case studies

CASE: Hyper Collie Holly
This was a family with two small children (4 and 6) and a collie who was 100% dominant/hyperactive. The dog was demanding – barking when she didn’t get her way. She was dominant – interjecting herself between the owner(s) and children. She was disrespectful – she would often knock the children over or almost knock them over, jump from one piece of furniture to the next, “move” furniture with her body, etc.. And she was basically out of control in the house, in the yard and on walks. She would rush the doors and front windows barking at passers-by. She would jump on visitors incessantly, and demand attention. And not listen to any commands.

To show how quickly these behaviors can escalate. They got this dog for Christmas. They got her because she seemed “good natured and potty trained”. By April the entire family was at their wits end. It only took about 12-15 weeks to go from loving her to being totally frustrated with her.

We had to use a few different techniques with Holly. The first was to teach her to give people respect and distance. This was important to keep her from jumping on people and knocking over children. Next we taught her to give the front door respect and distance. This was important for visitors and to keep her from running through open doors and being both a danger to herself and an embarrassment to her family.

She is a very people-centered dog, so the difficult part was teaching her to stay and wait inside the house while “her whole family” was standing outside the open front door. But, she got it. In no time the door itself wasn’t the obstacle to her going outside, it was the energy of her owners. So, she gave even a wide open door respect and distance. We did this to keep her in the house at the front door and to keep her staying in the back yard at the back door.

To show that even children can learn these methods, by the time we were done the 6 year old child was correcting Holly at the door and she was listening to him and respecting him.

We followed this up with training on the walk – everyone participated and we showed Holly that she was a junior member of the pack, not the leader. In no time Holly was following correctly OFF-LEASH. This is truly the difference between trying to control a dog’s body vs gaining control over its Mind. We moved on to advanced exercise (using a bicycle), which Holly took to very well.

Holly graduated college, went through Army basic training and visited Disneyland (essentially) all in a 3 hour period. She learned more than she ever learned before, gained more self-discipline that she ever knew was possible, and got more fun exercise than she had ever experienced.

RESULT:

The behaviors that bothered the family are gone. Holly has gone from a frustrated, agitated dog that was constantly looking for outlets and being demanding to a dog that Lives at a lower energy state. For her now CALM and RESPECTFUL are the new norm. She still gets what she wants, but she asks for them appropriately and when she doesn’t get them she accepts that and practices being calm and balanced to show that she is worthy of them. She’s much happier and so is the family.

TRAINING REQUIRED:

One home visit.

CASE: Mysterious Child Biter
This case was a real mystery. I include it to show that not every case requires the same solution. This was a two year old pug who the family had recently rescued. Over the Thanksgiving to Christmas holiday period he had bitten two small children. He didn’t break the skin with either, but the family was ready to bring him back to the rescue group. That’s when the rescue group called me and I responded to the 911.

The first bite occurred when the dog had a rawhide in his mouth and he bit a toddler. This family was very responsible and had taken the dog to the vet to ensure his problem wasn’t physical in nature. The vet said the dog had an ear issue that needed medicine, but was OK otherwise. At this point the dog had bitten one child. Then, while trying to treat the ear issue the dog ran under a table and then bit another child, this child was about 6 or 7.

My first thought was that was going to be a fairly straightforward case of food aggression and a dog that shows his disapproval with his teeth – dominant and unwilling to submit to human demands. Maybe he had a fear reaction to children. But all treatable.

Upon arrival we discussed everything and then went to work trying to recreate a biting scenario. First we tried the ears – he submitted to getting his ears treated without issue, and this was without ANY training. I actually Wanted him to resist, so I could diagnose him. But he was fine with it. Next we moved to food aggression. No matter what we did he showed no food aggression and a perfect willingness to let adults or children take food and toys from his mouth. We very safely exposed him to the family children to see if his body language changed at all. No, he was perfectly happy with kids.

I tried everything I could think of to put him into a situation where he might lash out. In all instances he submitted happily and easily to both me and his owners and the children (with safety 100% the priority). This was a puzzle.

