Look Away & Look At Me

The above picture shows a scared rescue dog "looking away." He is showing a lot of body language in this picture:

• He is looking away from the person holding him
• His ears are flat to his head
• His eye is showing white in a "whale eye" way
• His mouth is tight

Since it is not a video, we can not tell if he is also licking his lips or yawning. These are all signs that the dog is nervous and stressed. In this dog's case, he has every right to be - he is in a shelter, strangers are taking pictures of him (a camera is just a really big, shiny eye to dogs) and I am sure that the noise level there is fairly high.

But, there is hope:

Here, he is still scared, but looking at the camera. He is obviously used to making eye contact with humans and will be a quick learner for "Look" or eye contact. However, even if this dog never made eye contact, it would still be an excellent candidate for rescue. I haven't met a dog that hasn't been able to learn to meet my eyes.

Teaching eye contact is one of the easiest things I do with a foster dog. It doesn't require that I touch the dog. The dog doesn't need to know its name. All the dog has to be able to do is eat treats - and, be brave enough to eat those treats in my presence.

What you need are:

• Treats (pea sized)
• Treat bag (for keeping the treats in)
• Clicker

Begin by throwing a treat one at a time onto the floor. As soon as the dog picks up the treat, click. Do this about 10 times or so. We call this "charging the clicker" and it basically begins the association of clicker to treats.

Place a treat in one hand with your arm outstretched. As soon as the dog looks at the treat, click and give the treat. You can either hand the dog the treat or toss it to the dog. Repeat 20 or so more times. End session.

During the next session, which can be after a break or that evening or the next day, start with having the treat held like before. Click & treat about 10 more times. Now, bend your arm so that the treat is half the distance it was from your body. When the dog looks at it, click and treat. Repeat 20 or so more times. Now that the dog really knows what the clicker is for, make sure that you, every once in awhile, skip the treat, but not the click. This give a variable reinforcement to the click, which makes the behavior you are training more resistant to extinction (i.e., it doesn't get forgotten or go away easily).

If you have a really shy dog, you will want to stay at this step for a few sessions.

Now, for the next session, practice the previous sessions for a few clicks and then move your hand, with treat, so that the treat is held right between your eyes. When the dog looks at the treat, click & treat. Practice this a few sessions.

Now, move your hand so that your finger is pointing to between your eyes. When the dog looks there, click and treat. Repeat, repeat, repeat.

Now that you do not have to hold a treat to get the dog to look at you, you can now introduce a verbal cue (we call what we did before the physical cue - it is good to use both, since dogs can lose their hearing). I use "look" or the dog's name or both. Basically, point to your eyes and say look. When the dog looks, click and treat. Repeat, repeat, repeat.

I can usually get any foster dog, including the shy ones, to look at my face within a week. That is about 7 days of one session per day, with each session being no more than 5 minutes.

Some things to remember: if the dog starts showing those calming signals like the pictures above, back up a step in your training and do that step until the dog becomes comfortable. Then, move on to the next step. Keep an eye on the dog's body language the entire time you are training and make sure that he is always OK with what you are doing. If he isn't, step back and reevaluate.

Body Language

The body language of homo sapiens differs considerably from that of canis lupus familiaris. Ever seen a pair of dogs hugging? For most of us, a hug is a non-threatening part of communicating with another human. For a dog, a hug can be scary and nerve wracking, since in dog speak, when a dog places its paw on another dog's back, this can be taken as a challenge. Sometimes, it is part of play, too, but the dog can't always know this.

So, we monkeys need to be aware of how our body language impacts our canine companions. If we raise a dog from a puppy, that dog often naturally learns to read our body language. They aren't born knowing how to understand us, just as we need to learn to understand them. And, if we adopt a rescue dog, then we do not know what that dog has been taught about body language or how it was taught (positive reinforcement or punishment). We need to be prepared to help the dog learn to understand our body language and to change our own body language so that the dog is not threatened.

And excellent place to start is with the following books and websites:

"On Talking Terms with Dogs" by Turid Rugaas and her companion website http://www.canis.no/rugaas/ I really recommend the "Gallery" and Questions and Answers" section.

