How We Screw Up Our Dogs
Almost all dogs are born naturally balanced. If they live as they do in nature—in stable packs—they spend their days in peace and fulfillment. If any dog in a pack becomes unstable, that dog will be forced to leave the pack or will be taken out by the other pack members. It sounds harsh, but it is nature’s way of ensuring that the pack survive and continue for future generations.
When humans adopt dogs and bring them into our lives and homes, most of the time we have the dogs best interests at heart. We try to give them what it is we think they need. The problem is that we are making assumptions based not on what canines need but on what humans need. By humanizing dogs, we damage them psychologically.
When we humanize dogs, we create what I call “issues”—which are pretty much the same things a human psychiatrist calls “issues” when referring to his patients’ problems. “Issues” are negative adaptations in dealing with the world. As human beings, our issues range far and wide and can be as simple as a fear of spiders or as complex as obsessive-compulsive disorder or foot fetishes. For dogs, issues are much simpler. But like human issues, dog issues are caused by an imbalance.
In this chapter, I want to address the most common canine issues that I’m called in to help correct. I hope you’ll learn not only how to address these issues once they’ve formed but, more important, how to prevent them from forming in the first place.
Aggression
Aggression is the reason that I’m most commonly called in on a case. I am sometimes considered a dog’s “last hope” before he or she is given away or even put down. Aggression isn’t really an issue at all. It’s the outcome of an issue.
Aggression in a dog isn’t natural. Even wolves in the wild are rarely aggressive toward their own kind, or even toward humans1—unless there is a clear, specific reason such as threat or starvation. Aggression develops when a dog’s issues aren’t dealt with, when frustrated energy has no release. Unfortunately, such aggression always escalates if left unchecked. The sad truth is that when I am called in to treat an aggressive dog, I usually find a dog that could easily have been saved from having this problem. She could’ve been stopped before she got this messed up. Dog owners are sometimes motivated to seek out help only when their dog bites someone and they suddenly find themselves with a lawsuit on their hands. They’ll say things like “She’s a sweetie around the house with the children,” or “He only acts this way when the doorbell rings.” I wish every person with a dog would take more seriously early signs of aggressive behavior, and seek a professional’s help before their neighbors drag them into court—or worse, before somebody gets hurt.
Dominance Aggression
While aggression isn’t a natural state for a dog, dominance is natural for some dogs. Your dog may be a naturally dominant, high-energy animal. Does that mean she’s bound to be aggressive or dangerous? No. It does mean, however, that you need to play the role of an even more reliable, calm-assertive pack leader with her. I mean that you have to play that role 24-7. Because that’s what leadership means to a dog. A leader is a leader around the clock. No matter how tired you are, no matter whether you want to concentrate on a ball game or your magazine, you still send her the same calm-assertive leadership energy.
Remember, naturally dominant dogs, pack leaders, are few and far between. Just as in the human world there are only a few Oprah Winfreys and a few Bill Gateses, there are a corresponding number of born pack leaders in the dog world. These dogs, if they don’t get enough physical and psychological challenges, can indeed become very dangerous animals. They can and might become problem dogs. We owe it to these dogs—if we bring them into our lives—to provide the stimulation and the challenges they need.
Contrary to what many people believe, there is no such thing as a “dominant breed.” Think about it—in a litter of puppies, one will stand out as the most dominant, and will grow up to run the pack. The others will be followers. Same litter. Same breed. There are powerful breeds—pit bulls, Rottweilers, German shepherds, Cane corsos—but it’s up to the pack leader in the breed to direct that energy into healthy outlets. If you have a powerful breed dog, you’d better make sure you’re the pack leader.
In the wild, the most naturally dominant animal becomes the pack leader. As I’ve said before, leaders are born, not made. But what if something happens to that leader? Number two will step in—often, the female companion of the male leader. Then an outside male might challenge her for pack leadership. If she feels that he’s not powerful enough to take over, she’ll chase him away or kill him. But if the new guy is indeed the most powerful, the whole pack will surrender to him right away—without a fight. Mother Nature does the “voting” for them—the new leader’s energy automatically gets him elected. But once that hierarchy is determined, the dogs who are in the number two and three slots don’t take it personally. They’re not “ambitious” the way a human might be—the way a vice president is just waiting for his turn to be president, or the junior executive is just waiting to take over the company. Dogs are instinctually programmed to accept that the most dominant animal leads the pack. If another dog’s more powerful than they are, they’ll happily fall in line. Your dog will not take it personally if you establish your dominance over her. If she could, she would probably thank you for it.
