal fees you’d be paying if your underexercised dog’s behavior problem got you into a lawsuit. You should check out the references of any dog walker, of course, and make sure to observe him when he’s out for a walk. Is he in control of the dogs? Are they dragging him around, or are they showing him respect? Make sure you’re comfortable with anyone you’re leaving your pet with. Your dog can’t complain to you when you bring her home, so you’ll have to rely on your own judgment.
DOGS NEED JOBS
From the beginning of creation, dogs were made to have jobs. In the wild, the pack functions like a well-oiled hunting machine, and when we first domesticated dogs, we specifically bred them to take advantage of their innate working abilities. We started creating the breeds based on how we thought we could best use them for our own needs. We like the way one dog jumps over obstacles. We like the way another dog digs in the ground. We like the way this dog retrieves, and that one herds sheep. Ninety-five percent of dog breeds around the world today were originally working breeds. No more than 5 percent of today’s dogs were bred to be lapdogs. Dogs, both wild and domestic, were born to work. But in modern-day America, we don’t always have legitimate work for our dogs with special talents.
Therefore, the walk is the most important job you can give a dog. Walking with you, the owner, is both a physical and a mental activity for your dog. After she has accomplished this primal form of exercise, then it’s fine to do the other things you enjoy doing together—playing fetch, swimming in the pool, and doing tricks, the more exciting kinds of activities. Just as you wouldn’t leave your kids at Chuck E. Cheese’s all day, you also set a time limit for these more frenetic activities with your dog. But like the big backyard, these games are not substitutes for the walk. You cannot skip the walk. After the walk, your dog will naturally go into the deepest form of resting mode—humans would call it meditation mode. When she is in this mode, you can leave the house and go on with your day, secure in the knowledge that your dog knows you’re the pack leader, and that all that boundless energy inside her is being channeled properly and constructively.
2. Discipline
When it comes to dog behavior, the word discipline has gotten a very bad rap lately. The people who refuse even to allow that word to pass their lips usually define discipline as punishment. To me, the word has a different meaning altogether. Of course it means rules, boundaries, and limitations. But it also has a much more profound meaning for me—with regard to my dogs and also to my own life.
Discipline makes you a better person, makes you fit, makes you healthy, and helps you have a healthy relationship because you are disciplined to do what is best for the relationship. This doesn’t mean I “discipline” my wife by telling her when she has done something wrong—in my household, it would probably be the other way around, anyway! Discipline in our relationship means I’m part of a couple, part of a structure that tells me what my boundaries are. Because I’m disciplined, I’m going to live up to my commitment. When I promise my wife I’ll do something, I’m going to do it. When she promises me she’ll do something, she’s going to do it. Every single day. To me discipline is a word that helps me to stay on target, to reach my goals and dreams. It’s a word that allows me to stay balanced, to be a respectful human being, an honest human being, someone who wants the best for himself and for everything around him—from trees, to animals, to human beings. Without discipline, you can’t really be a good role model. If you’re not a disciplined person, you become negative energy or negative source.
Running my Dog Psychology Center, I have to be disciplined. I have to be disciplined with planning each day. I have to keep to a schedule. I have to make sure every day that the dogs have water, that they have food, that they have exercise. I have to watch their health closely and take them to the veterinarian if they get sick. I have to clean up after them. If I were not disciplined about these things, not only would my business fail, but my precious dogs could become ill and even die. Discipline to me is serious business.
Mother Nature responds to discipline. Discipline—rules, boundaries, and limitations—exists in every species on the planet. Bees are disciplined. Ants are disciplined. Birds are disciplined. Dolphins are very disciplined. If you’ve ever seen dolphins hunting a school of anchovies, you’ve seen how orderly they are in working together to herd their prey. Wolves are disciplined not only when they hunt but also when they travel, when they play, and when they eat. They don’t question discipline. Nature doesn’t view discipline as a negative thing. Discipline is DNA. Discipline is survival.
