Jeff

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.

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.

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.

• 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.

I know it’s a bit past Halloween, but I couldn’t pass up posting these photos from Heidi and her sweet Maltese, Casper. Casper is actually a star in his own right. You can see videos of him at his own YouTube channel here: Casper on YouTube.

He has his own website as well, called DoodleApproval.com, where you can seek his advice on any concern you might have.

Thank you Heidi for sending these in. Do you have a good shot from Halloween? If so, send them to ideas@asmalldog.com.

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.)

Good dog!

Hey small dog lovers,

We just got back from Aruba in the Dutch Antilles, or as my lovely wife says, “Arroooba, dahlink.” She’s not Hungarian. She’s from South Carolina. Go figure.

Traveling around the capital city of Oranjestad, we noticed a complete absence of dogs, small, big, domestic, stray. None. Nada. I know the Dutch love their dogs, so I’m sure the pups were around there somewhere. We just didn’t see any.

The closest I came to anything resembling a small dog was the iguana, (photo above,) who thought he was a canine. Kind of tough to pet though.

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?