If you have a naturally dominant dog, you need to establish your authority early, often, and convincingly. Think of your dog as having come into your life for a reason—to make you a stronger, more confident, more calm-assertive person. Who among us could not benefit from a little more calm-assertive energy in our lives—whether we’re at work, with our family, or even while sitting in a traffic jam? It’s best if you raise the dog from puppyhood to see you as leader, but you can become pack leader to a dominant dog at anytime in its life. It’s all about the energy you project. You could be absolutely blind, have one leg, one arm, be in a wheelchair—but if your energy is more powerful than a 165-pound Rottweiler’s, you own her. Automatically. I’m not a big guy, but at the Dog Psychology Center, I handle thirty to forty dogs at once. Often, all it takes is a glance from me to short-circuit a dog’s forbidden behavior. It’s not my size, it’s my intensity.
When a person owns a powerful breed or has a dog with a dominant mind, if his level of energy is lower than the dog’s energy, then he’ll have to work on himself psychologically. Remember, this is natural. Your dog does not want to be your equal. Her world is made up of leaders and followers, and it’s up to you, the owner, to choose which role you will play. If you’re not willing to do this, or you simply cannot do it, you may not have the right dog for you. In a Dogs in the Red Zone, I’ll talk about red-zone aggression, which is serious business. Powerful dogs in the red zone have caused severe bites and even deaths. Most of the time, these are dominant dogs whose owners can’t handle them. So think long and hard about the dog you are living with. If you can’t handle her at all times and in all situations, it’s bad news for you, for the dog, and for society.
Here’s an example of a client who let a dominant dog get out of control to the point where his aggression was heading toward the danger zone. Let’s call the client Sue. I worked with Sue for six months, trying to teach her how to manage her dog, Tommy, an Irish setter/German shepherd mix. From the beginning, Sue had done everything wrong with Tommy, who was a naturally dominant dog. It started with her letting him jump all over her. This progressed to the point where she would let the dog mount her and stay still until he finished mounting. Tommy was out of control, highly territorial, overly protective of Sue, and clearly the dominant one in the household. It was a very sick relationship. He had bitten some neighborhood kids and attacked the pool man, and animal control had been alerted. I tried to teach Sue to master the walk, to project calm-assertive energy, but she simply couldn’t do it. She was dealing with psychological issues of her own, and for whatever reason, she could not follow up on rules and discipline. I finally broke it to her. I said, “I’ve done whatever I could to help you. But at this point, the only thing that is going to keep Tommy alive is if we place him in another home.”
Of course it was heartbreaking for Sue. But it did save Tommy’s life. Not only is he very much alive, Tommy is now a cadaver dog for the LAPD and is also performing in a movie for DreamWorks. He finally has healthier outlets for channeling all his intense, dominant energy. And he has no problem following commands from his handlers. It was a simple situation of the wrong dog with the wrong person, but a bad match can make for some dangerous problems.
Humans can exacerbate dominant aggression in a number of ways. The first is by allowing dominance in the first place. Remember, if you don’t set the agenda for the things you do with and for your dog, then she’s the pack leader. Another way is by playing “dominance games” with a dog and letting her win. Even if you play tug-of-war with your puppy, if she gets used to winning, she may begin to see this as a sign of her dominance over you. Roughhousing with dogs, even if they’re just puppies, can lay the groundwork for aggression problems later on. If your dog starts to get possessive or growls during a play fight, you could be creating a monster.