"Canine Body Language: A Photgraphic Guide" by Brenda Aloff is worth every penny. Through the extensive use of photographs, different body language is shown - between dogs and between dogs and humans.

These books are also invaluable in understanding when the dog is stressed and needs to be removed from a situation. When it might need a time out. When it is too stressed to learn.

Both books can be found on http://www.dogwise.com/

One of the things we teach rescue dogs is the ability to begin reading humans. I use calming signals, such as looking away, licking lips, turning sideways, crouching down, leaning back, and yawning to help calm a frightened dog so that it can begin to understand and trust humans.

House training & Crate training

The more common term is "house breaking," but, I am not breaking the dog of using the house as a bathroom - I am actually training it that the house isn't the place to go - outdoors is. All dogs have accidents inside, especially when the are first brought into rescue. They are scared, confused, and don't understand the new rules. I expect a few mistakes and have plenty of paper towels on hand. Since house training and crate training pretty much go hand-in-hand, I teach them together.

When the foster dog first comes home, I allow it to greet the other dogs and then I lead it to its "assigned" crate. This crate is where foster dog will spend its time when I am not home and where it will get all of its meals and chew toys. I put foster dog into his crate and leave the leash on (so that I can get him out of the crate, too).

Then, I find an appropriate martingale collar and fix a drag line to it. And, I prepare every one's meal. Everyone is fed, including foster dog, in their own crate. After everyone has eaten, the other dogs go outside to go to the bathroom and play. Foster dog and I spend a little time adjusting the martingale collar and then the two of us go outside to go to the bathroom (outside of and away from the fenced in area where the other dogs are). As this point, I usually attach a 30 foot long leash onto foster dog to give him more room to sniff and do his business.

We stay outside until foster dog goes to the bathroom (or until I am freezing if it is winter). Some newly arrived dogs will not eat or go to the bathroom for a few days, so I don;t spend hours outside. If foster dog has gone to the bathroom, he gets praise, a whole bunch of treats and the ability to explore the house a little. If foster dog has not gone to the bathroom, he goes back into his crate with a chew toy.

I usually do my own thing now - eat my meal, answer e-mails, watch TV, play with my own dogs. When it is time for bed, the other dogs again go outside and foster dog and I go out and repeat the bathroom process. The foster dog is then crated for the night.

Note: I never leave a new foster and my own dogs unattended and uncrated until I have seen how they interact. There is always a chance that someone will not get along and a fight could occur. It is much easier to prevent this from happening - and takes less time - than having to go to the vet to treat a bite or an abscess!

Wwe repeat the bathroom process in the morning and throughout the day. Once I know that the foster dog gets along with my own dogs, he can go outside with them (off leash) and go to the bathroom that way. I just observe him through the window at this point and praise and treat when he comes in.

The cardinal rule for house training is that the dog is only allowed out of the crate (or off a leash attached to your waist) inside after he has gone to the bathroom outside. Frequent trips outside, treats and crating make quick work of housetraining. As foster dog gets more reliable, then he gets more freedom in the home.

For more detailed information on house training, check out "Way to Go! How to House Train a Dog of Any Age" by Patricia McConnell.

Are You Ready for Adoption?

Each foster dog that I have needs to be evaluated before being placed for adoption. I evaluate the following:

Temperament
OK with other animals?
OK with children?
OK with strangers?
Fence needed?
Rides well in cars?
OK left alone?
Chews stuff?
Exercise level?
Knows any cues/tricks?

Another important part of fostering is making sure that the foster dog has the skills needed to successfully live in his/her new adoptive home. These are not necessarily obedience level skills, such as down or stay. An adoptive home can teach that. The skills that I am talking about are ones that make living with the dog easier – I call them “house manners.” Some of the skills that I, as a foster mum, make sure that my foster dogs have are:

Housetrained
Crate trained
Allows collar grabs
Knows name
Takes treats easily
Tolerates grooming
Knows cues for: Loose leash walking, sit, off the bed, quiet down (be quiet)

These skills are in addition to being spayed/neutered, up to date on shots, and healthy. At first, for a new foster home, evaluating and teaching all of these can be daunting, so I am going to write up what I do with each.

