Monthly Archives: February 2017

House-Soiling

Problem behaviours: house-soiling

This is Tilly. She’s beautiful, isn’t she? But Tilly has a dirty little secret… Well, not so secret, since I tell everyone about it. My little Tilly Popper is sometimes known as Tilly Pee. Yes, that’s Tilly P for Tilly Popper, but also on account of her sensitive bladder. And her occasionally sensitive bowels.

The fact is that when she first arrived here, I had to go through the whole house-training debacle with a five-year-old dog… one whose vet notes said that she saw a veterinary behaviourist in 2006 because she was having problems with house-soiling, and one who, in 2010, arrived here without having made very much progress. It took three months before she was trustworthy. Even these days, she’s happily more hit than miss. All the same, it’s inevitable to get worse rather than better.

Why then do dogs house-soil?

Firstly there are age-related issues. Puppies will soil the house because they have small bladders and small intestines. Put something in and something is going to come out. There just ain’t enough room inside to keep it all in. Plus, they’re not very good at knowing when they need to go. Anyone who’s ever had small children will know the ‘oooh, oooh, too late’ moments. Adolescent males, castrated or not, can find themselves wanting to mark stuff. At the other end of the spectrum, older dogs may have accidents that they never had before. This happened to my beautiful Tobby before he died. Neurological damage can mean they are less aware of when they need to go and have less control over the muscles that keep it all in. Arthritis can make it painful to get up to tell people they need to go. Canine cognitive dysfunction can mean your dog is simply forgetting to go. These are certainly more likely if your dog is defecating in the house rather than just urinating.

This leads us on to medical issues, not least age-related medical issues like arthritis and cognitive dysfunction. Spaying can result in weak bladders, and might not happen until a dog is older. There’s all sorts of Embarrassing Bodies kind of stuff at work in dogs as well, such as ectopic ureters, especially among the ladies. There can also be kidney problems or diseases such as diabetes, Cushing’s and Addison’s which can lead to accidents. Bacterial infections, viral infections, body parts in the wrong place, hormonal issues and medicines are common reasons for accidents. Even my poor Amigo, who is so terrified of making a mess in the house, had a couple of accidents during his recent stroke, and then regular accidents when he was on corticosteroids. They stopped as soon as the medication stopped. IBS and food sensitivities may cause accidents of a more solid variety. Tilly has food allergies, and any rogue ingredients can mean that she’s happy to leave a present in the kitchen from time to time if I’m not in.

This is why a vet should be your very first stop if you have a dog with house-soiling issues, whether they are a new rescue or not. Any changes at all in habits should be a reason for a vet visit. It’s not to say there will be anything to be done in particular, but your dog may have something physical that needs attention.

There are then also psychological issues. Changes in routine can disrupt a dog’s usual habits. This is more than likely the cause of Tilly’s regularly weak bladder at the beginning of her time here. Everything had changed. Plus, she tends to have accidents when she’s not on her best form. Any disruption of her very delicate mental or physical balance can result in a puddle. I wouldn’t go as far as saying they were dirty protests, but she certainly has a way of making her discomfort known. Nervous dogs may be so overwhelmed by emotion that they let go, sometimes called ‘submissive urination’. Often this happens when they are excited or overwhelmed. Tilly used to pee if anyone petted her within a couple of minutes of coming into the house. A sudden spike in adrenaline and whoops! Another psychological reason dogs might eliminate in the house is under severe trauma if they have separation anxiety or if they are noise-sensitive and there is a storm or fireworks in your absence.

Poor habits can also be the reason behind house-soiling. If a dog has never developed a strong instinct not to eliminate inside, then you may find it’s all a great big toilet for them. Often this is more likely with puppies who haven’t been given enough space to separate elimination spots from play spots, food spots and sleeping spots. If they haven’t been house dogs before, new rescues may find it tricky to know what’s a toilet and what’s not. And what seems like a toilet to a dog is different from what you or I might perceive as a toilet. Think of all the odour-holding things in your house that you might regularly steam-clean or spray with Febreeze…. what better material to soak up a smell than curtains, carpets, soft furnishings or a couch?

Changes of habit can also affect a dog. New food, changes in eating times, changes in routine and changes of home can cause elimination issues. Don’t forget too that dogs don’t generalise well (hence Heston trying his usual stunt of jumping from the driver’s seat into the back of my hatchback this morning in the shelter van… he really doesn’t understand why ALL cars aren’t exactly the same as our car) so just because a dog doesn’t eliminate in your house doesn’t mean that he understands that you don’t eliminate in ALL houses. It’s vital to remember that a dog who’s house-trained in one venue might not really understand that this new place has the same rules.

In their early days, puppies develop preferences for substrate – the thing they like to eliminate on. Toileting habits are also driven by scent and habit. I pee here because I always pee here and because it smells of pee here. This is why, once the scent of urine has marked a spot, dogs find it hard to resist. It’s also why it’s best to avoid those in-house accidents as best you can and why it’s so necessary to be scrupulous in your cleaning. It’s why the vast majority of dogs who come to my house pee within seconds of being here: Tobby very kindly peed on the nearest tree, the bushes opposite it and the cement plant pot opposite the door. Now everybody does that and continues the tradition months after he died. Tilly is so lazy she barely makes it out of the door to pee, and Tobby would sometimes over-mark her scent. Thus when he arrived, the areas around my door became an enormous and joyous giant dog toilet. That’s not a bad thing. Virtually every dog who comes here feels the urge to go the moment they get in through the gate… and voilà – half the battle is won because outside smells of pee and inside smells of ordinary dog stuff.

Dogs like to pee where there is pee already. Many male dogs like to pee on vertical things, and females may have preferences for what they want under their lady-garden when they go.

Solids are a bit different. Solids can often be ‘as far away from the bed space as possible’, but your dog may have a secret pooping spot or be a lazy Lilly like Tilly, who manages to get about three metres from the door. Tilly very much prefers dry stuff underfoot when she defecates, which is why on rainy days I see her toddling off into the wood shed or the tool shed, or even trying to sneak into the bathroom. It’s not a place she sleeps, so she doesn’t care that it’s in the house. Heston likes to get as far away from the house as possible. Effel likes an open space and has very strong preferences for going where there is no other poo. Amigo likes a secret spot behind a bush or near a tree. Dogs don’t like to ‘over-poo’, which is why it’s important to leave urine scents where they are for a while and why it’s important to pick up solids.

Knowing this makes it a bit easier to help house-train them or coax new rescues or puppies into good habits. By the way, just because a new rescue seems not to be house-trained, don’t be fooled. Often, stays in kennels can ‘break’ house-training habits and your job is just to help the dog remember.

How you house-train an adult rescue dog is a little easier than how you house-train a puppy simply because they’re no longer at the mercy of those tiny bladders and bowels.

The very first thing to do is avoid habits forming in the first place. The majority of that rests on controlling the space that your dog is in. From the moment you bring your rescue dog home, spending a while in the garden, rewarding them for proper elimination and supervising them for those first four or five pees will help them form a good habit of peeing in the garden. This helps them build up a preference for peeing outside (location), create smells (olfactory habits) and on the surfaces outside (substrate). Preventing mistakes at all costs is vital to good house-training. That way, you don’t have to correct mistakes after.