Fearful Aggression
Much aggression is caused by fear, especially in little dogs with a Napoleon complex. When I worked at the groomer’s in San Diego, I noticed right away that the meanest dogs were often the smallest. Often, fearful aggression will begin with just a snarl or a showing of teeth. If your dog shows these signs when you take her to the groomer’s or when you try to get her out from under a table, now is the time to get help! Like all forms of aggression, fear aggression always escalates. The dog learns it can keep people away by showing her teeth, and pretty soon, the teeth baring becomes a nipping. The good news is that fear-biters at this stage usually don’t dig in when they bite. They usually just nip, and then retreat. Their goal is for you—or the offending party—to just go away and leave them alone. But any aggression can escalate into something worse. Your dog isn’t cute when she snarls or snaps. That’s not “just her personality.” She’s unbalanced, and she needs help.
Fear aggression can be caused by abuse. If a dog has been hurt and discovers that she can stop the pain by lashing out, then of course that’s what she will do. Most cases of fear aggression that I’m called in on, however, result not from cruelty but from the owners giving love—at the wrong time. Oprah’s dog, Sophie, is a prime example. When Sophie lashed out at another dog, Oprah would scoop her up and comfort her, thus reinforcing the behavior.
I have a dog at my center now, a female pit bull mix named Pinky, that is an extreme case of fear aggression. When a human approaches her, she rolls up her lip in a snarl, tucks her tail between her legs, crouches down, and starts to shake. And I mean shake. Her legs tremble so much she can barely stand up. She is immobilized by fear. Pinky’s owner felt sorry for her. He felt so sorry for her that he was always soothing her, giving her affection, nurturing her behavior and her mind at its most unstable. When you see an extreme case like Pinky, you realize how truly debilitating fearful aggression can be to a dog.
Give Affection—but at the Right Time!
This is as good a time as any to stop and remind you—yet again—of one of the most common ways we screw up our dogs and give them issues. We share affection, but at the wrong times. We give affection when the dog’s mind is the most unstable. This is often the hardest advice for my clients to hear. “Hold back affection? It’s not natural!” Please don’t misunderstand me. Love is a beautiful thing, and one of the greatest gifts we can share with our dogs. But it’s not the most important thing they need—especially if they have issues. If you’re unstable, you can’t really experience love; you aren’t able to feel it. Love doesn’t help an unstable dog. Aggressive dogs are not healed because their owners love them, any more than an abusive husband will be healed if his wife, his victim, simply loves him more. Those parents on Nanny 911—of course they love their children! But love’s the only thing they’re giving. They’re not giving their kids exercise. They’re not giving them psychological stimulation. There are no rules. Are those kids having a good time? No. That’s why their parents called the nanny. Unstable dogs aren’t having a good time either, even though they’re often much loved by their owners. That’s why their owners call me.
Love is not meant to enhance instability. Love is meant to reward stability, to take us to a higher level of communication. Just like in the human world, in the dog world love means something only if it is earned. I would never tell people to stop loving their dogs, or to love them “less,” or in any way to measure the love they give them. Give your dog as much love as you have. Give as much love as your heart can handle and then some! But please, give it at the right time. Share affection to help your dog, not just to fulfill your own needs. Giving love at the right time and only the right time is a way you can truly prove your love for your dog. Actions speak louder than words.
Fearful aggression doesn’t come out of nowhere. It is carefully tended like a garden by unknowing, and well-meaning, owners. Another example of a fearful-aggressive dog is Josh, whom the writers on my television show nicknamed the “Grooming Gremlin,” for his long eye-concealing hair. Josh was a shelter dog that no one would adopt. He would bare his teeth at anyone who passed by his cage. Everybody who came into the shelter felt sorry for Josh—everybody. “Feeling sorry” for an animal in a shelter is something most people do. Sympathy is only human. But when fifty people go to a shelter and all of them send that soft, sympathetic “oh, the poor dog!” energy to an animal, that energy eventually becomes who that animal is. It defines him.
Ronette, a nurse, felt so sorry for Josh that she adopted him on the spot. Then she proceeded to continue to feel sorry for him every day. When he snarled at her daughter for approaching his food dish, Ronette would scoop him up and comfort him, as if her daughter were the offending party. When he attacked the professional groomers so often that he was banned from the place, she’d spend hours grooming the crotchety little fellow, who would not allow scissors near his eyes.
