A really companionable and indispensable dog is an accident of nature. You can’t get it by breeding and you can’t buy it with money.
—E. B. White
We have friends who are hunters,” Marley & Me author John Grogan mused. “They come over here, take a look at Gracie and say, ‘Wow. What a waste.’ For a non-hunter to have such a magnificent hunting dog. Because they can see that she totally has that instinct.”
It was the summer of 2006, and Marley, the beloved yellow Labrador retriever who had won hearts all over the world, had died. I had come to a peaceful corner of rural Pennsylvania to see John and Jenny Grogan, Marley’s devoted owners, about their new Labrador retriever, Gracie. And while the beautiful Gracie was the same breed as Marley, her issues were very, very different. Or were they?
The Grogans, Gracie, and Me
After they had finished mourning the loss of their adored Marley, the Grogans realized like so many of us do that their house would not be a true home again without a dog in it. Nine months after Marley’s passing, Jenny went to a breeder and picked out an adorable, purebred Labrador who resembled their lost friend. Because Marley had been so high-energy and rambunctious, Jenny was attracted to the apparent calmness of this puppy, and brought her home—figuring that, after thirteen years of Marley, the odds were in favor of them getting a “perfect” dog this time. The family named her Gracie.
True to Jenny’s expectations, Gracie did grow up to be a much calmer and more sedate dog than Marley. Unlike her predecessor, she didn’t devour furniture or clothes or injure herself trying to dig through walls to escape whenever there was thunder outside. Gracie didn’t have Marley’s fear of loud noises, his hyperactive energy, or his burning need to fling his entire body at every stranger who entered the house. Inside the house, Gracie was peaceful and obedient, although she sometimes acted a little aloof and chose to do her own thing, in stark contrast with Marley, who had always wanted to be right at the center of any family activity. But it was when she went outdoors that Gracie turned into a real problem for the Grogans.
John and Jenny own a sprawling two-acre property surrounded by hills, trees, streams, and lakes, squirrels, rabbits, and other wild animals—a peaceful, private oasis and perfect paradise for any dog. They installed an underground invisible fence to create boundaries for Gracie, and allowed her to roam freely on their land all day long. Like so many of my clients, they mistakenly assumed that she was getting plenty of exercise on her own without daily walks with the family. Once Gracie left the house, however, she transformed into a completely different dog. She would refuse to come in when called, and the only way Jenny could get her to go back in the house was to bribe her with slices of bologna. “It works great—until you run out of bologna,” Jenny told me wistfully. The other problem (which the Grogans thought was completely unrelated to Gracie’s lack of consistent obedience) was Gracie’s obsession with hunting. She would spend all day stalking and devouring any small animal or bird that passed through the yard. The family had several chickens that provided them with eggs and that roamed free around the property, helpfully eating bugs and other garden pests. Of course, the family became attached to the chickens and treated them as pets. Unfortunately, two of those pet chickens met their maker after Gracie trained her predator’s eyes on them. “She ate Liberace,” Jenny admitted with a grimace. “You look differently at your dog once she’s eaten another one of your pets.” The Grogans moved the invisible fence so that the chicken’s coop was about four feet away from the boundary that Gracie wouldn’t cross, but she still stalked them obsessively, and therefore they couldn’t be let out to roam anymore. And, of course, when she was deep into her predator mode, not even bologna could entice her to obey her owners.
DESENSITIZING GRACIE TO ONE OF THE GROGANS’ SURVIVING CHICKENS.
To me, the problem was clear. The obedience issue and the hunting behavior were totally connected. The Grogans had purchased a 100 percent, purebred, top-of-the line retriever, and when they brought Gracie home, they also brought home her genetic blueprint. Although Gracie was trusting, loyal, and friendly, the Grogans were not fulfilling her needs as what I call animal-dog first, with structured exercise and clear rules, boundaries, and limitations. Because of this, they were coming smack up against her breed, which took over as a way for her to drain all that excess energy and frustration. The more purebred the dog, the more intense are the needs of the breed in her. Gracie’s genetics—her breed—were making her into a single-minded, focused, and exceptional hunter—but not a very respectful pet.
The Significance of Breed
In order to fulfill our dogs’ needs so that they will happily and willingly fulfill ours, it is vital to begin by addressing the animal in your dog. All animals need to work for food and water, and they all communicate with other animals using energy. The next level of communication is to address the dog in your pet. A dog, being a social carnivore, innately wants to be part of a pack. Dogs strive to see the world in a very orderly fashion, with clearly defined rules to live by and a defined hierarchy of jobs and status. Dogs see the world through nose first, eyes second, and ears third. Believe it or not, by simply addressing and fulfilling the needs of your pet as an animal first and dog second, you can learn to avoid or conquer many of the problems you might encounter with your pet.
The next level in your dog’s psychology, however, is her breed. Just as she receives “signals” from the animal and dog sides of her, the more purebred she is, the more attuned she’ll be to the signals coming from her breed side, and the more she’ll be driven to respond to those signals.
Breed Isn’t Destiny
I don’t agree with the common assumption that a dog’s breed will dictate the rest of her life, especially if she is first viewed as animal-dog. When people say to me, “I’m terrified of pit bulls; pit bulls are killers,” I introduce them to Daddy, the star pit bull of my pack, who is the sweetest, mellowest, most friendly and easygoing dog you’ll ever meet in your life. Daddy is indeed a pit bull by breed, and with his giant head and neck, he looks like quite an intimidating pit bull at that! But those of us who know Daddy see him as just a wonderful, totally loveable animal-dog wearing the outfit of a pit bull. As long as I address and fulfill all his animal-dog needs first, the pit bull side of him will not surface in a negative fashion. But when those needs aren’t fulfilled in a dog, breed can and often does become a factor in his physical and psychological responses to the stresses of life, and the pent-up energy that often follows.
The DNA of a dog’s breed contains part of her “instruction manual,” so to speak. Your dog’s breed is made up of what she was built for, so the more purebred she is, the more likely she will draw on the characteristics of her breed in order to release excess energy and frustration.
I started working with Daddy when he was four months old. If I had not given him vigorous daily exercise when he was younger, if I had not been clear and consistent about his rules, boundaries, and limitations from the time he was a puppy; and if I did not stay on the job 100 percent of the time as his unquestionable pack leader, then, if he became frustrated, perhaps Daddy’s pit bull genes could have driven him to become destructive. But the point is, with steady pack leadership, I freed him from the fate of living out the bad stereotypes of his genes. Even the half-dozen other pit bulls in my pack, all of whom were aggressive either to humans or dogs before their rehabilitations, are no longer doomed to forever play the role of the “killer pit bull.” By fulfilling their most basic needs, I can peel away their pit bull overcoats and let them enjoy life simply being dogs among other dogs.
It’s important to remember that we humans are the ones who actually created those breeds in the first place—we were the original designers of the very blueprints, or “instruction manuals,” that make our dogs look a certain way or exhibit a certain skill. It’s mind-boggling to think of all the processes and generations that it took to create the hundreds of breeds that exist today. Thousands of years before the nineteenth-century monk Gregor Mendel discovered the principles of modern genetics, humans somehow figured out that if you mated a fast mother dog and a fast father dog, you would probably end up with at least a few fast puppies in their litter. Or if you had male and female dogs that were both good at hunting, chances are their offspring would include some superior hunters. As humans and dogs evolved together, people began realizing that, hey, this dog can help me on the farm. This other dog can help me to guard my property. This third dog can fetch things in the water for me. Our ancestors started paying attention to and thinking hard about every particular skill that each individual dog seemed to be born with, and then they figured out how to adapt that skill for human benefit. Sometimes we just borrowed their natural talents—hunting, for instance—and conditioned them to perform those functions for us. In other instances, we took their inborn aptitudes and adapted them so the dogs would perform tasks that are man-made but feel primal. For instance, herding actually takes part of certain dogs’ natural hunting behavior but blocks the act of killing. Retrieving is also a man-made act that feels primal to dogs. And finally, some jobs we’ve created are all man-made—like hauling. We chose dogs specifically for their sizes and shapes and bred them to do tasks like that for us.