Managing their indoor space and supervising them every single time they stand up for the first 48 hours will also help. I don’t mean following them about… I like to move the furniture a little so I can see them constantly whilst I am sitting down. If I can see they look like they might want to pee, we go outside. Some dogs I keep on an umbilical lead that’s attached to both of us. When they move, I move. When I move, they move. It’s a good technique for hormonal adolescents who just might want to hump or mark territory. Total supervision is crucial for fantastic habits.

No matter how many dogs I have here on foster, it’s always when I take my eye off them for a second that accidents happen. Nellie was the last here to have an accident…. I went to the toilet, she went in the bedroom and had a pee. In two weeks, she only did it twice, as I was super-vigilant. But… you know that the minute I left her unsupervised, there was a puddle or a present. I crate if I can’t supervise, keep my eyes open when I can. Even puppies don’t pee or poo where they are lying once they are past three or four weeks, so if a dog is lying down, then they don’t need supervision. This is one reason people like crate training, but that can be incompatible with a new dog. The last thing you want to do is ram them in a crate. But if you are alert those first few days until your dog has impeccable habits, you’ll avoid a lot of difficulty later. If you go out, restrict their space – and don’t leave them the run of the whole house like I did with Tilly (never having had to deal with a Miss Pissy-Pants before!). At least that way, if they do have an accident, it’ll be restricted to one place. The same is true of those hours when you are asleep and your new rescue dog is wondering if these wonderful new rooms would be good places to leave you a present.

Controlling the environment is a big part of that. For Tilly, she was only eliminating during the night, so the simplest solution was to confine her to a small space during the night. It’s been a long time since I had to do that, since she quickly got out of the habit.

There are other things that you can control within the environment beyond confining your dog to a smaller space. Sticking to regular feeding times and food brands will help for solid elimination, and picking up water an hour before bed can help keep dogs dry through the night if they’re a midnight tinkler.

You can also use your great big forward-thinking chimp brain to plan a schedule for your dog. Take them out as soon as they get up, before breakfast, after breakfast, every time they stand up after lying down for a prolonged period, before dinner, after dinner and definitely get your torch out and make sure you see them pee before you go to bed. Jiggling gets the latter stages of digestion moving, which is why puppies wake up, do a wee, play for ten minutes and then do another wee and a poo.

If outside is a fun space to be, be mindful of the fact that if you take them in straight away, your dog may understand peeing as the cause for a ‘time out’ in the house. Make sure you give them five minutes or so supervised time in the garden (yes, even when it’s raining!) to make sure everything is out and make sure they don’t associate elimination with the ‘punishment’ of going back in the house.

It’s not just about managing the environment to encourage your dog to eliminate in the place you want them to. You can also train your dog too. Tilly does this rubbish ‘paw at the door’ thing that tells me she wants to go out. Annoying and mis-used as it sometimes is (she does it when I’m teaching and she’s feeling peckish – all she wants to do is check out any bins that might not have been securely stored) Tilly’s scraping at the door at 3am is enough to get me out of bed faster than any alarm. When you’ve got a dog with IBS, you don’t know how wonderful it is that they can alert you to their needs. It didn’t take long to train either. I waited a few times by the door until she pawed at it to get it to open, and there you go… a dog who can tell you when she needs to go out. She does do as most dogs do and go and sit by the door too, but the paw scrape is her ‘I’m going to shit in the kitchen if you don’t haul your arse over here in the next three seconds’ signal. Tilly’s also the water-bowl monitor as well, since she’ll stick her foot in that and scrape it if there’s no water left. She is very good at manipulating people to do her bidding is my Tilly. I’m truly thankful of that when she’s feeling bilious as well.

Telling your dog to ‘go pee’ before they squat or cock a leg, or ‘go poo’ when they circle and their tail goes up, then rewarding them for their efforts can also help put toiletting on cue. Most show dogs, police dogs, working dogs and guide dogs are trained to do this. Ian Dunbar recommends taking your dog for a walk after they eliminate at your home so you don’t have to carry poo-bags with you. He says it speeds up the elimination as well. It’s always inevitable that your dog will go within minutes of setting off on a walk and you’ll spend the rest of the walk holding the evidence or hunting for a bin. I wish I’d thought of that sooner. A dog that goes at home before you go for a walk would be a marvellous thing to have. And what greater reward for a dog who’s done its business? Tilly’s more there than not there where elimination and walks are concerned, but I’m afraid my boys have bad habits and have long since preferred eliminating on a walk rather than before it. Still, the jiggling of a walk usually gets a dog’s bowels moving if nothing else.

Next week: got a dog who likes to dissect pillows, help themselves to the contents of your fridge or rearrange your trash? Next week, it’s problem behaviour when home alone.

Humping and Mounting

Problem behaviours: humping, masturbation and mounting

Mounting and masturbation… two words guaranteed to raise an embarrassed smile if you’ve got a humper. It’s a behaviour that can be completely innocuous and infrequent, or a behaviour that can cause an awful number of potential dog fights if you’ve got a dog who thinks that humping is an acceptable way to meet a new dog.

And you may be wondering about the two dogs above, who look like butter wouldn’t melt. The first is a doddery old deaf poodle with a heart condition and cataracts called Cachou. The second is a doddery old beagle cross with health issues of his own. Both of them have a dirty little secret… they love a bit of humping.

Humping is a behaviour that’s rewarding in itself. But why do dogs do it?

The reasons are often complex. Some call it a ‘fixed action pattern’, or FAP for short. Sorry, if you’re down with Internet slang, and I apologise in advance if you are not and I’ve now taught you a new word. It seems kind of appropriate that humping and masturbation would come under (sorry, again, for the inadvertent innuendo that is likely to pepper this piece) an acronym that represents the sound of masturbation. A fixed action pattern is a hard-wired, instinctive behaviour. In other words, your dog doesn’t need to learn to learn to fap, hump, masturbate or spank the old monkey: it’s one of those behaviours they just ‘know’. And once it’s reinforced, it’s a behaviour you’re likely to see again and again.

That’s to say, if it feels nice, they’re going to do it again and again. And the more they do it, the harder it is to stop.

Some humping is part of play as dogs age. Boys hump boys. Girls hump girls. Boys hump girls and girls hump boys. So my dog Heston has been humped by his brother Charlton. Tilly was humped by her older friend Saffy. Heston humped the lovely Galaxy. And Hista humped Heston. Girls who like boys who like boys who like girls… Humping happens. Often it happens when dogs are excited or anxious, and I’ve seen dogs hump during introductions or the first couple of hours of play. Greetings are exciting and also create a lot of social anxiety. Excitement or anxiety both mean your dog is aroused. Arousal gets to the parts that other emotions don’t reach. Saffy used to hump Tilly before we went for a walk. Heston humped Galaxy when their play burst out from chasing and running.

Humping can be a sexual thing, of course. If you’ve got intact males around females in season, you might be used to a little self-pleasuring if they can’t get near to each other. Tobby, my old Mali, was always super-excited around unsterilised females, even if they weren’t in heat. He’d even air-hump if he couldn’t get to the girls, poor old dude. Some people think young dogs do it because they’re learning for future encounters. A lot of young dogs start doing it as they come to sexual maturity or even in play in preparation for that moment.