Believe it or not, I’ve been bitten by very few dogs in my career. Josh turned out to be one of them! He bit me while I was grooming him—but I continued on as if nothing had happened. He had to learn that a human was not going to back down, no matter how aggressive he became. Being a little dog, he was more snarl than nip and more nip than bite. He surrendered, and today Josh can go to the groomer’s without drawing blood.
I use both Pinky and Josh as examples because I want to stress that “feeling sorry” for a dog is not doing that dog a favor. It is actually hurting her chances of becoming balanced in the future. Imagine if someone “felt sorry” for you all the time. How would that make you feel about yourself? Dogs need leadership before they need love. Let love reward balance. That’s how balance is maintained.
How do you deal with fearful aggression? You don’t give in. You have a choice—either wait out the dog and let her come to you, or go in and get her. If you go in and get her, you have to follow through. You simply cannot let her win. You must remain calm and assertive, and you can’t get angry. Remember at all times that you are doing this for the good of the animal. Patience is the key. Waiting it out. Man is the only animal that doesn’t seem to understand patience. Wolves wait for their prey. Crocodiles wait. Tigers wait. But, especially here in America, we’re used to drive-thrus, FedEx, and high-speed Internet. You cannot rush the rehabilitation of a dog with fearful aggression. You may have to go in and get that dog fifty, one hundred times before it sinks in. I have a couple of fearful dogs at the Center that I know I’ll be getting out of corners again and again and again until they finally come to understand that only calm submission will be rewarded.
With Pinky, the fearful-aggressive pit bull, the moment I put my thirty-five-cent leash on her, she relaxes. That’s the nature of a follower—she wants to be told what to do. If I walk with her only a few feet, she begins to show all the physical signs of calm submission. She relaxes and calms down. If I wait too long before telling her what I want her to do next, the body language changes again—the tail goes between the legs, the shaking starts. No amount of affection is going to help this dog—in this case, affection contributed greatly to her problem. When do I give Pinky affection? The moment I see her relax when we walk with the leash. I will continue to do that until she is rehabilitated.
Hyperactive Energy
Does your dog jump all over you when you come home? Do you think it’s just because your dog is happy to see you and has “spirit”? Do you look at this behavior as your dog’s “personality”? It’s not spirit or personality. Hyperactive energy—overexcitement—isn’t natural for a dog. It’s not healthy.
In dogs’ natural state, they do get excited and do play with one another, but excitement has a time and place. After a hunt, or after they’ve eaten, they have what is like a celebration, which we interpret as affection. They can and do “play rough” with one another, becoming excited-submissive or excited-dominant. But they don’t practice excited behavior for a long time, and they don’t practice excitement with that hyperactive “panting” sound you get with an overexcited domestic dog. That is a different type of excitement, a kind of crazy excitement. Some dogs in America seem to be in a state of hyperexcitement all the time. And it’s not good for them.
I’ve noticed that my clients often interpret the words happiness and excitement as the same thing: “She’s just happy to see me!” The two aren’t the same. A happy dog is alert; her ears are up, her head is up, and her tail is wagging. An overexcited dog is jumping up, panting, and can’t stop moving around. This is pent-up energy. Hyperactively energetic dogs are often among the hardest cases to rehabilitate. Hyperactive energy fosters other issues as well, such as fixation and obsession.
When their dogs jump on them at the door when they come home, many of my clients greet them with lots of affection. First of all, if your dog is jumping on you, that’s an act of dominance. Don’t allow it. Dogs are naturally curious, and they’ll obviously be interested when someone comes to the door of your house. But they need manners to greet visitors with. Dogs don’t greet other dogs by jumping all over them. They greet one another by sniffing. If that etiquette is good enough for the dog world, it’s certainly good enough for your home.
Keep your dog leashed when visitors come to your home while you are teaching her how to greet visitors politely. Once you feel you are making visible progress, ask your guests to help you out. Instruct them not to acknowledge your jumping, overexcited dog—no talk, no touch, no eye contact—until she has calmed down. When a dog is being ignored, it sometimes calms down in mere seconds.
