I haven’t played golf in years. Don’t have the time; but I do remember what it was like to walk the course with my buddies. Ladies, I don’t know much about what goes on when women get together to play golf, but here is how the guys do it:

When a foursome of buddies get together on a golf course the pattern of behavior is fairly predictable. In between shots, guys will joke and playfully antagonize each other. The atmosphere is usually light and happy even if one or more of the players is playing a very bad round of golf. In fact, the worse the golf, the more the jokes and taunts fly. That is until someone begins to line up a shot.

When a player settles in behind the ball and prepares to take a swing, the mood on the course changes instantly. Everyone goes silent. Everyone stares. The player over the ball becomes deadly serious. You can slice the tension with a knife. Here comes the backswing. The bystanders draw in breath. Will it be a good shot or a miserable flub?

And Here’s the Shot

Crack! The golf ball flies down the fairway, propelled forward by either a sigh of relief or a horrible curse from the duffer. Then, like nothing happened, the foursome goes back to “smoking and joking,” until the next player lines up for a shot. The pattern repeats: light and happy, deadly serious. Light and happy, deadly serious.

Golf . . . Dogs, What the Connection?

What the heck has this got to do with dogs and dog training? Everything. We dog owners tend to approach dog training like a golfer about to take a whack at a ball. Our relationship and communication with our dog is light and happy until the moment when we line up to teach our dog something new. Then the mood goes deadly serious. Will the dog get it, or will this be a miserable flub? We hold our breath as we prepare to give the dog the all-important training command. Crack! Did he get the idea? If so, we follow up with a sigh of relief. If not, we are apt to curse our poor training skills, or worse. Then, when the training session is over, we go back to “smoking and joking” with our dog.

Do you think a mood change from light and happy to deadly serious during dog training produces the best results? I can tell you that dogs are perfect barometers of human mood. When a person becomes deadly serious, a dog can sense the stress. Stress inhibits learning in dogs.

Take Action:

The very best thing you can do when training your dog is to keep the entire session light and happy. Don’t worry about results. Your dog will eventually learn what he needs to learn if you make the experience of learning enjoyable. I suggest the next time you try to teach your dog something new, treat the lesson as a silly game. An ideal training session should be short, and almost indistinguishable from play. If your dog does not learn as fast as you would like, stop the game, and try again later. If you find yourself getting frustrated, you can go to the golf course later and smash the daylights out of a little white ball. At least your dog won’t care when the shot splits the fairway or fades into the rough. It’s just a game.

Make sense? Tell me what you think in the Reply section below. (You do not have to log in to comment. Go for it! I can take it.)

Today, I want to focus on one problem a survey responder has with his small dog. That problem is teething. He said his small dog does not really bite, but tends to mouth or nibble people. Some people call this behavior “corn cobbing” because it resembles nibbling an ear of corn.

Learned in Puppyhood

In dogs, teething behavior is a carry-over from puppyhood. Puppies tend to explore their environment in two ways: via their noses, and via their mouths. Typically, a puppy will sniff an object first, then test further with its mouth.

Puppies, like children do not inherently know the difference between appropriate and inappropriate behavior. They have to learn the rules of the house from the person in charge. If a puppy never learns that corn-cobbing people is inappropriate, it will continue this behavior right into adulthood.

Take Action:

So what’s the solution? You can use the same technique you would use to teach a dog to not bite. And here it is from dog behaviorist Dale Stavroff:

1. Entice the dog to nibble your hand.
2. As soon as the dog begins to nibble, let out a loud yelp as though you are seriously injured, and quickly pull your hand away.
3. Next, go stand in the corner and face the wall. (I know this is going to feel foolish, but its important to over-react so your dog clearly gets the message that teething is inappropriate.) If you do it correctly, it is likely your dog will come over to console you.

It’s Silly and It Works

This bit of drama, which seems silly to humans, is something your dog will take very seriously. If you have any reservations, or sense of embarrassment about such intense play-acting, try to do it when no one is at home except you and your dog. I guarantee you, your dog will not laugh. He will probably feel pretty bad that he caused you “pain.” In fact, this technique is so reliable, you will probably only need to do it once or twice for your dog to stop teething permanently.