Humping can also be a positional thing too between dogs. I’ve seen intact males driven nuts (sorry!) by castrated males, and older intact males humping younger intact males. There’s no evidence dogs do this for status around humans though, and to be honest, I’m not sure what it means about any rank issues, and it is our human fallacy to read stuff into humping related to rank. Virtually every single time someone’s told me it’s about status or rank, it’s been excitement/arousal or social anxiety, and that’s as true for other interactive animals that dogs hump as it is for their relationship with other dogs. Dogs hump humans, but they hump cats too, and they will hump inanimate objects, often as a kind of surrogate.

Sometimes it’s just at greeting. I put this down to social excitement and anxiety. My old boy Ralf humped Heston when he arrived here. He never did it again after that. Tobby tried endlessly to hump Tilly when they met, but she never put up with his humpy ways. It’s no wonder she’s so fear-aggressive in new meetings with dogs. Her milkshake still brings all the boys to the yard (sterilised as she is) and who wants humpy boys in your face when you’re a demure older lady such as she is? She’ll accept other flirtatious behaviour, but no 11kg 11 year old sterilised cocker wants an ancient and arthritic 25kg malinois humping away at her.

I suspect sometimes that dogs smell hormonal or medical changes in other dogs… hence the occasional humping of young males in their prime by doddery old dogs. They never, ever humped each other and it was completely out of the blue at a time with no other arousal. Tilly, although sterilised, certainly has times when she smells good to the boys, and I’ll find Heston sticking a paw over her and pulling her in when he never shows interest at other times. Four days before Ralf died, Heston humped him. I never saw him do anything like that at any other time, but I suspect Heston sensed something that I couldn’t. As Tobby’s degenerative neurological condition worsened, he would often become aroused too – so humping can be a sign of something medical with either the humper or the humpee. If your dog suddenly starts humping more than they did before, or becomes a target for humping, it’s worth a vet check. There are medical reasons for humping, and it’s important to rule them out first, especially if the dog is known to you and there are changes in the frequency. Urinary issues, neurological issues and skin allergies can all be reasons a dog might really, really want to scratch that particular itch. We so often like to say it’s a psychological behaviour when it isn’t always.

Humping can have sexual origins, play origins, social origins or even be a response to stress or excitement then.

In short, it feels good. If the object of the humping doesn’t mind, they’ll do it again. And again. And even if the object of their humping does mind, well, it might be worth a shot anyway. Humping feels nice.

Not only that, we humans often giggle when our dog humps. Sometimes it gives us a right old laugh. If our dogs realise that we are giving it attention (either by laughing or by punishing – attention is attention whatever form it comes in) a dog can happily use it as a way to get a reaction from you. A dog being told off for humping is getting the same attention as a dog being laughed at for humping. Very often, dogs are rewarded intensely the first time they do it, either by their own feelings or the reaction/interaction they got, and that ‘jackpot’ learning experience is one they seek to emulate over and over.

So when does it become a problem we need to deal with?

Sometimes, despite our giggling and our blushes, it can be fairly innocuous between consenting dogs during play.

Heston seemed not even to notice the day he was humped by a fourteen-year-old arthritic, deaf miniature poodle with a heart condition. He just stood there, unbothered, while Cachou did his thing. He didn’t even look like he realised that he had a humping poodle behind him. It didn’t need me to intervene because Heston wasn’t bothered and Cachou, well, when you’re a poodle with a heart condition, you get your kicks where you can. Heston was perfectly able to walk off if he no longer wanted to consent. When Heston humped Galaxy, they were both having such an enormously fun time that it wasn’t going to spill over into aggression. In fact, she turned around and humped him.

That said, I will usually intervene if a dog of mine starts humping. It’s often a sign of over-arousal and it can end badly if one dog is unable to stop doing it. I’ve seen a lot of play spill over from humping, as well as dogs who are humping for a psychological ‘fix’. Two dogs at the shelter, Maestro and Mogano, humped each other fairly mercilessly for a few days. There was no fighting, there was a lot of reversal and the behaviour died out, so it wasn’t a time to intervene. That said, when Maestro met his new lady friend, I went out of my way to stop it starting…. it was all social anxieties and over-excitement, and it can really sour a relationship between adult dogs from the beginning, so I usually am very keen to make sure new arrivals don’t fall into the habit. I tend to think that if dogs never do it with each other, they don’t think to do it, and it can be a hard habit to break.

That ability to intervene is key here: if your dog cannot be stopped from humping, be it a leg, a cushion, a human, a cat or another dog, then it runs the risk of becoming a compulsion. If you can’t distract your dog and their recall disappears, then it’s time to intervene. If your dog isn’t noticing the distress of the human or the other animal they’re humping, then it’s also time to intervene.

So what can you do if you have a humper and you are worried about the humping?

First, get a second opinion about whether the humping is normal or not. Like I said, it’s part of a dog’s natural repertoire of behaviours, so a little from time to time is not anything I’d be concerned about either in multi-dog packs or with a surrogate. I’d also want to know about the object of the humping: an older dog being targeted, or one who is unwell is unlikely to find the humping fun. I am usually keen to stop humping of humans simply because we find it socially unacceptable despite embarrassed laughter, and it can point to underlying issues with arousal around a target human. You also need to think about the emotional function the humping is filling: a dog who craves attention and humps for this reason will need a different treatment plan than a dog who is humping at greetings with unfamiliar dogs. If you don’t address the underlying emotional need that humping fills, then you are unlikely to succeed long-term with any behavioural change.

One of the first things to do is manage the environment. If your dog has a favourite toy that they hump, only let them have it when supervised and when you can easily remove it (being mindful that if you take it away, you could see the emergence of some resource-guarding behaviour). But if your dog is over-aroused by other dogs, keep them on a leash. If your dog humps guests, put them in their crate or in another room when the guests are there so they can’t practise. If they’re targeting a specific individual in the house, this is an option as well whilst they break the habit. When taking a particularly prickly foster, it was vital Heston didn’t hump her and so I put him on a long umbilical line for 24 hours until they’d sussed each other out. Be mindful, though, that time outs as a punisher for humping can be very frustrating for your dog and you absolutely need something in place to divert that frustration. I’ve seen dogs get full-on obsessions through being removed, and the moment the control is ended (ie you put them back in the room with the target or you take their lead off), the humping is back with an absolute vengeance.

When a lady phoned me a couple of weeks ago about a new rescue who was humping the resident dog, I advised her to keep him on an umbilical leash connected to her for a couple of days, to make sure he was kept calm and that he was given plenty of mental stimulation. It’s always a good idea to manage a known humper’s interactions with other dogs so that they are prevented from humping in the first place. If the humping is happening because of social anxiety or the stress of a new environment, nipping the behaviour in the bud and preventing it from re-occurring is vital. Separate rooms or crates for humpers and their unhappy humpees, please, until you are absolutely sure you can leave them without any humping. As a new behaviour, it is easier to use environmental management to prevent this becoming a habit. At the same time, it is vital to have an output for that behaviour.

If you manage a humper’s environment, it’s worth bearing in mind that you are disrupting a behaviour to let off ‘arousal’ steam and that over-stimulation can present in other ways through displacement activities such as digging, barking, chewing or rubbing on other things. In order to avoid that, plenty of mental occupation is vital. Stuffed Kongs, fallow antlers, marrow bones, nosework and games that require your dog to work out puzzles can really help them burn off some mental energy. Think of it as spending a little time doing a crossword rather than getting giddy over a little light stimulation of the pleasure parts. Don’t forget that if you catch your dog in the act with a surrogate object such as a bit of soft furnishing or a toy, it could well be boredom, so it’s definitely worthwhile putting some more varied activities into your dog’s life. Video is useful if the dog is humping humans or surrogate objects. If they don’t hump on their own, you can rule out boredom. In this case, if they are only humping in company, it could be social anxiety or even a bit of a learned performance, especially if they don’t hump on their own. In this case, stopping rewarding the behaviour and managing the dog around people and/or dogs will be crucial.

