The Dog Blog

Let me introduce myself, my name is Rachel and I’m a 30-year-old media teacher. I live with my partner Ciarán and together we have two dogs and two cats. We also have another cat on long-term foster.

I’ve been asked to start this blog because since getting a dog, I have become somewhat obsessed with them. Most other dog owners will tell you that this is a common occurrence. I’ve taken training classes, grooming classes, behavioural classes, judged dog shows, attended Crufts, joined social groups, turned my dog into a celebrity and regularly volunteer for Manchester Dogs Home. I’ve learnt a lot but I have a lot more to learn and I’m hoping that you will come with me on this journey of ours.

I’ll start with my most recent and challenging of all experiences, dealing with my dog’s fear based aggression. I adopted Chance, a one-year-old Bulloxer from the dog’s home where he had been picked up as a stray. He was weak with malnutrition, appeared to have dodgy hips and a bit of kennel cough. Ciarán pointed him out to me in the kennels; he’d seen him whilst we were working on an event and was excited to show him to me, as it was rare that any American Bulldogs were available. Our other dog, Frankie is an American Bulldog and she has the most amazing personality. Of course, as soon as I saw Chance I begged the staff to let me take him home. That’s what happens when you see the sweetest face in the entire world looking through kennel bars at you. He soon fell desperately ill with kennel cough and had to be hospitalized and so I made him a promise that if he could pull himself through then I would care for him for the rest of his life.

We first noticed that Chance had aggression problems when he wouldn’t accept my Auntie’s Collie Sheba in his house. Fair enough we thought, best to not let Sheba come into ‘his’ space and left it at that. Then he pinned down my Cousin’s Cavalier-King-Charles-Spaniel, Stanford. Very naughty of him, but he didn’t hurt him and I was fussing over Stanford so maybe he was just jealous. Don’t fuss over other dogs. Sorted. Then it was next door’s dog, then a dog in the park, then another one and so on and so on. I was devastated. He was unsafe to be allowed to run off lead, go to other people’s houses or even out in public. He loves people and he loves Frankie and is normally very placid, loving and playful so we couldn’t figure out what was going on with him. We tried basic training practices that we’d learnt such as correct lead walking, reward based commands such as sit, stay, wait and even speak and Chance excelled at this home-schooled obedience training, except when other dogs were around. We tried a muzzle and he practically ripped his own face off trying to get it off which was very distressing to everyone. It made him look like some kind of killer pit-bull type on the rampage (excuse the breed prejudice pun but you know how the general public can be with bull breeds). I thought about selling him or taking him back to the home but knew that this would just be me passing the problem onto someone else and may ultimately lead to him being euthanized. So I pulled myself together, remembered my promise and called a few trainers for some much needed help and advise. I took him to an aggressive dogs class and he was so scared he almost literally peed himself in the middle of the class. Most of the advise I’ve been given over the six-weeks has been great, friendly and supportive with really useful training techniques but none of us could quite handle the over-subscribed classes and confusing, often conflicting advice and instruction. I decided to spend good money on a very reputable canine behaviour course at night school and try and figure this out for myself. The behaviourlist deems him ‘fixable’ in terms of being able to be trained in order to fit into our society full of human rules that don’t really make sense to our canine companions. So, I’ve got books, training classes, equipment, websites, advisors and a canine behaviour class making him their case study and this is the plan:

• Basket Muzzle. Needs to be trained to wear it with food and positive experiences. So far, I can’t even get it to fit his head.

• Two-Lead approach. One for his collar, one for his harness to maximize control. Sorted.

• Teach Chance some more control commands that we can use as correction such as ‘stand-still’, ‘behind-me’, ‘side-of-me’, ‘in-front’ and/or ‘face-me’. So far we have been working on ‘stand’ and it’s taking some getting used to for him but in two-weeks, I think that’s he’ll have cracked it. Getting him to do it when he’s scared though is another matter.

• Use toys as a frustration reliever for Chance. This is working very well and Chance is correcting his own behaviour by distracting himself with his favourite toys.

• Tell Chance that he is a good boy. Remain calm and convey positive, stress relieving words and feelings so he feels calm and not fearful of his doggie encounters.

So, I took him to the park today and it was hard work for the both of us. I tied him up to a tree and sat next to him with his toys, water and Frankie and we tried to relax. Chance had a few wobbles and made a few lunges but his control was still there as he would sit mostly on command and play with his toys whenever he felt threatened. It became harder for him to correct himself or follow commands without being physically moved into a sit as the park filled up with dogs and they came closer and closer to us. He lunged at one dog that came over to see him and snapped at this face, almost biting his lips. I corrected him and checked that the other dog and owner were ok. I thought about going home but the whole point was that he was socialised so decided to stay calm and stay put. I tried to put his muzzle on at this point (probably too late, I know) but it still won’t fit properly and it still freaks him out. The next time a dog came past I was stood talking to someone so didn’t see when he lunged at the dog but I held him down and he didn’t make contact with the dog. I corrected him into a sit and started to calm him down when the owner of the other dog started her verbal attack on us. Apparently his behaviour was unacceptable and I was to apologise for it. I explained that he was in training but she wanted to know why I hadn’t ‘done’ anything to correct his behaviour. I explained that remaining calm was a part of his training to which her friend decided to declare ‘god help him with you as his trainer’.  This is an example of the type of prejudice and abuse that you face on a daily basis when you own an ‘aggressive’ dog.

“Punishing a dog for not obeying a command or for unwanted behaviour without understanding why the behaviour is happening in the first place only serves to make the behaviour worse”

“Positive techniques are much safer when it comes to training aggressive dogs, and they help these dogs change the way they react by showing them that there is another way to feel so that there is no need to aggress”

Victoria Stillwell , Dog Trainer and TV Personality

[Alpha No More, Best Friend’s Magazine, Jan/Feb 2010]

Thankfully I have the support of many trainers and friends who understand dogs and support what I’m trying to do. It doesn’t make it easy though, for either Chance or myself. Accusations and abuse such as that we have experienced today hurts our confidence and belief in our abilities. Can he change his behaviour and/or natural responses? Can I lead him effectively in his training? I’d like to think so but we are going to need support, not condemnation from the general public. So the next time you are walking past a dog on a lead who look a little stressed, do everyone a favour and take a wide berth or speak to the owner calmly and you might just save a dog’s life. I had control. We are working towards a goal. We are not perfect but I had control. Five minutes after this incident, we started to walk home when my bulldog crew of friends greeted us on the path out of the park with open arms, cheers and cuddles over Chance who they’d never met before as he’s normally banned from social spaces. Chance happily let all three all three dogs sniff his rear and owners pet him. They were off to the water park to cool down. One day, we can hopefully join them. This is positive training in practice. Look it up!