One last thought. Dogs are not generalists. Simply because they learn to stop teething you does not necessarily mean they will learn the rule applies to other people. You may need to have others in your household do the same routine in order for your dog to get the message that it is inappropriate to mouth anyone.

Good luck, and write to let me know how it goes. You can comment in the Reply section below, or write to me at jeffspersonalmail@asmalldog.com.

I can’t believe it. There are still people out there that believe rubbing a dog’s nose in its own stool will teach the dog not to eliminate in the house. Can you believe it? Here’s proof:

Kayla, a member of the AsmallDog.com community has been having trouble house training her Chihuahua. Here is an excerpt of an email she sent to me.

“also what should we do if they do potty in the house? I was told to put their nose in it and take them out.”

Kayla went on to say she didn’t take this advice. Smart girl.

An Old Wive’s Tale

Rubbing a dog’s nose in its own stool is based upon an old wive’s tale. But how did that wive’s tale get started? Since it’s impossible to go to the source, here’s what I believe. The act of rubbing a dog’s nose in its own stool makes three assumptions:

1. That a dog finds its own stool disgusting, and therefore,
2. Rubbing a dog’s nose in its own stool is an extraordinary and lasting punishment, and therefore,
3. The dog will make the connection between pooping in the house and being extraordinarily punished.

Bad Assumptions

Let’s shoot down these assumptions:

1. You may find dog stool repulsive. Your dog does not. It is just another source of odor, neither positive nor negative. Dogs do not think as we think.
2. Yes, rubbing a dog’s nose in stool is punishing, but not because the dog finds stool punishing. A dog would rather not have a person force its nose into anything.
3. The time gap between the dog pooping in the house and getting its nose rubbed in stool will be too long for it to make a mental connection between one and the other. If the dog could speak, it would say “Why are you rubbing my nose in my own stool? It makes no sense to me!”

In fact, any punishment for eliminating inside the house will make zero sense to the dog. Trying to teach your dog what not to do–by rubbing his nose in stool–is a waste of your time and degrades your relationship with your dog. When it comes to house training, you can take many positive steps to teach your dog what to do.

Take Action:

• Give up, right now, punishing your dog for peeing or pooping in the house. That includes spanking, yelling, or rubbing his nose in anything.
• Start a program of consistent house training based upon 3 time-honored, proven principles:

1. Contain your dog, when unsupervised, to limit where he/she can eliminate.
2. Take your dog outside frequently, especially right after your dog eats, drinks, finishes a nap, or plays vigorously.
3. Reward, reward, reward, when your dog does business outside.

Reader Carole wrote to me that she has three small dogs that urinate wherever they feel like it inside her home. She said she paper trained her dogs. In her email to me, she wrote:

“They are 90 percent  paper trained but will do it [urinate] other places [in the house] too.”

Here’s the problem with paper training. It teaches a small dog that its okay to pee inside your home. You may say, well sure, but if the dog hits the paper target, it’s okay to pee inside the home. The problem is, almost all small dogs have a very hard time telling the difference between peeing on paper and peeing on other surfaces in the home. Carole’s dogs clearly prove the point.

Some dog trainers advocate teaching a puppy to reliably pee on paper and then move the paper outdoors. The idea is, once you get a puppy to hit a target, you can move the target outside and the puppy will translate this into peeing outside. It doesn’t work because the puppy’s first and most lasting lesson about peeing says: “Pee inside the house.”

Please, if you are attempting to house train a new dog, skip paper training. For most dogs, paper training causes more problems than it solves.

The following was sent in from a reader in response to my article on Small Dog Syndrome. You can find the full comment at the bottom of the article. Here’s a link to the original article.

“MY DOG KNOWS I DONT LIKE HIM ON THE BED, BUT HE ALSO KNOWS THAT MY BF [boyfriend] THINKS THAT EVERYTHING HE DOES IS CUTE SO HE WONT JUMP ON THE BED WHILE IM IN THE ROOM BUT IF I LEAVE THE ROOM HELL JUMP ON THE BED AND LIE DOWN. . . HE KEEPS JUMPING ON PPL [people] AND RUNNING TO MY BFS [boyfriend's] SIDE AND HIDING BEHIND HIM WHEN I TELL HIM TO DO SOMETHING LIKE GO TO HIS BED”

The question before us is: What do you do when you have a small dog that acts badly and your friend or family member either won’t help, doesn’t understand, or makes matters worse?