But, there WAS a reason for his previous bites. So I kept working with him. I moved to a lot of touching to see if he would get defensive. Finally, after 2.5 hours or working with him and the family I got him to get defensive when I put my fingers IN his mouth. At first I though – “Aha, he doesn’t like people touching his mouth. I can fix that.” After further exploration I realized that he had an Abscessed Tooth.

Even though the vet had given the dog a clean bill of health just a few weeks prior, he had missed something. The abscess was the cause of the bites, otherwise the dog was perfectly submissive, calm, happy and balanced (like most pugs naturally are). The family had the tooth pulled and the dog was fixed.

RESULT:

This particular case wasn’t a behavioral issue. But, because I wasn’t going to give up until I found the solution, we solved the problem anyway. This kept the dog from being returned to the rescue group. And it made the family very happy. This is one instance of where “whispering” – asking the dog questions through our behaviors and listening for answers – worked where “training” – sit/heel/stay – would have served no purpose.

TRAINING REQUIRED:

One home visit, no actual training was needed. But the problem was definitively fixed.

CASE: Red-Zone Cocker Spaniel
This dog was originally described to me as hyper. When I went out he was a high energy dog, but otherwise seemed fairly normal. He was a little harder to read because his tail was cropped (so I couldn’t read his body language from his tail), and he had solid black curly hair and short curly haired ears (so I couldn’t really see his ears either). But, he acted fine, but hyper, and we started the training.

He walked OK on the leash and seemed attentive and trainable. However, when I reached down to touch his neck he immediately went into a “red-zone” state and became vicious. He had zero bite inhibition and went directly for my hands – even jumping and biting at them. At one point while I was getting him under control he caught me and bit my finger to the bone.

The owners were obviously concerned and shocked. We took a moment to clean the wound. I put on some gloves to cover it and went back to work with the dog. The first order of business now was getting him to submit to authority. I tried a number of distance methods at first, but he wasn’t going to surrender. So I had to move to closer tactics.

I used a simple garden rake that they had on hand and kept the dog on his leash. The rake was simply to block his attacks as we asked him to simply surrender. He was stubborn and aggressive. It took about 20 minutes of him trying to kill the rake before he started to lose steam. At no point did we hit him or attack him or hurt him. The rake was simply there to block his aggression.

After the attack they told me that he had done this before a couple of times with the male owner – who got very frustrated and angry with him when it happened. But, in the end the dog would win – because his viciousness would escalate to the point of pure danger to the owner. This time we addressed it with Calm, Assertive, Patient energy that showed we were going to be more persistent than him. And, we weren’t going to give up until we got the behavior that we wanted. This was the first time he had ever lost one of these tantrums that he threw to get his way. All we wanted was calm submission.

The entire exercise took about 45 minutes. When it ended he and I were lying on the ground together and I was touching his neck (which is what caused the incident). He had finally submitted and calmed down. We could move on to the rest of the training.

Other than the violent outbursts their problems were typical. He was hyper, didn’t listen, would bark and rush the door, run through any open gate or door to escape, etc. He was food aggressive and had a tendency to show displeasure by growling and snapping.

We changed the leadership in the house from him (the dog) to the owners and I showed them how to create dominance from a distance (as opposed to touch) to give them skills to enhance their leadership without creating a red-zone situation that they couldn’t handle. This was important because if the dog attacked and won, then they would end up back at square one.

Finally, I showed them how to create exercise for the dog that enhanced their position as pack leader and drained the dog’s energy.

RESULT:

This highly aggressive dog who had no problem with going into full attack mode against humans is calm, balanced and under control. He his happier and the family is happier. They were scared they were going to have to get rid of him, but really wanted to help him have a home, because no one else would take him.

TRAINING REQUIRED:

This dog was an extreme case that was both dangerous and entrenched in his ways. So, the training required ONE visit to the home, plus ONE follow-up visit about two weeks later (to teach advanced exercise skills).