In this process, humans created generations of dogs that were born with specific skills to do the jobs they were “built for”—and very powerful drives that went along with those skills. The problem is, in our modern world, many dogs don’t get a chance to do those jobs or put those inborn skills to use. But all those drives are still lingering in their genes.
Remember, the breed part of your dog is much less primal than the dog or animal part of her. As in the case of Daddy, it is totally possible to block the brain from listening to the breed. How do you do this? By draining energy. Exercise, physical activity, and psychological challenge are the three ways to drain energy in any dog. Nothing trumps the vigorous walk—done correctly—as primal exercise for draining energy. If you walk for a longer period of time or at a faster pace, the dog has to use her energy for endurance, leaving less of it left over for breed-related activities. One of my favorite examples of good pack leadership are some of the members of L.A.’s homeless. You’ll often see fearsome-looking pit bulls following homeless people around. These dogs are walking purposefully, focused and obedient. They don’t pull, they don’t jump, and they don’t fight. They don’t get distracted by cats or squirrels or cars or little kids. Because they walk for a long period of time—and walk with intention—all the energy that goes into the animal, the dog, and the breed is constructively channeled. What’s important to remember is these dogs aren’t just walking around the block to pee. They are walking with a powerful intention. They feel in a primal way that they are using their skills to survive. This is what I try to create for my pack when we hike for long periods of time in the hills, or when I let them run next to me while I Rollerblade for an hour. A focused, primal experience with the pack leader burns energy, challenges the mind, and calms the soul of even the most purebred dog.
But let’s be realistic—most people can’t walk their dogs all day. Their dogs maybe huge parts of their lives, but they also have to make a living, take care of their families, and tend to all the various other details of being human in our complicated, modern world. Most of my clients fall into this category, so I try to help them create a combination of physical and psychological challenges for them to help their dogs fulfill their animal, dog, and breed sides, in that order.
The American Kennel Club has broken down groups of breeds into general categories, usually based on the original tasks the dogs were used for. Let’s look at those categories and talk about things you can add to your routine beyond the walk—from organized “club” activities to simple things you can do in your backyard or living room—to help fulfill any breed-specific needs that your dog might have.
The Sporting Group
The dogs we call “sporting” are the descendants of dogs bred to work with human hunters to locate, flush out, or retrieve game—specifically, birds. Pointers and setters are the dogs that locate and “point to” game, spaniels are the groups that flush out game, and retrievers are the group that brings back the game once it’s been shot. Remember, it’s called sporting because they’re not killing. Over time, humans have adapted these wolf-descended, finely tuned predatory instincts and behaviors and stopped them short of the actual kill. It becomes a sport to the animal; the only one who’s a full-fledged predator in this process is the human.
I don’t necessarily agree with the many guides to dog breeds out there that claim all dogs of a certain breed have a given preordained energy level. In the same way that there can be high-and low-energy kids born into the same family, there can be a whole range of different energy levels in every breed and even in every litter. Just because a dog has a blue ribbon lineage doesn’t necessarily mean that dog is going to become the poster pup for all of that breed’s ideal characteristics. If you breed together two prizewinning, sporting setters, you might get a litter of two energetic, potential prize-winning pups; one medium-energy pup that gets tired or bored after an hour on a hunt; and one mellow, laid-back dog who only wants to laze around the house and lie by the fire. I believe that, just as in humans, energy level is something you are born with. As I discussed in Identifying Instability, energy is a part of identity and what we call personality. No energy level is better or worse than another, though certain energy levels are better “fits” for certain jobs. You need a lower-energy human to be happy sitting at a computer all day; and of course you need a higher-energy human to be an aerobics teacher. The same thing applies to dogs. However, people discovered thousands of years ago that higher-energy dogs are necessary to be successful sporting dogs, so they began selecting as best they could to ensure that energy level in as many offspring as possible. A good sporting animal needs stamina. Hunting is a sport that can take hours and hours at a time of intense activity combined with focused waiting, requiring lots of patience and concentration. You have to move forward and you have to make sure you’re going on the right trail and following the right scent. That’s why it’s safe to say that sporting breeds are usually higher-energy dogs overall. The more purely they’re bred, the more intense those breed-specific characteristics will tend to be.
Gracie and Marley—Two Faces of a Breed
Both Gracie and Marley are Labrador retrievers; they’re from the sporting group, bred to find, track, and retrieve game. However similar they may look on the outside, though, they are great examples of the range of different temperaments that can be found in the same breed. Though Marley’s breeders claimed he was a purebred, he was definitely the offspring of city dog stock, and he was raised in a city setting, without all the environmental cues to trigger his buried instincts. In fact, it seemed that Marley had only a few leftover instincts from his sporting past—but he had all the pent-up energy that went along with them. John Grogan writes of how happy Marley was to go on long, long walks along the Intracoastal Waterway in Florida—walks that could only begin to challenge his very high energy level. Playing with him in the backyard, the Grogans were both entertained and frustrated by Marley’s inability to understand the concept of retrieving. That is, Marley didn’t understand that retrieving doesn’t just mean getting and keeping the ball; it means bringing it back as well! Marley’s energy and instincts were bouncing all over the place—and they usually found their outlet in destruction. When the Grogans moved to their rural Pennsylvania retreat during Marley’s later years, they saw him relax into his new environment that, on a very primal level, must have felt more familiar to him.
Gracie, on the other hand, was bred from hunting stock that had lived and thrived in the countryside for generations. She was a top-of-the-line dog who hit the jackpot when it came to hunting genes and energy level. And when you’re talking about a dog of that caliber, you are going to see from an early age all the greatness of the generations of her breed. From a very early age, you’ll see such a pup stalking a feather duster in the house; seeking out bird feathers in the yard; freezing and getting into stalking pose as they see birds and small animals wander by. It’s very clear to them what the purpose of their life is going to be. If a dog like Gracie were living in the city with the same lax structure she was now experiencing, she would most likely become neurotic, developing obsessive, possessive, or destructive tendencies. But living in her country paradise, she had plenty of natural outlets for her frustrations. And as the Grogans told me, when she got that bloodlust look in her eyes, it was as if they didn’t exist. She’d become a completely different dog, with one master only—her instinct. From an early age, the owners of such dogs have to learn to channel that energy and redirect such behavior if they don’t want the dog to take over on her own.
The Grogans told me that Gracie was quiet and controlled inside the house, which makes total sense. Gracie’s energy wasn’t wasted in bouncing off the walls, as Marley’s had been; she was carefully conserving it to use for the endurance that great hunting dogs need to track and stalk their prey. Her genes were telling her, “Don’t squander your resources in here; save them up! There are chickens outside in the yard, just waiting for you to stalk them!” She wasn’t going to sweat the small stuff by eating couches and knocking over tables like Marley did—because she had a clearer purpose for the skills born into her. That purpose lay in the great outdoors and all its temptations.
Both Gracie and Marley were frustrated dogs at heart. Though neither of them lacked for love from their family, both suffered from a lack of leadership, rules, boundaries, and limitations, and not enough physical and psychological challenges. But in Gracie’s case, her purebred genes were determining a very specific outlet for her frustration. The animal in her wasn’t being fulfilled because she wasn’t getting enough physical activity to simulate the process of having to work for food and water. The dog in her wasn’t being fulfilled because she lacked rules, boundaries, and limitations. But it was the breed in her that was telling her, “This is the activity that we practice in order to drain our excess energy.” That’s why I told the Grogans that we had to consider breed first in order to lower the intensity of her needs. And the way we’d lower the intensity and channel that excess energy is by giving her guidance in exactly what she was already doing, but from a sporting point of view, not a killing point of view. It was obvious to me that we needed to gain control over that side of her so we could decrease the frustration in the other areas as well.