If your dog humps new dogs at greeting, keeping them on a leash until their initial excitement burst can work, but it can also be frustrating for the dog and lead to barrier aggression over the leash. Far better to contact an expert who’ll help you work out those behavioural quirks without causing Fido to get frustrated. Tarzans need a bit of help to meet other animals, and it is one time I am most concerned about inter-dog humping. It can so easily spill over into a fight between unfamiliar dogs, or also grow into an obsession.

What you’re aiming for is the extinction of the behaviour. Since the behaviour is rewarding in itself (you don’t have to offer a dog a biscuit to get it to hump!) then the best way to do this is to interrupt the reward and make sure they never get the pleasue from humping. That means no pleasure from your reaction (either positive or negative) At the same time, once you’ve interrupted the humping, you want to ask for an alternative behaviour (anything will do, even if it’s just sit-stay-focus!) and reward that instead. Since humping happens often at times of over-stimulation and over-arousal, you’ve got to ask yourself whether it is better to do something to allow that arousal to manifest naturally (like playing a few games of tug) or whether in actual fact you’d be better to go for some calm behaviours. Personally, I prefer the calm behaviours. I think giving the dog plenty of appropriate mental and physical activity and building in periods of calm is vital. Often, we don’t teach dogs what to do when they’re not doing anything really. Sleep is all fine and good, and dogs need a lot more sleep than we do, but sometimes humping is just self-employment because a dog hasn’t been taught how to occupy themselves and they can’t settle. A behaviourist will be vital to help you set up a good plan to work towards extinction.

Reward cessation is also important if your dog is humping a person. When I got humped by Jack, I didn’t stand there politely and wait until he’d finished… I turned around, asked him to sit and rewarded the sit. Stop the behaviour by moving away. Laughing, smiling or telling the dog off… it’s all attention and it’s all a reward.

Disruption and refocusing can also work. These work if you have got a rock-solid recall and a rock-solid behaviour to ask for instead. Even if your dog’s recall is poor, a squeaker can be enough of a distraction. What you want to be really, really careful about is that your dog doesn’t think this is also worth humping for… the humping becomes a way to get YOU to get the squeaky toys out! Here, I’d be waiting for ‘the look’ – the behaviour preceding the humping. You know, where your dog gets that goofy face or starts playing about. To do this, you need to know your dog pretty well and be able to anticipate it. When Heston starts getting a bit too interested in Tilly, I call him away. No humping. Then I ask him to do something else. No lightbulb goes on in his head to say ‘I must do X to make her do Y’. But I can see it coming. I know very well when he’s going to do it. The earlier you intervene, the more chance you have of stopping the humping happening. What I absolutely do not want to happen with distraction is that the dog starts humping because they see their behaviour as a cue for a better distraction. If I only got out the squeaky toy when the humping started, Heston would very quickly learn that he needs to hump to get the toy. The toy or game must come first (which is why you need to recognise when the humping will happen) and must be used so frequently in a range of situations that the dog doesn’t pair the two events of humping = toy. Again, a behaviourist can explain a protocol for this better than I can here so that it doesn’t backfire with your specific dog.

Some people are no doubt going to recommend spaying and neutering if your dog is not already. That’s something to discuss with your vet. However, if you expect neutering your dog to stop it from humping, then neutering may not work on its own anyway. If your dog cannot be distracted easily from a humping situation, then the pleasure is already largely psychological rather than physical and it’ll need more than a physical approach to stop it. Early neutering is not the answer you are looking for. It’s still worth a vet check. Of course humping is a sexual behaviour: there’s a reason dogs will hump surrogates if another dog is in season around them, but unless it’s JUST a sexual behaviour, it’s unlikely neutering will make a difference. Like I said, my most prolific humpers was Saffy, and her target was Tilly, two spayed females.

And if you are in any doubt at all that your requests or attempts to intervene might end badly, contact a professional immediately to help you out. This is definitely not a behaviour to leave if there is an element of compulsion or habit: humpers rarely grow out of it, especially if they are a little nervous and socially awkward.

Next week, poor house-training and elimination in the home.

Jumping Up

Problem Behaviours: Jumping Up

You may be wondering what this handsome guy has to do with jumping up…. if I tell you his name is Jump, does that give you a clue? I’m pretty sure that he’s one of the dogs who made it on to the top of the kennel blocks, but I could be mistaken. I’m sure that’d give rise to a name that states the obvious!

Jumping up is a behaviour that has many rewards for a dog, which is why it can be one of the hardest behaviours to eliminate. That said, it’s a problem with a lot of solutions that I’ll discuss here today. Only you will know which one will be most effective with your own dog. It may take a few weeks or even a few months to really get a consistent ‘no-jump’ greeting, so you’re going to need to stick at it. To understand why it can take some time to eliminate, you need to understand a few reasons why dogs might jump in the first place.

Whilst dogs might not naturally go for hugs with another dog when they first meet, face to face is perfectly normal. It’s usually face before butt for most dogs who greet each other. A butt sniff tells you a lot of stuff about another dog, but a face sniff is less intrusive and much more polite. In a 20-way dog greeting between 20 unfamiliar dogs, every single one went face-first. Smelling the corners of mouths is a standard behaviour. And you know what they did then? Played chase, peed, sniffed stuff. Some of them, yes, even jump on each other. If you watch a lot of dog interactions, there’s this burst of play energy, and jumping up is a natural way to express that energy too. Nose-to-nose interactions are so frequent, even among very familiar dogs.

And that’s easy if you’re a dog. Getting your schnozzer near their mouth is the main aim, and most social dogs will cooperate by lowering their heads to greet a smaller dog, or raising their heads to greet a bigger dog.

Bit difficult though when it comes to interspecies greetings… when you’re all the way UP HERE and they’re all the way DOWN THERE. And if you’re not bending down, a dog will make its own solution. Whoo hoo! I want to see your face and show you how glad I am to see you… and jumping on you just gave me exactly what I wanted.

Some people encourage jumping as well. A face-to-face, chest-to-chest greeting is a pretty chimpy-biped kind of thing to do. It makes us feel welcomed and it makes us feel happy. We like to see excited dogs. We don’t want to get down on the floor in the dirt to let the dog greet us at their level, but we want to say hi. It feels kind of vulnerable to get down there, and we know we can always push an exuberant dog off or unbalance them if they’re on two feet, which we can’t do if they’re crouching.

Plus, dogs, like humans, are excited at greeting times. We aren’t cats, sullenly spying on each other from a distance or putting plenty of space between us until we feel comfortable with a stranger. Dogs get excited meeting each other, meeting strange dogs, and they get excited meeting us. I watch an enormous amount of dog-human greetings, and dollars to donuts, dog people go right in to greet a dog way before they greet the person behind them. So we blame the dogs when, guess what, we’re responsible for encouraging the behaviour in the first place. Not only that, every time a dog does it, it feels blummin brilliant to them. It’s great to get unconditional love and excitement from a human chimpy person. A lot of dogs have learned that the reward for jumping is a real feel-good factor. The more they do it, the more they get out of it. Hence the fact your dog might turn into Zebedee… or your 60kg Newfie bowls you over.

