Monthly Archives: January 2017

Pulling on Leash

Problem behaviours: pulling and jerking on the leash


Confession time. Before I knew how to stop it, I had a dog who pulled like a demon. Once, he was part of a group of four dogs I was walking that pulled me on my arse through a field of cows to see a dog at the other side. He pulled so much that it made my hands and shoulders sore. It made me really cross with him too, and I’d finish walks furious if I had to walk him on the leash the whole walk. For this reason, I’d let him off leash more than I should and I even contemplated choke chains. I didn’t get as far as thinking of prong collars, but what I wanted from my dog wasn’t what I was getting.

Sadly, it was all my fault too. Before I knew better, I’d clipped an extending “flexi” leash on him. I used one with my cocker spaniel and it suited us fine. But that flexi-leash taught my young pup about constant pressure and snapping to an end. It taught him he could go where he liked and to feel the constant pressure until it jerked to a stop. This is how he thought dogs walked on the leash.

Not only that, I did another bad thing. I let him off leash at 20 weeks of age for the first time. For a few weeks, it was great. He could walk without pulling and his recall was great. Until he saw a deer. And then a rabbit. His 100% recall was shot and he had to go back on the leash. But he’d got smells by then. Making a lunge to a smell, dragging me from one side to another, wrapping me up in that nasty nylon flexi-leash… so I moved to a 1 metre flat leash, which is the standard leash length. He couldn’t move anywhere and spent the whole time trying desperately to get to a scent. The leash became a punishment in itself. Not only that, but trying to walk past various dogs behind 100m of open fencing meant he too got barrier aggression. Two great reasons to pull and lunge: barrier aggression and over-excitement around scents.

And I did that horrible thing. I expected him to grow out of it. I thought that, by the time he got through his teens, he’d stop.

The dogs I’d had before either walked nicely on leash or had great recall. Molly wasn’t so great on the leash, but she had good recall (on the whole!) and she was never aggressive with other dogs. Tilly and Saffy walked nicely on the leash and good recall (unless there was a cowpat or a cyclist!) But Heston was neither 16kg of easy-to-control dog nor was he a homebody wanting to stay with the pack. No. He was an independent spirit who wanted to chase jays and crows, sparrows and starlings, deer and boar, cyclists and joggers.

While I didn’t get it right with leash walking, I did with a lot of other stuff. We negotiated destructive boredom and he had lots of other ways to burn off energy at home. Heelwork, agility and obedience training were good for him.

But a walk was a living nightmare, with me constantly on edge.

I think that’s the same for a lot of people.

I suspect that walks are the biggest point of conflict between dogs and owners. We love going for a walk with our dogs, otherwise we really wouldn’t take them. And lots of people don’t walk their dog. For 23 hours of the day, you have a great dog who you love very much, and for 1 hour a day, you have a dog that you’d surrender to a shelter. For 23 hours a day, you’re all treats and rewards. For 1 hour a day, you’re at your very worst.

Let’s face it, more people let their dog off the leash than should. I can’t tell you how many accounts of poor dog/dog greetings on a walk I read in one day. For those of us who walk our dogs on a leash, being approached by an unruly off-leash dog with zero recall is our worst nightmare. The Dog Lady posted yesterday about an off-leash incident that cued a lot of comments from owners whose dogs on leashes were attacked by dogs off-leash.

But I know why so many people walk their dogs off-leash.

On-leash, their dog is a nightmare. Off-leash, their dog’s recall may be poor, but many dogs kind of pootle about near the owner. I let Tilly, Effel, Molly, Saffy, Ralf or Amigo off leash and I know that I could walk and they’d be somewhere near me. Sure, they all have their moments where they go all Benton (remember that viral video of the dog chasing deer, much to the frustration of their owner?!) but off-leash, they’re a happy dog and I’m an owner who isn’t having my arm pulled off.

This has consequences of course. More lost dogs is one. Dogs run over is another. Dogs being self-employed on a walk is a serious side-effect. I can’t tell you the number of times Heston disappeared whilst on an off-leash walk. I can’t tell you how many times Tilly has disappeared after some distant cow-pat. But the risk of them doing so was always less than the daily pain in the arse of walking dogs on a leash

Most off-leashers seek out quiet spots away from other dogs. But you can’t predict when someone else will appear. By far most common side-effect of walking off-leash with a dog with poor recall is that if your dog sees another dog or human, they are going to approach it. I think most of these incidents end without bloodshed. The psychological trauma of repeated incidents for both dogs is enormous though. And for vets who deal with dog bites, what percentage of those happen between unfamiliar dogs where they were out on a walk with one or more of the dogs off-leash?

So why do so many people let their dogs off, knowing that their dog is a bit of an arse with others and that their dog has zero recall when confronted with other dogs?

And why do so many good people turn to choke chains, prong collars or gentle leaders to help them out in what is, quite frankly, often a daily battle? If you ask me, the daily walk is the last bastion of punishment training, the one point in a dog’s life where we feel like punishment might work even if we feel uncomfortable punishing a dog at all.

The answer to these questions is simple: walking your dog is often harder than it should be. For many of us, we feel strongly enough that we should walk our dogs but we focus too much on control rather than communication. We haven’t got good enough communication with our dog to have a fool-proof recall or a jerk-free leashed walk, so we try and control the dog instead.

Think about it, though.

You and your dog have different goals on a walk. You want to see some nice landscape, hike across the moors, take a gentle amble to the paper shop, feel good about making your dog happy, enjoy a little time with your canine friends … your dog wants to cram as much into that brief walk as they possibly can. It’s their dog time. The rest of the day, they have to refrain from doggie behaviour. No nuisance barking. No investigative chewing. No hole digging. Is it any wonder our dogs are so excited? They are FREE! But that freedom is short-lived, and they know it. Most medium-sized adult dogs are capable of a good three or four hour walk every single day. And unless you are a jobless walking health freak, there’s no way your dog is doing that.

For this reason, it becomes a really high energy moment for many dogs. I bet you any wager you care to offer that a dog who walks eleven hours a day will not be quite as excited about the prospect of a walk as your dog who gets an hour a day.

A dog’s motivation is to smell and investigate everything they can. Your motivation is… to do enough of a walk so you feel like you’ve done your bit and get home for a drink. Especially if it’s cold, windy, wet, hot, early or late.

We have other conflicting goals. We want our dogs to enjoy the walk. We don’t want automatons walking perfectly to heel, unless we are doing dog obedience or schutzhund, or unless we work in the military. We don’t want to frogmarch our dogs down the road whilst they watch us without any interest whatsoever in the world around them. By the way, if you do want this, don’t get a setter. Or a spaniel. Or a terrier. Get a shepherd. But don’t get a super-smart shepherd like a Malinois or an Australian shepherd. Get a low-maintenance German shepherd or a rottweiler. They’re more likely to see their walk as impromptu bodyguarding. They might bark at cars and grumble at passers-by if you’ve not taught them right, but they like to walk with you. It’s their body guarding job. Getting a good heel walk out of a shepherd isn’t hard. Loose-leash with a socialised shepherd is easy. Getting one out of a hound can take the most patience you’ve ever had.

Our personal goals are incompatible. Most of us want a happy medium between dogs who use what leash they have to go and smell stuff, but dogs who don’t lunge and jerk the leash. We don’t want frogmarching, but we don’t want the dog to walk us. It can be really hard for a dog to work out that some sniffing is okay but pull-sniffing is not.