Fulfilling Sporting Dogs
If you have a sporting-breed dog with a genetic drive as strong as Gracie’s, you cannot be a true pack leader unless you have control over the activities that spring from that drive. When the lightbulb of that idea went on for John Grogan, he came up with a brilliant metaphor for it that I’m going to borrow here. What if two parents who are both very practical, math-science types have a child who is born with both the gift and the drive to be highly artistic? That child will flourish if the parents guide him in that talent—giving him crayons and paper, showing him art books, and encouraging him to take art classes in school. But what if the parents totally ignore the child’s talent and his need to express it? That child is naturally going to be driven to find a way to express it on his own. If he doesn’t get the support from school classes, he might create elaborate doodles on his notepad in class instead of listening to the teacher, causing his schoolwork to suffer. Or he might create graffiti art on walls to exercise his passion, causing him to get into trouble with the authorities. In the first scenario, the parents are a part of the experience, and are able to show the child how to incorporate his gift into a stable, well-balanced life. In the second situation, the child creates a life based on his talent outside the world of his parents. Therefore, there are no rules, boundaries, or limitations. On top of that, the child becomes more distant from his parents and loses respect for them—because they are not respecting and seeing through to the person who he truly is. Now apply that metaphor to your relationship with your dog. If you fulfill all three of her drives—animal, dog, and breed—you are creating a bond based on trust and mutual respect. If you let your dog fend for herself in fulfilling her inborn needs, however, why should she ever learn to respect you?
“HAWKEYE” RETRIEVING A BUMBER.
The breed-specific drives of the sporting groups can be fulfilled in many different ways. Of course, draining energy through fulfilling animal-dog comes first, and for high-energy dogs, that means long, vigorous walks at least twice a day—for any of the breed categories. Tools and techniques that can help you reduce your walk time and distance, or simply create even more challenging experiences for your dog, include biking, Rollerblading, skateboarding, and putting a backpack on your dog during the walk. There are some dogs that simply need to run—or to turn up the volume on their exercise—and the bike, skateboard, and Rollerblades can help you accomplish that, but only if you have a good physical sense of balance yourself. The backpack creates added weight to make the walk more physically vigorous, but also creates a psychological challenge through the act of carrying. All of these activities can help tremendously in establishing your role as pack leader in the mind of your dog.
USING THE BACKPACK TO DRAIN ENERGY
• Make sure your dog has a full physical at the vet to determine whether or not she has any back problems that might prohibit her from safely using the backpack, and to learn how much weight your dog can safely carry, and for how long.
• Select a backpack specially made for dogs. You can find one at major pet stores such as Petco, or online.
• Use a search engine to find dog backpacks.
• Make sure to find the right size backpack for your dog, based on size, weight, or breed.
• Add ballast, depending on how much of a workout your dog needs. I advise weights from 10 to 20 percent of your dog’s total body weight. Some packs come with special weights included; others do not. You can add your own weights or anything you may need your dog to carry for you—water, packaged goods, books, etc.
• Firmly attach the backpack to your dog and enjoy your walk!
Once you have accomplished the primary task of draining energy on the walk, you can add specific activities to help your dog connect with the breed in her. For sporting dogs like pointers, I recommend structured games you can play in your yard or the park, where you introduce an object with a familiar scent to your dog, then hide it and guide her as she seeks it out and points to it. Reward the dog at the pointing phase only, to discourage the exercise from becoming a prey-oriented one. For the spaniel-type sporting breeds, the same exercise can be used, but with the dog actually physically finding the object or person that’s been hidden. And for the retrieving dogs, the goal is to teach her to find the object, then retrieve it and bring it back to you unharmed. Frisbee playing and other backyard games are excellent—but remember, even if you are throwing the Frisbee back and forth five hundred times, if you’re behind a fence and haven’t accomplished the walk, you are only creating excitement, not removing it. Many of the retrieving dogs were bred to be water dogs—including Labrador retrievers, Irish water spaniels, American water spaniels, Nova Scotia duck tolling retrievers, flat-coated retrievers, curly-coated retrievers, and Chesapeake Bay retrievers. Swimming, dock-diving, and fetching items in the water are obvious breed-fulfilling games for them.
Sporting dogs often excel in search-and-rescue activities. Therefore, a variation on these games that I often recommend to clients is the “find my family” exercise, or what search-and-rescue trainers call a “runaway.” Family members hide in various places, then the handler gives the dog a piece of clothing and the dog must find the family member whose scent is on the item. I believe the “find my family” activity—whether the dog is finding actual humans, or just objects that belong to them—encourages a deeper bonding between the dog and the rest of her human “pack.” Since you are controlling the exercise, your value as pack leader is greatly increased in the dog’s mind.
If your dog is a top-of-the-line hunter like Gracie, then fulfilling the breed in her is an exercise in which you might want to enlist the help of a professional. Not just any professional—every breed has specialists who concentrate on the intricate needs of one breed only. Specialists like these may come up with a whole new world of information and activities for you to explore in order to get to know your dog better with regard to the genes of his or her breed.
Grace for Gracie
By the time I came to the Grogans, I saw right away that Gracie needed someone who was an insider to her world. I worked with them for a day at their farm, showing them how to be pack leaders who “owned” their chickens, to give Gracie a sense that the chickens are off-limits. I gave them a beginner’s course in cultivating calm-assertive energy, but I also left them with the somewhat difficult “homework assignment” of finding a professional hunting trainer who could teach Gracie and the Grogans how to channel Gracie’s natural hunting energy into nonlethal outlets.
I’m always encouraging my clients not to give up on their dogs—and never to give up on themselves, even when others are telling them to quit. The Grogans didn’t give up. Jenny later told me that she contacted nine different hunting and obedience professionals in her area, and all of them turned her down. “It can’t be done,” they told her, because the Grogans didn’t actually want to teach Gracie to hunt with a gun; they just wanted to redirect her hunting instinct. Nine out of ten people told Jenny that it was impossible! But Jenny persevered until she found Missy Lemoi, an obedience and retriever field trial trainer from Hope Lock Kennels in Easton, Pennsylvania. Missy is experienced in training dogs to run competitions and field trials and hunt tests, and is one of my favorite types of people—she sees no limits and always sees a challenge as a possibility. She came to the aid of the Grogans by teaching them how to develop a dog’s inborn skills in helping her become the best dog she can be.
One of the first things Missy warned the Grogans about was that it would take a lot of work and commitment to get Gracie from the dog she was to the dog they wanted her to be. Most people simply don’t have the energy or the time to put such intense work into their dogs. But the Grogans—and especially Jenny—were willing to step up to the plate and face the daunting challenge.
Missy began with the same exercise as I did—trying to desensitize Gracie to feathered friends and reduce her obsession with fowl—except she chose a less excitable duck rather than a chicken. The goal was to desensitize Gracie slowly through obedience commands, until she ignored the duck. That went hand in hand with the basic obedience work Jenny was doing with her—basic commands that communicate to the dog, “You have to listen to me, and you have to take your cues from me.”
The second phase of Missy’s work with Gracie involved her hunting instinct. “We had to overcome the disadvantage that Gracie had,” Missy told me, “since she was born with all the instincts, but hadn’t been raised to hunt in a disciplined fashion since she was seven weeks old, like my own dogs. We had to find something to motivate Gracie, and I chose her family because her family motivates her. She loves her family. So using the search-and-rescue technique of the ‘runaway,’ we created a giant game of hide and seek where her family members run and hide, and Gracie simply goes and finds them. When she does, she gets lots of praise and a little treat.”