Think about how discipline figures in your life. If you’re Lance Armstrong, discipline means keeping in shape, training, eating the right foods, and riding for so many miles a week. If you work at Starbucks, discipline means getting to the job on time, memorizing all the endless names of coffee drinks, knowing how much foam to put in a cappuccino and a latte, and knowing how to be polite even when there’s a long line of impatient customers. That’s discipline. To succeed at anything, you must practice discipline. If you’re taking a Tae Bo class with Billy Blank, you’d better be disciplined when he tells you to lift your leg. And he’s not being mean about it. He simply knows you can’t accomplish what you went there to accomplish without practicing discipline.
That’s how I share discipline when it comes to dogs. It’s my job to tell them when to wake up, when to eat, and how to interact with one another. I set rules, boundaries, and limitations about where to go and at what pace, when to rest, when to pee, whom to chase, whom not to chase, where to dig a hole, where to roll over. All that is part of discipline. To me, discipline is not punishment. It’s the rules, boundaries, and limitations that exist for the good of the dogs and for my relationship with them.
CORRECTIONS
In nature, dogs correct one another all the time. Mothers correct their pups constantly. Pack leaders correct pack followers. Natural dog packs are filled with rules, boundaries, and limitations. There are dozens of unspoken rules of etiquette in a wild dog or wolf pack, sometimes communicated by energy, sometimes by body language, sometimes by a physical touch or a bite. A correction—what some people might call a “punishment”—is simply a consequence of a dog’s breaking the rules. With dogs, there’s always a consequence to breaking rules. No exceptions. If the pack members could talk, they’d say to an offender, “You’re not being disciplined like us; you’re not part of our pack. We’re going to give you one chance. You do it again, and you’re out of here. Either we’ll kill you or we’ll kick you out of the pack.” Dogs don’t resent other dogs for correcting them, and dogs don’t hold grudges against dogs that make mistakes. They correct and then move right on with their lives. It’s all very simple and natural to them.
In nature, setting limits isn’t “cruel,” and in order to set limits, all animals sometimes need corrections. We all know human parents who don’t set limits. It’s their kids who are running around the restaurant screaming and throwing food, and disturbing your nice quiet dinner. They’re the parents calling for Nanny 911 when their house is in chaos.
Think about how humans learn. We often need to make mistakes and be corrected before we know what the rules are. If you’re in an unfamiliar state where you don’t know the traffic laws and you make a right turn on red, a policeman stops you and tells you there’s no right turn on red in that state. Now you know the rules, but he’s going to give you a ticket anyway. That’s your punishment. That’s your correction. And it will probably work. After paying a $250 ticket, you can bet you’ll never make a right on red in that state again.
Like humans and all other animals, dogs need to be corrected when they break a rule. The reason I like the word correction rather than punishment is that the latter word has human connotations—and too many people correct their dogs the way they would punish a child. With a child they’ll take away a privilege—“You didn’t clean up your room so you can’t go to the ballgame tomorrow”—or, after yelling at the child, send the child to his room. Dogs don’t have a clue what you’re saying when you’re yelling at them. All they hear is your excited, unbalanced energy, which will either scare or confuse them, or which they’ll simply ignore. Dogs don’t have a concept of “tomorrow,” so you can’t threaten them by withholding a trip to the dog park. If you send them to another room or put them outside, they probably won’t make the connection between the banishment and the bad behavior. Dogs live in a world of cause and effect. They don’t think, they react, so they need to be corrected the instant the unwanted behavior occurs. You can’t even wait five minutes before correcting a dog, because chances are she’s already moved on to another state of mind. Remember, dogs live in the now. Corrections have to happen in the now—and be repeated every time the rule is broken—before a dog will understand what aspects of her behavior are unwanted by you.
How we go about correcting our dogs is also the subject of much debate. There is an influential school of thought right now that argues that positive reinforcement and positive training technique alone should be used with dogs, or with any animal. In my opinion, positive reinforcement is to be desired and is wonderful—when it works. It works for happy-go-lucky dogs and for the dogs we raise as puppies. If you can get the behavior you desire out of feeding your dog treats, by all means, go for it. But the dogs that come to me are often ones whose behavior is way out of control. They’re rescued dogs who’ve had terrible pasts filled with abuse, deprivation, and cruelty. Or they’re dogs who’ve lived their whole lives without any rules, boundaries, or limitations whatsoever. Then there are the red-zone dogs that we’ve discussed. These dogs are too far gone to be rehabilitated simply by using treats.
