working on teaching a dog to stop being aggressive the work should start in "kindergarten" not in high school. If you were in martial arts you don't first fight a black belt to realize you're a white belt, you don't start giving calculus exams to a first grader. < Older Post Newer Post > Share Tweet Share Mail DEALING WITH A PUPPY AND AN OLDER DOG The new puppy and the older dog. The new dog and the established dog. These are tricky waters to navigate for dog owners.
As with many scenarios in dog training the best of intentions can turn into a big problem in a hurry. Dog owners can just be trying to give their dog a friend or be trying to give their kids a younger more energetic dog as their current dog ages. The first mistake people make is assuming that their older dog is "nice" so there shouldn't be any issues. The second mistake is assuming it's the older dog's responsibility to deal with the new dog.
As with any interaction whether it's between two or more humans or two or more dogs the "nice" one can still be targeted. You can be the nicest person in the world and get stuck around a bully twice your size and have lots of problems. Or just be around someone who is very annoying to you and you just lose your patience. It always takes at least two to tango.
Now your new dog or puppy may not be trying to be mean, they could simply be over excited, have no off switch, not understand how to appropriately play yet etc. Your older dog can simply be telling your new dog to stop or to go away from them. Learn to read your dogs and learn when to step in. The vast majority of older dogs are not trying to seriously injure your new dog. Dogs use body language and different vocalizations to communicate with us and each other.
Most of the stuff that looks bad to the untrained eye in these situations are actually called agonistic behaviors which means behaviors used to create space between dogs that are annoying or potentially threatening. We should be seeing the signs before it gets to the point of air snapping, growling, showing teeth or biting though. We should step in and advocate for our older dog from day 1.
When you see your new dog demand barking at your older dog to play, jumping on your older dog, acting obsessed with your older dog, getting to close when your older dog is eating or chewing a bone etc you should be intervening before your older dog feels like they have to. I personally use spacial pressure, squirt bottles and dressage whips ( used as an extension of my arm, not as a whip) to separate dogs and provide space for my older dog.
It is also our job not our older dog's job to teach our new dog how to behave. Until you know your dogs are safe together I never suggest leaving them alone together. Always use crates, gates or exercise pens to keep them separated when they are unsupervised. Having both dogs obedience trained is crucial, but until they both respond well they need to be managed. Cues that are helpful in these situations are the place command, come when called, wait, boundaries and relaxation.
Most often we have to start with teaching our dogs to just learn how to exist around each other before they can learn to accept and like each other. Management is crucial in the beginning as well as having good things like small training sessions occur near each other and going on walks together. I also recommend picking up all toys and food dishes at least until the dogs become more comfortable with each other. POSITIVE ONLY TRAINING FLAWS This is an article I have been working on for the past few weeks.
It points out the flaws of positive only training methods and describes in great detail why you need corrections in dog training. If you enjoyed this article or learned something from it please share. The more people that receive this message the better the world will be for dogs and their owners.
Thank you First off I want everyone who reads this article to understand my motivation behind writing this, certain tools ( such as prong collars and electronic collars) are being banned across the globe and dogs are being euthanized for behaviors that could easily be fixed. Did you know in America over 1 million dogs that come through animal shelters get euthanized every year?
It's impossible to know the exact reasons why all dogs wind up at the shelter, but it's safe to assume that dogs are not being given away due to good behavior. That's not even counting the ones that get sent straight to the vet... For those of you who do not know me or haven't seen me train don't assume by this article that I am a heavy handed, yank and crank, old school trainer, that is gung ho about punishment and thinks every situation is solved with punishment.
I simply know when and why to reward and when and why to correct and always aim to correct in the lightest fashion possible. I believe in being open minded to anything that can help me help dogs and in turn help their owners. I believe the more options you have, the more capable you are as a trainer. I am growing increasingly concerned about the message "pure positive " training advocates are spreading and how bold and aggressive they can be in their attacks on other styles of training.
I understand that a good portion of this following, probably the majority are good hearted people who truly feel they are doing the right thing or at least supporting the right values. The other portion is drinking the kool-aid, behaving in a cult like fashion and spreading fear and propaganda about tools and training techniques they have no experience with. This fear leads to a generalized uneducated fear from the general public that keeps these myths and wives tails circulating.
As you will see later on in this article generalizations and assumptions are not really ever the truth, usually just propaganda skewed in the direction of the person talking. For those of you that fall in that camp I hope this article sheds some light on the other side and how most of us balanced trainers think. To understand where I'm coming from I feel it's best you know a bit about me. If you're a pure positive trainer reading this, I was you...
I was determined to train without force or aversives for 5 long years. I started in 2008, went through Animal Behavior College, taught at Petco for a couple of years, got my cpdt-ka certification, met up with other pure positive trainers, shadowed their classes and studied every training dvd I could possibly get my hands on... I was obsessed with fixing aggression through force free methods. After a while everything I came across was just a reminder of something I already knew, said by a different person.
I had some success sure, but I realized through early failures that this method of training alone lacked reliability, was too much work on difficult cases to realistically expect clients to be able to do, lacked options when things weren't working well enough, left options for dogs to not comply with your cue's and most importantly can be unsafe.