WITH THE GROGANS AND MISSY LEMOI, WORKING WITH GRACIE.
According to Jenny, from the first day of working with Missy, Gracie became noticeably more obedient to everybody in the family. It was clear that Gracie had been a dog with special skills that were just aching to be channeled in the right direction.
After five weeks of working with Missy, the Grogans invited me back for a follow-up visit, to see what kind of progress they had made together. Gracie clearly still had a long way to go—Missy described her as between a 2 and a 3 on a scale of 1 to 10—but there was a noticeable change in her. Though her retriever instincts were still driving her behavior, she was beginning to understand and respect the concept of limits. But the day I came to call on the Grogans, Missy Lemoi had a special treat for all of us—and especially for Gracie! She brought along her champion Labrador retriever, Hawkeye, who gave us an amazing demonstration of a blind search. Missy hid a retrieving bumper far away on the property, and then—using only hand signals and energy—directed Hawkeye to find and retrieve the object. We all were in awe of how well Missy and Hawkeye communicated, even though not a sound was uttered. Between them, there was the highest level of both respect and trust. The two were totally in tune with each other, the way that I am in tune with my pack. Missy was fulfilling all three dimensions of Hawkeye—as an animal, a dog, and a Labrador retriever breed—and Hawkeye was saying “thank you” with his enthusiasm and obedience.
Of course, I believe in the power of the pack—that is, that dogs learn from other dogs much better and faster than they do from humans. That’s why, during the exercise, I held on to Gracie so that she could observe Hawkeye do his thing. Gracie was clearly fascinated. Something deep inside her really responded to the whole communication between Missy and Hawkeye. Gracie got an awesome lesson from both humans and dog that day. She experienced two handlers—Missy and me—who understood her and created a situation where she could remain calm and submissive. Missy was one and I was the other one. But Hawkeye the dog was the best teacher. Gracie witnessed what the end product of human-dog collaboration looked and felt like—and so did the Grogans.
Six months after they began field trial and obedience work, Jenny and Gracie have completed the intermediate class and Missy has invited them to continue on to more advanced levels. As for the small animal attacks, Gracie is an angel when the Grogans are around. Using the techniques I taught them, they turn her attention away from the object she is focused on. Jenny’s next goal is to work with Missy in getting Gracie certified to do therapy work in human hospitals.
The Grogans are now recognizing a lot of the mistakes they made with Marley, and trying not to repeat them with Gracie. Of course, thanks to John’s book, all of America and much of the world love and appreciate Marley for who he was—instabilities and all. But it’s Gracie’s turn now. And while Gracie was brought into the Grogans’ home to fill emptiness, now they also see that she’s here to give them the opportunity to break a cycle. By becoming her true pack leaders, the Grogans can have the dream dog they always wanted—and Gracie can finally be understood and fulfilled as the prize Labrador she was born to be.
The Hound Group
The hounds are believed to be one of the oldest groups of dogs bred for cooperating with humans. Dog skeletons resembling basenjis have been found in ancient burials alongside primitive humans, and drawings of canines that look like greyhounds or pharaoh hounds cover the walls of tombs from ancient Egypt. Hounds are hunters, pursuing their quarry—unlike sporting dogs, they’re usually mammals, not birds—using sight, scent, or a combination of both. However, unlike the sporting group of dogs, these guys traditionally didn’t wait for the slower humans to set off on the chase; they ran ahead of the hunters.
The Nose Knows
The family of scent hounds includes the basset hound, the beagle, the coonhound, the bloodhound, the dachshund, the American and English foxhounds, the Harrier, and the otterhound. As we’ve discussed, scent is the most important sense for all dogs, but the nose is everything for these guys—and the humans who began breeding them made the most of their biology. For dogs such as bloodhounds, it’s said the wrinkles in the face function to steadily hold the scent they’re following close to the nose, and the long, lazy ears keep them from being distracted by sound when they’re on the trail. Some of them—like the dachshund and the beagle—were even bred with shorter legs, to keep them lower to the ground. Often, they prefer to hunt in groups—and if you ever get a chance to watch a pack of scent hounds go after something, you’ll see the miraculous power of the pack at its finest. Every dog is single-minded in its pursuit of the prey, and cooperation within the pack is key. It’s this kind of coordination and cooperation that has helped the canid family adapt and survive throughout the ages. If your dog is a purebred scent hound, then in some way or another, you will want to fulfill her need to use her powerful nose for a purpose.
Banjo’s Homecoming
One of the most powerful, moving cases I had during the third season of Dog Whisperer was the case of Banjo from Omaha, Nebraska. Beverly and Bruce Lachney, two of the most selfless people in this country, foster abandoned dogs until they can find families to adopt them. While Beverly was working at the Nebraska Humane Society, she came across the cage of a black-and-tan coonhound whose chart told her he was scheduled for euthanasia because he was “too fearful of people” and so couldn’t adapt to a human placement. Beverly was immediately taken in by Banjo’s mournful brown eyes and soft, floppy ears, and so she began to look into his history. It turns out Banjo had spent his entire life as a laboratory dog in a research facility and was the subject of medical experiments. He was kept in a sterile, metal cage next to other animals in similar metal cages, with no contact or warmth from another being. The only interaction he had with humans was when a person in a white lab coat came with a syringe to draw blood. The lab workers were trained not to interact or develop any kind of emotional connection with the animals they used for experiments, so there was no warmth in Banjo’s life—no respect or acknowledgment of his basic dignity as a living creature. No wonder he didn’t trust people.
Beverly adopted Banjo and brought him home. She kept thinking that all it would take was time and comfort and unconditional love, and he would eventually come to trust her. But four years passed, and still Banjo shrank from all people—even her. He seemed to have a good time playing with the other foster dogs in the Lachneys’ yard, but wanted nothing to do with people. At her wits’ end, Beverly took him to a vet to make sure he didn’t have any kind of neurological or physical problems that were causing his extreme fearfulness, and she was told that physically he was fine, but his experience in the lab had probably emotionally stunted his growth. This vet suggested that the best thing Beverly could do for Banjo was put him out of his misery and take him out of this world for good. But Beverly is not a person who includes the word quit in her vocabulary—especially when it comes to one of her animals. Instead, she called me.
Most of the cases I get involve dogs that love and trust their owners, but don’t respect them—as in the case of Gracie and Marley. In Banjo’s case, however, there wasn’t even that basic foundation of trust. Part of the problem was that while Beverly had been petting and comforting Banjo, she was nurturing his instability. Eventually, she could give him affection, but first, she needed to help him move forward on his own.
The next step involved showing the Lachneys how to walk Banjo with a pack. Since Banjo already had a level of trust with the other dogs, if the owners established themselves as pack leaders of the entire group, then trust for them would eventually evolve naturally. Becoming a pack leader means earning both trust and respect—you can’t have one without the other.
These exercises helped fulfill Banjo as an animal-dog and had an immediate effect on him. I was able to show the Lachneys how to help fulfill him as an animal through walking and through structure, and the other dogs in the household gave Banjo some identity as a canine. But what about Banjo’s breed? One thing I immediately noticed about him was that, although he was clearly pure coonhound, I never once saw him use his nose to do anything. He didn’t sniff me to get to know my scent. He didn’t sniff the environment around him as a way to get to know it. How could Banjo have any sense of identity or self-esteem if he didn’t even know what it meant to be a hound?