I have my own opinions about this, but I’d love to hear yours. Let’s get a conversation going in the Reply section below and see if we can help the person who made the above comment. (By the way, you do not have to sign in to leave a Reply. Just go for it.)

The playground at Kelsey's Dog House. Lima the Pug is laying on top of Arlo.

If you own two small dogs, do they like to hang out with each other? Even if you only have one small dog, does he have a dog buddy in the neighborhood?

Here’s why I ask. We dog behaviorists love to talk about pack theory. We seem to think everything a dog does can be tied back to its origins as a pack animal. And yet, after hanging with small dogs in groups of ten, twenty, thirty, I rarely see dogs from different homes relate to each other except to occasionally pair off to play. Sure, one dog may play with another for awhile, but I almost never see two or more dogs that join up in anything that resembles a lasting relationship.

Necessity or Convenience

Perhaps it’s a question of necessity. Feral dogs almost always gather in packs. The pack gives them strength in numbers, a valuable asset when faced with surviving on the mean streets. The domestic dog who lives the cushy life in a home has no need for a pack.

The Exception

There are exceptions to the rule. In the accompanying photo, Lima the Pug, (The black dog facing the camera with his tongue sticking out,) is laying on top of Arlo, the Tibetan Terrier. I point this out because these two come from separate homes, and never knew each other before they met at Kelsey’s Dog House. During the day, they play almost exclusively with each other. At rest, they always lay next to each other and spoon. When only Arlo is at the shop, he will play with any other dog that is in the mood. Same with Lima. But when they are both staying with us, they are drawn to each other as magnets. Do you know two small dogs with a relationship like Lima and Arlo?

Door guard

Halloween is almost here, and you may be worried about how your dog is going to handle all those trick-or-treaters coming to your front door. Here’s how to take charge of the situation well before trouble begins.
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This article quotes Dale Stavroff, in his book Let the Dog Decide. Some of the quoted material has been edited for length.

These steps assume you have already taught your dog to lie down on command.

“Schedule a visit by a friend. Arrange with the friend that he or she will knock or right the bell only once, and then be prepared to wait until you open the door.

“At the appointed time, have the dog at your side with the long line attached to the flat collar, and await your friends ring or knock at a distance away from the door that is greater than the length of the line.

“If the dog charges the door at the sound of the doorbell or knock, stand on the line with your back turned to the dog. Keep your back turned for a moment after the dog comes to the end of the line knocks itself down with the force of its own momentum, to allow the dog time to get back on its feet and see that you and your hands are not responsible for what happened.

“Turn around, call the dog to you, and reassure it with benevolent eye contact, a treat, and a pet.

“If the dog does not charge the door . . . it will almost certainly still be feeling some agitation and concern, so reassure it with benevolent eye contact, a treat, and a pet.” [My note: This approach is very different from Cesar Millan, the Dog Whisperer's technique of stabbing the dog in the neck with your fingers and saying “Shh!”]

“Walk to the door with the dog and put it in a down [position.]

“Open the door and welcome the visitor into the house while the dog remains in the down. This gives the dog and opportunity to see and sniff the visitor from a little distance and to observe that the two of your are interacting comfortably.”

At this point, you should be watching for your dog to relax in the down position. Once the dog relaxes completely, you can release the dog to investigate your friend more freely. Your friend can give the dog a treat at this point, which should confirm in the dog’s mind that approaching the visitor in a relaxed state is the right thing to do.

You should repeat these steps over the next several days with different visitors, particularly those you dog has never met before. This will help your small dog generalize his behavior in as wide a range of circumstances as possible.

Take Action:

1. Do the steps listed above.
2. Repeat the training as often as possible over the next two weeks and you should have a calm, well-behave dog when visitors come calling.

Let us know what you think.

Use the Reply section below this article to tell the rest of the community about your trials and successes with training your small dog not to charge the front door.

Photo courtesy of tobyotter@flickr.com

Trick or treat!

“Trick or treat. Give me something good to eat. Don’t hold back and don’t be lazy, or I’ll drive your small dog crazy.”

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays. What’s not to like? You get to dress up in a costume and play another character. It’s an excuse to eat a bunch of junk food. The house decorations are fun. Someone almost always hosts a great party. Your small dog barks his brains out when the doorbell rings every 90 seconds between sundown and around 9:00 p.m.