A last reason your dog might be leaping up to see you is an appeasement behaviour. If they’re trying to lick your mouth, it can be a way of showing you they feel a bit stressed about your relationship, and they’re trying to calm you or appease you. It’s a behaviour that puppies do with older dogs to show that they’re not a threat. This type of jumping up definitely requires a gentle, force-free approach, since your dog could already be nervous about your relationship.

That’s the why.

But you don’t care about that, if you’re reading this. You just want to teach them not to. Or when to and when not to. It’s not an ‘either/or’. If you want them never to jump, that’s your prerogative. If you would rather they waited until asked and didn’t bowl over small children whilst still being able to give you a nice greeting, that’s your prerogative too. However, not everyone likes dogs to jump on them, even little 5kg chihuahuas, so it’s important that you teach your dog when it’s appropriate to jump.

There are several strategies you can use to deal with jumping up. All of them have positives or situations when they might be more appropriate, but there are some consequences to the simplest techniques, as you would expect. There are those who give a knee to the chest (which unbalances you and can leave you flat on your arse) or another punishment, verbal or physical. These can be effective, but by and large, people who contact me with a jumper who’ve used these techniques tell me that they never worked or they no longer work.

Don’t forget that what a dog wants is attention from you. It doesn’t care if that’s angry attention or happy attention. My foster dog Feff makes that clear when he wakes me up at 5am and I grumble at him to get back to bed. My “Ferfeck’s sake Feff, it’s 5am!” might as well be “Hello my wonderful and delightful fosteree… how glad I am to see you! Thank you for waking me up at 5am – it’s the early bird that catches the worm after all!”

Manage the environment

One strategy is to manage the environment. If your dog is a coiled spring when you or when visitors arrive, putting them on leash or putting them in a crate until the excitement has dissipated is a great way to do that. A leash allows an owner to control the dog effectively with guests. You aren’t going to use it to pull your dog off, just to put distance between the dog and a guest. Using a leash is pretty ineffective if YOU’RE the person the dog jumps on, unless you’re working with a partner who’s got hold of the leash.

Using a leash means that your dog will need supervision at all times around guests until their behaviour is rock solid (though you can use longer and longer lines). It can also be frustrating for a dog to do it this way if they are leash-reactive or they get excited around a leash. If I stuck a leash on Heston every time a guest arrived, he’d get more excited because a leash is exciting in itself.

Also, because he is then restricted from getting to the person, it can cause a reactive dog to react more, or even become fearful. However, it stops the dog jumping and stops them getting a kick out of the behaviour. A crate can do the same thing, as can a closed door. Keeping the dog away from visitors until all that greeting energy has dissipated is a good strategy, but bear in mind that it can be frustrating and even amp up a dog’s energy.

In this case, it’s you controlling the dog’s behaviour rather than the dog learning not to do the behaviour from the inside out, so it’s less effective than learning that comes from the dog itself. If they want attention and affection, you want THEM to think, ‘Well, that didn’t work… what else can I try?’

This is a great technique to use, though, if you have guests who may not always listen to you about the next strategy. It’s an emergency strategy for me with a jumping dog who hasn’t yet got a 100% jump-free greeting. You can also use a leash to help with teaching incompatible behaviours or using a ‘stooge’ guest.

I would never use a leash to stop a dog jumping if the dog has poor bite inhibition and/or frustration on a leash. What you are effectively doing is making it impossible for the dog to move away. Where I’ve seen instructors on Youtube using a leash, it’s with a dog who’s pretty much under control anyway. The last thing you want is to frustrate a dog with poor bite inhibition who then turns around and sinks their teeth into you. I’d prefer to keep this dog away from all excitement with a secure crate or a different room until the excitement has dissipated. With a dog like this, you need to take commands right back to the very basics: sitting where there are no distractions and when the dog is super-calm.

Manage your body language

The second strategy is also very effective… simply using your body. If you read Turid Rugaas’s excellent book Calming Signals, there are a few calming signals you can easily use that will quickly teach a dog not to jump.

One of these is to cross your arms and turn your back, moving away from the dog if the dog is on a leash too. This is a great one for children to learn around over-excited dogs. Turn to stone and stop flapping arms. Stop looking at the dog and interacting with it. Turn your head away from the dog and do not get eye contact. Hold this for several seconds at least. Turn your body away from the dog, either at 90° or 180°. Move very slowly and lower your energy levels.

This is a strategy I use all the time with shelter dogs when I have to enter their enclosures alone to get photos. Most of the time, I photograph dogs on leash as the volunteers can then keep them under control. I’ve got a lot of expensive equipment that I don’t want them to damage. Going into an enclosure alone with this equipment is a big risk if the dog is excited to see me. Even with hardened jumper-uppers, this has worked like a charm. Took me two minutes yesterday with a scratchy little terrier who was doing the Dog Dance of Delight, gave up and then sat down, looking at me! You have no idea how effective it is and how quick. It’s like she thought, ‘Ok… that’s not worked. I wonder if this will?’

This technique has only failed me once and allowed me to effectively stop dogs jumping up at me thousands of times. If I want a photo of a bouncy, off-leash dog in less than five minutes, this works like a dream. It even works with excited puppies and bouncy Newfies.

On this particular day, Megane was in with five other big puppies, including a nipper. They were all very excited to see me. Here, I’m using a kennel between us, but you can see she wants to see me at eye level and she’s up on the kennel.

And here you can see she is off-lead, feet on floor, slightly to an angle. There are less than 5 minutes between the two shots. Your body language is by far the best way to manage jumping up. You can sometimes speed the behaviour up by rewarding “four feet” but to be honest, I find this is only useful when it is NOT a greeting jump. A reward like food or a toy can sometimes amp up the excitement, and possibly the jumping. With my ex-jumper, he’s not interested in food at a greeting. What he wants is attention and to greet me. I reward him with that only because he is not interested in food at that point. Here, I’m letting the behaviour reward the dog, not a reward in itself. But you might find that could work with your dog if they’re not quite as excited.

A side-effect of using your body is that it’s very hard to get guests, visitors and strangers to do this, and I feel that it’s also a bit of a knock-back for the dog. All it takes is for one guest to ignore your advice and you’ll be back to square one. I think it’s important that the owner continue to make reassuring noises and to praise the dog copiously for “four feet”, and that the guest greets the dog as soon as the energy has dissipated, turning away again or turning to stone if the dog starts jumping up again. I find that it can also be a little less effective with small dogs who dance on hind legs, because they can’t see your face anyway and are used to jumping up to legs, whichever way they point.

You may also find that dogs try it more for a little while before giving up completely. If it seems to be working and then it wasn’t, persevere! This is known as an extinction burst and often happens before someone gives up altogether. Like me pressing CTRL+ALT+DEL a hundred times when my computer freezes before giving up.

The only dog this didn’t work on? A beauceron x setter, Jack. He got both his paws over my turned back and started humping me against the bars of the enclosure. I was just his prison bitch. Actually, turning around and telling him to sit worked much better! But that is the only time that happened, promise!

Teach the response you want

If you want your dog to do something other than jump up, you can use a clicker or a word such as “Yes!”