Clicker training can certainly work. Watch Dr Sophia Yin or Emily Larlham teaching young dogs to walk to heel with a treat bag and a clicker, and you’ll no doubt think it’s a miracle. Their methods are perfect for young dogs who haven’t yet learned about all the other rewarding stuff they might find on a walk if only they lead you and not the other way around.

But clicker training to get a good on-leash walk with an adult dog can be really frustrating and doesn’t always work, even with minimal distraction.

I couldn’t see why clicker training wasn’t working for my puller. My clicker-trained dog who can perform a perfect peekaboo and can jump over my back, spin and twist through my legs like a slalom skier can walk to heel perfectly like an arena show dog…

And then he catches a smell and yanks me to the other side of the road.

No amount of ham, chicken skin, turkey, beef or duck is going to bring him back to me when he has caught a smell.

The fact is that once you have a dog who has learned that there are many, many more fun things on a walk than you can ever provide, you’re going to have a battle bringing it back to non-yanky, non-pully walking. How can a piece of chicken skin compete with the smell of dead badger?

For Heston, it just didn’t.

Funnily enough, it was a video about prong collars that got me thinking. The trainer kept explaining how the prong collar was a communication tool. I disagree. It’s a control tool. Sure, it communicates, but it does so with the appalling ability to shout so loud it’s like a Sergeant Major screaming in your face. It says, “you are under my control” to the dog. The dog gets to say nothing in return. That’s not communication.

A leash is a method of communicating with our dogs. It should tell them the speed we’re walking at, and the direction. Most humans are fairly predictable. We walk rather than running, and we go forward, the way our feet are facing. Sounds dumb, I know. But this isn’t always clear communication to a dog.

Not only that, dogs don’t walk like us. Most don’t walk at all. Walking’s what you do as a dog when you’re completely worn out and someone is coaxing you, or if you’re in trouble. Dogs trot. Watch your dog’s natural gait and they trot. Sometimes they run. Sometimes they gallop. But dogs don’t walk, not often. Effel lopes along. Tilly scurries. Amigo trots. Heston rushes.

And we humans tend to walk or run at a steady pace. Go run a marathon and you’ll see all the pace setters. Run a 6-minute mile? Run with the 6-minute pacer. What we don’t do is run and stop, run and stop, run and stop, run and smell stuff, run and investigate. But that’s what dogs do on a walk. If they’re setting a pace, they trot. So walking for a dog is a thing you have to teach, a pace thing.

So there are two fundamental issues with leashes. Firstly, our dogs don’t understand what we’re communicating mainly because a leash is silent and you only know it’s “talking” when you’re at the end of it. Secondly, how a dog walks and how a person walks are two very different things. What we need to teach is not how to realise they’ve got to the end of the line, whether that’s a metre or forty metres, but how to walk.

For that reason, we have two things to do. One is use our voices more and in the right way. The second is to teach dogs about speeds.

We may also have an issue with rewards and with more distracting environments for a dog.

How do you teach when the rewards you have are not as good as the rewards a dog gets for pulling you all over the path? How do you teach when the environment itself is so filled with interesting distractions that sticking a prong collar, halti, gentle leader, choke or slip leash on a dog isn’t ‘loud’ enough communication to combat the distractions?

The first thing to do is treat the walk itself as its own reward. The behaviour of going forward is rewarding in itself to a dog. On a walk, that’s what they want to do. Or zigzagging. But generally forward. Training a dog to walk loose-leash, you can use this to your advantage where chicken and ham may fail.

A walk is its own reward. For Heston, all he wants is to be on the walk. I’ve seen him spit out treats, even high value ones. He’ll take them, but he wants to walk. It’s the same with toys. He doesn’t want to play fetch or frisbee. For this reason, the best motivator is the walk itself. Moving forward is the reward. Exploring is the reward. Smelling stuff is the reward.

For this reason, one of the easiest motivators you can use with a dog on a walk is… the walk itself. It might be why your cheese is failing and your ham-scented biscuits don’t get a second look. You can see Emily from Kikopup using smell as a reward here:

Once I’ve understood that the behaviour itself is rewarding (like barking or chewing… you don’t need to teach a dog to do these on the whole!) the next thing I need to do is think about what I want from the walk. Do I want a frog-marcher, stepping alongside me, Malinois obedience style? It’s feasible if I do. You will need to do a lot of work on place-boards and turns, but you can do it. There are about forty mini-steps within an obedience walk. Any good trainer will tell you that it takes a long time to get the dog in the right position without a food lure, being able to turn on the spot keeping their front legs still and their back legs moving. Spins and twists are okay, but you need higher level stuff, like putting a placemat under your dog’s front feet and getting them to do a 360° on that. From here, you want to teach them to contact the side of your leg with the side of their body, as well as teaching the dog to circle on all kinds of different objects, including flat ones. You need to teach about eye contact too, as well as turns…. okay, so it’s feasible if you have fifty hours to train your dog to do it and lots of time to practise.

But most of us don’t want an obedience walk. Most of us just want a leisurely stroll where our dog can have a sniff from time to time without pulling us off our feet.

I don’t want to ‘control’ my dog, but I want my dog responsive to communication and I want them not to run on the leash or jerk towards a smell. When I’ve taught my dog to maintain communication during a walk through my voice signals, I won’t need leashes that control a dog: I can throw away the halti, the gentle leader, the head halter, the prong collar, the choke, the slip. I can also use longer leashes so that the dog can interact more with the environment and get the mental stimulation they crave from a walk rather than walking with me.

What I need to teach, then, is not the perfect heel or goose-step, but the perfect speed and some voice commands. If my dog is walking, they can smell as much as they like. If they’re doing the hoover-trot, where they’re simultaneously hoovering up smells and dragging you along, then this is not working. I need to take it back to a less stimulating environment where the dog is less aroused by the smells around them. I also need to teach them a cue word when I can see they’re going too fast and they’re going to get to the end of the leash. I think this is where a lot of the training videos fall short because a scrabbling, pulling dog is often trotting or running on the leash and they aren’t at all interested in food. This is where I’m going to use going forward as the reward in itself. But I still need to practise good leash behaviours like walking on the lead instead of trotting.

One of the problems I find with trying to use traditional clicker training, rewarding a dog for walking at your side and looking at you is that it only works if your rewards are more high-value than the environment, and you can spend literally months building up a ‘strong behaviour’ based on food without ever getting to the point where your food (or even play) will be more of a reward than the environment itself and your dog’s desire (and need) to interact with it. If a dog has to walk at your side and look at you (and thus interact with you rather than the environment) to get a reward, you aren’t going to win when your dog is full of energy and when the rewards for not walking at your side or looking at you are bigger than whatever treat you have to offer. Otherwise, I’ll be happy to show you Tilly’s ‘perfect’ heel walk when she knows I’ve got a pig’s ear in my pocket. But is she interacting with the environment? Not at all.

Also, there seems to be something inherently flawed about trying to teach a dog to interact in less crazy ways with the environment by rewarding them for interacting with you.

For this reason, I’m going to use the environment first as the reward, use treats/play if my dog will accept them and teach them verbal cues to tell them that they are going too slowly, too quickly or I’m going to change direction so that they can hear it coming before it does. For most leash-walking videos I see, whether prong or clicker, there’s no verbal communication at all between the dog and the walker. We’re using the leash as communication in both methods and that seems ridiculous. The dog only knows that they are out of leash when they feel the end of it which is why I think so many dogs walk at the end of the leash. If the only way to communicate that they’ve gone too far is the fact the leash jerks, then we’re failing in our desire to communicate with the dog, which is where a verbal cue is the missing link.