Hyperactive dogs need exercise, and a lot of it. And they need it before they get affection. When you come home, take your dog for a long walk. Then feed her. You have provided her with a physical and psychological challenge, followed by a reward of food. Then later, when her mind is calm, give her affection. Don’t encourage the crazy jumping behavior, even if it seems fun for you and makes you feel loved. I’m sorry, but all that fuss is not because your dog is “happy to see you.” It’s because she has too much pent-up energy and she’s got to release it somehow.
Anxiety/Separation Anxiety
Anxiety can contribute to hyperactive energy. You don’t see a lot of anxiety in nature. Fear, yes; anxiety, no. It’s only when we bring animals into the home or cage them up that we create anxiety in them. Anxiety can cause the kind of whimpering, whining, howling, separation anxiety that Oprah’s dog Sophie used to experience every time Oprah went away. For dogs to be concerned about separation from you is normal. It is instinctual for them to worry or be sad if the pack is broken up, even if that “pack” consists of only you and your dog. And it’s not natural for a dog to be shut up in a house or apartment alone all day with nothing to do. Your dog can’t read a book or do a crossword puzzle—or watch my television show. Her energy has nowhere to go while you’re gone. No wonder so many American dogs experience separation anxiety—and end up with all that built-up, hyperactive energy when their owners return home.
By the way, when you return home to find that your dog has eaten your favorite pair of shoes, it’s not because she’s “mad at you” for leaving and “knew” you loved those shoes! There you go, humanizing your dog again! Your dog ate your shoes because of her bottled-up energy. First, she smelled your shoes; they smelled familiar, like you. Smelling the shoes and reacting to your familiar scent, she got excited. Once she got excited, she had to release all that energy and anxiety. So she unleashed it all on your unlucky shoes.
I find that owners often don’t recognize symptoms of anxiety in their dogs. They think that the separation anxiety begins when they leave the house—but in reality, it starts with unreleased energy that has been building since the moment their dog woke up. An owner wakes up, brushes his teeth, drinks a cup a coffee, and makes breakfast—and all the while his dog is in the background, following him room to room, pacing. The owner thinks, “Oh, she just loves to be with me; she has to make sure I’m fine all the time.” All this is a fiction the human creates in his mind in order to feel good. That dog is showing you not how much she loves you, but how anxious she is. If you leave the house without giving her some way to release that energy, of course she’ll have separation-anxiety issues.
I tell my clients to take their dogs for a good long walk, run, or even a Rollerblade session first thing in the morning; that’s good for the human’s health, too. If you absolutely can’t do that, put the dog on a treadmill while you’re eating breakfast or putting on your makeup. Really tire her out. Then it’s feeding time. By the time you leave the house, your dog will be tired and full, and in a naturally resting state. The mind will be calm-submissive, and it will make much more sense for her to be quiet for the rest of the day. You’ll also be less likely to have a hyperactive dog greet you at the door. Another piece of advice is not to make a big deal out of coming and going. If you share excited energy when you come and go, it only feeds an anxious mind.
Obsessions/Fixations
Another possible outcome for a dog’s unreleased energy results in the dog’s becoming fixated on or obsessed with something. It could be anything from a tennis ball to the cat, but it’s not natural and it’s not good for your dog.
A fixation is wasted energy. A dog needs to channel her energy into something in order to be balanced and calm-submissive. A dog living with a homeless person walks all day, so that’s where the energy goes. A dog that lives with a disabled person has the physical-psychological challenge of keeping her owner safe, which is another way the dog releases her energy. Owners who run and walk with their dogs on a regular basis help their dogs drain energy.
Many owners feel that if they open the back door of their house, their dog will get enough of a workout by following a squirrel around the yard—a squirrel that, 99 percent of the time, the dog will never catch. So the dog spends all day just looking up at the squirrel in the tree, becoming fixated on a squirrel that doesn’t give a damn about the dog. (Have you ever seen an anxious squirrel?) The only one who is going nuts is the dog. All her energy is concentrated on the squirrel. That’s one way of creating a fixation.