This is a great technique using a treat on the floor to help direct the dog’s behaviour. You can’t eat a treat off the floor if you are jumping on your owner! Here’s Emily from Kikopup demonstrating. Don’t be put off – this works just as well with adult dogs. By the way, when shelter jumpers Hagrid and Jack are a bit exuberant, I’ll wait until they’re not jumping and put a few treats on the floor. The reason I use more than one is that because by the time they’ve searched in the grass for a treat, the urge to jump for joy is gone. The floor treats distract them from jumping on you.

I love this technique because it doesn’t require you to control the dog with the leash. It also doesn’t rely on you calming them with your body (although you’ll notice Emily doing it a little when she’s initially teaching the behaviour). It teaches them that you can have a lot of energy and still keep four feet on the floor. I especially like the part of the video where she is proofing the behaviour, adding in the toy and the squealing retreat, both of which it’s important to teach your dog. I taught Heston this way using his favourite toys at the end to really ensure it was rock solid. Remember your 3Ds and put plenty of distance between you and your guests at first (I use ‘stooge’ guests) as well as asking for the behaviour for a short duration, and making sure that there are no other distractions. You can make it closer and ask for longer behaviours as you go on, including more distracting situations, but less is definitely more. Stop whilst your dog is successful and never ask for too much.

It does take some time to do, which is fine, but it doesn’t always prepare your dogs for guests who might encourage them to jump up, so I’d also teach them when to and how to jump up and manage the environment with guests who were causing the behaviour rather than eliminating it. This isn’t a good technique to start with if you haven’t taught sit as a very minimum. Don’t forget to phase out the treats!

Teaching an incompatible behaviour

I’m a firm believer of teaching incompatible behaviours. Some people ask a dog to sit rather than jumping, but sit can be a good base for a jump, so a ‘down’ is a better position to stop the springing. You can see that in the Kikopup video too. You’ll see the puppy offering a down and a sit, which is often what dogs do to test out what you prefer. Putting a verbal cue or gesture in there is also important and something not done on the Kikopup video. “Four feet” is a good one.

I also like to teach the behaviour itself and put it on cue. Heston very, very rarely jumps these days, and mostly it’s because it’s a cued behaviour. I ask him to jump and he does. Here, I use a gesture and a verbal cue. I pat my chest, say “Up!” and put out my arms as the cue to jump, he jumps, rests on my arms, and I bend forward for a nose-to-nose greeting. Again, it’s a behaviour that is intrinsically rewarding in itself, so you may not find you need to use much by way of treats. What I get is a really nice, steady jump with his paws in my hands.

There will, no doubt, be people who think that it’s not good for a dog to be on its hind legs, and it isn’t, not for prolonged periods, or if your dog has problems. But if your dog is doing it anyway, putting it on cue means that you can ask occasionally for them to do it, if they look like they might, and all the other times, they just don’t do it. Heston only ever jumps on me when I pat my chest and say “Up!” – and I maybe ask for that behaviour once every month or so.

If jumping is a behaviour your dog really, really enjoys, it’s worth using it as a reward for an incompatible behaviour. Thus, if I’ve had a calm greeting, I’ll sometimes ‘reward’ Heston by asking him to jump. I only do this when he’s got his emotions under control though. That way, I get a lovely, gentle “Up!” and none of the full frontal savagery. This technique is not one to do if your dog seems at all stressed, if they are desperate to greet you because they’re suffering from separation anxiety, or if they are a face-mugger. By the way, this video below is what I’m working with Mr Hagrid, mouthy shelter Mali, as he mugged my face (with some level of terror on my behalf) when I bent down to tie my shoelace.

It’s also worth considering two other things: the age of your dog and their breed. Certain breeds do love the Doggie Dance of Delight more than others. If you know a toy poodle, you’ll know what I mean. And some dogs have bodies designed for off-road agility, for whom a little agility training or light frisbee (and I mean light!) might help channel their natural desire for air space. Young dogs are more likely to do this too since dogs need to be taught that it is not appropriate. The time to teach this is when they are a puppy, not leave it til their 2nd birthday and being jumped on by a 40kg shepherd is no longer any fun.

Between teaching them to keep four feet on the floor, teaching them an alternative behaviour, controlling how your dog greets guests and using body language to help you, you should find that issues with dogs jumping all over you is quickly resolved. There really is no need to use the ineffective knee to the chest, and you certainly don’t want to punish your dog or reprimand them for being pleased to see you. Hopefully one of these solutions will suit you perfectly.

In the next post, to come back to being Jack’s prison bitch, I’ll be tackling the socially embarrassing problem of humping and mounting!

Poor Recall

Problem behaviours: poor recall

Fact: it’s not just rescue dogs who can be off into the distance off-leash, but a rescue is perhaps more likely than most to lack this particular dog skill. The sad fact is though that a rescue dog may have the best recall in the world but if he’s a dog whose name or recall signal has changed, you’re likely to have a dog who has either not been given the right recall cue or who never had one in the first place.

And let’s be honest: 80% of our dogs come in via the pound. That’s a lot of strays. It leaves us with a conundrum as well – did the dog have poor recall in the first place and that’s why it’s in the pound? Is there some owner out there still shouting for their dog to come back?

If you’ve picked up a rescue, you could have a dog who had terrible recall in the first place, who’d never been taught, whose original name has been forgotten… there can be any number of reasons why your new rescue would be best to stay on a leash.

But if you’ve got your own dog and you’ve had them since they were a pup, you could have a potential pound dog just biding his time. There are many, many dogs I meet off-leash whose recall is shocking. Their owners are lucky they don’t go missing or they aren’t hit by a car.

Of all the dogs I have had, all of them are potential pound dogs in certain situations. Or proper pound dogs for three of them, picked up as strays. Tobby used to like to toddle off on his own – no surprise how he ended up at the shelter. Ralf liked to go for a wander and desert his guard dog post – and no surprise there either. Amigo is a pound dog whose hunting ways have left him with bullets and a habit of selective deafness where rabbits are involved. Tilly will happily chase cyclists down the road and ignore me if there’s a cow pat to be scoffed. Molly once disappeared into the bushes and wasn’t seen for hours. Heston has either perfect recall or zero recall and once went missing for four hours, and Effel chases Heston wherever he goes.

I’m pretty sure most households are fairly similar. Poor recall is endemic. If you ask me, it’s one of the most frequent problem behaviours.

Three of my current four here have lovely leash manners. Two of them are real homebodies who’d never leave the gates. Two of them are reactive around strangers. Two of them have house-soiling issues – one because he’s on cortisone and the other because she’s a monkey for forgetting. One of them jumps up from time to time. None of them chew anything they shouldn’t anymore. None of them dig (any more!) None of them escape (any more!) None of them bite or fight. But all four of them have poor recall in certain situations. That means it’s the number one issue in the Woof Like To Meet house.

Poor recall is also obvious in several viral videos on Youtube. You’ll remember Fenton, of course.

There is potential for every single dog to have a Fenton moment.

If we remember that recall is largely dependent on situation, you’ll understand that good recall depends on controlling the situation. Sometimes, recall is called “situational recall” for that very reason.