In the teaching world, getting your class to stop what they are doing is a similar situation. Imagine if you will a drama class in full engagement with their work, or an exam hall where you have two hundred candidates doing a paper. How do you get them to stop? You give them verbal cues. You don’t want your students constantly keeping an eye on you for some silent signal that they’re doing the right thing, or only knowing they’ve done the right thing when a buzzer goes and they get a biscuit. Dogs are capable of understanding our tone of voice, so we should use that. It seems silly to me to see gundog or working dog trainers using all kinds of aural cues like whistles and commands, and never see that in the dog walking world.

For this reason, I’m first going to teach my dog a cue to trot: “Quick, Quick, Quick”. Read Patricia McConnell’s thoughts about the effects of sound on speed and you’ll know where I’m coming from on this. Horse trainers and sled drivers use this all the time. Sounds and words equal a change in pace. Words and tone can encourage a change in pace. In fact, I’m going to teach my dog to trot on cue to “quick quick” and to walk on cue to “sloooooowww”. I’m going to teach them “stop”, too.

I promise you that people who run with their dogs have fewer problems with leash-pulling… having seen some of our great pullers at the refuge (Manix!) going for a trot with a volunteer, he doesn’t hardly need to be taught a trot because it’s his natural gait.

You don’t need to trot far, either. Ten paces following a “Quick Quick Quick!” will do. And before you go to a walk, teach your dog “Sloooooooowwww”. And use that tone. Anyone who’s had puppies knows that a “puppy, puppy, puppy!” call will bring them all to you. A “Quick Quick Quick” command is great if your dog is spending too long on a smell… and a “slooooooow” command is good if they’re trotting.

To teach these two commands, start in a safe, distraction-free zone. An empty car park if you need it. Your garden if you can. A car park is good because there’s no clear ‘forward’ direction or back, whereas a road or a path goes only in two directions, making it more predictable that you will go backwards or forwards. I’d recommend a shortish leash at this point so that they’re within your range of communication. One metre leashes are a little short and I think they can encourage pulling to get to smells, but even a three-metre leash would be too long for many dogs. Once a dog has mastered this with a two-metre leash, I move up to longer leashes and long lines when I know they’re responsive to commands further away from me.

Start this training after a walk, when your dog is not going to go mental at the sight of a leash, leave the leash on and try it then. If your dog is full of pent-up energy, you’re going to fail from the outset. And play before a walk can run the risk of amping the dog up — although I always find that my own dogs are much calmer after ten minutes of play to get that energy burst out of their system. You can use food rewards if you like to teach these two speeds. But you’re going to cue a run by saying “Quick, quick, quick”, then go at your dog’s trotting pace for a few metres. You can click and reward if you like, or give them a verbal praise. I promise you, it does not take long to teach a dog “quick, quick, quick.” You’re ‘teaching’ them to trot at their natural pace when you say. You can also build in, “Let’s go!” to show them how to turn and move in the opposite direction. The Kikopup videos show a great “Let’s go!” command.

Just remember… verbal cue AND THEN behaviour.

Then, before you stop running, say “sloooooowww” and bring the dog back to a walk. Click and reward if you like, or praise. When you slow, you’re going to walk at your own normal pace. It’s really important to reward the dog loads at this point, because this walk is hard for a dog. Before your dog gets to the end of the leash, say “stop!” and teach them to stand without moving. Teach the verbal cue “Let’s go!” to turn around and go in the opposite direction.

You’ve got to forget walking in a straight line or in one direction until your dog has learned this, frustrating as this can be. You’ve got to forget your nice little circuit, or the need to walk a kilometre or so. If you only make ten metres progress on a loose leash in an hour, that is progress enough.  You can see how frustrating this might be for a dog, which is why some off-leash walking or play would be good beforehand. No point trying to reeducate your dog on how to walk properly when you’re just back from an hour of reinforcing pull-and-jerk.

Once you’ve mastered this in your garden, a closed field or an empty car park, move up to more distracting spaces. If you give a verbal cue then turn every time your dog lunges forward, every time they trot and jerk the leash, you will soon get to a point where you can use “Quick Quick Quick” as the cue to speed up (if they need it!) and “Slow” or “Stop!” to stop them getting to the end of the line. If they get to the end, I say “Too bad!” and turn in another direction.

I generally use the two-metre leashes with dogs who are in a distracting environment, three-metre ones and five-metre ones for areas where we might come to distractions like other dogs or people, and a twenty or fifty-metre long line when I’ve got one single dog on a leash in a non-distracting environment – for example, when all my other dogs are okay off-leash, but Heston’s still a bit whooo-hooo! and might do a disappearing act if he catches a smell. If I’m walking in town, it’s a two metre leash, maximum. If I’m walking a number of dogs, it’s usually two metre and three metre leashes. I actually have a carabiner attached to a short leash for Heston so that I can clip on different leashes at different moments without fumbling about.

Here’s a really good video from a BAT trainer about long line hand positions that really helped with Heston:

This is a great explanation and demonstration from Grisha Stewart that made a big difference for Heston.

As she says, it’s about walking in balance and in tune with each other. Her slow stop method was what got me thinking about teaching speed of walk and giving a cue before the stop. It’s a team exercise, but I need to make sure my dog understands that.

Teaching that you only move forward on a loose leash is vital. Teaching them to speed up and slow down on cue means that your dog can more easily predict what speed you want them to go at.

The five things that have helped most then are:

  1. Having the right equipment: the right leash for the right time.
  2. Teaching verbal cues for speed that tell a dog they are going too fast or too slow without them needing to look at me, remembering that a leash is one way of communicating with a dog, but my voice is better.
  3. Actively teaching on-leash walking skills when I’m not actually walking my dog and when I have no walking agenda.
  4. Using the environment as the reward and use forward motion as the reward for good leash manners remembering to be absolutely consistent about never letting my dog to go forward on a tight leash.
  5. Using long lines and Grisha Stewart’s methods of holding and handling the line to reduce pressure

You can see in the video below how Heston’s made such great progress that straight out of the car, he can walk at a loose leash. The wind’s coming in from the south carrying the scent of the wild boar from the forest a hundred metres away, so he’s a bit more distracted than usual. I also use “gentle Heston” because he knows this from a puppy, but he knows slow as well. I try to give him lots of verbal feedback about how he’s doing and he needs more at the beginning of a walk because he’s more excited. It’s a bit jerky – you’d expect that with three dogs in one hand and a camera in the other! He’s got his three metre leash on here so that he’s got some range of movement, and he does cross the road to keep an eye on the forest, though he usually walks on my right. Tilly and Effel walk to heel with no pulling, and they have great recall, which is why they’re off-leash. Amigo is partially deaf, which is why he is on-leash, and Benji is a foster, which is why he has a slip-leash and is not off leash.

Turning Heston from a dog who jerks on the leash, or trots and lunges, to a dog who gives some eye-contact during the walk and never has a tight leash has taken some time. It’s a combination of Patricia McConnell’s ideas about vocal commands, Grisha Stewart’s BAT loose-leash methods, and Emily Larlham’s clicker-training methods that has made the biggest difference for him.

