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As time goes on, wait for longer and longer silences after your “Enough.” This isn’t as easy to train as something like “Sit,” because it’s much harder for your dog.
It may take a few months of brief training sessions five to ten times a week, and you must start when your dog isn’t so excited that he can’t listen, but it’s worth it. What a joy when your dog hears “Enough,” turns away from the door or window, and comes to you, looking for her treat. Once it becomes learned, you can treat her intermittently rather than all the time.
Professional animal trainers, who should know as well as anyone how to use sound to communicate to their animals, distinguish themselves from dog owners in one consistent way. They are able to separate their own emotional states from the sounds that they make, making sounds that elicit the response that they want rather than sounds that represent how they are feeling inside.
Agitated humans make sounds that reflect how they are feeling inside. Instead of helping the animal do what is wanted (or stop doing something), those sounds often agitate the animal that hears them.
An analysis of 104 animal handlers and sixteen different languages found a universal use of short, rapidly repeated notes to speed animals up and single, continuous notes to slow or stop them.
A pattern with two versions of a “slow down” signal was replicated throughout the study, with one long, continuous note used to slow or soothe an animal and one sharp note to immediately stop a fast-moving one. If you think about it, it makes sense that “inhibiting” signals would fall into two different categories, since slowing or calming down is a distinctly different response than gathering up the energy to put on the brakes if you’re in a dead run.
the pups’ activity levels increased after four short whistles but not after one long, continuous one. Most relevant to dog lovers, four short whistles (comparable to syllables) were more effective than one continuous whistle at training our five-month-old puppies to “come.” That makes sense, given that “coming” usually meant increasing activity.
The general rule is to use short, repeated notes to encourage activity and one single note to discourage it. Let’s say you want your dog to come when you call. Perhaps because so many of us see this as an exercise in “obedience” (translation: a test of our authority), many humans belt out the word come like a marine drill sergeant. If I tape-recorded the sound and analyzed it, it would look exactly like the sounds made around the world to stop animals. You could substitute any combination of letters, and you would still have a single sharp, short note that replicates the “Whoa!”
If your dog’s name is short, you could call her to come by saying her name twice and clapping your hands, or you could try the “recall” signal of Scottish shepherds: “That’ll do!” While teaching a recall signal, try encouraging little puppies to come by repeating “pup, pup, pup, pup” and clapping your hands as you run away from them.
Is your dog coming but not fast enough? Sing out “Good dog” as he lumbers toward you and start clapping as you run away from your dog. You might ask why I’m suggesting that you repeat yourself sometimes while avoiding repetition at other times. The difference is in the function of your signal. If you’re trying to increase your dog’s level of activity, use short, repeated notes. But if you’re communicating an action that inherently inhibits activity in your dog, like “Sit” or “Down,” try to say it only once, just as the handlers I interviewed did.
If I had cheerfully called “Tulip, Tulip! Come!” and clapped my hands with her usual recall signal, she would’ve kept on trucking. After all, I said that repeated notes encourage activity; I didn’t say where that activity would be directed. The last thing Tulip needed at that point was sounds designed to stimulate her; she was so excited when she came back that she hyperventilated for ten minutes. I wanted to inhibit her, not stimulate her, so I did what the Basque sheepdog handlers and the Peruvian Quechua horse trainers did when they needed a quick stop on a running animal. I belted out one
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Think about the way you use your voice at the vet clinic when you and your dog are hanging out in the lobby.
Here’s your chance to use one long, continuous note to calm your dog, just as handlers all around the world would do. This is when you want to say, “Goooooooood boy, Captain, goooooooooood boy. What a goooooooooood boy you are.”
It can take a conscious effort to make sounds that reflect what you want your dog to do rather than how you’re feeling inside. There’s a bonus, though: speaking in long, steady tones can help calm you down, too. And don’t forget to breathe. Long, deep breaths slow everything down, from your own speech patterns to your dog’s response.