Okay, maybe you’re not so fond of that last item.

The Horror . . . the Horror!

If your small dog creates his own horror movie by terrorizing trick-or-treaters at your front door, you have two choices:

1. Put up with the commotion and hope your dog doesn’t try to make a Halloween snack out of a trick-or-treater, or
2. Arrange it so your dog can relax when . . .
   “. . . suddenly there came a tapping,
   As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
   `’Tis some visitor,’ I muttered, `tapping at my chamber door -
   Only this, and nothing more.’” (The Raven, Edgar Allan Poe, 1945)

Frankenstein’s Formula

A dog that charges the front door and barks is extremely anxious about the intruder/threat on the other side. Any attempt to counter the dog’s behavior with voice commands and physical manipulation, such as poking the dog in the neck, will only fuel the dog’s anxiety. You will get much better results by applying the two primary principles of training:

• Arrange it so the dog’s undesirable behavior fails to serve the dog.
• Offer a substitute behavior that works for the dog.

I’ll explain how to do these two steps in my next article.

Tricks and Treats

Your other option is simply to place your dog in his crate with a suitable distraction, such as a long-lasting chew stick or toy. Ironically this technique is very similar to the first because you are arranging the situation where:

1. Charging the front door is going to fail because it is not possible, and
2. Eating a dog-safe Halloween treat is a great substitute for eating little kids in costumes.

I’ll be back before October 31st with an article explaining the training steps to stop your dog from charging the front door. Happy Halloween.

There is a recurring theme in small dog ownership that keeps rearing its head. I believe it’s at the heart of most of the problems we have with small dogs. The theme is this: we tend to confuse our small dogs with children. Many of us say, “Oh, I know he’s just a dog,” while we secretly believe, in our heart of hearts, that our dog is a child.

Then there are those who just come right out and say it, like the person who came into our shop the other day to pick up her small dog. This un-neutered dog responds to the abundance of testosterone coursing through his veins by peeing on every vertical surface he passes. One of the ladies at our shop, tired and exasperated from continually mopping up after this dog, asked the owner why the dog had not been neutered. The owner’s response: “You wouldn’t do that to your child, would you?”

What’s Wrong?

What’s the problem with this? Am I being petty? I don’t think so, because if you look at the behavior problems of small dog-children, you’ll see the disconnect. While people understand and enjoy dogs as children, dogs really don’t understand the role of a child. Sure, they get the part about hugging and kissing, but they don’t understand the rest of the conversation. It’s gibberish to them.

Lost in Translation

Think of it this way. Imagine yourself all alone in another country where you don’t speak the language and you don’t have a feel for the culture. How would you fair in the first hour after you set foot in that land? You would be pretty disoriented. You would rely on your normal habits. By luck, some of the things you would try would be culturally acceptable, but some things would not. In time, through trial and error, you would probably work it out.

Here’s the deal with small dogs treated as children. They are visitors in a foreign country, except they are continually stuck in that first hour after arrival. They don’t get the language, and never will. They don’t get the culture, and never will. They may eventually figure out some of the customs and habits of this strange world, but they will never fully master their environment.

That is why small dogs, treated as children, seem to run amok. That is why they do things that disappoint or frustrate us. They aren’t trying to be bad. They are just doing what they naturally do because nothing else makes sense.

Change is Hard

The solution is hard—very hard. It requires us to discard the lenses that make us see small dogs as children. It’s a sacrifice that many of us are not ready to make because there are so many benefits to being the parent of a small dog. The benefit is all ours.

Take Action:

Evaluate your relationship with your small dog. See if you are:

• Explaining your expectations to your dog in sentences.
• Placing affection ahead of guidance.
• Reacting emotionally, rather than rationally, to your small dog’s misbehavior.
• Referring to yourself as your small dog’s mom or dad.

If you are doing at least two of the items on this list, and your small dog is a model citizen, write and tell me I don’t know what I am talking about. If some or all of your dog’s behavior is driving you nuts, it’s time to re-evaluate your view of your small dog.

A Maltese-Poodle mix (Maltipoo). This is not the dog referenced in this article.

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We have had a rescued maltipoo for about three months. He has his emotional ups and downs – is almost always good with me.