Next time: how to improve your dog’s recall

Pre-walk Over-Excitement

Problem behaviours: over-excitement before a walk

Over the coming weeks, I’ll be tackling fifteen very common problems that owners have with adolescent or adult dogs… behaviours that are often simple to avoid through good puppy training but also cause problems for owners who have adopted untrained adult shelter dogs or who missed a bit in the puppy department.

These behaviours are unfortunately ones that can lead to dogs being abandoned at the shelter.

The good news is that even if your dog has all of these behaviours, they’re things that can be addressed easily. I’ve yet to find a dog who does all fifteen, but it’s not uncommon to find a lot of them in combination. They’re also all problems that people ring about in the first few days of an adoption, as well as being ones that, sadly, end in owners returning dogs to the shelter at the end of their tether. What makes me sad is that if they’d called a trainer, they could have helped them with the problem.

The fifteen most common problems that people call about or lead to returns are:

In this post, I’ll be exploring one that is very close to home… one that had me exasperated yesterday…

… Over-excitement before a walk and poor impulse control on the lead…

Yes, you’ve got it: crazy behaviour before a walk, and not much better on it.

I’ll be splitting these up into two posts as really they are two separate problems, so I’ll to start by looking at how to bring pre-walk excitement back under control before you start. I’ll then link you to a video to help you teach your dog to walk more nicely on lead.

Let’s be clear… ALL my dogs, (that’s three of my own and two in foster care) are excited before a walk. But Heston… ah, Heston. He lives for a walk. Dogs like walks. Walks are their celebratory moments of the day. The first thing we need to do, then, is accept that walks are fun and know that this might cause behaviours that we find undesirable.

You can see some of those behaviours spilling out here: circling, barking… kind of the same behaviour we see in a lot of shelter dogs at walk time.

In the interests of clarity, by the way, this used to be Heston’s default pre-walk behaviour. He’d already had a walk that morning and I usually don’t allow this level of excitement. You can hear me encouraging it for the video. Normally I don’t flap a lead at him, stand by the gate and mention the dreaded W-word with a camera on him. Also, to be completely honest, he can be much, much worse than this. Yesterday morning, he was so over-excited that I spent it doing remedial pre-walk exercises. And then, when I wanted to make a video to show you all… he’s all “What?! Me? Over-excited? Never!”

But he’s not alone.

All four of the other dogs here right now can also be agitated before a walk if I don’t manage it well. Amigo whimpers and runs about. Tilly also cries and runs about. Effel has this weird behaviour where he comes barging in, lifts his paw and then when you put the lead on him behaves like a greyhound in the slips. He’s also a giant knob in the car. Benji barks and won’t stand still. Try putting five leads on that lot of 200kg of excited dogs and walking out of the gate or putting them in the car.

You’ll notice that I put ‘if I don’t manage it’ in italics way back there.

That is because this excitement is caused by me either intentionally (particularly in this video) or unintentionally. Heston does not spend all day circling and barking of his own accord. It’s me (or in this case me taking him on a walk) that has caused this behaviour. Can you imagine this 24/7?!

But because I cause this, it’s also up to me to manage it. What I cause, I can control. You can see though why a lot of people simply stop exercising their dogs or doing fun stuff with them, which can worsen other behaviours.

Whether I like it or not, I’m the only one of us in that partnership that can also bring this lunatic back to non-crazy behaviour. I can’t expect Heston to “grow out of this” (he’s almost five!) or to stop because I’m telling him off.

Calming a dog’s pre-walk energy is up to you.

It depends on you understanding the prompts and cues you give, and taking a bit of time to address the problem. The good news is that it is a problem that is easy to solve, if a little frustrating. Don’t get me wrong: that frustration will certainly be yours, as well as the dog’s.

I think one of the most frustrating things about managing this behaviour is that even human beings just want to get out of the gate and have a walk! The first thing to do is put the idea of ‘a walk’ out of the way until you’ve got this behaviour under control. Sure, that might mean your dogs only get a 5-yard ‘walk’, but a couple of weeks addressing this behaviour and I promise you that you’ll have an end to pre-walk excitement – and a dog you can communicate with right from the very first moments of your walk.

What you can’t do is just let your dogs get more and more wound up, let them off lead for the first half hour and let them run it off. I guarantee that if they don’t have enough impulse control not to pull on the lead or to manage their excitement, they won’t have enough impulse control to walk nicely on the lead or to come back when you ask.

So what do we need to do?

#1 understand our accidental cues

The first is to understand the unintentional cues we give our dogs. Cues are signals, words or other signs that reliably result in the animal performing a particular behaviour.

Cues can be deliberate, like asking for a sit, or they can be unintentional, like going to the fridge and being followed by a pack of dogs. For instance, if I tie my boots up, usually that will cause some excitement. If I pick my keys up, there may also be some excitement. If harnesses and leads come out, even more excitement still. Most of the problems that cause dogs to get over-excited before a walk come from accidental or unintentional cues.

These cues… they’re not usually deliberate. Nor are they all avoidable. I may not mean to give them or even know I’m doing it. It’s only when I thought about it that I realised every time I stand up and push the chair under, Heston makes for the door. Or I may be aware that I’m doing it and be unable to avoid doing it. Like I know my keys set him off, but how can I lock the door to go for a walk without using my keys?

If you want to see cues at work, go and pick up your dog’s lead and see what happens. Stand up. Notice what your dogs do? Move towards the door. Do they look interested? That’s an action prompting a response from your dog.

So why do these cues make dogs circle, bark or whine before a walk?

Because a walk is a massively fun and rewarding thing. It is the highlight of many dogs’ days. You might get this when you come home too. Benji, one of my current fosters, does these because me coming home is like hitting the jackpot and he’s excited to see me. Effel is just as excited at food time. If I say “Does Tilly want a treat?” she’s going to whine and whimper and race about like a fool.

You can get these perfectly normal doggie behaviours at any point when a dog is excited.

It can be cute from time to time, like when your dog is a puppy and you could train it out of them.

Instead, many of us encourage it: ‘Awwww… is Fido all excited? Are we going for a walk?’

Not cute when they’re five.

And it’s not cute when five dogs are doing it before you go for a walk.

And once one starts barking, the likelihood is that the others will all follow suit. That’s something else about canine excitement: it’s contagious. Thus I’ve got five barky, over-excited, whining, circling dogs to get through a gate and along a narrow path, past four houses with other dogs, over a main road and around ‘dog pee’ central where all my neighbours’ dogs also pee on the corner. I really, really don’t want that excitement behaviour.

How then do I stop it?

#2 Desensitise the dog to the cues

Once you’ve identified your cues, you then need to help your dog feel less bothered about them. This will help to break your cue chain or your chain of associations. W leads to X leads to Y leads to Z.

Dogs are super-expert at reading cues and putting them together. Heston’s go like this…

Am I awake?

Yes.

Have I had breakfast?

Yes!

Did we have a nap?

Yes!!

Is it light outside?

Yes!!!

Is she standing up?

Yes!!!!

Is she putting socks on?

Yes!!!!!

Is she putting shoes on?

Yes!!!!!!

Has she opened the shutters?

Yes!!!!!!!

Has she brushed her teeth?

Yes!!!!!!!!

Has she picked up her keys?

Yes!!!!!!!!!!

Has she put on her hat?

Yes!!!!!!!!!!!

Has she got her coat?

Yes!!!!!!!!!!!!

Has she got a lead?

Yes!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Has she locked the door?