Why do dogs have poor recall? There are a number of reasons. But the main reason number 1 is that it is part-and-parcel of being a dog. What do dogs get out of coming back? A biscuit, some praise maybe. What do they get out of running away? A game of chase. Ten minutes of snouting out some amazing and wonderful smell, wrapped in the delight of a behaviour that is quintessential, hard-wired DOG. Couple that with the chase instinct and you’ve got a tough problem indeed. David Ryan’s very excellent blog post and book will help you if you have a hard-wired chaser. It’s a behaviour that needs more than this post can give you. But it’s not untreatable with dedication and commitment.

If you have a dog, however, who is just a bit haphazard rather rhan a dog who is completely obsessed, then this post is made for you

First you need to know how bad that recall is.

Think you’ve got a dog with poor recall? How poor? Completely zero? Want to put it to the test?

Wait until your dogs are in the house and they’re kind of otherwise occupied, like mine are now. I want you to get up, sneak off and go to a place where treats come from. Mine get home-made peanut butter for pills from the fridge, and occasional bits of meat and treats as I’m preparing Kongs and rewards. The fridge is a treat dispenser extraordinaire in my house. The shelf where I keep the Kongs is also a good bet. And the room where I keep the food.

I want you to sneak off to the spot where you dispense most of your really high-value treats from or the dog’s food and I want you to call your dog. Call them excitedly, like you’ve got something amazing for them. And give them some really amazing contraband from the fridge.

What happened?

Did your dog come? If not, it’s probably not a place with a strong enough appeal or your dog has very poor recall habits. Your dog may also have hearing issues. How long did it take your dogs to come? You can see from this that it took Effel 5 seconds, Heston longer (8 seconds and a second call – he needed the T word to break his usual ‘out of the kitchen’ habits) and Tilly even longer (12 seconds).

I apologise for the blurry low-light video. And you’ll see there’s only three dogs here too. This fridge test was actually a really good test to see how Amigo’s hearing is right now. Not working at all from five metres. He was asleep in the living room.

Now they’re a bit slow on the uptake. I don’t feed them often from the fridge and I’ve never, ever called them to it before. It’s not food time and my dogs (except Tilly) don’t come in the kitchen unless it’s food time. In fact, I’ve trained them to stay out of the kitchen unless I invite them in. I love how they all stand around like, “Put the Treat in the Mouth, lady.”

Now give it five minutes and do it again. Call your dogs.

It took seven seconds to get all of them in the kitchen. Tilly first. The Tilly is smart when it comes to food. That dog will do anything for a biscuit. Effel’s quick because he’s a beauceron shepherd and if you can’t do this with a shepherd, you need to give up straight away. They don’t have ‘personal time’… they have ‘stand-by time’ when they’re awaiting instructions from you. In fact, if you have a shepherd, you’re probably not reading this post unless their recall is poor when out on a walk and they go all “must see off the moving thing”. You’ve probably got bigger problems in the house in not being followed around by your dogs constantly! Heston’s a more independent kind of guy, but even he’s in there super-quick the second time.

If your dog was confused in the first test and took a while to come to you, they won’t be by the second, I guarantee it.

But if after four or five attempts, you’ve still got a non-existent recall, time for the vet’s for a hearing check or a great positive gundog trainer I think!

The good news is that if you’ve got recall with this test, you’ve hope of getting recall in other places too.

There are three factors that make recall good here: you’re close to your dogs, your dogs are inside (and therefore prevented from leaving or being distracted) and you’re asking them a thing that is not difficult. My dogs are all just waiting for their walk or snoozing, so they’re alert and doing nothing else. No real distance. No real difficulty. No real distraction.

I can do other things to reinforce recall as well. Social facilitation (peer-pressure!) is strong with dogs, so if you’ve got a multi-dog household, it’s more likely they’ll all run off after a deer together and ignore you, but it’s also more likely that if you call and one comes running, the others will as well. You could encourage speed among your dogs for recall by having one treat for the dog who gets there first, but that feels a bit mean to me. Dogs are very good at fairness and their obedience drops if another dog is rewarded more than they are. But it could still hone their competitive edge. More research needed on that!

Another thing that changed the difference between the first twelve-second recall and the second five-second recall is habit. The first time, that recall was slow because I don’t make a habit of calling the dogs into the kitchen. The second time it’s become a habit – albeit a two-time habit. I’m going to share a secret. I’m never ever going to call my dogs to the fridge to feed them again as I don’t want to encourage them to the kitchen. I don’t like them in there unless it’s meal-times. But I do use my mantlepiece as a toy/treat and Kong storage facility, so I guarantee I get quick recall if I stand there. Making a habit out of recall is vital to increase speed and reliability.

You should also think about your cue for your dogs to come. It’s worth teaching a new word completely from scratch if you’ve had a lot of recall fails. I use ‘doggies!’ and you want an excited, lively tone. What you want is that word to become associated with most wonderful, amazing, fabulous events. High-pitched, positive, giddy… it’s all good. How fast was your arse on the seat when your mum said “Dinner time?” compared to how slow your arse hits the seat when your teacher said “Spelling test!”. You want the ‘Dinner Time!’ response. No good if your “come!” makes your dog think a spelling test is on the way. If your dinner time has been seven days of sprouts and cabbage, you might be a bit reticent about coming to dinner.

Besides social facilitation and habit, you should also use high-value rewards at the beginning with your dogs. Be mindful that you’ll need to phase them out and have times where you don’t reward them for recall. After ten tries or so, have one or two where you call them and don’t reward them. Give them a fuss by all means, but no food. Variable rewards create a more reliable recall than a reward every time, I promise! You should start phasing them out quite quickly.

With these three things, I bet you can get a reliable, fairly instantaneous recall in the house in less than five tries over a day or so.

Next is the bit that people find hard to understand. Dogs don’t generalise well. When you cue a dog by standing in a regular spot and rewarding fairly regularly for them to come to you, it doesn’t mean they think they should do the same when you move to another spot. So you have to teach them. Time to move spot, improve the quality and reward rate of your rewards and try again. You absolutely need to use your dog’s food allowance for this as well, so stop feeding them from a bowl and make them work for it! See every biscuit in a bowl as a wasted learning opportunity. You’ll even want to space it out over a few hours because otherwise you will end up like the Pied Piper of dogs, with them following you everywhere, I promise you. That’s pretty annoying.

Once you’ve mastered that second spot inside, move again!

Remember… call your dogs (cue), get a behaviour, reward your dogs (and phase out the reward) so that eventually, you’re going from request to response without any need for a reward.

What you want is a 98-100% recall indoors in four or five different spots, over a range of distances and into places your dogs don’t usually go (or don’t like to go… the bathroom being one such place for my dogs!) with a variable reward schedule before you even move it outside. Over 100 trials, you can have a couple of mistakes. But if your mistakes are too regular, you need more work in the house first. You can (and should) also build in distractions in the home, like trying to do this when your dogs all have a bone or a chew. My test is doing it when the post lady’s van pulls up… not 100% there by any means, even in the house. Before you move outside, you need a rock solid recall in the house first. I’d also build in a sit-stay-release response, as you don’t want your dog running off the moment they have the reward. A sit-stay-release response is easy to teach here. Most owners should have a release cue. Mine is “Allez!”. I’d also build in a ‘look at me’ or ‘focus!’ response (Mine is “eyes!”) For me, my cue sequence goes: “Doggies! Sit. Eyes.” and then I give the treat. Then I say “Allez!”. No point giving a break cue and encouraging them to stick around for a reward.