Another way is allowing a dog simply to sit and stare at a cat or a bird or any other animal in the house. Because the dog is not biting, barking, or growling, the owner thinks it’s okay. But being in a fixated mode is not normal for a dog. The dog’s eyes will be focused, her pupils will be dilated, and sometimes the dog will drool. The body language will be tense. If the owner gives the dog a command when it is in this fixated mode, the dog won’t respond. Her ears won’t even twitch in recognition of her owner’s voice. When the owner takes a dog to the dog park and it runs back and forth, back and forth, compulsively chasing smaller dogs, it’s not playing. That’s not a game. That’s fixation. Even if it doesn’t come to a bite this time, a fixation like this is serious because it can escalate into the red zone.
Another kind of fixation is when a dog obsesses or fixates on a toy or activity. Ever meet a dog who goes insane over a tennis ball, begging you to throw the ball again and again and again, until you want to pull your hair out? Many owners think they can substitute taking a dog out to play fetch for giving him regular walks. That doesn’t work. Yes, it’s exercise, but not the kind of primal activity that migrating with a pack leader provides. I like to compare it to taking the kids to Chuck E. Cheese’s versus taking them to piano lessons. Chuck E. Cheese’s will have them bouncing off the walls. That’s excitement. Piano lessons will be a psychological challenge. That’s calm submission. Playing catch is excitement; a walk is calm submission. If an owner skips the walk and just plays with the dog, the dog will have to use that playtime as the only way to totally drain her energy. The dog is being given that activity while her mind is anxious and excited. She’ll play until he drops, which will be long after the owner does. At the same time, she’ll go into the kind of high gear she would never reach naturally. When wolves or feral dogs hunt, they’re very organized. They’re calm. They’re not fixated on what they’re hunting. Focused, yes. Fixated, no. One is a natural state. The other is not.
The problem is, owners often see fixations as “cute” or “funny.” Or they describe them as love. “She just loves that Frisbee!” “He just adores playing with that ball.” That’s not a healthy kind of love. A fixation is just like an addiction in a human, and can be just as dangerous. Think of a gambling addict in Las Vegas, sitting there all night, pouring coins into a slot, and pulling that one-armed bandit, for hours on end. That’s a fixation. Smoking, drinking—anything that you can’t control and where there are no limits, then you’re in a fixated mode. You’re not in control anymore. In this case, the ball controls the dog. Or the cat controls the dog. Or the squirrel controls the dog. Some dogs can become so fixated on an object that they will bite or attack another dog or a person who tries to take that object away from them. If you don’t watch out, you’re heading for the red zone.
At the Dog Psychology Center, if we’re going to play with a ball, I make sure that before we do, everybody’s quiet. If I’m going to feed the dogs dinner, first, everybody’s quiet. If I’m going to give affection, first, everybody’s quiet. I never give anything to the dogs if their minds are not calm-submissive. That’s how I make a fixated dog become normal. Because he never gets anything if he’s in that state. That’s how I can have fifty dogs playing with the same ball without anybody getting hurt. We also never play or eat without doing some sort of vigorous exercise—walking, running, or Rollerblading—first. Draining energy is vital.
Dogs with fixations try our patience. Most people try to reason with their dogs verbally when they’re fixated on an object such as a favorite toy or a tennis ball. Then this escalates to orders: “No, leave it. Leave it. Leave it. Leave it. Leave it.” That only creates more excited and unstable energy for the animal. By this time, the human is already frustrated and angry at the dog because the dog hasn’t heard a word he’s been saying for the past ten minutes. Then the owner makes the decision to grab the dog physically and pull the object away. Now he’s projecting so much unstable, frustrated energy that the dog’s fixation only gets worse.
Uncrossing Jordan
The most physically exhausting case I handled in the first season of my television show was that of Jordan the bulldog and his multiple obsessions. Jordan’s owner, Bill, had specifically wanted a calm, low-energy, lazy bulldog. Jordan certainly seemed quiet when Bill picked him out of the litter, but he grew up to be a hyperactive, dominant, and obsessive-fixated dog. He would fixate on a skateboard, a basketball, a garden hose—really, pretty much any object that was within reach. He’d take that object in his mouth and never let go. Bill and his family did the number one worst thing to do with an animal that’s got an object of fixation in its mouth: they played tug-of-war with Jordan. By trying to pull the ball or the skateboard away from the dog, they were activating his prey instinct, making him go even crazier. Bill’s energy didn’t help much, either. Patience is a virtue when it comes to a fixated mind. Of course, so is calm-assertive energy. Bill seemed like a laid-back, easy-going guy on the surface, but underneath he was actually very tense and easily frustrated. Remember when I said that energy doesn’t lie? Bill wasn’t fooling Jordan. His passive-aggressive, frustrated energy was mirrored in Jordan’s obsessions.