In the middle of a sweltering hot day in July, I asked Christina, one of our producers, to find me a bottle of raccoon urine. Yes, raccoon urine! It was probably the strangest request she ever got from me, but I knew that hunters used it, and there are a lot of hunters in the Omaha area. When the foul-smelling stuff finally arrived, I made a little trail of it on the grass leading to a tree. Then we brought Banjo to the area. By this time, he was noticeably more relaxed around all of us, though still tiptoeing around as if the sky would fall on him at any minute. But suddenly, he got a curious look in his eye. He put his nose to the ground, sniffed, and followed the trail I had made for a few steps, before looking up at us questioningly. The Lachneys rejoiced—in four years, they’d never seen him use his nose for anything—even food! And I couldn’t have been prouder of Banjo. Although he was on the trail for only a few seconds, he had passed the test. He had taken the first step in awakening the coonhound inside him.
My work with Banjo only lasted a day, but I accomplished what I set out to do: open Banjo up to a new way of living and give him the foundation he needed to begin to trust humans and relearn how to be a dog. In the months since then, it’s all been up to the Lachneys. Happily, they inform me that he has continued his miraculous comeback. He no longer keeps his tail between his legs, he walks confidently with the pack, and best of all, he trusts and gives affection to Beverly and Bruce. The point is, for Banjo to recover from the severe deprivation of the first two years of his life, he needed to have all three dimensions of his self fulfilled—animal, dog, and breed. By doing breed-related exercises, Banjo could begin to feel good about himself as a scent hound. The smell of the raccoon triggered his genetic memory, and suddenly he felt a sense of his own usefulness—the value of who he was born to be. In responding to the sensation of a life with purpose, Banjo is no different from any other animal—from rats to dogs to humans. We all need to feel that we have purpose in order to be truly happy and fulfilled on this earth.
Dachshund Therapy
When a dog has lost her identity as a member of a breed, another dog that strongly exhibits breed-related traits can be the best therapist to help her. Recently, I had a case of a dachshund named Lotus. Lotus’s owners, Julie Tolentino and Chari Birnholtz, had been babying Lotus and treating him like a little human. There was no respect in the household, and Lotus was a very insecure little guy. Since the couple was going on an extended trip overseas, I took Lotus into the center for four weeks. There, I immediately noticed that he didn’t feel comfortable about himself as a dog. He gradually adapted to the pack, but he still wasn’t acting like a real dachshund.
There is a Buddhist proverb that promises “When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.” Lotus’s teacher appeared to me when I was working with an amazing rescue organization called United Hope for Animals, which rescues stray dogs in Los Angeles, as well as from the inhumane death of euthanasia by electrocution in Mexico. The moment I saw Molly during the United Hope for Animals shoot, I thought of Lotus. Molly was yin to Lotus’s yang—a purebred dachshund who had clearly lived a terrible life of deprivation—but somehow, she had really kept the dachshund side of her alive! She was doing all the typical little dachshund things like burrowing, digging, hiding, using her nose all the time when she walked. I decided to adopt Molly then and there—to become a member of my pack, and also, to become a “breed role model” for Lotus.
Once Molly arrived, Lotus seemed very curious about her, but reserved at first. He gradually began to hang around her and watched as she burrowed in my gardens—digging in so deep that it was almost impossible to find her! It only took a day or two before Lotus was burrowing, too—and suddenly, Lotus and Molly were a team! Normally I don’t allow the dogs to destroy the landscaping, but in this case, it was for the sake of Lotus’s therapy. Together, the two dachshunds would run through tunnels, hide under piles of cloth, and use their noses to lead them everywhere. Lotus had not been doing any of those things before Molly came into our lives. Molly was able to do what no human could do—to bring out the dachshund in spoiled, pampered Lotus.
Fulfilling Scent Hounds
Obviously, scent hounds need to use their noses—in fact, most of them will whether you want them to or not! After making sure you’ve fulfilled their exercise and discipline needs, the “runaway” game we used with Gracie is an ideal exercise to give the breed in them a challenge. Instead of letting them smell every single pole in the neighborhood on a walk, take items of clothing with members of your family’s scent on them and present them to your dog. Then deposit each of them in various places along your regular route. Reward your hound every time she finds one of the objects. This now becomes her job—and a physical-psychological challenge. To find one scent and disregard all the others takes a lot of concentration. And the more your dog concentrates on something that you ask her to do, the more energy she drains. Higher-energy dogs can do the same exercise with a backpack on to make it even more difficult.
Fulfilling Sight Hounds
Sight hound breeds include Afghan hounds, basenjis, borzoi, greyhounds, Ibizans, Irish wolfhounds, salukis, Scottish deerhounds, and Whippets. Unlike scent hounds, which were bred to sniff out prey in brushy or wooded areas, the ancestors of sight hounds probably hunted in more open areas—deserts, plains, and savannahs—where they could see over long distances. Sight hounds are ancient dogs—for thousands of years, breeders have focused on refining their speed and abilities to chase and capture prey. They are amazing athletes and the fastest among them, the greyhound, can sprint at speeds of forty-five miles per hour. Since their prey drive is so strong, it can be hard to get a sight hound home if she happens to break away during a walk to chase after a squirrel or a cat, though it’s the movement of the fleeing animal, not the scent of blood, that attracts her. Having been bred through the ages to hunt in packs, they tend toward sociability with other dogs.
Of course, all great hunters need a high energy level, and most sight hounds need some time every day to just cut loose and run. Rollerblades and a bike will help you there—although many of the coursing breeds are sprinters, not distance runners. They tend to like a shorter vigorous sprint followed up by a normal-paced walk. Some dogs that have been rescued from the racing tracks have sustained serious repetitive-use injuries and should be checked thoroughly by a vet before they begin any exercise program.
While it’s natural for sight hounds to have fun running after moving objects, historically, professional greyhound racing has been anything but fun for the dogs. While they’re alive, many racing greyhounds spend their lives crammed into crates or pens with little human interaction, often without heat or cooling. A properly cared for greyhound can live thirteen years or more, but if she happens to be born into racing, she’s likely to be disposed of—sometimes inhumanely—within three or four years to make room for “fresh dogs.” Fortunately, animal activists have begun to convince some in the dog racing industry to create more humane conditions for their racers, “pension plans” for racers’ retirements, and sanctuaries for retired dogs. It’s only a beginning, but it’s a step in the right direction.
However, loving sight hound owners can use their dogs’ hunting instincts for breed-fulfilling pursuits that are fun for the dog, like humane lure coursing, which never uses a live animal as bait. Coursing for sport uses everything from fake fur to white kitchen trash bags as a lure, moved along a tracking line by pulleys and a motor. The mechanically inclined can hook up something themselves in their own backyard, or those who really want to get into the official sport can contact the American Sighthound Field Association (ASFA) or the American Kennel Club (AKC) to find clubs in their area.
With both families of the hound breeds, it’s important to keep in mind that the hunting instinct can be powerful, and the bottom line is it should be regulated by the pack leader at all times. In nature, no dog in a pack simply takes off after a scent any time she feels like it. Hunts are coordinated efforts, with clear beginnings and endings. Any breed-related activity you do with your dog should follow the same patterns and rules that have worked so well for Mother Nature for many thousands of years. That means that you, the pack leader, are always in charge.
The Working Group
As humans evolved from primitive hunter-gatherers and began to raise domesticated animals and settle down into villages, they began to look for dogs to help them in other ways besides hunting and tracking. Hence, the working group of dogs were bred for guarding, pulling, and rescuing—some breeds for only one of those purposes; others, for two or three. The humans who created these breeds selected for body size and shape, strength, perseverance, and sometimes aggressiveness, in the case of guard dogs.