A low pitch signifies authority or confidence in both wolves and primates. Simply saying a signal in a lower voice than before can mean the difference between your dog’s ignoring you or obeying.
not louder but lower,
It’s the difference between asking and telling.
high sounds are associated with excitement, immaturity, or fear, while lower sounds are associated with authority, threat, or aggression.
lower their voices when they ask their dogs to inhibit themselves. So practice saying “No!” or “Stay” in a low voice rather than a loud one and letting your voice rise when you call “Come” or when you praise your dog. If Fido ignores your sweet signals to come, switch to a low, growly “No” and then call “Come” again, just as sweetly as before.
The handlers whom I recorded modeled a simple set of rules that I have incorporated into my repertoire ever since. They universally used a flat, unwavering pitch to soothe or slow animals and the opposite to stimulate them. And so those short, repeated words to excite animals were often rising in pitch. But the single notes used to stop fast-moving animals usually varied considerably in pitch, going up and down like a roller coaster within just one syllable. “Whoa!” for example, starts by rising in pitch and then falling.
Use short, repeated notes like claps, smooches, and short, repeated words to stimulate activity in your dog. Use them when you want your dog to come to you or to speed up. Use one long, continuous flat sound to soothe or slow your dog, as you might when you’re trying to calm her at the vet’s. Use a burst of one short, highly modulated note to effect an immediate stop of a fast-moving dog, saying “No!” or “Hey!” or “Down”
After you throw the ball, wait until the dog has his mouth on it. Once he does, your job is to move away from the ball, clapping and smooching to attract him in your direction. If you walk toward him, you’ve just initiated a chase game, but in the wrong direction.
Just remember to throw it the microsecond that you get it.
before your puppy is fully immunized at around fifteen to sixteen weeks, you want to minimize his exposure to pathogens like parvo virus. But the first and most important period of socialization is over around week twelve or thirteen, so you need to balance the medical risks with the behavioral risks of keeping your puppy isolated until the sensitive period of socialization is over. Regrettably these two risks create a conflict. Many owners solve this dilemma by ensuring that their pup meets lots of new people at home and goes to lots of safe new places (like the neighbor’s fenced backyard)
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Probably the most common, inappropriate use of petting is when owners pet their dogs on the head for doing a difficult recall. Here’s Spike the German Shorthaired Pointer, playing with three other male dogs, and his owner calls him to come. Spike is pumped, he’s been playing hard among a group of competitive, same-age, same-sex buddies, but he’s a good boy who’s been well trained, so he dashes over to his owner to see what she wants.
Spike is in play mode, and there’s a bit of a competition going on with the other dogs, and maybe, just maybe, he really doesn’t want to be petted right then.
So sometimes imagining ourselves inside a dog can cause problems, but other times it can be useful. In the case of petting, I think it’s useful, because it can explain the fact that some dogs will come less often if the “reward” for coming is getting patted on the head. To many dogs, in this circumstance, it’s a punishment, not a reward.
They didn’t want petting, not right then; they were playing with their buddies, and they wanted to keep it up. What pleases these playful, athletic dogs is for their owner to provide more play, perhaps throw a ball when the dog comes, not to switch gears
Sometimes just saying “OK” and letting them go back to play with their buddies is a great way to make them glad that they came.
Of course, if you have a dog who would do anything to hear you coo and give him a chest rub, it works just fine to pet and praise him when he’s come away from a play session. But just like you, your dog probably wants different things at different times,
Another time to avoid petting is when your dog is highly aroused or agitated. Dogs and humans share a kind of a threshold of arousal, a level of emotional excitement that changes our response to touch. Under that threshold, touch is soothing, as it is when your dog is slightly anxious at the vet’s or when you’re nervous at the doctor’s office.
But touch doesn’t always calm the ones who receive it, not if they are pumped-up and agitated.