Abuse, on the other hand, is never acceptable. Hitting a dog isn’t acceptable. You cannot use fear as a means of making an animal behave; it doesn’t work. Showing an animal strong leadership and giving it rules is not the same thing as instilling fear and punishing it.
The distinction is in how and when you use corrections. You never, ever correct an animal out of anger or frustration. This is when animal abuse—or child abuse, or spousal abuse—occurs. When you try to correct your dog out of anger, you are usually more out of control than your dog is. You are fulfilling your own needs, not the animal’s—who will sense your unstable energy and often escalate the unwanted behavior. You can never let an animal push your buttons. You are there to teach her and show leadership, and if you’re going to correct her, you must always remain in your calm-assertive state of mind. This may be a challenge for you—as it was for Jordan the bulldog’s owner, David. But perhaps that is why this animal came into your life—so that both of you could learn a healthier way of behaving.
That said, when you correct your dog, it’s your energy, mind-set, and the timing of the correction that matter more than the method, as long as the method isn’t abusive. Never strike a dog. A quick, assertive touch can snap a dog out of an unwanted state. I curl my hand into a claw shape so that when I quickly touch a dog’s neck or just under its chin, my curled fingers feel like the teeth of another dog or of the dog’s mother. Dogs often correct one another with gentle nips, and touch is one of the most common ways with which they communicate. A touch is more effective than a strike could ever be. Use the least forceful technique possible to snap a dog out of an unwanted behavior or state of mind. Your purpose is to redirect the dog’s attention back on you, as the pack leader. Correction can be anything from a sound, a word, a snap of the fingers—whatever works best for you and doesn’t do physical or mental harm to the dog. What works for me in correcting dogs is to practice what they do with one another—eye contact, energy, body language, and forward motion toward each other. Remember, dogs are always reading your energy, and they’ll know what you mean when you’re energy tells them, “It’s not okay to do that.” When I have a dog on a leash, I’ll give a little tug upward to snap the dog out of unwanted behavior. It’s a short little jerk that barely lasts a moment, and doesn’t hurt the dog—but the timing of it is vital. Whatever the correction method, it has to happen the split second the dog begins the unwanted behavior. This is where knowing your dog comes in. You need to learn to read your dog’s body language and energy almost as well as she’s already reading yours.
For example, all dogs love to roll in the carcasses of dead animals. It’s how they disguise their scent in the wild when they hunt—and it’s one of Mother Nature’s most ingenious inventions, a behavior that’s embedded deep in the dogs’ genes. However, when dogs live with us, having them come home covered with dead skunk or squirrel isn’t only unpleasant, it’s also unsanitary. I like dogs to live as naturally as possible, but as pack leader and the one who’s paying the bills, I think it’s within my right to try to limit this aspect of my dogs’ behavior. So if I see a dog begin to sniff something unusual, I’ve got to correct her instantly, before she begins to run toward the scent. Remember, dogs are much faster than we are. If you miss “reading her mind” and therefore miss the opportunity to give correction, you’re going to be washing dead skunk out of her fur when you get home.
THE DOMINANCE RITUAL
Another controversial aspect of correction is the dominance ritual—what most trainers and behaviorists call the “alpha roll.” It’s a replica of what dogs or wolves do with each other in the wild: the dominant dog puts another on his side until that dog signals submission. It’s basically a wolf asking another wolf to cry “Uncle!” and admit that he’s been one-upped. This is the way a pack leader keeps order without having to resort to all-out violence against other pack members. To hear some behaviorists talk, putting a dog into an alpha roll is as cruel as lighting him on fire. I have been criticized by many in the positive-only school of behavior, and called inhumane and barbaric, for using this technique. I respect those critics’ opinions, and agree that this technique is appropriate only for certain cases, and to be used by experienced dog handlers. If you feel, as they do, that this method is cruel, then you should regard my advice with that in mind. I believe that, when it comes to how we relate to animals, it is always a matter of personal conscience.