Oh So Shy

Grace, a pretty blue and sable merle sheltie, came into rescue in early January. She isn't my first shy foster, but she has been the one who has needed the most care.

While at the puppy mill, Grace was in a kennel with far too many other shelties. There wasn’t enough food or water and there was no one who would clean the waste out of the kennel. As a result, all the shelties were stressed and they would fight amongst themselves. Grace was one of the weaker ones and she still has scars on her muzzle.

When the puppy mill was shut down, Grace was fostered by a volunteer for one of the shelters that helped with the closure. She stayed at this foster home for 3 months. Then, it was decided that Grace should be turned over to sheltie rescue, so she came to my home, since Holly’s was filled with puppies and our other foster homes were full, too.

Grace greeted the other dogs at my home very well, but showed some odd behaviors. She would roughly sniff the other dogs and sometimes growl and nip at them. Even though my dogs are well socialized, they really had no idea what was going on with Grace, so they started avoiding her. She got the cold shoulder from them, which, at the time, suited Grace just fine.

Towards me, she acted almost feral. She would overreact to noise and movements that I made – jump off the couch so hard that she would slam into furniture. She would run into the kitchen and slam into the patio door, not realizing that it was glass. She would jerk violently at the end of a leash and would jerk backwards when her collar was held.

It really seemed hopeless. I thought about finding a pet sanctuary for her where she could live out her days without human contact. I, who has shy dogs of my own, and who has fostered a number of shelties with behavioral problems, thought that there was nothing we could do for this dog. I cursed the people who did this to her. I cursed myself for agreeing to take her and for failing her.

But, I remembered how she sat in her previous foster mother’s lap. She had gotten up there on her own, under her own power. So, I realized that there was hope. There just had to be.

So, I re-read all of my behavioral books: the books in my library about fearful dogs, about dog body language, and the ones by people who owned and rehabilitated difficult dogs. I decided that someone had to help Grace and that would have to be me. Once I made that decision, I knew that things would get better.

The first thing I did was to fit Grace with a different collar. She had chewed off 2 nylon choke collars, 2 drag lines and a leash. In desperation, I put a chain choke on her. That worked, but it tightened unmercifully when she pulled and the tightness frightened her, which led to it getting tighter and her becoming more frightened. So, I found a Martingale collar that was made of nylon with a chain bit that hung in the front. It fits just right. She can’t get her mouth into the chain and the collar only tightens to a certain point – tight enough to not let her slip the collar, but not tight enough to choke her.

What an improvement.

Because she chews off her drag lines, I converted the chain choke into a drag line, with a long leash attached, so that I can catch her without cornering her or grabbing her. Now, I can pick up the leash and lead her to her crate or to the door and she doesn’t flip out (like a cat on a rope, as I like to say). She still needs improvement for walking on the leash, but we will get to that later.

I have also assigned to her a crate, instead of a corner of the couch. She was peeing on the couch instead of asking to go out (and then, when I would try to put her out, she would pee out of fear). Now, she hangs out in the crate when I am not there. She hasn’t made a mess of the crate, so she will be able to have her own bed and toys in there now. She is fed in there and gets a lot of treats in there. In just a few days, it has become her safe spot.

She is getting along much better with the other dogs. They still pretty much ignore her, but she has begun looking to them for guidance. If they go outside, she wants to go outside. If they come inside, she follows. She now gets excited about dinner time and has begun enjoying the chew treats. She was really impressed with the Booda Bone I got for her and spent an entire afternoon happily chewing – on the couch without any messes.

She still has a long way to go, though. At the most basic, she needs to be given a really good brushing, have her nails clipped, be given a bath and take a trip to the vet. She doesn’t trust me enough for me to do those things to her yet, though. I would muzzle her (for my safety) and do them, but she’ll live without them being done for the time being.

Right now, I am just happy when she will take a treat directly out of my hand, rather than me having to set it on the couch. It isn’t every time, but it is an improvement.

I keep telling myself that this dog deserves the best chance I can give her. My efforts now will enable her to be placed in a forever home that will love and cherish her. And, I want the next home she goes to to be her forever home. She will stay with me until we find that home.