When rehabilitating dogs, it’s usually easier for me to remove a dominant, aggressive state of mind than a hyperactive-fixated state of mind. Jordan was no exception. I started with the skateboard. Because bulldogs usually get hot and worn out easily, I figured it wouldn’t take much for me to drain Jordan’s energy. He would prove me very wrong. That bulldog was one determined little fellow. With each object, instead of pulling the object away from him, I challenged him to back away from it, thus claiming the object for myself. Every time he moved forward, I corrected him with a tug. This eventually sends a signal to the brain that what I want is submission. I went forward instead of moving away from him. And I stayed with that same calm-assertive energy until Jordan finally got it, but because he had been living in that fixated state for so long, it wasn’t easy. I was dripping with sweat by the end of the session.
Working with Jordan’s owner, Bill, was my next task. I had to get Bill to understand his part of the equation. He needed to become more patient and to practice being calmer and more assertive. I truly believe, and it has been my experience, that animals are put into our lives for a purpose: to teach us lessons and to help us become better people. Jordan was certainly pushing all of Bill’s buttons. Perhaps if Bill had found himself a lower-energy, mellower dog, he wouldn’t have been challenged to change. Bill loved Jordan, and he was motivated to become a more balanced person so that Jordan could be a more balanced bulldog.
A fixated or obsessive dog needs an outlet for her pent-up energy, which begins with the walk. She also needs an owner who will be there to “snap her out of it” the moment she begins to fixate. You can’t wait until she’s already into the fixated mode. And you’ll know that mode when you see it. Her body language will change, and she’ll stiffen. Her pupils will dilate. When this happens, she needs to be brought back to a calm, relaxed state immediately, with an appropriate correction. I advised Bill to go for a good long walk to tire Jordan out, then to put the object in front of him and make sure he didn’t go for it. If a dog’s problem has been going on a long time, you’re going to need to do this again and again and again—perhaps for months if the fixation is really bad. It’s as they say in AA: one day at a time. If you’ve been consistently been doing negative things in your life—smoking, drinking, overeating—you have to practice consistency in replacing those things with positive activities. Rehabilitating a fixated-obsessive dog may seem like a lot of work, and it can be. But we owe it to our dogs to put in this kind of effort in order for them to become balanced.
Phobias
You remember Kane, the Great Dane who was afraid of shiny floors? That’s a classic example of a phobia. A dog can develop a phobia for just about anything, from a certain pair of boots to another animal to an entire gender of people! Phobias are, very simply, fears that the dog has not been able to move beyond. If a dog’s mind isn’t allowed to move forward after a fear-inspiring incident, that fear can become a phobia. In the natural world, an animal learns from fear. A wolf learns to avoid traps. A cat learns not to play with snakes. But animals don’t make a big deal out of the things that scare them. They don’t lose sleep over them. They experience the emotion, learn from it, and then move on with their lives. We humans create phobias for them by the way we react to their fears. We keep them stuck. Marina, Kane’s owner, made a huge fuss when Kane slipped on the shiny floor that first time. Then she made the mistake of comforting him whenever he was near the object of his phobia.
Even if we don’t know the cause of a dog’s phobia, guess what will either cause or intensify any phobia there is? You guessed it—once again, it’s giving affection at the wrong time. When a child is afraid and we comfort him and give him affection and love, that’s human psychology. When a dog is afraid and we comfort her and give her affection and love, that’s also human psychology—not dog psychology. A dog wouldn’t show affection to another dog that was afraid! The correct response to a dog’s phobia is to show leadership. First, drain the dog’s energy—since a phobia is a kind of reverse obsession, the same principles apply. If a dog is tired and relaxed, she’s much less likely to be phobic—and much more responsive to a strong pack leader who will help her move past her fears.