In my opinion, asking a dog to submit to me by lying on her side is a very natural thing to do. Within my own pack, a stern look, a sound, or a gesture from me will almost always send an errant dog into a submissive state—sitting or lying—without my ever having to touch her or, in some cases, even come near her (see the three-part sequence that follows). It goes without saying that I’d always rather get the behavior I want with simply a look or a sound than with a touch. However, with extremely dominant dogs, with dogs that attack people or other dogs, or with two dogs that are fighting with each other, I sometimes have to physically put the dog or dogs on their side. A dominant dog will put up a fight—wouldn’t you, if you were used to being boss?—and will struggle against me. This is natural. If you’ve gotten away with a certain kind of behavior all your life, you’re going to rebel against someone who finally tells you, “No!” In this case I have to hold on firmly until that dog stops resisting. I started using this technique with my first pack of Rottweilers, and still use it whenever necessary. It elicits a primal response in the dog that I am the pack leader.
When outsiders see a dog lying on her side, ears back, eyes forward, they assume the dog is responding to me that way out of fear. This isn’t a fearful position. (See the section on body language again.) It is a totally submissive position, as submissive as you can get. In the dog world, this is the ultimate sign of respect. Of surrender. Submission and surrender don’t have negative connotations in the dog world. There’s no such thing as humiliation because a dog doesn’t dwell on the past. A dog isn’t going to hold it against me. Although many of the dogs in my pack at some time in their lives have had to submit after misbehaving, they still love me and follow me every day. With forty dogs in one place, not a day goes by without someone getting into mischief. But mischief can escalate into more disruptive and dangerous behavior, and like any good pack leader, it’s my job to stop it before it goes that far.
When it comes to the dominance ritual, however, please take note: although I personally practice it in my work rehabilitating severely unbalanced and aggressive dogs, I caution anyone who isn’t a professional—or at least extremely experienced in dog behavior and aggression—never, ever to forcibly put a dog on its side. With a dominant or aggressive dog, someone who is inexperienced could easily be bitten, mauled, or attacked. This is serious stuff, life-threatening stuff. If your dog is exhibiting the kind of behavior problems that require this kind of correction, then you should be consulting a professional, anyway. You should not be on your own in attempting to restore discipline to a dog that’s this far gone in terms of dominance or aggression.
RULES, BOUNDARIES, AND LIMITATIONS
You have “house rules” for your children. Why shouldn’t you have the same for your dog? So many of my clients come to me after they’ve hit rock bottom. Their dog is literally running the household, and the family is thrown into chaos. Many of my clients admit to me in shame that they’re “isolating” themselves—they don’t see their friends anymore because they fear what their dog might do when a new person comes to the house. Their lives have become unmanageable—almost as if they were living with an alcoholic or a drug addict in the family! Some beautiful people I was fortunate to meet during the first season of my television series, the Francescos, had been a boisterous, outgoing, very social Italian American family, until a tiny bichon frise named Bella came into their lives. By the time I met them, they had stopped inviting the rest of the family over to their house, for fear that Bella might attack them. This tiny ball of fluff didn’t even weigh ten pounds, but she controlled the entire family. She would bark nonstop at anyone who entered the house, and never stop barking until that person left. The Francescos loved Bella—it had been the dying wish of a beloved aunt that the Francescos have a puppy for her orphaned daughter and niece to love. Bella represented something spiritual to them—a person they loved very much but had lost—so they tiptoed around her, never giving her any rules, boundaries, or limitations. They didn’t realize that they weren’t doing Bella any favors by pampering her. She was a very unbalanced dog, always on edge because she was trying so hard to be a pack leader and not doing a very good job of it. She wasn’t having a good time in life. Most dogs instinctively know that they’re not meant to run your household. They don’t want to run your household! But if you’re not doing it, they sense they have no choice but to try to take over.
