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The following questions
arrived in email. My answers follow. The names have been changed.
Does my dog require herding instruction or
obedience training?
QUESTION:
Lizzie is a 6 year old border
collie / Australian heeler mix. Jazz is a 2 year old pure bred border collie. We
don't have any major issues with Jazz right now, so Lizzie is the one that needs
the most training.
From early on, Lizzie has
always been very high strung. I attempted to crate train her as a pup and she
would bark/cry/scream for up to an hour straight. (That was my longest attempt).
She also managed to pull the crate in on itself and escape. She has been to
multiple obedience and agility classes. She is very fast and learns command
quickly. She knows basic obedience commands, lots of agility commands, and a
variety of tricks. She performs very well for food, but not so well without.
Issues -
Barking
She has a history of barking
out the window at dogs, people talking, and occasionally nothing at all (that we
can see). She is friendly with us and our immediate family members, but
completely unpredictable with strangers. And sometimes barks and lunges just
after meeting someone. She sometimes barks for attention, a toy, or a treat, but
this is less of a problem and not consistent.
Aggression
Her attitude toward people is
sometimes perfectly pleasant and playful, sometimes aggressive, and sometimes
herding. She has grabbed guests' pantlegs from in a herding crouch. She has
a huge problem with other dogs. I attempted to socialize her as a pup and
took her to dog parks. As a pup she was playful, but as she got older she became
more and more agressive, so I stopped taking her to areas where dogs are off
leash. On leash, she usually does not bark at other dogs unless they are within
10 feet. She has no problem with Jazz, but they have had a few fights over
resources (bones etc.). We worked with an in house trainer and were able
to resolve that problem.
What We Have Tried
For barking: citronella collar
- she continued to bark until it ran out of juice
squirt bottle - looked annoyed,
but was not deterred. Sometimes barked at the bottle
shock collar - her fur is so
thick at her neck that it either would not work at all or she would yelp and not
make the connection to the barking as it was inconsistent - I do not think this
is a good training method for her as I think it makes her more aggressive.
Bark Stop - tone training -
high pitched noise whenever barking occurs (this does not affect her at all)
We are going to try sending her
to a crate for a time out whenever she barks and see if that makes a difference.
Aggression - I'm not really
sure what to try. In a class setting, the dogs have always been separated and at
a dog park I don't want to risk injury to either the dogs in the park, or
Lizzie. In dealing with people, we keep her separated and then introduce her
slowly to people and that seems to work. We then need to make sure that they
have treats to give her so they can move about the house without losing an ankle
(just a nip to the pantleg really, but this is really frightening for people who
are afraid of dogs).
My wife, Janet, and I both
work full time. In order to ensure the dogs get enough exercise, I walk them in
the morning and at night for between 15 and 30 minute. We have a dog walker come
to the house in the middle of the day for a 30 minute walk as well. Both dogs
sometimes go to doggie day care. When there, Lizzie doesn't really run around
and play with the other dogs, through she is not aggressive there at all (since
Janet and I are not there). She seems to crave interaction and really needs a
job. I feel that what we are doing is not enough and I want her to have a good
life.
What I would like to do is
have her trained to herd and then find a place for her to go during the week so
she could do what her genetics are made for. I see that you do a bootcamp style
training for dogs in obedience. Though I think that may solve some of her issues
for a short period of time, I really feel that the underlying cause of much of
her bad behavior is boredom and lack of truly challenging exercise. Our in house
trainer met someone that sent his dog out every week to herd and spent the
weekends at home. Our training is going to come back to us with more information
on where the dog was sent to work. In the meantime, I am researching places
where we could send Lizzie for training as the working dog she was meant to be.
ANSWER:
Let me
share my professional opinion with you about Lizzie, based on the description
you have provided.
I do not
think that Lizzie needs a job as much as she needs to be psychologically and
socially balanced. Once she is comfortable in her own skin and feels that she
can relinquish control of the world to you and Janet, she will still need
exercise and perhaps even a hobby such as herding. But, until she becomes
normal, mentally, it won't matter what you provide for her from an exercise
point of view. Her body may be spending energy, but her mind is still messed
up. We need to fix her mind, first. That is where her problems stem from.