Here in America, it’s been hundreds of years since most of us brought home dogs in order to hunt large game, fight other dogs, or attack men and animals. Yet some of our most popular breeds have such skills in their background. Akitas, Alaskan malamutes, Great Danes, and Kuvaszes were all bred for large game hunting, in addition to being watchdogs. Mastiffs and Neopolitan mastiffs both have ancient roots as war dogs and fighters who combated men, lions, tigers, and even elephants in the Roman gladiator rings. Guarding and security—including military use—is in the genes of black Russian terriers, Doberman pinschers, and Rottweilers. It’s common knowledge that these dogs are popular for personal protection, but Rottweilers were also known as “butcher’s dogs” for their excellence in herding and guarding cattle. The Rottweiler became so indispensable to the butchers that it’s said they hung their profits in a bag around the dogs’ necks when they went into the pub, knowing their money would be perfectly safe. The more purebred the breed, the more likely their breed-specific qualities will surface if you as pack leader do not fulfill animal and dog completely. And because of their size, these dogs obviously can do a lot more damage when their pent-up energy erupts than a beagle or a greyhound can.
Fulfilling Working Breeds
As with all dogs, draining physical energy is vital to living happily with a working breed—perhaps even more important for these breeds than other groups. Because they were bred for brawn—that is, strength, power, and/or ferocity—that’s where breed-oriented activities should begin. Since so many of these dogs were draft dogs at one time or another, carting or pulling activities are something at which they usually excel.
In Dallas, Texas, the Dog Whisperer crew and I visited Rob Robertson and Diane Starke, who had brought Kane, a Greater Swiss mountain dog, into their home as a small puppy. Possibly a close relation to the mastiff and even the Rottweiler, Greater Swiss mountain dogs were once champion draft dogs, herders, and guardians. Unfortunately, though just over a year old, Kane had developed a dangerous possessive aggressiveness over his food bowl. After working with Rob and Diane on the principles of calm-assertive leadership when it came to feeding time, I helped them create a breed-specific activity for Kane to help work out his excess energy by calling up the ancient draft dog in him. Using a flatbed cart, our production team devised a makeshift cart for Kane to pull. Kane was a little jittery at first, but once he got used to the sound of the cart following behind him, he threw himself into the pure joy of his ancestral livelihood. He would have pulled that cart long into the night if we’d let him. Though we city dwellers usually balk at the idea of making our dogs into “beasts of burden,” the truth is, working breeds such as Greater Swiss mountain dogs, Rottweilers, Samoyeds, and Siberian huskies really flourish when given this kind of physical-psychological challenge. They don’t look at pulling as a chore—they look on it as the kind of challenge that makes them feel useful and brings out the best in them. Rob and Diane look forward to raising a family soon, and are hoping that Kane will be the most popular dog on their block, and that one day he’ll be pulling their child and all his or her friends along on his cart.
Schutzhund Exercises
A fantastic way to channel the many brainy and brawny drives of the working breeds is through Schutzhund training. Originally developed specifically for German shepherd dogs, Schutzhund comes from the German word for protection dog and has evolved into a serious, competitive sport that tests and rates tracking, obedience, and guardian abilities in companion canines. For shepherds, Dobermans, Rottweilers, Malinois, boxers, and other agile working dogs with “fight drive,” Schutzhund challenges both dog and handler in a physical-psychological, fresh-air form of skilled training. It is a misconception that Schutzhund training creates out-of-control killer dogs. In fact, dogs can’t pass the various rigorous tests unless they are balanced, and will instantly stop any aggressive behavior at the sound of a handler’s command. Done properly, these exercises cannot only be an excellent way to channel breed-related aggression into a controlled form, but they can also forge an even stronger bond between dog and handler.
In order to perform in Schutzhund, the dog must undergo a temperament test to make sure she’s mentally sound, calm, and submissive. The first two parts of Schutzhund work concentrate on tracking and obedience. During the first two phases, the dog is asked to respond instantly to commands and to perform skilled feats, despite a number of distractions, including other dogs, strange people, and even a gunshot test! During the third, protection phase, the dog is required to track down a hidden human decoy and to guard that decoy until the handler approaches. If the decoy attempts to escape or attacks, the dog is expected to give chase and hold the “intruder” (wearing a padded arm) until its human “pack leader” arrives and orders her off. When given the order to stop, the dog must stop the attack instantly.
The third phase of this training is the same training that police, security, and military dogs go through, and if a working dog is properly exercised and fulfilled at home with rules, boundaries, and limitations, Schutzhund training is not supposed to turn her into a killer. Ideally, these activities provide a focused outlet for many of the dog’s natural drives, and help to create a much more sensitive, balanced, and obedient animal. Similar exercises are used to train search-and-rescue dogs (also working dogs). Schutzhund “games” can also be enjoyed by other breeds with strong prey drives, though without a fight drive, these dogs won’t be able to compete officially in the sport. Still, the exercises become a fun, energy-draining psychological challenge for them. Overall, many parts of the Schutzhund training can be adapted in creative, fun ways to challenge any dog.1
The Herding Group
The instinct to control the movements of other animals comes from the predator drive that is rooted in the wolf nature of domestic dogs. If you watch any of the canine pack hunters at work, you will notice how they coordinate their positions in order to weed out the weakest members of the herd they are preying on, and how effortlessly they seem to steer the animals they’re chasing, to “corner” them, readying them for the kill. Over the centuries, humankind has taken that innate skill and created dogs that complete all these actions, right up until the final moment. These dogs, the members of the herding group, don’t kill the animals they are corralling. They simply keep them grouped together for human benefit, following both their own judgment and their owner’s commands. Some nip at the heels of livestock to keep them in order, others bark, others stalk and stare, and others simply use their motion and their energy. Popular herders include the German shepherd dog (considered by some to be both a herder and a working dog), the Shetland sheepdog or sheltie, the short-legged corgi breeds, the Old English sheepdog, the Australian shepherd, the blue heeler, the collie and Border collie, the Australian Cattle Dog, and the Bouvier des Flandres.
It takes a lot of stamina in order to guard and herd livestock, so herding dogs were intended to have high energy levels. If you have a high-energy herder, walking, Rollerblading or bike riding for thirty minutes to an hour at least once a day, and at least one shorter outing later on, are absolutely necessary to drain energy and achieve balance. These are not dogs that should be left to meander in the backyard with nothing to do. Remember, herding is a job, so being a worker is deep in the herding dog’s genes. The dog is happiest and most fulfilled when using her energy toward a purpose. Giving her a challenge is your best bet for preventing or helping solve behavior problems that are caused by boredom or repressed energy.
Once you have completed your regular walk or run, there are dozens of different breed-fulfilling activities that herders enjoy. Of course, most of us can’t bring cattle, goats, or sheep into our own backyard, but we can substitute other challenging activities. Due to their patience and agility, herders often make great Frisbee or “disc dogs”—an official dog sport since 1974. Of course, dogs of all kinds can play Frisbee—some world champions were mixed breeds rescued from shelters—but cattle dogs have really distinguished themselves in this field. The 2006 world champion is Captain Jack, an Australian cattle dog known as “the hardest working disc dog in the sport.” If you are seriously interested in the sport, the International Disc Dog Handler’s Association (www.iddha.com) can help you find a club in your area, but the great thing about Frisbee playing is that all it really requires is a flat, grassy area and the plastic disc you can pick up at any sport or big box store for well under ten dollars. Even if you’re just playing in your own backyard, however, it’s important for your dog that you make the exercise a challenge. You don’t have to teach her fancy midair twists and leaps. But instead of simply throw and catch, throw and catch, make your dog wait between throws. Give her a set of simple behaviors to perform before you throw the disc, such as sitting down, lying down, or begging. The point is to create a psychological challenge in addition to the physical one. After all, that’s what herding cattle is—a physical-psychological exercise.