It’s instinctual for a dog to crave rules and structure in her life. Nature is all about rules and rituals of behavior. Now that domestic dogs live with us, it’s up to us to set the rules. What you allow and you don’t allow in your own household is up to you—whether the dog sleeps on the bed with you, whether she’s allowed on your furniture, whether she can dig in the backyard, whether she is permitted to beg for food at the dinner table. But there are certain behaviors of hers that I recommend you always block, because by allowing them, you could be encouraging dominance. You should not allow the dog to jump on you—or anyone else, for that matter—when you walk in the door. You should not allow your dog to whine when separated from you. No possessiveness over toys. No snapping or biting. No jumping on you in bed to wake you up. No aggressiveness toward people or other dogs or household animals. No incessant barking.
Some of the behaviors that you’ll want to block may be instinctual ones. This is why you must be much more than just your dog’s owner. You must be the pack leader. A pack leader controls both a dog’s instincts and her genetics. As a dog owner, you can control only affection and genetics. A dog trainer can control only genetics. A dog handler can control only genetics. You can send your dog to obedience school and teach her how to sit, stay, come, and heel. You can teach her how to catch a Frisbee or run an obstacle course. That’s genetics. But just because a person goes to Harvard doesn’t mean he’s balanced when he graduates, and just because a dog knows how to obey doesn’t mean she’s balanced, either. When you train a dog, you don’t get access to that dog’s mind, you get access only to conditioning. And conditioning doesn’t mean anything in the dog world. Dogs don’t care about winning the Westminster. They don’t care about winning the prize for catching the most Frisbees. A dog may be able to follow commands, or retrieve, or track, or do any number of things that her breed, her genetics, programs her to do. But can she play happily with other dogs without a fight? Can she travel in a pack? Can she eat her dinner without being protective over her food? That’s instinct. A pack leader controls both.
For example, you may have had this experience with your dog. She loves to play ball. In your backyard, you play catch and retrieve all day long. That’s your dog’s genetics. That’s the breed in her. You control your dog’s behavior, but with the ball. Her motivation to be with you is the ball, because you have the ball. But let’s say your dog loses interest in the ball. Her new motivation is the cat. She starts chasing the cat. That’s her instinct calling her. Can you control her now? Can you block that behavior? Or, without the ball, outside of the backyard, can you control your dog during a walk? Can you keep her from chasing squirrels while you’re walking? You can’t block her from chasing the cat or the squirrel with a tennis ball. The only way you can block these behaviors is with leadership. Unless you are in control of her instinctual side, you cannot predict or control what your dog may or may not do.
As pack leader to thirty to forty dogs at the Dog Psychology Center, I often have to block instinctual behaviors in order to keep the pack running smoothly. It’s instinctual for dogs to mount one another, but sometimes I have to block them because if that behavior gets too intense, it could escalate into a fight. I don’t allow the dogs to fight over food, or over a tennis ball. No fighting or aggression is allowed in my pack—none is tolerated. No bigger dogs are allowed to go after smaller dogs—that’s how our teacup Chihuahua, Coco, can live happily in the same pack with two giant German shepherds, seven pit bulls, and a Doberman. I have to block the stronger dogs from going after the weaker ones or the ones who have unstable energy. It’s natural for dogs to try to get rid of unstable energy in a pack member, but I have to teach my pack to accept weaker members and not harass them. That’s how the pack helps rehabilitate unstable dogs—showing them by example what balanced, calm-submissive energy looks and feels like. I also block the dogs from chewing on or digging in the greenery or rolling in each other’s poop. Those rules are my choices because they suit me as a human being. As pack leaders to our dogs, we have the right and responsibility to choose the rules they live by.
However, whenever I block any instinctual behavior, I must replace it with another activity to redirect the energy. You can’t just take something away and give nothing in return. The energy that drove the dog to the undesirable behavior doesn’t just vanish because you blocked it! You must replace an undesirable activity with a desirable one. That’s why I have obstacle courses, swimming pools, treadmills, tennis balls, and other distractions for the dogs at the Center. That’s why they spend from five to eight hours every day in vigorous exercise, and why I make every activity—from walking to taking a bath to eating—a psychological challenge for them. If you don’t give your dog ways to drain her energy and exercise her mind, it will be a lot more difficult for her to stick to the rules and boundaries that you set for her. If you are a good, responsible pack leader, you will provide not only the structure for her life, but plenty of outlets for her natural energy as well.