Once your dog can come to their name (or a group name), sit on cue, stay on cue, release on cue and look at you the whole time, you’ve got a great in-house recall. You can even use your body language in there – what I call a ‘rolling recall’ – where you walk off and call your dogs to you. Patricia McConnell in The Other End of the Leash makes a compelling case for dogs interpreting our body’s forward motion. Calling your dogs (because they can’t see you so they need to hear you), turning your whole body to point away from the dogs and walking briskly in the opposite direction is the best signal that your dogs should stop the course they’re on and follow you. I can’t count the number of times this has worked. If I call them and run away from them, not only do I become a great game of ‘Chase!’ in myself, but it’s very clear to the dog that I’m going in the opposite direction. I can’t tell you what a life-saver this technique is when I see a deer appear out of nowhere, or another off-leash dog, and I don’t want my dogs to see it and give chase. Starting this in-house can help it become a really reliable device to get good recall at critical points. I’d also include a few collar-grabs in there, since outside many dogs end up getting their collar grabbed as a consequence of a recall (or having their leash put on!) and who’d come back if you’re going to have your collar grabbed? The ONLY consequence for recall should be positive. But as soon as my dogs come towards me, I can practise the collar touch and reward them for it too, so they are used to it – and they don’t end up being one of those dogs who dance just out of reach and abscond when you really need them not to.

I can’t stress one thing enough though. The ONLY consequence a dog should have for coming back to you is the most amazing love and fuss. Like you have been apart for months and months. But building in a collar grab practice can prevent a bite or any resentment that a dog might feel for coming to you rather than going off doing their own thing.

When you are absolutely sure that your dog’s recall in-house is rock solid, even with distractions and definitely without bribes, you are ready to level up!

You can move outside into a quiet, safe space. That might be your garden. But if you have a noisy garden or live in apartments, a quiet spot in a park can also work. I’d keep your dog on a long leash first and here’s where you really, really will need a sit-stay-focus-release cue. The leash here is acting as your walls, and only when you can get a reliable sit-stay-focus outside can you even think of moving up to testing with a longer leash and bigger distances. I use a 3m leash then a 10m, then a 20m. I’ll do a few positional requests, like ‘sit-focus-down-stand-sit-stand-down’ and build in the ‘stay’ before using my new (and proofed!) command, ‘doggies!’ or whatever it is I’m using as my cue word. Then when it’s good at 20m, I’ll take the dog off-leash to try it. And at this point, I am going to have some of the best, most wonderful, most stinky rewards. I want that first time off-leash to be THE BEST-EVER MOST WONDERFUL recall. I’ll do it when the place is completely and totally distraction-free. No cats. No squirrels. No squawky magpies. No passing traffic. No noisy neighbours. I’ll then increase the distance too.

After, I’m going to build in some distractions, too, just as I did in the house. From chews to toys to a game of Sprinkles, and I’m going to try recall there as well. And only when I have 98%-100% recall in the garden on and off-leash, with and without rewards am I going to take it beyond this safe, walled outside space.

My emergency garden recall, by the way, is to run away, off up the garden as fast as I can, shouting “Whooo! tea time!” and heading to the food cupboard. This worked perfectly with a guardy terrier who’d stolen my shoe and run off down the garden hoping for a good game of chase. I even got the shoe back. ‘Tea time!’ is my twice-a-day failsafe excitement word that always, but always gets 100% attention. It only works if you have a food cupboard to hand though.

The technique of turning away to encourage recall is a great one to inspire your dog to follow you. You can find more details and more tips in this article on the Whole Dog Journal website.

Once you’ve got good in-house and in-garden recall… time to level up.

You know how it goes. Out of the garden, no-distraction environment, on-leash. Sit-focus-down-focus-stand-stay repetitions out there in the big, old world. Fantastic treats, high-ratio of reward. Then a longer leash. Then one that’s longer still. Then build in distractions. If it gets too hard, take it back to the last known rock solid place and make the distractions or distance less difficult. If I can’t get good recall on a 20m leash in an open field, I’ll try with a 5m leash. If that’s too hard, I’m going to maybe take it back inside the gates, or wait until I’m on a walk and I can see my dog is paying attention, giving me lots of eye contact. I’m going to borrow my friend’s secure garden and try it there. Or a tennis-court. Basically, if it too hard to get reliable recall out in the world, I’ll try to manage the environment better so it’s less distracting. If I’m really going to struggle at this point, David Ryan’s “Stop!” programme that I mentioned before is a real life-saver.

When… and only when… I have reliable recall on a 20 or 50 metre leash, I’ll take the leash off. I’m going to do it in a really distraction-free area on a day when I have been practising on-leash recall and I’ve got an excellent response rate without rewards. I’ll bring out my best rewards and that dog is going to think he has won the lottery when he comes back to me. I’m not going to try more than one or two times that first day and I’m going to up the level of challenge so slowly that my dog is never going to have a Fenton moment. If he does… I’m not going to stress it. A Fenton is not coming back until he’s done what needs doing, believe me. My aim is to avoid Fenton Moment Potential.

In fact, if I am ever in Fenton Moment Potential situations, I am going to keep the leash on. Period. You know yourself what distractions are too much for your dog. You know better than anything what causes recall fail. You’re reading this post after all, and you know better than anyone if it’s rabbits or hare, boar or buffalo. I suggest you make a list of Fenton Situations for your dog and you never, ever let your dog off-leash in those situations if you want them to come back. For my dogs, that list is this:

Heston: swallows, crows (less than 20m), pheasant, squawking jays, magpies, hare (but not rabbit over 50m away) deer (within 2 hours and 20 metres of walking zone) other dogs, puddles, rivers, streams, lakes, boar, starey cows, people, walkers, cyclists, joggers, hunters, hunt dogs. Heston has great situational recall in very familiar empty spaces with no wildlife. He is reliable with cows, horses and rabbits.

Tilly: cowpats, other dogs, cyclists, joggers, hikers, rubbish bags, food waste, pheasant, stinky manure

Amigo: is deaf now. No recall at all, bless him. Used to be rabbits or boar and cow pats.

Effel: everything but Heston running or other dogs leaving the pack, which he likes to herd up and move on. Also has a roving eye for orienting towards moving objects when he’s over-stimulated.

You can, of course, build in recall-proofing with leashes and then without, gradually decreasing the distance between you and a cause of poor recall. I did this with cows, horses and rabbits for Heston and we’re working on him not racing off to dive in the water. But generally speaking, if your dog is unreliable around certain stimuli, keep the leash on and go right back to recall basics around that situation.

Remember that even the mildest aversion can be a massive deterrent. A bit of rain and my dogs think they’re made of sugar…

The day Effel’s rock solid recall fails is indeed the day that it is heaving it down. Remember, recall fails happen to everyone, and if you are in any doubt the recall will fail (I had no doubt at all that my dogs would not venture into the rain!) don’t expect your dog to follow you.

Recall, then, is only as good as your environment. Managing the environment for a dog with poor recall is absolutely vital. The predatory motor pattern sequence that comes part and parcel of your dog’s genes means that unless you have a dog with a genetically-inhibited sequence (so livestock guarding breeds) you are likely to have a living, breathing dog. If you have a hound or a terrier, you will no doubt have moments where the Call of the Wild will take over. That’s what leashes are for. Even if you have a rather jolly labrador, you might want to stick a leash on as well.

And… if you’re having problems walking your dog on leash, try this post from last week!

Next week… jumping up.