Yes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Then it’s WALK TIME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I’ve talked in previous posts about trigger stacking, but the same is true of cues we give our dog. A combination, particularly in a formula, is very predictable, like the pins falling into place on a lock. Every single one of those cues contributes to the excitement the dog feels. But when they’ve learned W leads to Z, and all the other cues before lead to Z, they’re going to get excited when the first of those pins falls into place. And that excitement is just going to grow and grow. This process is called ‘back chaining’ and it means that the first thing comes to reliably predict the second, which comes to reliably predict the third… and so on.

The fact is that Heston realises there’s quite a long chain of events that lead up to a walk. There’s a lot of predictable cues that let him know a walk is on the way. Our main job is to disrupt the sequence, desensitise the dog to various cues that are absolutely necessary and make whatever leads to the excitement much less predictable, so that the dog is calmer and you can work with them.

Ever tried calming a dog like the Heston in the video? Not so easy, is it? Couple that with frustration, a barrier… bringing a dog back down from that into a learning zone can be really a challenge.

One of the main things that we need to do is stop this level of over-arousal ever happening in the first place, so that the dog is listening and responsive.

The first thing to do is identify every cue that excites our dog. I need to make a list of every single thing I regularly do before taking my dogs for a walk. That can include things like pushing a chair under (because I have one dog who likes to get up on the table) and locking the food away (because I have another dog who likes to break into the food room and have a picnic). I make a list of every single movement I make in the half-hour leading up to a walk, including the time I regularly walk the dog. What’s tipping Heston off? I’m going to list everything.

Then, I’m going to eradicate every single cue that has become an accidental part of the chain… the non-essentials. Is it essential I walk Heston first thing? No. Could I walk him before breakfast? Yes, if it’s light enough. Do I need to open the shutters? No. Must I put on my boots right before the walk? No. So I get rid of every inadvertent accidental cue. Do I need a hat? Could I keep it in my pocket? The shorter the time that excitement has to build up, the easier it is to manage.

Identify every single behaviour or object that gets a reaction. Put all the things on a table a couple of hours or so after a walk, and pick each one up in turn then move to the door. What does the dog do? Which ones cause the most excitement? Which ones are “hot” objects that really indicate a walk? I just did this… put my hat on and moved to the door… picked my keys up and moved towards the door… picked a lead up and moved towards the door. The hat caused a marginal response. The keys caused a lot of interest. The lead, well, that was a ‘jackpot’ cue… Heston’s scrabbling at the door to get out. Pushing my chair under also has the same effect.

#3 Become less predictable and teach the dog that the cue means a very specific behaviour

Once I’ve identified the problem cues that I can’t eradicate, I need to choose a programme to tackle this. I need to break the connection between these things and the consequence being a walk, and I need to be less predictable. I also need to teach the dog what to do instead of running around circling.

We do this out of context. It’s actually a good time to do it when you return from your walk and your dog is calm. They’re not expecting another walk. It’s a really good time to start your training.

Part of lowering this level of over-arousal with a stack of cues is to change the sequence. For anyone whose dog gets excited when they put a harness on, the simplest thing to do is put the harness on when you are doing something else – like they’ve just eaten – and leave it on until you take them. Easier still is to teach the dog that when they see a certain thing happening, they need to perform a certain behaviour.

It’s really hard when dogs are excited to ask for static behaviours like ‘sit’ or ‘down’. Not impossible, but that takes some impulse control.

It’s actually much easier to teach your dog to do something that involves movement whenever you do that thing you do.

For instance, when I tie my shoes, Heston goes to pick up a ball. When I’m about to open the door, bums must be on the floor. Each cue in turn means the dog has to do something specific, or the next piece of the chain won’t happen.

Your aim is to stop the harness meaning a walk. Your aim is to make the harness become a cue for something else entirely.

Once the dog comes to realise that whatever you do, whether it’s picking up keys or it’s putting on your boots, that it’s just time for them to go and do something instead, it helps them channel their energy and know what to do.

It’s the same with a lead. One of the easiest things to do is leave the harness on after you’ve been for a walk, and 10 times during the next hour or so, clip the lead on to it then take it straight off.

Then you can do the same with the harness. Take it off, put it on. Make it less of a cue that you’re going to go on a walk. Have a harness that you put on when it is nowhere near walk time, and clip a lead to it at the same time. Wrap the lead around the dog so it’s not dragging on the floor but is easy to unwrap, and then you’ve removed a very significant cue from the order. Taking the fun out of a lead is vital. Put it on 50 times a day. 100. Carry it around with you all day. That lead needs to mean nothing at all. That can be hard with a dog who knows what it is, but you will notice that your dog becomes less and less excited the more you handle the lead.

#3 If you can’t desensitise easily, bring in new cues and habituate the dog to them long before you use them

Another way you can do this is to switch the normal walking tools. If you use a flat collar and lead, switch to a harness and a new type of unexciting lead. If you use a harness, switch to a flat collar and lead for a little while and let your dog wear the harness round and about the house until the harness stops meaning “Walk!”

You want these to go on and off at least ten or fifteen times a day and never be paired up with a walk.

Then, when you do go out on a walk, the dog won’t associate them with being put on and going out for a walk.

You will need to keep doing this plenty of times though. It’s no good to go back to putting the harness on right before a walk and then hoping your dog won’t make the connection.

They will.

I’m also going to do that when I have absolutely zero other cues around that form part of that cue chain. There should be nothing on my list of cues can be anything that vaguely raises an eyelid. If I go and start messing around with leads when I am in my coat and hat, wearing my boots, got my keys in my hand, it’s going to be too much.

I’m going to do it when he’s had a walk already.

I’m going to leave his lead on in the house for five minutes or so, and then I’m going to take it off and carry it about a bit. I’m going to sit and watch TV with it in my hand.

Then the next day, I’m going to do it a bit more.

This way, the dog has zero expectations. Who goes on a walk when they’ve just got back from a walk? No dog on the planet. Never in the field of canine walking has a walk come immediately after a walk. It is a very safe time to teach a dog that a lead is meaningless. Leave it on, take it off after five minutes, play with it. Put it away. Next day, do it a bit more. Within a week, you should have a dog who is happy for you pick up and move the lead without assuming that a walk is going to follow. Stop hanging the lead in its habitual place, too. Keep it around and about you.

When your dog is no longer as aroused by you picking up the lead, you can also use post-walk time to get the dog used to you taking off and putting the lead back on again. When’s the best time to practise putting a lead on without excitement? When you’ve just taken it off.

If you use a clicker, you can reward calmness.

A lot of us ask our dog to sit before we remove a lead, so keep them in a sit or a stand and immediately clip it off, then clip it back on. Do it ten times or so in the first couple of minutes after a walk and you’ll have a very different reaction after a couple of weeks from the one you get trying to do that before a walk. Make sure you build up and practise regularly throughout the day.

I’d also vary it – try taking the lead off and putting it back on five minutes after a walk. Leave longer intervals between taking it off and putting it back on. If your dog gets excited, leave it til after the next walk and do the same, just with less of a duration.

It can also help you to vary your routine and take your dog for a few additional, unexpected walks completely out of sync. It’s much easier to teach your dog when they don’t have a whole load of expectations about what should be happening.

Make it unexpected and unpredictable.

All of these tiny, tiny prompts add up together, and it’s much easier to teach our dogs each cue one by one without adding in all the others too.

For many excitement behaviours, doing things out of sync can reduce them, or mixing them up. The more of those behaviours that Heston understands make it more and more inevitable that a walk will happen. If I could do them all simultaneously in one second, it would catch him off-guard, but the fact is that some of those things are ones I have to do.