Is jealous of my husband’s affection toward our shepard mix 10 year old dog. Started out being my husband’s dog – and then started snapping at him for no reason. Now he is “my dog” but is either hyperactive one day and then very quiet another day. He evidently was fed table scraps (vet says he’s 1-2 years old and he was not neutered when we got him – matted coat – running at night on a freeway in Phoenix) because feeding him is a problem.

What can my husband do to stop the dog from snapping at him – the dog seems to like my husband, but if dog is sleeping on bed or not facing him will whirl around, snapping, growling and getting in my husband’s face. Any help you can give will be appreciated. He has been vet checked, neutered, shots, etc and was found to be in good health.

My Response

Dear Dee:

First of all. Thank you so much for posting your comment to my website. Here are my thoughts:

Here is one thing we can immediately deduce, your dog does not like to be surprised. This is not unusual for a rescued dog, especially one that has spent time on the street. While on the street, a dog learns to be defensive as a means of survival. When a street dog feels threatened, it has two choices: fight or flee. Usually, when the threat is detected early and still far from the dog, the dog will choose to flee. If the dog is taken by surprise and the threat is too close to run from, the dog may choose to fight. Before fighting, a dog will try to warn the intruder. This is what your dog is doing with your husband.

Taken by Surprise

You said your dog reacts with threatening behavior whenever he is awakened by your husband, or when your husband approaches him from his blind spot to the rear. Essentially, your husband is surprising your dog, which makes your street-wise maltipoo feel threatened. If your dog snaps from his bed when he’s not actually sleeping, then he is simply defending his bed–his territory–when your husband gets too close. That’s one part of the puzzle.

Why Only with the Husband?

The second part of the puzzle is why your dog only feels surprised and threatened by your husband. Your husband’s relationship with your 10-year old shepard mix may be part of the reason. I feel there must be some connection to how your husband behaves around your maltipoo that makes some difference too. I cannot venture a opinion without seeing the interaction between your dog and your husband. However, there are some first steps your husband can take that may help.

1. Be aware of your rescued dog’s street-wise habits and obviously, don’t intentionally do anything to shock or surprise him.
2. When the dog threatens your husband, he should not react at all, (as long as the dog goes no further than the warning behavior you described.) By not reacting, I mean he should not look at the dog, touch the dog, or even speak to the dog. Realize yelling or even talking to a dog on emotional fire only pours fuel on the flame. Completely ignore the bad reaction and the dog as though he is not there.
3. When the dog is calm, I’d recommend that your husband take him for a walk, and do this as often as possible. One 30-45 minute walk per day is good. Two 30-minute or more walks is better. Here’s the key. When your husband walks your dog, he should be alone with the dog. Don’t bring the shepard mix. You can join your husband, but I’d recommend walking on the side of your husband, opposite the dog so you are not part of the interaction between husband and dog. When your husband walks your dog, he should insist that the dog walks alongside or slightly behind, never out in front. The idea is, your husband leads the dog, not the other way around. The strategy is two-fold. First, long walks together will help build a bond of trust between them. Second, when your husband leads your dog on a walk, the dog will learn to accept your husband as a leader. Dogs are wired to not threaten or challenge a confident and able leader.

More on Walking Your Dog

There’s a right way and wrong way to lead a dog on a walk. It should always be done calmly and with confidence. I’m not a big fan of using a choke collar to get a dog to heel. A choke collar, despite what others might say, inflicts a moment of discomfort on the dog when the leash is yanked. The last thing your husband needs right now is to strengthen the link between himself and the dog’s feelings of discomfort. If your maltipoo does not already know how to heel, I strongly recommend using a Haltie harness for training, which is available at most pet stores. The Haltie harness prevents your dog from pulling on a leash by re-directing his head position, just as a halter steers a horse. There are also a lot of good books on the shelf about how to teach your dog to heel. I especially like Let the Dog Decide: The Revolutionary 15-Minute-a-Day Program to Train Your Dog – Gently and Reliably“ by Dale Stavroff. It’s available and inexpensive at Amazon.com.

Conclusion

If your dog resorts to biting, or if you feel what I’ve recommended is beyond your capability, then I’d suggest getting a local dog trainer/behaviorist involved. With the right strategy, and with time and patience, your rescued dog will settle in.

Have Any Additional Thoughts?

Please add them to the comments section below.