Since they were designed to perform intricate “dances” around moving groups of livestock, the herding breeds often do well at agility competitions. Like Schutzhund, agility competitions and exercises are growing in popularity and are great activities to both redirect energy and strengthen the bond between human and dog. Dogs learn to jump hurdles, run through rings and tunnels, navigate their way through mazes, and complete increasingly complicated obstacle courses while racing against a clock, encouraged and directed by the handler. In America, the United States Dog Agility Association, based in Richardson, Texas (www.usdaa.com), has all the information you need to get started in the sport, but there is no reason you have to take the full-out competitive route. I often help clients create informal backyard games that challenge dogs in obedience and agility without the pressure of the real thing. An old tire, some hoops, a low goalpost, and a plank balanced on a couple of bricks, coupled with a treat reward at the end, can create the kind of focused challenge that gives even the highest-energy dog a stimulating job to do. And you, the owner, will find that the more you guide your dog through these activities, the closer you and your dog will become, and you will discover more and more of the pack leader inside you.
Flyball is another dog sport that is great for many breeds, but especially popular with cattle dogs. In the United States and Canada, the official branch of the sport is governed by the North American Flyball Association (www.flyball.org). It’s a team sport for dogs—basically a dog relay race through an obstacle course, where the dog has to release a ball from a box at the end of the course, then return. Like human relay races, the next dog on the team can’t begin until the first dog is back, so it requires an incredible amount of concentration, discipline, and respect for the handler. It also requires speed, intention, and consistency—all the factors present for livestock herding. If you have a high-energy herding dog at home, you don’t have to watch her vent her frustrations on your furniture, your cat, or worse, the other dogs in the neighborhood. There are so many ways to find additional outlets for that extra “boost” the herding genes have given her.
Gus the Bouncing Bouvier
While participating in man-made sports is a wonderful way to bond with your herding dog while helping her connect with her “roots,” there is one way that’s best of all—the actual experience of herding real livestock! In the first season of Dog Whisperer, I visited Tedd Rosenfeld and Shellie Yaseen, two busy professionals who work in the TV business. Their year-old Bouvier des Flandres, Gus, had a habit of, well, bouncing. Of course, being a large dog with a lot of power and energy, Gus’s bouncing was causing more and more trouble as he grew, to the point where he would actually knock over guests, and even his owner, the petite Shellie. The couple had not set up a regular walk routine for Gus, and they didn’t know how to guide him properly through the neighborhood as pack leaders. In fact, Shellie was a little intimidated by Gus’s strength and energy.
I worked with the couple on the basics of the walk, and of course, on improving their leadership skills. But after our first session, I scheduled another appointment, to take them to the All-Breed Herding facility in Long Beach, California, run by my friend Jerome Stewart, a decorated American Kennel Club (AKC) and American Herding Breed Association (AHBA) herding test and trial judge and a true expert when it comes to everything about herding dogs. Tedd and Shellie seemed a little hesitant when they first saw the flock of sheep at Jerry’s ranch, and I’m sure they wondered if their city dog would know what on earth to do with them all. But as Jerry reassured them, biology and genetics had already implanted the herding program into Gus’s brain. It would just take a matter of patience, practice, and some professional guidance to bring it out.
Watching Gus as he first approached the sheep was watching one of nature’s own miracles unfold. First, Gus darted after the sheep in a haphazard manner, not knowing whether to listen to his prey drive (“kill the sheep”) or herd drive (“organize the sheep”). With a couple of slight corrections from Jerry, he passed through the prey phase in the blink of an eye, and suddenly began to swing wider, guiding the slower, straying sheep back into the center of the herd. It was amazing, seeing this city slicker Bouvier return to his ranching roots, and I was jumping up and down and hollering with joy. Tedd was truly moved by the end of the day—“I don’t think I’ve ever seen him so happy, or relaxed, before,” he said afterward. Tedd and Shellie have continued to bring Gus back to herding class, and it’s gone a long way toward managing his seemingly boundless energy.
All across America, herding clubs run by dedicated people like Jerry provide this activity to many breeds of working dog, and the American Kennel Club (www.akc.org) can put you in touch with facilities in your area. Recently, I even helped an antisocial Rottweiler by introducing him to Jerry’s herding classes. Jerry has a saying that I think sums up the primal power of the herding experience for any cattle dog: “A dog with herding instinct and no training can make enough work for nine men to do. A trained herding dog can do the work of nine men. You need to decide which you would rather live with.”
The Terrier Group
The word terrier comes from the Latin root terra, meaning earth—and that’s an apt description of the earliest functions of the terrier breeds. Terriers excelled at hunting down and killing rodents, vermin, and small mammals, even digging deep into the earth to catch them. Later, the more muscular terriers such as the American Staffordshire terrier, the Staffordshire bull terrier, and the American pit bull terrier were bred to fight each other in public contests. Because of their convenient body size and perhaps also their incredible cuteness, terriers are popular dogs in America.
Despite their smaller size, it’s important to remember that terriers have hunting and working in their bloodlines, so they can tend to be high-energy dogs—some, like many Jack Russells, can be ultra-high-energy dogs. If you have an opportunity to raise a terrier from a very young age, then socializing and familiarizing her with other dogs and other small animals is a must. With older or rescue dogs, often the habit of aggression toward other animals has already begun, so in addition to your calm-assertive leadership skills, you may need a professional to help you break it. Don’t make the mistake so many of my clients do, simply saying, “Well, she doesn’t like other dogs, it’s just her personality.” Dogs are born to be social with their own kind.
I’ve found that many people assume that because a dog is small, she will be content just to lounge around the house or, as terriers tend to do, simply chase squirrels around or dig in the backyard. As we’ve clearly seen, the more energy the dog has, the more primal exercise is needed to fulfill its inner animal, dog, and breed. Despite their short legs, terriers often need a lot of primal exercise, or else they will begin to engage in obsessive or neurotic behavior. I often have clients who need to constantly add challenges to their walks with their high-energy terriers, especially when they can’t walk a full forty-five minutes to an hour. I advise them to add a backpack or Rollerblade, bike, or skateboard to help drain all their dogs’ excess energy.
Many of the activities and exercises listed for herding dogs—disc dog, flyball, and agility games—are also great for high-energy terriers. And it’s no accident that many of the canine stars of the large and small screen belong to this group. Remember Eddie, the Jack Russell terrier on the sitcom Frasier? He was played by the recently departed Moose, whose son Enzo now follows in his actor father’s footsteps. Wishbone, the PBS star, is also a Jack Russell. Skippy, a wire fox terrier, was one of the busiest stars in Hollywood during the 1930s. He costarred with Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn, and a leopard named Nissa in Bringing Up Baby, played Asta in the popular Thin Man detective series, and played Mr. Smith in The Awful Truth. Budweiser’s notorious Spuds MacKenzie was a bull terrier, and the beloved Petey of Little Rascals fame was an American Staffordshire terrier. Once a terrier has been properly exercised, teaching her tricks and commands using positive reinforcement techniques such as clicker and/or food rewards is a satisfying way to redirect breed behaviors, for both human and dog.
A little something you may not know about pit bulls and other muscular terrier breeds whose excess energy can sometimes turn into jumping or aggression is that pulling activities can be as wonderful outlets for them as they are for working breeds. Criminal “dog men” who breed and train pit bulls to fight and kill each other in illegal underground contests often use pulling exercises to get their dogs in shape for the ring, but the same activity doesn’t have to be used in such a dark, negative manner. When Daddy was younger, I used to challenge him constantly by having him pull logs, tires, and other weights up the hills of the Santa Monica Mountains. I love to think back on the image of him, trudging up those slopes, with a determined expression on his face and what always seemed to be a gleam in his bright green eyes. He was in his glory with such an important job to do, and it is exercises such as that one that helped him become the fulfilled, happy dog he is today.