I don’t walk Heston in the dark. I don’t walk him barefoot. I don’t walk him without having locked the door, and I don’t walk him without a lead. Some of these things are going to have to happen in an order. But some don’t have to happen in that order, or only happen right before a walk. For instance, like the harness or lead, I need to take the fun out of my keys, and the door being locked whilst we’re both on the ‘walk’ side of it. I need to disconnect my boots from a walk, and my coat. Yes, I’m going to have a few days where I’m just picking up stuff and putting it back down, right after a walk. I’m going to do it at random and schedule it so that it will seem random to the dog but that I am being systematic. I may also teach him that some of these cues mean that he should do a specific behaviour. For instance, when I put my boots on, he goes to his toy box to select a squeaky toy, and that way he doesn’t end up annoying me by whining all the time.

At the same time, I’m really, really working on some trainable impulse control and frustration tolerance.

Of course, you want to know five biggest changes that turn a crazy-eyed loon into a mild-mannered dog, reversing the Tasmanian Devil effect…

  1. The first was making sure my dog has had some exercise before the walk (avoiding making pre-walk exercise the cue for a walk!) and I’m going to do things that are mentally taxing, not physically taxing. Thirty minutes of searching for breakfast in the garden will do that. Chewing is also a great activity to get dogs to calm. Working on a bone for half an hour before a walk is no bad thing.
  2. I’m also going to make sure that my multi-dog household are not feeding off each other’s excitement. Actually, that means really messing with my schedule for a couple of weeks until the dogs are all calm and sometimes only taking one dog.
  3. Eradicating and desensitising cues is a big game changer. I put my shoes on when the dogs are eating breakfast, and leave my coat to grab on the other side of the door. I don’t push my chair under or put my hat on. I leave the lead wrapped around Heston’s collar from dawn until a couple of hours after the walk. I practise putting it on and taking it off before the walk. Heston’s two biggest excitement factors are the keys and the lead, so I make them meaningless. Stop announcing that you’re going for a walk five minutes before you go on one.
  4. Shaking it up with the cues you can’t eliminate also helps. Instead of moving towards the gate, I move away as if I’m going into the garden. I don’t even go five yards before he’s looking at me like, ‘the walk’s this way, dumbass’ . Teach them that the cues you can’t avoid are signals for them to do X or Y instead.
  5. The fifth tip is to increase your expectations, remember you’ve got a dog, teach impulse control instead of expecting it, and teach your dog to tolerate and cope with frustration.

For further information, if your dog jumps up, leaps or grabs the lead you can also check out this post which will also help you bring those excitement levels back down so that you don’t have to put up with a lunatic on a lead.

If you’re struggling to walk your dog, remember that loose-lead walking is an art in itself. This free two-hour webinar talks you through how I teach my dogs to walk on a loose lead.

Don’t forget to sign up for emails if you prefer to get this to your inbox. Feel free to check out my book Client-Centred Dog Training: 30 Lessons for Dog Trainers to get Maximum Engagement from Your Clients.

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Woof Like To Meet Dog Fails

There are times when I look back at something that has just happened with one of my dogs and think that a situation could have been completely avoided with a bit of common sense. In fact, I shouldn’t call these ‘dog fails’. I should call them ‘colossal lapses in human judgement’ – because when my dogs fail, it’s inevitably because I’ve taken my eye off the metaphorical ball. Every time I see one of those Dog Shaming posts, I want to get the tippex out and write “Owner Shaming” instead. There’s inevitably a human who took their eye off the dog there too. Unless there are a lot of people who let their dogs rifle through the bins or destroy sofas whilst they watch on. I look at those ‘dog shaming’ photos and sites, and it makes me sad. It’s not the dogs who should be ashamed, but their owners.

One of those lapses in judgement happened here last week. In fact, it was a string of Owner Fails. The first fail was four years ago, letting my collie x retriever Heston explore off-lead aged 4 months. His recall was blown because chasing deer was so much more fun. Four years on, I’m still working on recall. The second fail came at the same time. That was using an extendable lead and not teaching him that walks don’t involve pull-and-stop with constant pressure. And four years on, I’m still correcting that Owner Fail too. The follies of a new puppy owner who didn’t know what she was doing! On the day last week, there were a series of fails, all because I was distracted and a bit overwrought. I don’t take Heston out first thing in the morning because there are too many fresh smells. But I was due at the vet’s at 9am. Really, I should have kept him on the lead since we had to leave for our walk when it was still dark, but I felt guilty that I was so busy, so I let him off. I was still waiting for him 45 minutes later. Luckily, he taught himself to come back to where he left me … eventually.

Owner Fail #1-3: not teaching a reliable recall to a puppy, using an extendable lead, letting an unreliable dog off-leash in a space that’s too distracting.

Another fail happened to me at the weekend. I’d taken Heston on a long leash walk (because I’m still working at two hours a week to stop the lunges and leash craziness!) and the first quarter-mile, I could see a man with an off-leash Jack Russell and chihuahua. He was dawdling and I should have turned around and gone another way. It was too challenging an environment for Heston to handle and quickly gets him into old habits, like lunges when he sees other dogs. What did I do? Because I wanted to do my loop (I’m doing a sponsored 1000 mile walk in 2017) I followed but we inevitably got too close a number of times and it took me ages to get Heston back to a calm point again. Luckily, having had enough of him going crackers at a dog behind a fence halfway around, I avoided the third “dog” blackspot and went another way instead.

Owner Fail #4: putting my dog in a position where he has no choice but to react. 

I have had a few fails with Tilly, my American cocker. She is temperamental with toileting at the best of times. We have months where there are no accidents, but it is vigilance on my behalf rather than great toilet behaviour on hers. I’m meticulous about getting her out first thing, then after food, then around eleven, then mid-afternoon, then before dinner, then before bed. Meticulous. Except when it’s a bit damp or cold. I do exactly what she does and I feel the same. I do not want to stand outside with my eleven-year-old dog who should know better to check she’s been to the toilet because it is cold and wet. She does not want to go outside to the toilet because it is cold and wet. When she wasn’t moving at 9pm, I left her to it. When we went to bed an hour later, she got up in the middle of the night and left me a lovely puddle right by the door.

Owner Fail #5: letting toilet vigilance slide with a dog who needs you to be vigilant. 

Amigo, my collie x griffon doesn’t give me cause for many fails, but his age is giving me a couple. His hearing is going. Some days, he’s all but completely deaf. Others, he can hear a little. Because he can’t hear my other dogs (and his eyesight is not good either) sometimes he gets too close and he can’t hear their warnings. He’ll keep moving in and their warnings get more and more noisy. This means I need to leave the lights on until everyone is properly settled down, and not encourage midnight roaming. Still, one day over Christmas, I was more tired than usual and I switched all the lights off. Amigo came up to the bed for a little petting before he settled and stood on Heston. Luckily, it didn’t come to blows, but only through chance.

Owner Fail #4: not keeping my older dogs safe by sticking to a routine. 

Amigo also doesn’t like to be on the leash. He is usually great off-leash, but he can’t always hear us when we’ve moved on, and even 10 metres away, he can’t hear a car. However, he’s obviously been mistreated to get him to walk to heel, so he cowers, his ears back, his head down, the whole time on the lead. So I let him off because he looks so sad. Instead of putting his safety first, I let him off in places where it’s unlikely there will be cars or other dogs, but not impossible. It’s time to seek out new, secure walks, or to get him happier on the leash.