3. Affection
Dogs in the United States may be lacking in the amount of exercise and discipline they get every day, but they certainly aren’t lacking in affection. That is why many people here choose to bring dogs into their lives—for that amazing, unconditional, canine love and affection they share. And dogs are affectionate animals. They are very physical animals, and touch means a lot to them, both in their natural world and when they come to live with us. But as I’ve said before, affection that hasn’t been earned can be detrimental to a dog. Especially affection that is shared at the wrong time.
When is the right time to share affection? After a dog has exercised and eaten. After a dog has changed his unwanted behavior into a behavior that you asked for. After a dog has responded to a rule or a command. If your dog jumps up on you demanding to be petted, it’s probably your instinct to oblige her. This behavior sends her the signal that she is in charge. Share your affection only with a mind that is calm and submissive. Ask your dog to sit down and calm down. Then you share affection, on your terms. Your dog will quickly come to realize that there is only one correct behavior to get her the things she wants.
When is the wrong time to give affection? When your dog is fearful, anxious, possessive, dominant, aggressive, whining, begging, barking—or breaking any rule of your household. The owners of Bane and Hera, the killer dogs in San Francisco, were always giving affection to the dogs after the dogs had been terrorizing people all day. Anytime you give affection, you reinforce the behavior that preceded it. You cannot “love” a dog out of her bad behavior, just as you can’t “love” a criminal into stopping his crimes. When I was first married to my wife, Ilusion, she gave me all the love in the world, but it wasn’t that love that snapped me out of the bad behavior that I was used to getting away with. What got me to change and become a good husband and partner was when she finally drew a line in the sand. I could shape up, or she was shipping out. I have to admit, it wasn’t love that changed me. It was rules, boundaries, and limitations!
You can find excellent examples of the proper way to give affection when you observe dogs that have jobs. Handicapped people with service dogs must understand that the dog isn’t there just to be their friend. They have to learn to play the leadership role before they can expect the dog to turn on the lights, open the doors, or lead them to the bus stop. Even though these dogs have been trained by professionals, they won’t respond to the handicapped person until that person learns to share calm-assertive energy. If you’ve seen these dogs in action, you’ve noticed they wear a sign that says not to give them affection while they’re at work. By law, you can’t touch those dogs. Affection will only create excitement, and a dog can’t do its job when she’s excited. When does the handicapped person share affection? After the dog has performed a task, and at home, at the end of a hard working day. Dogs in search-and-rescue and police dogs don’t receive affection while they’re working, unless it’s immediately after they have completed an important task. Drug enforcement officers don’t play with their dogs all day and then expect them to calmly search out packages for illegal substances. To have to work for affection is a very natural thing for a dog. It’s only we humans who believe that if we’re not giving affection to the dog 24-7, we’re somehow depriving it of something.
FULFILLMENT
When I talk about “fulfilling” our dogs, I mean fulfillment in the same way we think about fulfillment in our own lives. Are we happy? Are we living each day to the fullest? Are we reaching our potential, exercising all the talents and abilities we were born with? It’s the same thing for dogs. A dog’s life is fulfilled if it can live comfortably in a pack, feeling safe and secure under the guidance of its pack leader. A dog is fulfilled if it has frequent primal exercise and, in some way, feels that it is working for food and water. A dog is fulfilled when it trusts its pack leader to set consistent rules and boundaries for it to live by. Dogs love routine, ritual, and consistency. They also love new experiences and the chance to explore—especially when they feel they have a reliable bond with their pack leaders.
Dogs fulfill us in so many ways. They fill in for human companions when we’re lonely. They keep us company on our morning walks. They give us something living, soft, and warm to cuddle with. They serve as alarm clocks, burglar alarms, and sentries. They win us money in competitions. We don’t ask them to do these things, but they do. They can’t speak and ask us for what they need. Giving them these simple things—exercise, discipline, and affection, in that order—will go a long way toward thanking our dogs for everything they bring to our lives.
Cesar Millan with Melissa Jo Peltier.
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