[Vicki]

There have been a few posts lately where both owner and dog suffered from a dog bite. I would beg anyone with this problem to read The Culture Clash, by Jean Donaldson.

Certainly in puppies the dominance theory is weak. A thirteen-week-old puppy has decided to challenge for pack leadership? When you give a dog a command he does not know, then get physical with a correction, it is abuse. The dog has no possible way to comply. For those who think dominance theory explains all, alpha dogs do NOT attack puppies, period. We've all seen a puppy bothering a dog, and what does the dog do? First, it will ignore the puppy, and in in the end, the dog gets up and moves away from the puppy. When the puppy is getting wild, or chewing the tissue, get up, turn your back, walk away. There actually is a correction that a puppy could get from its mother, but I won't describe it here as I can but imagine how it might be misused. Puppies who are still having their time on earth measured in weeks don't need physical corrections; they need training. A puppy would never be corrected by Mom for pooping when he felt the need, or putting whatever he found on the ground in his mouth, these are natural behaviors, and one must work dilligently to train different behaviors which make the dog able to live with humans. Would you jump on a toodler who was happily chewing a tissue? Probably not, as reason would dictate that the toodler could tell you were angry, but would not understand that his behavior was the cause. If you want to believe in dominance theory, then at least understand it. Alphas do NOT rule by force and terror.
Dogs understand body language, and respond to it. If you are boiling over with anger, I can promise you the dog is aware of it, and stressed by it. I know some people will tell you never quit "once you start something" but that is not sound advice. If you have lost your temper, or are in the process of losing it, STOP. Get away from the dog, calm down, work on your training plan. Consider how you managed to set the dog up, as in what did you do to help create this situation, and what can YOU learn about about how to prevent it from happening again. Get a notebook, write up your goals, keep track of your training sessions, this will help you track the dogs progress. Do your part to keep the dog from failing. Let's take the tissue, first of course, it should not have been where the puppy could get it. Get down on your hands and knees and get a puppy eye view of the world. If slip ups do occur, do not panic. Your puppy should see you as the fun person who does interesting things. If the dog has a nonlethal object in his little jaws, get up, turn your back, walk away. He'll follow you. When I work with very young dogs, I'll put a smear of cheese whiz on one palm, and a smear of liverwrust on the other. Put out the cheese palm first, then say "trade" then put out the liverwrust palm. Soon the puppy will learn there may be something even better in the next hand, so it pays to listen to this human. The puppy naturally explores the world with his mouth, so you have decide how you wish to channel that behavior. Keep different textures of toys and redirect chewing to those. I once had a GSD who had little razor teeth when he was tiny, and I got a pair of heavy leather welding gloves and when I put those on, but ONLY when I put those on, he could chew on the glove fingers.

Turid Rugaas's video on Calming Signals should be required viewing for puppy owners. Clicker training is a great way to have fun teaching your puppy human ways. Play Training Your Dog is another good training book. Find some way to give the puppy a chance.


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