Owner Fail #5: not using a leash with a dog who has hearing problems. 

When Tilly arrived, we had a good few Owner Fail moments, including bin-rifling. I’d never owned a dog who would rifle through the bins before. I could leave anything out for Molly and the worst thing she would do would be collect a few of my things together and sleep on the bed with them. Tilly was fine if the things were in an enclosed bin. At first. But then there were a few times I’d come home to an upturned bin or a bin bag that had been torn apart. Once she ate some lambs’ kidneys that had been in the fridge for two weeks. How she’s only had an overdose of e-coli once, I don’t know. Anyway, I got pretty good at ensuring there was no food left out.

And then I got Heston. He did what adolescent dogs will do, and he chewed stuff. Not often, but enough. Four or five books. A toothbrush. My electric blanket. He liked blankets to chew too – that’s what can happen with a hand-reared pup. I got vigilant about picking stuff up and leaving him in the living room without anything bad to chew, and only good stuff to chew.

When Ralf arrived, he liked to break into the kitchen and take cans of dog meat, or bags of sugar, or pasta, or anything else he could find as a snack. Cue closed kitchen and stuff on high shelves. Food got locked away and the cupboard was under lock and key. Twenty months of life with Tobby after Ralf died got me sloppy about locking food up, but Effel my foster dog broke into the room one day and a habit was born. All food is now back under lock and key.

Owner Fail #6: not ensuring my dogs are left alone safe in a temptation-free zone.

Tilly is a scrounger, a scavenger, a shameless bin-dipping floozy; I daren’t tell you some of the more disgusting things she’s retrieved. Treating the cat litter tray like a hot snack buffet is the most publishable of her dirty sins. For that reason, bins are outside in what functioned as the dog pen for the previous resident of the house. If dogs can’t get out, dogs can’t get in. It still didn’t stop her sneaking up to lick out the cat litter trays or root around the bathroom for tasty non-flushable items.

Owner Fail #7: not ensuring bins are dog-proof. 

Despite all of these Owner Fails, I generally operate a safe environment, especially where foster dogs are concerned. These days, I’m much wiser.

But how many dogs are sent to the shelter or banished to outdoor pens where they have very little human interaction and virtually no stimulation at all, simply for doing what dogs do? How many dogs end up in yards because they haven’t been taught rock solid house manners? Banishing your dog for peeing on the couch is easier, is it not, than teaching a dog not to eliminate inside. Banishing your dog for counter surfing is easier than teaching them to stay out of the kitchen unless they’re with you. Leaving your dog in the yard because they eat the walls is easier than thinking they may be suffering from an illness, they may be bored in your absence or they may have separation anxiety.

Looking through the photos on a popular dog shaming site, all I can see are dogs who’ve not been taught better alternatives. Dogs who haven’t been taught where to eliminate. Dogs who haven’t been taught what to chew. Dogs who are bored when home alone. Dogs with possible separation anxiety. Dogs with poor manners around their humans or around other dogs. Dogs with too much freedom and owners who think dogs should know better than to counter surf. Dogs who don’t know how to behave around other dogs. Dogs who don’t know how to behave around children. Dogs who are unsupervised. Dogs afforded trust to be alone that they have not earned. One pair of dogs were “shamed” for chewing the cat basket when the owner was out. She says the day before they’d destroyed their own beds. If you ask me, it’s not the dogs who should be ashamed, but the owner who is not only giving her dogs far too much space and freedom when unsupervised, and not giving them the right things to occupy them, like a stuffed Kong or an interactive toy, or a marrow bone.

It makes me really sad that dogs are given so much freedom and so few rules. It’s not the dogs who should be ashamed. It’s the owners. I’d be ashamed to post a photo of my dog having eaten the Christmas tree. All it shows is what a knob I am for leaving a dog unsupervised around something dangerous, or for not teaching my dog to leave stuff alone. For all the things I do wrong with my dogs, all the owner fails, many have consequences that could end up at the vet – or worse. The dog who gets shot accidentally for having poor recall. The dog who gets run over when straying. The dog who eats rat poison and ends up at the vets.

There’s another thing too…

Chewing stuff we’re not supposed to, barking, digging, chasing stuff, peeing where you’re not supposed to, destroying stuff, playing, jumping up, counter surfing, escaping, poor recall, poor behaviour around other dogs, humans or children… they all have one thing in common.

They’re all things we need to teach our puppies not to do, or to do appropriately. They’re all things that lead to dogs being abandoned in shelters and things that lead to returns. If we want our dogs to fit into our lives and if we want them to be easily adoptable should the worst happen, we need to start when they are puppies and stop expecting them to grow out of poor behaviour. They’re all things that are simple to teach puppies, but time-consuming to teach an adult dog. Wouldn’t it be nice if our dogs grew up without us failing them quite so badly? When I talk of “Dog Fails” these days, what I mean is “the way we fail our dogs.”

It would be nice if instead of failing them, we addressed those very simple behaviour problems instead. It would be even better if we did it when they were puppies and they never learn how much fun the other stuff is.

 

 

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My Top Ten adoptions of 2016

When I started volunteering here in November 2013, there were two types of dogs here: long stay and short stay. There were almost 100 dogs who had been here more than three years in 2014, almost half of our residents. With growing links in the wider community, a network of amazing people means that we have one dog – one dog! – who has been here since 2014. That’s Kayser We have twenty-seven dogs who arrived in 2015. I think that is seriously cool. I mean – just wow. Think about it. Not one single dog who was at the shelter when I first arrived is still there.

Most of our long, long-term residents left in 2014 and 2015. Smoke, with 11 years of shelter life under his belt. Ufo, with 7. Dalton with 6. Nichman with 5. Paulo with 5. One by one, those dogs found homes. When we started 2016, Douggy was our longest-termer, with five years to his name. Elios was not far behind, with four years. It’s not going to surprise you that their names are on the list.

The dogs on the list are some of our longer residents, dogs who waited a long time for their home. They’re also some of the most difficult adoptions, with complex behavioural difficulties. Some of the dogs are just those who touch your heart because they’re such sad cases. They’re the adoptions that have really made me pinch myself because I couldn’t quite believe it was true. I confess that I wait, holding my breath, those first forty-eight hours and cross my fingers that there aren’t any problems.

This is a list of the adoptions this year that have really made me smile. They’re the adoptions that give you faith in people and give you that fuzzy, warm feeling that is so vital when you’re involved in rescue. They’re also the adoptions that represent the work that we do and the dogs who come to us, be they old or young, in good health or poor. They represent the destinations of a lot of our dogs too, be they adopted in France or elswhere. I can’t tell you how hard it was to pick out only ten!

#10 Brook

Brook was found wandering the street. This gentle, sweet old lady was clearly so attached to people and to find her on the streets in such neglect was really sad. Despite some early offers of adoption, someone in a neighbouring area thought Brook was her dog that she’d lost over three years ago. Problems with transport meant that Brook had a wait for the lady to come and identify her, but it was not to be. Happily, one of the couples who’d originally contacted me for Brook came a couple of hours to come and get her. Although there are other oldies on the list, what touched me most was that the couple had not long since lost an old dog themselves. It never fails to bring a tear to my eye when people, despite their grief, choose to pick up another oldie whose life expectancy is perhaps not so good.