Also, as a
herding instructor, I wouldn't consider working with Lizzie until she was able
to show some self restraint and respect for her humans' authority. Without
that, to be very honest, she could get someone or something killed or injured!
That's not an exaggeration. So, before you look to some of the more grand
options (like sending her off to herd), I believe it is important to resolve her
very long standing psychological issues. Believe it or not, Lizzie's unwanted
behaviors, including the acts of aggression, can be resolved. That's what we
do. It's dangerous to take a psychologically unbalanced dog, or one that has
little or no respect for a human authority figure, to work livestock.
If Lizzie
cannot remain calm and contented while being confined to a crate, she has some
very basic issues. If she believes that she is responsible for determining (and
dealing with) the threats in your environment (as in those things that lurk
outside the window or guests in your home), she is taking control of the
leadership role in your family/pack. That's a daunting task for a mere dog,
which is why she is presenting unacceptable behavior. She is over whelmed
because she has never been convinced that she is not in control of the
household.
When ever
I hear someone tell me that their dog is acting "unpredictable", it's typically
a sign that the people are in an up-side-down relationship with their dog, and
also, that they do not realize HOW up-side-down it is. If a dog's actions seem
unpredictable, it means that the folks think (at some level) that the dog is
under their control, or is obedient to their commands. Many dogs, especially
the herding breeds, learn how to "go with the flow" and "predict" the habits of
their owners so that, for the most part, they appear to be under control and
biddable and willing to comply. It's when the dog is put into a situation where
it doesn't want to obey or doesn't want to respect their authority, that the
dog, all of a sudden, seems unpredictable. All along, that dog was owning the
relationship, but because it is willing to obey some commands, most of the time,
the folks do not realize that all of the dog's behaviors are "owned" by the
dog. So, in reality, there is NO obedience. The fact that she mostly only
obeys with food, but not so well without it, is the perfect example of this
sentiment. She is NOT really obeying, in the true intent of that word.
So, what
would my recommendation be for Lizzie? I believe that before anything else, she
requires some serious intervention and she needs to learn to remain calm,
relaxed, quiet, and well behaved both when people are present and when
they leave her sight. She needs to "play nice with others" when it comes to
dogs as well as people. She needs to relinquish control of decisions about
threats to humans. She needs to learn TRUE obedience to commands, as in,
regardless of WHAT happens around her, she will obey (if a cat rubs on her, if a
dog is playing Frisbee next to her, if another dog is being fed, if a piece of
steak falls on the floor in front of her, if a kid on a bike rides by....... and
on and on and on).
Also, she
needs the people in her life to realign themselves as competent leaders. Most
of her issues revolve around the fact the she doesn't believe in you. So, you
and Mary need training, too. You need to learn how to remain calm and relaxed
while imposing your expectations for exceptional behavior on Lizzie. A dog's
behavior is a reflection of her relationship with the people in her life. So,
we cannot rehabilitate and then train the dog and give her back to folks who
haven't changed their own attitudes about how the dog needs her humans to
behave.
It just so
happens that that is what we do! We can resolve Lizzie's issues and we can
train you to be great leaders for her. That is what our Board & Train program
provides. Then, you can explore ANY diversion that you would like - whether
that is herding, or something else that you can enjoy together.
Because of
the issues you have described and Lizzie's age, I would recommend three weeks of
training, four would be better, if you could part with her for that long. She
will learn to be happy in her own skin, again, and she will reconnect with her
canine language, which is subtle but very meaningful. Our methods are based on
emulating the way that dogs interact with each other and then teaching the dog's
people how to do the same thing. Dogs live "self restrained", they do not
restrain each other. But, they wholly respect societal rules that are imposed
by the higher ranking individuals in the pack. We set rules, we enforce them,
the dogs learn to trust because of our competence to set and uphold rules, and
then the dogs relax and become psychologically more balanced because of that.
© 2008 Tammie Rogers - all rights
reserved. For permission to reprint
email Tammie.
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