New Year New Dog

I would like to share my plan with you. I want to train my dog, Juneau, to be the lovable family pet I know she is on the inside. I have always found that writing things down encourages me to actually complete them. I have a to-do list at work, and without it, I am hopeless. I also hope for encouragement from the crowd. (And hints and tips.)

Juneau will be 3 years old in the spring. She is a Mastiff and German Shepard mix and my first dog. I have wanted a dog for as long as I can remember and I was finally in a position to get a puppy. (We also have a 12 year old black lab-mix named Lucy who came from my husband's childhood home 3 years ago.)

House breaking Juneau went fairly smoothly. We didn't pay as much attention to her when she was in the house as we probably should, so it went a little bit slowly. But in the end, flawless house-broken-ness. At that same time, Lucy developed Cushing's Disease and started to destroy the house. But if you get home and your house is destroyed and you have a 3 month old puppy, statistically who's fault is it? So the dogs got crate trained at this point. (Super easy for baby Juneau, super hard for old-lady Lucy.)

The biggest mistake I made in Juneau's life has to have been her poor socialization. This is the key for any puppy's young life and I totally blew it. We don't have children and our friends at the time didn't have dogs or children. She didn't see many strange people or places and now she is scared of everything. She isn't (luckily) scared of thunder or anything like that, but hats, kids, poofy hair, strollers, rakes, balloons, all freak her out. And as as Shepard/Mastiff her fear outlet of choice is . . . . Aggression!

My next mistake was not teaching her to heel on a leash when she was a baby. Shortly after we got her I was walking both dogs at once and Lucy chased a cat. My left hand got tangled up in the leash and my ring finger snapped. (Married for 2 months and I had to get my rings cut off in the ER!) For some reason, even that didn't wake me up. It did, however, slow down my ability to train. You try working the leash, treats and clicker with one hand! So I mostly gave up. Two months later, my finger is healed and  Juneau headbutts my hand and re-breaks the finger. So another 2 months of basically no training. *ugh*

After I was healed, I took her to the training classes at our local pet store. Which were totally adequate. I wanted to learn clicker training, but they didn't offer it, so I went with the standard food-based operant conditioning class. We did level 1-3 and she learned basic obedience with no issues. The next mistake I made was not working those skills into day-to-day life and not training  more outside of class. She was PERFECT in class but out of class . . .  Also, whenever a strange dog would walk by the window of the training room, she would go psycho and try and kill it through the glass. The trainer's reaction: "Ok, lets move on to the next activity."

So some time passes and Juneau grows to 75lbs and is very strong and unruly. One of my largest character flaws is my ability to get so frustrated I shut down. (Look up "learned helplessness".) That's where I was with Juneau. She is so big and I'm so lazy and I've ruined her. Then I find e-collars. (Now don't get upset, I see the light later in the story.)

I convince my husband that we need to try e-collars. They are the way of the future. I watched you-tube videos of teaching an insane dog to heel and be nice in 3 hours. Watching a rottweiler learn to come when called; away from hot dog pieces on the ground. Amazing things. The problem: those things are freaking expensive. So I buy a cheap, crappy version. It only has 10 levels. Level 4 she can't feel and level 5 scares the crap out of her. So I work with that for awhile and she learns to recall like a bullet. It was amazing.

Well that works so well, what if I got a real trainer to help me learn how to properly use the e-collar!? So I found a local trainer that is a certified pet dog trainer who uses e-collars. We have a meeting with her and I want to start right away. (I'm gung-ho all of a sudden.) Mike isn't sure, and it is really expensive but I talk him into it. (Sorry sweetie.) The classes come with a nice e-collar with 100 levels, she explains how it works and makes us do it on ourselves so we can see that it isn't painful. (It really isn't.) Juneau and I do 6 months of training and her obedience skills get amazing. Down on the first try, recall can get her away from chasing a rabbit. However, the fear of other dogs gets much worse. Now she she sees another dog and she wants to attack it, now that dog brings with it electric shocks. Her dog aggression also skyrockets. Now walks are impossible. My trainer's response "Try it on a higher level". *sigh*

Around the end of the six months with the e-collar my dad sends me a copy of John Bradsaw's "Dog Sense". Which if you haven't read, buy it today. Basically it is a book of dog behavior written about what we ACTUALLY know about dogs by studying dogs. Not what we have learned about wolves by watching them in zoos (which isn't how real wolves act in family groups by the way.) Basically everything my trainer says and some famous TV dog trainers are based on watching zoo wolves, not dogs. Dogs are not pack animals! Wolves are, but dogs and wolves evolved from a common ancestor, they are not the same thing. You don't deal with your cat based on what David Attenborough told you about lions! Bradshaw talks all about e-collars and how positive punishment (adding shocks to decrease a behavior) doesn't work for fear. If your dog is afraid and you shock them to be less afraid they are now MORE scared because shocks have been added. So I gave up. (Again.)

So here I am. My dog is as big as me and much stronger than me and I cannot control her most of the time. I have Dr. Sophia Yin's book "How to Behave So Your Dog Behaves". I started the official training and behavior modification (for me) last night and I plan to make Juneau's life my project for 2012. She is smart, I am smart, together we should be able to get somewhere. Also, now that I have stopped the e-collar, I have my husband on my side too. So we will make a great team. I want you to make me have credibility.