#9 Jet

Arriving at the refuge as a puppy in summer 2014, Jet was unceremoniously returned here as a two-year-old. What chance was there for this poor dog who had been given little by way of training and had suffered as a result of a change in circumstance in the house. Luckily, his good looks won over his adoptant, and although he has still a lot to learn about walking on a lead, he’s doing superbly well. I know I must drive people crazy with my naggings when they adopt a puppy – but there’s nothing worse than getting a puppy back when they’ve had their best chance at life stolen from them.

#8 Dawson

This is one of my favourite adoptions, because Dawson was such a lovely guy – so overlooked because of his age. For our dogs between 7-10, they are neither fish nor fowl: not young enough for those people who want a juvenile, and not old enough for those who want an oldie. As a result, our diamond dogs wait an eternity. I can’t tell you how hard it was watching Dawson ageing at the refuge, even though he was only here 14 months, those months took their toll on this sweet, sweet dog. Dawson went to a partner shelter in Germany where he was adopted within hours. Happy New Year, Dawson!

#7 Carlos

Carlos was another diamond dog like Dawson who suffered for his middle-age manners. Another of our boys to go to Germany, he was quickly adopted and we get regular photos of this wonderful dog enjoying life to the maximum. His son Tyron was adopted locally and we get lots of lovely updates from his family too. Good to know these boys are treasured as they should be. Carlos was one of my twelve advent calendar dogs in 2015. The advent calendar seems to bring lots of luck, although I never heard of anyone adopting one because of it! I like to hope it gives them all a little Christmas magic.

#6 Guapo

Arriving with his sister who was quickly adopted, Guapo suffered the fate of many of our young, big, energetic dogs: an endless wait. Loved by all the volunteers, he was quick to come for a cuddle, glad for any affection and a dog that seemed destined to stay for a long time. Happily, 2016 brought him a forever family. Seeing him bouncing on the trampoline or sitting in front of the Christmas tree no doubt brought a tear to every volunteer’s eye. He even has a husky neighbour who’s virtually identical!

#5 Ushang

One day in summer, a landlady brought in a transport crate with an animal inside it that had been left by one of her former tenants. At that point, we couldn’t even tell if it was a cat or a dog, and it took some attempts to get the dog out. Ushang was chipped, having been registered in Réunion, but his owner had died some years before, leaving her apartment and dog to her son. He’d run up debts and done a runner, leaving the dog behind. Ushang clearly hadn’t had any care for years. He was blind and deaf. This poor little guy found the refuge enormously stressful and we knew we needed to get him out of there urgently as he wasn’t eating. But who would adopt a blind, deaf dog? Luckily, a very kind family stepped in and Ushang went to his new home. After a couple of big operations to clean up his mouth and teeth, Ushang, now renamed Truffles, is living out his retirement in the most marvellous style with his Weimeraner girlfriend.

#4 Loulou

Poor Loulou was another one, like Jet, adopted as a puppy, brought back at 8 months, adopted again, brought back. In the end, he had three failed adoptions behind him, and all because – guess what – he’s a dog! His penultimate adoption was vetted carefully. She had experience with terriers, liked Loulou, heard all about what he needed. However, she failed to heed that advice, let him off lead within 5 days of having him and then was upset when he chased a deer. Loulou is another of our dogs who went to a smaller shelter in Germany, where he was subsequently adopted – hopefully by people who either use a lead or don’t mind the odd Dear Hunter moment.

#3 Teddy, Zakari, Zouzou and Zoe

In 2015, the refuge was called to take seven dogs who’d been kept in unsanitary conditions, suffering from neglect and very poor socialisation. The seven included six spaniels. Suzette and one of her daughters were quickly adopted, but Zakari, Teddy, Zouzou and Zoe went on to rack up some hard adoptions and returns. In the end, despite the fact it would make them difficult to adopt, the refuge decided they could only go as pairs. To cut them off so completely from the world they knew was divorcing them completely from any sense of safety. Zoe and Zouzou were adopted first, in April 2016, and their progress was slow but steady. Zakari and Teddy were adopted by one of our regular volunteers who really understood exactly what they needed. It takes a very special soul to adopt such damaged dogs, and although you count progress in minuscule steps, these four can finally begin to live for the first time.

#2 Elios

Despite his lovely nature, Elios had chalked up over four years of refuge life. Despite being okay with males and females, he was lost in among all our other black labradors. This boy saw over 2000 other dogs adopted before him, countless changes of companion. Finally, a family came for him and it was his turn. I can’t tell you how hard it is to return a dog to an enclosure when their companion is adopted: to do it as many times as we did with Elios was just heartbreaking. I don’t have to tell you that the video of him playing Fetch was the best thing I saw all year. I could watch that video a hundred times. An amazing, amazing dog who was just so long overlooked. I’m sure life must be strange now without any companions at all!

#1 Cleo

Along with Elios and Carlos, Cleo was another of my twelve advent dogs for 2015. He was also the oldest of the three. He was quickly reserved to go to Germany, but a skin infection turned out to be more complicated and we couldn’t let him travel without a clean certificate of health. So Cleo waited. As the year dragged on, spending his time with a shy dog meant Cleo too took on a little of that reticence. He withdrew into himself and his smiley, happy face, even for a treat, was rarely seen. Trip after trip went off to Northern Europe. Cleo was never on it. Finally, just before Christmas 2016, Cleo’s truck rolled up. He was adopted directly and seeing his photos now, I can see his happy face has returned.

Some of these dogs have been adopted in France, some by English-speaking residents and some in Northern Europe. It goes to show that we depend so very much on an international group to help us home our dogs. It takes a lot to go from so many long-term residents and it has involved a huge amount of international marketing, promotion and advertising. Our staff and volunteers work constantly to find homes for our dogs – gone are the days when dogs spent years waiting for a home. It’s not just marketing. The staff and volunteers at the Refuge de l’Angoumois also work hard to ensure that our dogs are promoted to the people who arrive at the shelter looking to adopt. So many people form the beating heart of the Refuge de l’Angoumois that it is impossible to single any one out individually: we work because there are so many of us who are tireless in our efforts for the dogs (and cats!)

I think that is truly worth celebrating.

I’ve not included any post-adoption photos – if you want to see how our dogs are getting on, come and join us in our Facebook group Refuge de l’Angoumois, Charente 16 where you can see videos of Guapo on a trampoline, Cleo on a couch, or Elios playing fetch.

I think as we move forward into 2017, it’s important to remember how far we have come, that we are far from the days of Smoke and Ufo, of the big scary boys at the top of the block, of Nichman, Dalton, Wolf, Darius, Salma, Alaska, Fairbanks… names that all our ‘old’ volunteers know by heart. I love it that our new volunteers fall in love one week and I have the happy job of telling them that the dog has been adopted next time they come to walk our dogs. I feel very proud of our shelter and what we do here. 2017 may bring sad dogs and traumatised dogs, thousands of kittens and hundreds of stray cats. It may bring disappointing legal victories and new prosecutions filed.

I hope that 2017 brings adoptions for our remaining long-stay dogs: Kayser, Hagrid, Estas, Amon, Aster, Junior, Pilou, Dede, Diabolo, Kody, Doggy, Sam, Gaston, Jafar and Fifi. Although with twenty new dogs on the books to photograph this afternoon, I’m always sad to see places filled as soon as they are emptied. Thanks very much for your support in 2016 – our dogs depend on it. These ten adoptions are by no means the only ones that make my heart swell with joy. The adoption of every single animal, whether they are here for a day or a year, helps fight the tide of neglect, abandonment and abuse. On behalf of all our adopted animals, thank you.