Just as it’s important to keep your voice different in tone from your internal emotions when you’re trying to influence your dog, you need to learn to massage your dog with long, slow strokes when you want to soothe her, even if you yourself are nervous.
Slow your own breathing down and it will help slow your dog down.
The petting preferences of dogs do not seem to be sex-related, but dogs are as varied as people in how they like to be touched. Some of this variation is related to breed: tough field-bred retrievers plow through briars and ice water when they’re looking for a bird, and so they are often fond of manly slaps to the rump.
Humans and dogs are predisposed to having hierarchical social systems because both species need ways of resolving the conflicts that inevitably arise in group living. These potential conflicts can include who goes out the door first, who gets the best sleeping place, or who gets to mate with whom. As we humans know well, one of the ways to resolve these conflicts is by fighting. But fighting is not the best solution when conflicts can come up repeatedly during the day: it takes a lot of energy and is dangerous. Individuals can avoid having to fight every time that a conflict arises with a
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Many humans equate “dominance” with “aggression” and quickly buy into using aggression to get what they want. The irony is that dominance is actually a social construct designed to decrease aggression, not to facilitate it. A hierarchical social system allows individuals to resolve conflicts without having to fight. Any individual who truly has a lot of social status has enough power that he or she doesn’t need to use force.
Unless a dog is in heat, mounting is a statement about social status, not about sex.
some dogs can be pampered without ever creating problems, but just as with people, most dogs need to learn how to cope with frustration.
It’s a lot easier to stop catering to your dog when you’re aware that, after about three years of age, she is a mature adult and perfectly capable of the emotional control that is necessary in all social animals.
I’m not arguing that you shouldn’t give your dog treats or attention when he wants it. I pet my dogs dozens of times a day when they come up for stroking. But don’t do it because you feel that you have no choice. You do have a choice, and your dog needs you to exercise it on occasion.
A lot of young dogs don’t want petting or attention as much as they want activity, and they come up to their owners to get a game started. Of course, this is when many of us pet our dogs instead of going outside and playing with them. We’re tired, and we finally got a chance to sit down, and we don’t want to get up right then. So we pet our dog instead,
If you have a young, healthy dog, especially one who sleeps in a crate all day long, then either get yourself outside and exercise with your dog or find someone else to do it for you.
we can’t expect dogs to be well behaved if they spend most of the day and all of the night in a crate, with a fifteen-minute-long leash walk as the highlight of their day.1 So first things first. If you want your dog to stop pestering you, then give him what he needs before he has to pester you for it. But no matter how much exercise your dog needs, all dogs profit by learning how to cope with frustration.
“Enough,” which means to stop whatever they’re doing (like asking for petting or bugging me with the ball) and leave me in peace.
say “Enough” in a low, quiet voice and then pat her briskly on the head two times. If she doesn’t go away (which most dogs won’t the first several times you do this), stand up and walk your dog away from the couch a few feet, using your body-blocking skills to back her away. Cross your arms and turn your head away to the side as you sit back down. If she comes right back as you sit down, “pat pat” on her head again and body-block her away a second time. When she returns, be sure to do a “look away” so that you’re not making eye contact.
If you turn your head away from your dog, you’re saying that your interaction is over, and many dogs will seemingly understand and go away. If you keep staring at him, using words to tell him to go away, he’ll keep staring back at you, sure that you are trying to visually communicate something important and desperately trying to figure out what it is by looking at your face.)
These two little “pat pats” that I suggested are an important part of the signal.
Even dogs in training classes withdraw when their owners pat them on the head, although until they learn better techniques, the hapless owners are usually trying to praise the dog for doing something right.
This time there’s a useful result to our primatelike tendency to pat dogs on top of their heads, so we might as well take advantage of it. It’s the perfect situation: humans are quick to pat dogs on top of their heads, but dogs don’t really like it (remember that patting is not the same as stroking: most dogs adore massagelike strokes just as we do).