Low Self-Esteem
Self-esteem isn’t an issue, but it does play a part in many of the dog problems that I come across. When I refer to self-esteem in a dog, I’m not talking about what the dog thinks about how he looks or whether he’s popular or not. Self-esteem in a dog, to me, relates to energy, dominance, and submission. Dogs with low self-esteem are submissive, weak-energy, weak-minded dogs who may suffer from fears, panic, or phobias. They often exhibit anxiety. They may show fear-aggressive behavior (like Josh or Pinky), or they may simply be terminally shy.
Dogs with low self-esteem can also develop obsessions, but in a different way than the way a dominant, energetic dog like Jordan developed his. Take Brooks, an Entlebucher. When Brooks was a puppy, he was very timid. After being bitten by a neighbor’s dog, he became even more afraid. He would cower and slink away whenever anyone tried to pet him. Having low self-esteem, he felt as if everyone were coming after him, and he was afraid. Then one day, someone played a game of “chase” with him using a laser pointer—one of those pen-shaped tools that send a beam of light across the room. This became a game Brooks really loved because he had a chance to chase something. Something was running away from him for a change! He felt a little bit dominant over something and good about himself, and all the energy that he had stored up in his insecurities could be released while he chased after the light. From that point on, Brooks became obsessed with light. He was constantly being distracted by rays of sunlight, by reflections, by patterns of light and shade on the ground. His owners, Lorain and Chuck, couldn’t even take him on a walk without Brooks running off and chasing after whatever stray reflection came along. In Brooks’s mind, light became his only way to release pent-up energy. To insecure Brooks, the light was something that he could try to control. It never chased after him. It always moved away from him. This was an obsession created directly by both lack of physical exercise and by Brooks’s low self-esteem.
Unlike high-level-energy and dominant Jordan, Brooks was a weak-minded, submissive dog, so snapping him out of his obsession took me less than five minutes. I only had to tug on his leash a handful of times before he got it. Of course, his owners would have to continue correcting him—consistently—each time he began to go into fixated mode, but it wasn’t long before his obsession became a distant memory.
There are dogs whose self-esteem is at what I call rock bottom—dogs like Pinky. They are stuck in their insecurity. Instead of fight or flight, they freeze up. They’ll hide, they won’t move, they’ll shake—they simply can’t move forward in whatever they need to do. They won’t get better on their own; they need a human to help them.
Dogs with low self-esteem are desperately looking for a pack leader! They want to be told what to do—that’s sometimes the only time they’ll relax, as in Pinky’s case. Such dogs respond well to rules, boundaries, and limitations. The “power of the pack” will help them get better faster—being around her own kind is powerful therapy for a dog with low self-esteem—but her time in the pack must be closely supervised at first because of all dogs’ natural instinct for attacking weakness. Little by little, these dogs get better, but they need strong guidance from their human pack leader.
One last word about self-esteem. A domestic dog’s self-esteem shouldn’t be too high, either. In nature, only the pack leader gets to strut around with his tail up and chest forward, projecting dominant energy to the others. If you’re the pack leader with your dog, then only you get to do that in your house! When I come to a house where all the humans are tiptoeing around the dog, where the dog is the bully and everybody answers to her, then I know that that dog should feel a little less proud of herself. Becoming pack leader over a dominant dog means taking her down a peg. That definitely doesn’t mean physical abuse or humiliating her in any way. And remember, she’s not going to resent you for taking the lead. She might resist a little at first—to see how much she can get away with—but she won’t take offense once you prove to her that your energy is more powerful than hers.
Prevention
All of the issues I’ve presented here can be prevented if you remember to treat your dog like a dog, not a human—and you make it a priority to work to fulfill your dog’s life as much as she fulfills yours. In Cesar’s Fulfillment Formula for a Balanced and Healthy Dog, I’ll share with you my simple method for creating a happy, balanced dog. But first, I want to address the most serious cases I’m called in to help rehabilitate—cases of “red-zone” aggression.
Cesar Millan with Melissa Jo Peltier.
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