The Toy Group
At an ancient burial ground near Bonn, Germany, archaeologists uncovered the skeletons of an early man and dog, buried together. The site dates to about fourteen thousand years ago. In Israel, a twelve-thousand-year-old skeleton of a woman was found buried with what appeared to be a puppy cupped in her hands. And in Alabama, remains of middle-archaic humans from about eight thousand years ago buried dogs in ways that were, in the words of archaeologist Carl F. Miller, “much more careful burial[s] than…man.” All over the world, throughout human history, dogs have played not only a working role, but a very emotional role in our lives.
The dogs of the toy group are the lasting evidence of how deeply we are connected with our dogs. While some toy breeds served the purpose of hunting small vermin or flushing birds from brush, many of them have been bred throughout the centuries for no other reason than human emotional needs—as companions and for accessories. They didn’t do any important jobs or help ensure human survival. We simply loved them. Many of these breeds are miniature versions of their larger relatives, but others have their origins so deep in our past that they have been forgotten.
Toy dogs have varied genetic pasts, so you can’t really generalize about their behaviors. Some dogs were once bird dogs or ratters, like the King Charles and English toy spaniels, the toy Manchester, toy fox, Yorkshire and silky terriers, the papillon, the Maltese, the Pomeranian, the toy poodle, and the miniature pinscher. These dogs were selected for higher energy levels, and that can show up in their descendants. Pure lap dogs like Chihuahuas, Pekinese, pugs, and shih tzus were bred for looks, size, and, of course, for cuteness.
Unfortunately, the cuteness factor is where the trouble with most small breeds starts. Human beings are suckers for cuteness—anthropologists tell us it’s actually a feature that’s hardwired into us, so we’ll be sure to take care of our babies. Because toy breeds are so adorable, we tend to let them get away with things that we’d never tolerate in other, larger breeds. For instance, most people don’t let big dogs bark too long. It’s simply too loud and bothersome to us. Plus, when a larger dog barks, we tend to take it more seriously. However, when a small dog barks to alert us of something, or simply to get our attention, we tend to allow it to go on as long as the dog wants it to. At first, we think it’s cute: “Oh, he’s telling me he wants his bone,” so we give it to him, or “Oh, he’s telling me he wants to play.” After a while, the behavior becomes annoying, but by that time we have convinced ourselves that it’s just the personality of the dog or the breed, so we don’t do anything about it. An even worse behavior is biting. We would never allow a Rottweiler to use its teeth to manipulate or control us, but when little dogs bite, that’s exactly what they are trying to do. The more we allow these behaviors, the more we teach our toy breeds that this is how they can get their way. Eventually, these dogs become so unstable that their behavior can escalate to attacking other animals or people.
The key is to remember that behind the big fluffy mane or the sweet little pug face, your toy breed is an animal-dog first. Remembering this, and the formula of exercise, discipline, and affection, fulfilling the needs of smaller dogs becomes no different than fulfilling those of large dogs. Toy dogs also need vigorous outdoor walks, though because they use more energy walking a shorter distance, they usually don’t require an extended trek. Play activities should be performed in a controlled manner, with a set beginning, middle, and end. The secret is not to let little dogs store too much excess energy. When little dogs become compulsive chewers, biters, barkers, or end up antisocial, it’s because they have found that these negative activities are ways to drain energy. No matter how small your dog is, she needs to replace destructive behaviors with alternatives—physical-psychological challenges that can be anything from a game of catch the tennis ball, to agility courses and flyball for higher-energy dogs. And all small dogs can profit from a variety of reward-oriented obedience exercises.
The Nonsporting Group
This final grouping contains basically the kitchen sink of leftover dog breeds that don’t really fit into any of the other categories. Many of these breeds are among the most interesting and popular dogs in America, and include working dogs, herding dogs, terrier types, and miniatures. The 2006 American Kennel Club top ten most popular breeds in this group are (most popular first) the poodle, the bulldog, the Boston terrier, the bichon frise, the French bulldog, the Lhasa apso, the Shar-Pei, the Chow Chow, the Shiba Inu, and the Dalmatian. Depending on the breed, any of the many activities and exercises above can be used as add-ons to the walk for you and your nonsporting dog.
The Breed Is Only the Suit
After all is said and done, the many diverse strengths and weaknesses of this last group serve to point out the bottom line—that when it comes to any dog, “the breed is only the suit.” In other words, the more purebred the dog, the more of a genetic “boost” she will have for the characteristics her ancestors were designed to have. However, by fulfilling her as an animal-dog through walking—the primal connection between human and dog—and through the three-part fulfillment formula, you will go a long way toward preventing any breed-related behavioral issues from cropping up. It’s important to be aware of the needs and tendencies of certain breeds, but it’s even more important to understand the basic psychology of all dogs—and to appreciate their direct link to the rest of the animal kingdom. I often notice that owners with mixed breeds treat their pets more like dogs generically, and the dogs sometimes get a better life out of it, no matter what their ancestral heritage may happen to be.
When people put too much weight on a dog’s breed, what I call breed prejudice can arise. That’s why, when I was a presenter for the Creative Arts Emmy Awards in 2006, I made a point to Rollerblade onto the stage at the Shrine Auditorium with six pit bulls, all of whom had once suffered from aggression issues. There they were, under the bright lights in front of nearly 2,500 people, perfectly mellow and well-behaved—the ideal ambassadors for their entire breed. And of course, Daddy had to be the star performer. Off-leash, Daddy brought me the envelope with the winning name for television stunts in it. Remember, Daddy isn’t a trained dog—he’s just a balanced dog. My communication with him isn’t based on commands or rewards or treats; it’s based on a long-term bond of total trust and respect.
Pit bulls have been the latest victims of breed prejudice in this country. I define breed prejudice the same way I do racial prejudice—both are based on fear and ignorance. American history shows that the Native Americans, Irish, and Italians were some of the first groups that people in power demonized and blamed for problems, crime, and poverty. Then it became the African Americans who were responsible for all the problems. And now, it’s all the Latinos who are to blame. Of course, all thinking people realize that it’s not the race, because we have great people in every race. All Italians are not mafiosi, all Irish are not drunks, all African Americans are not criminals, and all Latinos are not lazy. But every decade or so, a new group of people come along for people to blame for their unhappiness. It’s the same thing with dog breeds. In the seventies it was the German shepherds that were the vicious breed. In the eighties it was the Dobermans. In the nineties, everybody feared the Rottweiler, and since the nineties it’s been the pit bulls that everyone blames. The more educated people become and the more owners of powerful breeds like pits and Rotties take their responsibilities seriously, the less likely we are going to blame the dogs.
That’s why dogs are such great role models for us—they don’t discriminate on the basis of breed. Yes, dogs sometimes gravitate to others of their own breed when it comes to certain behaviors or play—like in the example of Lotus and Molly. But energy plays a bigger role in attraction. Dogs are just dogs to each other. If you watch the news clips from Hurricane Katrina, when the abandoned dogs of New Orleans started coming out of their homes, they automatically began to take up with one another and form packs, for survival. In one photo of such a pack, I noticed a big old Rottweiler, a German shepherd, and some other big dogs. But they were being led by a beagle! Why did they choose to follow the beagle? Because the beagle had a better sense of direction, that’s why. And she obviously had leadership energy. Animals know that if another animal shows the determination and takes the leadership role firmly, they should go with her. They don’t say, “Look, you’re a beagle. I’m a Rottweiler. I don’t follow beagles. That’s against my religion.” The Rottweiler sensed that that beagle was in a calm-assertive state, and that’s all she was looking for in a leader. Dogs show common sense. They aren’t prejudiced against other dog breeds. And we shouldn’t be, either.
Millan, Cesar, Peltier, Melissa Jo
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